IMHO, it all boils down to one simple fact - if you can not get ALL the players involved to do it for free - sooner or later you will hit a wall. Volunteer staff and donations can only take you so far. The folks who make the equipment, networks, hardware , etc are doing this for money. They can be charitable for a little bit but at some point - if you want improvement, you need to pay for it.

I fully expect that a "pay to play" model for online networking will surface and, *IF* it good, people will pay.

With the thousands of dollars that many spend on add ons, IMHO it would be  a no brainer for them to accept a decent paid network.

Vic

15 hours ago, vgbaron said:

IMHO, it all boils down to one simple fact - if you can not get ALL the players involved to do it for free - sooner or later you will hit a wall. Volunteer staff and donations can only take you so far. The folks who make the equipment, networks, hardware , etc are doing this for money. They can be charitable for a little bit but at some point - if you want improvement, you need to pay for it.

I fully expect that a "pay to play" model for online networking will surface and, *IF* it good, people will pay.

With the thousands of dollars that many spend on add ons, IMHO it would be  a no brainer for them to accept a decent paid network.

Vic

We already have a 'pay to play(pilots)/get paid to play(ATC) business model with pilotedge which works well but is it a scalable model to cover the virtual 'world' and not just and local area?.

With the free model pilots can't really complain if there is no ATC for their flight. So paying for worldwide coverage could be costly if not even possible.

So why pay to play if no ATC is guaranteed for your long haul LHR-JFK route?.

I can't really see a system that covers the globe at the minute so I suspect if a revenue stream if needed it'll be gotten for elsewhere but not at the door(joining).

Things like forcing(strong wording I know) pilots to watch 30-60 second a flight sim product advert before filing your flight plan could generate revenue.

Or design a system to display billboards at all holding points haha.

56 minutes ago, SquawkModeCharlie said:

With the free model pilots can't really complain if there is no ATC for their flight. 

I don't necessarily need  - or want - ATC all the way in every sector on a long haul  The departure and arrival sectors are good enough for me. 

One of the cool features about VATSim (or more specifically the vPilot client), is the VHF distortion effect.  What kills immersion for me when on IVAO or Pilot Edge is that it sounds like you're talking to someone on Skype in the next room.

39 minutes ago, ErichB said:

I don't necessarily need  - or want - ATC all the way in every sector on a long haul  The departure and arrival sectors are good enough for me. 

One of the cool features about VATSim (or more specifically the vPilot client), is the VHF distortion effect.  What kills immersion for me when on IVAO or Pilot Edge is that it sounds like you're talking to someone on Skype in the next room.

What killed if for me with Pilot edge, besides being confined to a small area, was talking to one controller all the time, who told you to switch frequencies multiple times to contact the "new controller", only to be talking to the same person again... LOL....In order to get the larger area in Pilotedge, the price was around $35 a month. That is over  $400 a year. I have read posts by simmers that were pinching pennies until Lincoln screams, when debating buying a new add on. Hard to believe the average simmer is going to spend $400 a year  or more just for ATC. 

Having pilots watch a small flight sim related product advert before being able to click submit on their flightplan could easily generate revenue for a network.

it would give developers a large audience for their advert(thousands of flight plans could be filed daily) leaving the network free of charge with revenue for network development.

We have to watch ads for YouTube/twitch etc so I'd happily watch a 60sec advert for the latest sim product before hitting submit on my flight plan.

Edited August 9, 20187 yr by w6kd
deleted reference to removed post

1 minute ago, SquawkModeCharlie said:

Having pilots watch a small flight sim related product advert before being able to click submit on their flightplan could easily generate revenue for a network.

it would give developers a large audience for their advert(thousands of flight plans could be filed daily) leaving the network free of charge with revenue for network development.

We have to watch ads for YouTube/twitch etc so I'd happily watch a 60sec advert for the latest sim product before hitting submit on my flight plan.

Good idea actually

If ATC had some fake traffic to push around to keep their boredom down while waiting for traffic, VATSIM would probably have a lot more ATC online more often.

On 8/9/2018 at 9:51 AM, Bobsk8 said:

What killed if for me with Pilot edge, besides being confined to a small area, was talking to one controller all the time, who told you to switch frequencies multiple times to contact the "new controller", only to be talking to the same person again... LOL....In order to get the larger area in Pilotedge, the price was around $35 a month. That is over  $400 a year. I have read posts by simmers that were pinching pennies until Lincoln screams, when debating buying a new add on. Hard to believe the average simmer is going to spend $400 a year  or more just for ATC. 

I know what you are saying, and I completely agree.

Although it has happened to me in real life several times! It was always subject of gliggle.

Nevertheless, you want a new voice in the other end.

On 8/9/2018 at 8:06 AM, ErichB said:

I don't necessarily need  - or want - ATC all the way in every sector on a long haul  The departure and arrival sectors are good enough for me. 

One of the cool features about VATSim (or more specifically the vPilot client), is the VHF distortion effect.  What kills immersion for me when on IVAO or Pilot Edge is that it sounds like you're talking to someone on Skype in the next room.

dynamic VHF distortion was implemented on PilotEdge for X-Plane quite a while ago. P3D/FSX will be next.

On 8/9/2018 at 8:51 AM, Bobsk8 said:

What killed if for me with Pilot edge, besides being confined to a small area, was talking to one controller all the time, who told you to switch frequencies multiple times to contact the "new controller", only to be talking to the same person again... LOL....In order to get the larger area in Pilotedge, the price was around $35 a month. That is over  $400 a year. I have read posts by simmers that were pinching pennies until Lincoln screams, when debating buying a new add on. Hard to believe the average simmer is going to spend $400 a year  or more just for ATC. 

