What about making a visual approach with a large jet aircraft? In the beginning I would refuse the visual and ask ATC for an ILS approach so I could let the aircraft fly itself down to touchdown. Yes, that’s lazy and not really the way real world pilots do it. So, I started making the visual approach with the big jet. And, yes, it was difficult at first but after I practiced for a while I began to see where I needed to point the nose of the aircraft to make a successful landing. Of course a visual approach can also incorporate the use of the VASI lights to assist you in maintaining the proper descent angle.

OK, so what do you do when you are flying low, slow and in the bush going to a remote airfield with a short runway? When I say short runway, I mean 1500 ft in length. Wow, that is short some of you might say. I am here to tell you that it is definitely a piloting challenge to make a successful landing on a runway that short. Additionally, if you are flying in mountainous terrain you may be required to accomplish a steep descent in to the remote airfield, put down full flaps, reduce your airspeed to just above stall and then maneuver your aircraft for landing. I just flew a route yesterday with a new and upcoming virtual airline that focuses on providing passenger and cargo service to remote airfields with short runways in Alaska and Colorado. Since joining this airline I have had a ball flying the Beech 1900 and Caravan 208.

So, what is the name of this virtual airline you might ask? Well, I am working with the founder of this airline to establish routes, service awards and ribbons and other features for the airline. With all that said, the airline is not quite ready to make its official debut but will soon. Give some serious thought to joining this airline when it comes on line. You will have an absolute blast flying the challenging routes established so far. The big PLUS for this airline is that its focus is for you the pilot to have FUN! It’s not going to mimic other airlines where you have to take tests, fly on ACARS or VATSIM. The first page of the policy manual, written by the CEO, emphasizes that he wants anyone who joins to have fun. To date, that’s all I’ve been doing.

Stay tuned and when the airline becomes operational you will hear about it right here! Till then, happy flying. Oh, and start practicing short field landings!

I’ve flown for Southwest Virtual for a long while now.  I rejoined American Virtual, and US Airways Virtual for some variety; and then just last week I joined Air Canada Virtual.

Why?  Well, because it is something new.  For Southwest, I fly 737′s.  For American, 757′s.  US Airways, Airbus 319 and 320′s – all of them are pretty good sized jetliners, featuring all kinds of automated systems.  They’re also all American companies, so I end up hopping from Chicago to Kansas City to Denver and back.

With Air Canada, I’m flying the Air Canada Jazz Dash 8 turboprops.

My official station is Winnipeg, but Winnipeg is in the middle of nowhere, so all the flights out of there are on jets.  Sure, small jets – and I’ll probably fly some eventually – but still jets.   The routes go to fun places like Regina and Saskatoon and Thunder Bay.

To find some good routes for the turboprop, I’m having to fly in and out of Calgary and Edmonton.  Ok, mainly between Calgary and Edmonton (though there are a very few other routes – say, Calgary to Lethbridge – or Castlegar).

One thing I’m discovering, though, is that I was overly dependent on automation.  Sure, the Big Jets look complicated to fly, but once you’re up off the ground you hit one switch and then you can go to sleep for an hour or so.  Everything is automated, and the systems are built to pretty much handle everything up to (and sometimes including) landing the plane.  Pilots are almost there as a redundancy, and are really only needed if something unusual happens. And to lower the flaps and landing gear. And to turn on the lights.

Not so with my little turbo-prop.  I’ve actually got to fly and navigate it myself.  I tried a flight last night up to Edmonton, and I was nearly overwhelmed with just navigating…. let alone monitoring the speed, and such.  In fact, as I was trying to line up for landing, I lost track of my airspeed and ended up stalling out and crashing.

It wasn’t pretty.

But it forced my to re-evaluate my skills.  Sure – flying a 737 is fun, but I’d be lost if the Flight Management Computer (FMC) totally failed… and after over 900 hours flying online – I should be able to get myself from Point A to Point B without needing a moving map with a bright pink line on it.

