AirFresnoVirtualAirlines

After reviewing my options with Big A Airlines I decided to apply the name (and domain) to a recently developed Air Taxi project I have been working on, off and on, for the last three months. Originally named Napa Valley Air Taxi the virtual airline provides general aviation charters and some limited scheduled excursion service around the San Francisco Bay area and to southern Lake Tahoe. This airline concept has been in the works for more than two years, with a few starts and stops and reconsideration's along the way. The biggest stumbling block was how to bring a realistic approach to such a small, essentially charter, operation and still have it work like a virtual airline. The solution was to make the website for a real air taxi airline, then on one single operations page offer all of the VA information in a compact format. We offer three after-market aircraft, the Cessna T206H Stationair, Beech King Air 300 and Piaggio P-180, and two default aircraft, the Cessna 182S and Beech King Air 350. This allows operations in either FS9 or FSX by even the most basic of users. Since aircraft of this nature are not generally equipped with an ACARS system in real life, we use a manual ACARS system from SATA Virtual. This is an older ACARS system but works well in FS2002, FS9 and FSX. All of the ACARS files necessary are found on the website. This is a small virtual airline, we are not here to compete with larger and more complex VA's, what we offer is an alternative to long routes with large aircraft by giving you reasonable and fun charters, semi-scheduled flights and a wide selection of prop driven aircraft. It's a trend I have seen discussed a lot over the last half year, hopefully it's one that others are interested in as well. www.big-a-air.com

Done. Years ago I had a MySpace for Air Fresno, when I ended my relationship with that Social Network I had 77 friends that were from the flight sim community. You don't have to be a member of the airline to "like" it, and it allows you to network with associate airlines. I think most people pass off the idea because it's not a proper website, IMHO it's better, especially for an original concept airline.

I don't make it a secret that I think 90% of all VA's fail in the first 3 months of their existance. The fact that I owned one that lasted 13 years still amazes the heck out of me, not to mention some of the others that were created about the same time I made Air Fresno are still around with the ancient (by contemporary standards) manual ACARS and FS9 based operations. And then, sometimes my warped sense if humor just gets the best of me. Enter Big A Airlines. I looked up which default ATC codes in FS9 were used and found that Big A was one of them, so using that as a basis for an airline, I came up with this concept. Again, you have to understand that prolonged exposure to virtual airlines may have warped this old mans sense of humor a bit. Big A Airlines is an all business class airline using wide body aircraft, the first being PoSky's 777-200ER. Seating is for 134 passengers at 57" pitch, the seats themselves are wider than the commercially available Business Class seats. The isles are wider, almost half again the width of a normal 777's isle width. For every person that has ever had to purchase an extra ticket for his or her extra proportions then Big a Airlines is for them. Our first motto was "If you can get it through the door, we can get it in a seat", but we decided that might be (a little) politically incorrect. So, we now use "Our Isles are Wider". This isn't the first time I considered doing something with an all Business Class airline, but being someone of large stature myself (6' 5" and about 325 lbs) I know what it feels like to be cramped into a 32" pitch seat, someone's 6 year old kicking the back for 2 hours, and the air conditioning not working because the vent wouldn't open (thank you SWA). So this type of airline, for me, would be a God Send. I bought the domain www.big-a-air.com (there's nothing there yet) just in case I did decide to do something with this, my webbing sucks but I can't see a lot of people ditching their day jobs to fly on the fluffy airline. But if anyone does want to help develop this into a legit airline, let me know. I am decent at aircraft painting, and I have some idea's like pictures of flight attendants that have been photoshopped with large....um, well, you know. Could be fun, who knows.

Guys, have you ever thought about maybe using Facebook as an operational information resource?

For years I flew for VSWA, back in the days when flying was simpler. It is/was a great organization but what miffed me was they hotlinked to a number of the real SWA's pages. I'm glad to see you gouys don't do that. Nice looking website.

Welcome back Callum, hadn't seen you in a while, since the SSF's maybe? Nice to be able to get back into the hobby again....

Notice this thread is starting to sound a little like an episode of "Shark Tank"? ROFL!!!My comment that any VA can be summed up that way applies to about 90% of the real world VA's in existence. I'm a freaking old timer, I remember when real world VA's were taboo, even when supposedly American Airlines either threatened to sue or actually did sue a VA owner using their name. It got so bad that Nels Anderson at FS.com had to remove all of the AA planes from the FS98 directory for a while. Things are different now, more than a few VA's sites look better than the real world operations sites do. But the fact remains that (using me as an example) I can download an aircraft for a major airline, tune in any enhancements I desire and fly any flight on the schedule, and enjoy it just as much as if I got those hours added to a roster. People can have realism and never set foot (virtually speaking) in a VA's door. It's sort of like an atheist with good morals, you can get all of the benefits and without the consideration of the rewards. So essentially we're back to square one; and as one of the first sharks who expressed interest in this operation I have to say "I'm out".....unless I can get another shark to go in with me. I can paint, I can fly, if it's a worthy cause. It's just up to someone else to make it a worthy cause at this point.Post Script: The project I would really like to do, on a personal level, is the very first VA I ever had a hand in doing in 1997 called Geisha Air. My wife and I got into flight simming with our kids, who were too young to join a VA at the time. My wife Kim was the very first recognised female VA owner (http://www.flightsim...ain/who/kim.htm), and Geisha Air was her's from inception until I closed it a month after she died of cancer in 1999. My daughters have made a couple of half hearted attempts at reopening it but nothing got further than the planning stage. My sole surviving daughter now has the same type of cancer that killed her mom and one of her sisters (my oldest daughter died of AIDS in 2005), reopening it was to be my legacy to them but again, I just don't have the time or modern VA knowledge to make it work. When it comes to a "pet" project, Geisha Air will always be mine.

