A few weeks ago I came upon a web site of a service that provides "real person" ATC in Southern CA. It is subscription based. I can call ATC from FSX and a real person responds, and provides ATC services. I can't remember the name of the organization or web site, and didn't have any luck googling them. Does anyone know about such a service and/or have experience about the level of quality that they provide?

A few weeks ago I came upon a web site of a service that provides "real person" ATC in Southern CA. It is subscription based. I can call ATC from FSX and a real person responds, and provides ATC services. I can't remember the name of the organization or web site, and didn't have any luck googling them. Does anyone know about such a service and/or have experience about the level of quality that they provide?

 

Sounds like you are referring to Pilotedge, I don't have experience with it myself, but you can get a good introduction to it by watching the latest FSBreak episode which it's featured in.

 

I've been a member almost since it opened...

 

Highly recommended!

 

They've got a 15 day trial too

http://www.pilotedge.net/

Guaranteed live ATC can go wrong with that, I definitely have to try it.

Try VATSIM first. It's free but there's no guaranteed coverage. Plus side is that it covers the whole world. If you get into VATSIM and really enjoy it you may want to step up to pilot edge.

I'd still recommend Pilot Edge first... there's a free trial. If you don't like it try vatsim too... I used vatsim hard core before PE existed.... pretty good deal just not great service. Only a few of the ARTCC's provided good service.

Do I understand this correctly, if you are flying anywhere else in the world, say Europe, PilotEdge is useless. They cover the small area only, don't they?

 

"If you’re connected during published operating hours, and are flying in an area where PilotEdge service is available, then you’re guaranteed to have ATC coverage."

 

according to the site (http://www.pilotedge.net/pages/operating-hours-and-service-area) of PilotEdge:

PilotEdge provides ATC service in a limited geographic area. This is by design.

If you have an operational requirement to fly in Europe, then yes, for now, PilotEdge will not meet those requirements. However, if you are flexible in where you fly and you have a requirement for high quality ATC on a predictable, consistent schedule, then it is a good option.

Too small an area, (and not of personal interest) for me personally, but I do like the ethos and idea of guaranteed, reliable ATC cover.

 

I'd pay for it, if it covered areas I was interested in which tend to be East Coast US and all of Europe.

 

 

Hehlo?? Helooooohoooh??

 

Major, that hillbilly is on the pilots frequency again!

...I used vatsim hard core before PE existed.... pretty good deal just not great service. Only a few of the ARTCC's provided good service.

It's still far, far better than any of the computerized alternatives tho.

Agreed, any human-based ATC system is going to slaughter synthetic systems.

 

Raul, it really comes down to how important the ATC presence is for you. If it's a "must have", then from a procedural aspect, west coast vs east coast, there's no difference (I should now, I live and fly on the east coast, but I fly virtually on the west coast). If, however, flying Europe and East Coast is more important than having guaranteed ATC coverage, then the decision is easy.

 

We do hope to cover the east coast at some point, but the decision to start staffing a new facility is more complex and expensive than most people imagine.

A good idea, maybe a better approach would be to offer bigger coverage, but the more coverage you want, the more you have to pay.

Summer, we've considered that, but we just don't have the financial resources to take on the liability. Remember, it costs many thousands of dollars per month to 'keep the lights on' at a single facility. If we were to open a new facility, we start burning money immediately while we wait and see who decides to fly there.

 

Unfortunately, it doesn't allow us to dip our toe in the water and gradually expand...it basically costs lots of money right out of the gate, then we'd just have to hope that people fly there.

 

Also bear in mind we did used to cover the Oakland ARTCC on weekends....and 99% of our pilots STILL flew in Socal only. So, there just isn't much evidence that a bigger coverage area is the way to go just yet.

I guess the upside of a limited geographical area is that it increases the density of air traffic quite dramatically which is surely a better reflection of a realistically populated airspace.