So I’ll be spending a lot of time for a bit flying around the Canadian Midwest.  Too bad it’s just virtual – I’d love to be able to land get me some Tim Horton’s.

Update: Flew the Edmonton to Calgary route, and this time things went MUCH more smoothly.  Nice, gentle touchdown in the center of the runway.

He flies.

I’ve had Flight Simulator since 1985.  Sure, the early versions weren’t great, and for the most part I just took off and noodled around in the default Cessna.

Once they added actual buildings to downtown Chicago, I took to flying slalom courses between them.

I’m certain that the virtual office workers were not pleased with me.  Especially when I’d get bored and started trying to land on the buildings.

It generally didn’t work out too well for me.

That changed after 9/11.  Not just because of the terrorist attacks (which, really, made flying slalom courses around buildings just not that much fun anymore).  But because I discovered Virtual Airlines.

Virtual Airlines are online communities that choose to emulate either a real-life airline (such as American, or Southwest, or Delta, or Air Canada) or an former airline (such as Eastern, or TWA) or an altogether fictional airline (such as Westwind, or Great Lakes Express).

As a pilot, you download the airliner models you want to fly – pick out your route – and go.  After the flight, you file some kind of Pilot Report (we call them PIREPs) detailing where you flew, how many pretend passengers you had, any problems you encountered, and the like.  The Virtual Airline keeps track of it, and suddenly you have a reason to fly.

I loved it.  I joined Virtual Southwest, Great Lakes Express, Trans World Virtual, and more!  I flew all the time!  Right about the same time I discovered Vatsim – which is an online multiplayer world just for Flight Simulator.  You can connect to it as a Pilot, and fly – or as an Air Traffic Controller and, well, control. There are usually a few hundred people on at any given time. (Also, here is a cool web page showing a map with who is flying, and who is controlling.)

On Vatsim, everything is done by the book – the rules, the procedures are the same as they are in real-life.  It really was my first Massively Multiplayer Online type game – just me flying around, requesting clearances and trying to safely get my 737 from point A to point B.

Just for the curious, I’ve logged nearly 1000 hours flying on the Vatsim network, since I started flying on it back in 2002.

So, as this WoW/Aion burn out hit me, I took the opportunity to completely reinstall Flight Sim on my gaming system.  This really isn’t a small task – it took me about three days to complete it.  I’ve got Flight Sim, which is pretty big itself, then detailed scenery for the entire Pacfic Northwest, Denver, and Washington, D.C. areas to install.   Then about a billion airport (Yes, Flight sim already has the airports, but these are much more details airports).  Then all the add-on planes I use.  Then all the other add-ons.

It’s a pain, and I actually had to create a spreadsheet checklist a couple of years ago to ensure that I didn’t miss anything.

Once that was done, though, I was back in the air. I was still a good member of Virtual Southwest (I do their web site, PIREP system, and forum for them, so I don’t have to fly all that much), and made sure my membership in American Virtual was in good shape, and fired everything up.

So far this week, I’ve flown…

Detroit – Chicago (Midway) – Virtual Southwest
Kansas City – Dallas/Fort Worth – American Virtual
Chicago – Kansas City – Virtual Southwest
Kansas City – Denver – Virtual Southwest

So far, they’ve all be relatively short flights – about an hour, hour and a half total each.  My problem with doing longer flights is that once you get a modern airline in the air and on course, you just sit there and watch the world go by.  On a long flight (say, New York to LA; or San Francisco to Hawaii; or Boston to London) it gets REALLY boring.  And you can’t really use the computer to do anything else while it is flying.  Which is probably why I’ll keep to the shorter flights for now.

So that’s where I’ve been, when I haven’t been immediately in-game – and so far, that has been helping.   I felt less burnt out last night than I had for a while, which was good – because last night was a really weird night all on its own.

But that, dear readers, is probably another story.

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