What I meant to say was I like to setup the aircraft and go through the checklists rather than starting at the gate with the engines running. And although you rarely find a cold and dark plane in the real world we don't have anyone to setup our aircraft for us. Better to go through the check lists and do it all from scratch that way you know your aircraft is setup correctly. I have a couple buddies that are lazy and always start at the gate with the engines running. Sometimes they forget to set something up correctly and find out mid-flight they are screwed! :>)

 

 

 

PMDG 747-400 and MD-11

 

Well that's what panel flows and preflight checklists are for although many airlines have mechanics set up the plane to a warm state running either on GPU or APU way before the pilots arrive (especially true if mechanics tow ot taxi the plane from the hangar), they also use that time to troubleshoot any possible issues that were not caught the night before. If you follow SOP's correctly you will never have to worry about the last guy who flew the plane, I usually use the previous panel state to add to the hours.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuSKWQY5XhI

You'll have to find a real world BA pilot to answer that. But I doubt BA are any different to other airlines over logging hours. The BAV posrep system is not replicating real world operation. It's a BAV operational policy.

 

Glad my VA dies not require that silly confirm every hour nonsense. I mean really this is a sim. Nothing wrong with doing a 14hr flight overnight and getting a rest period during it.

 

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I'm about as realistic as it gets. I always start my aircraft from a Cold and Dark Panel State. I build all my flight plans from scratch. I follow as much of the real world procedures as possible. Currently have 8,962 Flight Hours on the VATSIM Network. 85 percent of the time I am in the cockpit. I love doing long hauls most. 12-14 hours and my longest was 18.5 hrs.

 

When the pmdg 777 comes out I am sure I will be seeing you on those long hauls

 

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Glad my VA dies not require that silly confirm every hour nonsense. I mean really this is a sim. Nothing wrong with doing a 14hr flight overnight and getting a rest period during it.

Personally I think there's everything wrong with doing a 14 hr flight and adding them to your VA hours if you slept for the majority of it. At my previous VA, which shall be nameless, there was no such check and pause was allowed too. I flew a few overnight transatlantic flights like that, sleeping all night in cruise and waking up before TOD to take control. I always had "Pause at TOD" set in case I overslept. Added 8 hours a time to my hours, a very quick and painless route up the ladder. I stopped doing it because I felt I was cheating myself (I knew the VA didn't care). It's like putting in a falsified timesheet at work. Still, if you aren't logging hours then it isn't an issue.

 

So I support the BAV hourly check rule, though I was sceptical about how it would affect my flying before I joined. I don't actually have to be at the PC all the time, in theory just a few seconds an hour, and there's a ten minute tolerance too so you can be a little late. I set my watch to remind me when a posrep is due. But even on long flights I often found myself sitting there for long periods monitoring the flight, watching the scenery go by in windowed mode while doing other stuff on the PC. I get a bigger buzz out of doing it that way. It's good to see the light changing, clouds forming and dispersing. Over water, identifying islands as they pass by below, watching for landfall at the coast. On one occasion, en route over the Pacific to NZ, realising my TOPCAT fuel predictions were wrong and nervously watching the fuel page on EICAS, computing and recomputing the fuel burn. That's (simulated) realism. If you don't stay with the flight in cruise you don't get that.

 

When the pmdg 777 comes out I am sure I will be seeing you on those long hauls

I thought VATSIM and IVAO had procedures to check you are at the controls during the flight? How do you get round that if you're asleep?

Personally I think there's everything wrong with doing a 14 hr flight and adding them to your VA hours if you slept for the majority of it. At my previous VA, which shall be nameless, there was no such check and pause was allowed too. I flew a few overnight transatlantic flights like that, sleeping all night in cruise and waking up before TOD to take control. I always had "Pause at TOD" set in case I overslept. Added 8 hours a time to my hours, a very quick and painless route up the ladder. I stopped doing it because I felt I was cheating myself (I knew the VA didn't care). It's like putting in a falsified timesheet at work. Still, if you aren't logging hours then it isn't an issue.

 

So I support the BAV hourly check rule, though I was sceptical about how it would affect my flying before I joined. I don't actually have to be at the PC all the time, in theory just a few seconds an hour, and there's a ten minute tolerance too so you can be a little late. I set my watch to remind me when a posrep is due. But even on long flights I often found myself sitting there for long periods monitoring the flight, watching the scenery go by in windowed mode while doing other stuff on the PC. I get a bigger buzz out of doing it that way. It's good to see the light changing, clouds forming and dispersing. Over water, identifying islands as they pass by below, watching for landfall at the coast. On one occasion, en route over the Pacific to NZ, realising my TOPCAT fuel predictions were wrong and nervously watching the fuel page on EICAS, computing and recomputing the fuel burn. That's (simulated) realism. If you don't stay with the flight in cruise you don't get that.