Most VA's nowadays are failing after a short period anyway, even one's that claim to be the most realistic in the hobby. And what is that actually? Do they require 40 hours a week, do they require their pilots to have physicals? Realism is subjective, what is real to me isn't necessarily real to someone who is a license holding commercial pilot. I don't think a reasonably intelligent 16 year old can claim their VA is so real it's like working for (company X). There's a lot of gimmicks that VA's use now to seem real, but a small charter and air taxi company is NOT going to have an automatic ACARS system in their aircraft. The whole concept of a VA can also be summed up with "...why not just fire up FS and fly any plane you like without committing to some va?". I fly mostly smaller planes but I also have all of ther Texas International DC-9's, a lot of SWA's 737's and a few heavy UPS aircraft just for grins. Why fly for any of them, for credit, when I can just fly without all of the restrictions their VA's would place on me. Drawing people to the VA would take special events, like online fly-ins, maybe posting videos of particularly interesting landings, maybe that sort of thing. There's nothing wrong with attracting the new flightsimmer except that fewer and fewer people are are interested in the hoby now, and many more leave than replace them. That's why you need a dedicated few, I'd say 4 to 6 would be a good number, that would stick with it from the beginning. And done right, I'd stick around.

Actually you know Gonzo it doesn't have to be if it is done right. A lot of these small charter companies involve guys who are owner/operators, they work for the company flying their own aircraft. Sort of like big rig drivers. Why can't it be set up that way? Why can't we say "OK, here is the company, you're a pilot, bring your own plane and fly for us. We'll set up the routes/charters/etc and you can pick from those that your aircraft is capable of doing". This would open it up to the payware guys AND the freeware guys who have a favorite aircraft they want to fly. I have a couple of freeware planes that I have realistic panels and sounds for, those would be what I would want to use. You just have to impose a limit as a part of the company, like gross weight, that would be the best factor in setting this up. Pilots who have any experience with flying will know that you can use a Piper Cub to deliver supplies but for transporting people you're not going to make the same amount of money as, say, a Stationair. Same with aircraft having IRF capabilities, make real wx a requirement, if you're not IRF certified, or at least familiar, then you can't fly.I have the time and some of the know-how, but I suck with websites for the most part, and I really don't want to be in charge. Something like this is best created and run by committee anyway, CEO's by themselves often screw things up. We just need more people to decide that this could be something they want to do.

Oh yeah I love my PMDG Express Beech 1900's, I love a few different versions of the 1900, the GMAX Academy is a gret one too. PAD keeps their planes simple because of their design program, but it translates to a faster loading aircraft. Mike Stone's aircraft are another example. Besides the Beech I also like the AFG King Air 200 and PC-12, much better with visual models and somewhat more realistic in the air. But they don't make a CATPAS version, so that would limit the -200 to a cabin of 8 with a single piece of luggage. An alternative that is a ittle larger is the ATR-42 from ISDT.

If you go with strictly payware aircraft with no freeware it's not going to work, I haven't seen the Stone LJ but the PAD verion is like most of their stuff, simple but fast loading on slower systems. I did the payware deal with Air Fresno and it failed miserably even with my buying a few examples for my guys. Very simple is not necessarily a bad thing, the aircraft has both FS9 and FSX versions and is an easy transition up from the smaller Cessna's and to aircraft like the Beech 1900 series. The bidding system is a necessity I agree, my suggestion is two levels of pilot pay; hourly for the guys who want to fly once every 30 days or so, salary for those wanting to fly at least weekly. Gonzo, sounds like you did your stint as a CEO for a while and know what a PITA it can be, it's refreshing to find other guys who are like that especially with the past trends of everyone wanting to be in charge. The thing we have to stay away from are big promises like I've seen on recent start-ups, people see right through it for the most part.

A couple of emails have been traded back and forth, nothing is really actively being planned at the moment. I have some research already written down but after 13 years I am so burned out about being a CEO of any VA. I wouldn't mind being a pilot, helping in the planning but I don't really want to be "in charge". I suggested smaller aircraft like a King Air or PC-12, and after getting the new PAD Beech 99 I'm liking it a lot. I either wanted to be involved in something on the PacNW or on Cape Cod, that's where I do most of my free flying anyway. Here's the Beech 99 and a Cessna 414 I did for the idea I was developing, Cape Express Air, based in Hyannis. But they could be easily enough repainted and used anywhere.The logo is mine from a project I did called Califormia Express in 2006, it could be applied to anything with a "C" to it.

I might. I've been sort of kicking around an idea for almost a year now using the Cessna T206H from Massimo Grassi, the AFG King Air 200 and PC-12 and possibly the Avantair Avanti P-180, all in regular GA paint schemes. The PACNW would be a great place for this, doing charters out to some of the smaller airports on Whidbey and Lopez Islands and around the Vancouver area. The thing is I don't use FSX (poor frame rates) and I won't fly with VATSIM or anything similar. But, hey, if you have any idea's shoot me a PM and we can swap email addresses.

Who said I was talking about you? ;) But I was, and yours was the first that came to mind, but there are a lot of others too. All it takes is a little reading here, in 10 minutes you can find several that have been around a year or more (my prerequisite for a successful VA) that would be glad to help you.

I guess my question is what do you bring to the table? Sounds to me like you want to be part of the planning process but don't know how. Most VA's these days are real world copies, most new one's open and close in less than a month. Those that manage to stay open have to fight for the few pilots out here that remain. If you want to be part of a process, join a good quality VA like Canada Xpress, leave the creativity to a CEO that already knows what he's doing.