The small area you refer to, just to confirm, you're referring to the 85 towered airports, thousands of non-towered airports within 6 ARTCCs? When PE was ZLA only, I understood the comments that it was 'small', but now that it covers the western half of the United States, I'd have to disagree.

Regarding the price, you can fly in 5 of the 6 ARTCC's with a Western US subscription for $19.95/mth or $179/yr (annual subs get a discount). If you want ZLA + Western US, the annual sub for that is $329. If you're going to extrapolate a monthly price to an annual figure, it's more reasonable to use the annual option, that's what it's for.

As for the 'single controller' argument, there are 2-3 controllers online at time on PilotEdge during normal configurations (1-2 for ZLA, plus a separate controller for Western US), and then considerably more than that during the monthly events. I totally understand that it's initially odd hearing the same controller's voice when swap from freq to freq (although, I've lost count of how many times it happens at towered airports where one guy/girl is working ground and tower at the same time...)

You're conditioned to VATSIM where you get a voice change on every freq. What you're failing to consider is that you ONLY get a freq change if there is a controller working the next position. So, on PE on a flight from SNA to, say, SBA, you go from SNA clearance, to ground, to tower, then through 3 Socal tracon sectors, then Pt Mugu tracon, then Santa Barbara tracon, then SBA tower and then SBA ground. With typical VATSIM staffing (again, assuming there is anyone there at all), it's likely to be, say LAX_CTR and LAX_TWR online. That means, you're going to be on 125.80 (LAX_CTR) for the ENTIRE flight. You're still hearing just one controller the ENTIRE time, and even worse, you haven't changed freq the entire time. On VFR flights it becomes even more important as the distinction between Tower and Departure gets completely lost since you're talking to LA Center the entire time.

So, between the option of having ambiguous ATC with non-distinct roles through the the flight, OR, realistic freq changes and a crystal clear distinction between the roles that you're talking to on a given flight...I think the second is preferred, even if it is the same VOICE, the controllers are well-trained in handling things as a different ROLE. So, if you request the ILS into SBA while you're talking to Socal or Pt Mugu on PE, they're going to say, "you can make that request with Santa Barbara...."  On VATSIM/IVAO, they're going to say, "rgr, expect the ILS" because at any given time, you don't know what position is ACTUALLY being simulated, because you're on 125.80 (LAX_CTR) the entire time (with the staffing that I just described). The situation is only marginally improved if SCT_X (socal combined tracon) is online...you're in exactly the same boat if you fly, say, BFL to SBA instead as BFL tracon and SBA tracon are almost never staffed, practically speaking...it's going to fall under LAX_CTR even if SCT_X and LAX_TWR are online.

This is not to be disparaging of VATSIM, however, when you say that you have a problem with speaking to the same controller after each freq change, you're discounting the fact that you're getting way more freq changes with a clear distinction of roles in the process. That, and a guarantee that ATC is there to begin with during the published times. That is a completely different offering to volunteer staffing with a completely unknown progression of freq changes on a given flight.

Lastly, if you actually want to hear a distinct voice on every freq change, along with realistic freq changes, we'd need 400+ people to staff ZLA alone, just like the real thing. That's not financially viable, or is any version of the plan with even 1/10th of that staffing level. When you're paying controllers to be there, the math gets brutal....immediately.

 

3 hours ago, coma said:

The small area you refer to, just to confirm, you're referring to the 85 towered airports, thousands of non-towered airports within 6 ARTCCs? When PE was ZLA only, I understood the comments that it was 'small', but now that it covers the western half of the United States, I'd have to disagree.

Regarding the price, you can fly in 5 of the 6 ARTCC's with a Western US subscription for $19.95/mth or $179/yr (annual subs get a discount). If you want ZLA + Western US, the annual sub for that is $329. If you're going to extrapolate a monthly price to an annual figure, it's more reasonable to use the annual option, that's what it's for.

 

By small area I mean, versus, the entire US, Canada, Mexico, The Caribbean, and all of Europe,

4 hours ago, coma said:

The small area you refer to, just to confirm, you're referring to the 85 towered airports, thousands of non-towered airports within 6 ARTCCs? When PE was ZLA only, I understood the comments that it was 'small', but now that it covers the western half of the United States, I'd have to disagree.

First of all, congratulations, your product looks really interesting. If it wasn't for the area, I would definitely try it out. The area is certainly not small, but it really depends on where a user wants to fly. ORBX California kills my system, and, being from Canada, I'd prefer Vancouver over Seattle. Hence, only the area North of Denver would be interesting for me, and by counts of airports that's not worth the subscription, at least for me.

All the features you have included sound really cool, and the price appears justified to me, but a larger area would really help. Canada, South America, Australia seem to operate along similar rules when it comes to ATC. Europe would be best, but I realize that ATC works quite different there.

Peter

14 hours ago, coma said:

dynamic VHF distortion was implemented on PilotEdge for X-Plane quite a while ago. P3D/FSX will be next.

Yes, I heard it on twitch stream a few days ago.  Sounded impressive.

Id be quite happy to wage 100 pounds and a standby ticket anywhere on the virgin network, that in 5 years absolutely nothing will have changed at vatsim with the junk voice codecs, and high pitched 13 year old tower controllers  that you can barely make out what they are saying because their Internet connection is rubbish their 10 year old brother is streaming and there mother is shouting in the background

I love vatsim but it pains me to say It's run by a bunch of dudes who would rather sit on thier laurels and grandure rather than let some young entrepreneurs like Davies take it over and make some great improvements 

Edited September 5, 20187 yr by tooting

Is it open yet??