 

 

I thought VATSIM and IVAO had procedures to check you are at the controls during the flight? How do you get round that if you're asleep?

 

I log off vatsim during rest period. My VA does not require a silly button push every hour like BAV.

 

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I thought VATSIM and IVAO had procedures to check you are at the controls during the flight? How do you get round that if you're asleep?

 

If a SUP has reasons to believe you are not at the control he will PM you but most of the time they don't bother you unless ATC signs on and you don't respond.

If a SUP has reasons to believe you are not at the control he will PM you but most of the time they don't bother you unless ATC signs on and you don't respond.

 

SUPs also will PM you if you've been connected to the network for a long period of time (6+ hours) - I normally get a PM on a long-haul flight (where there's no ATC) but on you'll rarely get them on a short-haul.

I log off vatsim during rest period. My VA does not require a silly button push every hour like BAV.

If your rest period is a few hours out of that 14 hour long haul, as in real life ops, then fair enough, but people who sleep through the entire cruise haven't really earned all those hours. I did suggest in the BAV forum that they allow one such extended break on very long hauls but so far this idea has not been adopted.

 

There's nothing silly about it though, it's BAV SOP because they require a higher standard for hours approval. BAV is quite strict on a few things, but the members approve and there's always a waiting list to join.

If your rest period is a few hours out of that 14 hour long haul, as in real life ops, then fair enough, but people who sleep through the entire cruise haven't really earned all those hours. I did suggest in the BAV forum that they allow one such extended break on very long hauls but so far this idea has not been adopted.

 

There's nothing silly about it though, it's BAV SOP because they require a higher standard for hours approval. BAV is quite strict on a few things, but the members approve and there's always a waiting list to join.

 

Is it only every 1 hour now? I swear back when I was a member of BAv, when they had the proper ACARS not that horrid Pegasus they use now, you had to do a POS REP every 15 minutes or something.

Is it only every 1 hour now? I swear back when I was a member of BAv, when they had the proper ACARS not that horrid Pegasus they use now, you had to do a POS REP every 15 minutes or something.

It's once an hour now, has been since I joined. Pegasus is no more, they've replaced it with an updated program called Phoenix. Out of interest, what did the previous ACARS do that Pegasus couldn't?

It's once an hour now, has been since I joined. Pegasus is no more, they've replaced it with an updated program called Phoenix. Out of interest, what did the previous ACARS do that Pegasus couldn't?

 

The functionality of the ACARS and Pegasus wasn't so different, it was just the fact the ACARS was neatly made with a custom-GUI and was pretty intuitive and it got replaced by Pegasus which looks like it was a generic design someone made as part of their school "ICT project".

If your rest period is a few hours out of that 14 hour long haul, as in real life ops, then fair enough, but people who sleep through the entire cruise haven't really earned all those hours. I did suggest in the BAV forum that they allow one such extended break on very long hauls but so far this idea has not been adopted.

 

There's nothing silly about it though, it's BAV SOP because they require a higher standard for hours approval. BAV is quite strict on a few things, but the members approve and there's always a waiting list to join.

 

You have some valid points with respect to higher standard for hours. We have this one guy in our VA who has the most hours of anyone yet has not been with us for very long. He routinely flies one ultra longhaul after another (not online but just using our acars program) marks himself as "busy" on acars and is basically just racking up hours. Clearly he is no where near his computer. It would be physically impossible to accumulate the hours he has and still have a job and sleep. He surely sets up his flight, takes off and either goes to work or sleep. It's ridiculous. BAV is a good va but they need to do something about the longhaul rest period issue.

 

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You have some valid points with respect to higher standard for hours. We have this one guy in our VA who has the most hours of anyone yet has not been with us for very long. He routinely flies one ultra longhaul after another (not online but just using our acars program) marks himself as "busy" on acars and is basically just racking up hours. Clearly he is no where near his computer. It would be physically impossible to accumulate the hours he has and still have a job and sleep. He surely sets up his flight, takes off and either goes to work or sleep. It's ridiculous. BAV is a good va but they need to do something about the longhaul rest period issue.

 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy Note 2

 

You have to draw the line somewhere, I'd much rather have to send a position report every hour than be a member of a VA which just allows people to complete flights where they only have to really earn 5% of the hours.