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Re: flights outside of the coverage area

Posted: Tue Feb 21, 2012 8:12 am
by Keith Smith
Andrew,

Apologies for the delay with the creation of your account. I see the signup in the 3rd party billing system, but they haven't yet fired off the event which causes the account to be created in our system. Every now and then, we see a delay of a couple of hours. It's been 4 1/2hrs on this one so far, which is definitely one of the longest delays I've seen yet. I would certainly expect them to clear out their queue "any minute now." You and I will both receive an email once the process is complete, so if I don't see one in the next few hours, I'll see if we can get in touch with them to get an update. I doubt it will come to that, though...we've never had a new signup NOT get communicated to us from the billing system...but we have seen the occasional delay.

I'll ensure that your trial date is padded to allow for the inconvenience.

Regarding the coverage area, this is a tricky topic. I do see what you're saying, and I do agree that the current coverage area is not sufficient those who are looking for 45-60min jet airline ops. This post was written pre-launch, and at a time when I expected to have Oakland ARTCC coverage very shortly after the launch (something which has not transpired).

I will update the original post, removing the part which requests pilots to disconnect from the network for the portion of the flight which is outside of the coverage area when conducting a flight that starts or finishes within the coverage area.

We will have part-time Oakland coverage by the middle of March. This will increase our coverage area to a 600x400nm area, which should be sufficient for all sorts of airliner ops.

Question, do you envisage conducting a mix of flights that are entirely within the coverage area, and flights that are partially conducted within the coverage area? Or, do you intend on conducting a high volume of flights that are entirely outside of the coverage area?

If you take an example where 20 pilots conduct random flights on the network, all over the world, statistically they're unlikely to be within radio range of each other (unless it's a coordinated event). Their calls are going to be unheard by everyone else. The only difference between a flight like that and an offline flight is that their flight will get tracked on PEaware (our flight tracking application).

You might argue that it doesn't hurt PE and that it should be the pilots' choice. I'd say you'd be 90% right. It certainly is the paying pilots' choice as to where they fly. However, the overall value of the platform is diminished if the network's participants are randomly scattered all over the globe. If those pilots are willing to at least start or finish within the coverage area, then the overall value of the network is increased by their presence.

Once we're at a point where the concurrent usage is sufficiently high, I would retract the request to start/finish within the coverage area, since the network will already be in full swing as a useful platform (ie, we have traffic density within the coverage area). However, until we get to that point, pilots consistently flying outside of the coverage area are a 'wasted' opportunity in terms of building the network's value.

You could make the argument that as paying customers, it's not your concern about building the network's value, that's "our" problem to fix, not yours. I would certainly understand and respect that.

This is why all of this is phrased as a request to fly within certain areas, as opposed to a RULE or part of the terms of service. All I can do is explain the goal of the network and leave it in the hands of the users. As long as you've read this through, given it some thought, then I'll respect any decision that you make regarding your flights on the network. My point is, my hope is that this post would be read by someone who wasn't aware of the overall goal of the network and then alters their flights accordingly. If anyone reads this and says, "sure, but I still want to do my flights where I want most/all of the time," then I don't have any problem with it.

So, in short, I'll update the original post to reflect the fact that it's a request for pilots to fly within the coverage area, or at least start/finish in the coverage area, but certainly not a requirement or a rule. I'll just have to make sure that it's crystal clear to pilots where the ATC coverage area is (this is harder than you might think, and the presence of pilots all over the world on the network is going to make that a little bit harder, but I'll cope) :)

Thanks for the feedback. As I said in the original post, I was looking for direct feedback on this very topic.

Re: flights outside of the coverage area

Posted: Tue Feb 21, 2012 8:26 am
by Zebra
Thanks for taking the time to reply Keith :)

No hurry on the account, its nearly 2:30am here haha.

I definately see myself conducting a lot of flights within the area, given what I have read about the quality of ATC and volume of traffic.

Will just have to hunt down some nice scenery

Cheers

Andrew

Re: flights outside of the coverage area

Posted: Wed Feb 22, 2012 11:10 am
by Mark Hargrove
The 'Megascenery Southern California' add-on pretty much covers the entire ZLA area and is definitely better than stock scenery.

-M.

Re: flights outside of the coverage area

Posted: Wed Feb 22, 2012 6:19 pm
by Zebra
Thanks Mark

Will look into it

Re: flights outside of the coverage area

Posted: Wed Feb 22, 2012 9:11 pm
by Keith Smith
Original post edited, as promised.

Re: flights outside of the coverage area

Posted: Wed Mar 07, 2012 1:27 pm
by BeechV35Pilot
Mark Hargrove wrote:The 'Megascenery Southern California' add-on pretty much covers the entire ZLA area and is definitely better than stock scenery.
I wholeheartedly second Mark's recommendation in using MegaScenery's Southern CA scenery. It really adds to the area's look and feel, especially those huge ribbons of highway everywhere.

Not to be confused with this MegaScenery pack, there is also a separate product called MegaSceneryEarth, which allows you to download small sections of CA or the entire state. I have heard the quality is not quite as good as the Southern CA pack itself and the cost can quickly get out of control.

Rather, for FSX pilots there is a large collection of free/donation-ware photo-scenery for mid California, Nevada, and Arizona, found here:

http://www.blueskyscenery.com/CA.html

Personally I find that the colors in this freeware product are a bit too saturated but the overall feel is still leaps and bounds over the default textures.

Re: flights outside of the coverage area

Posted: Mon Oct 08, 2012 10:28 am
by serious_simmer_FSX
I'm new.. not even a week old ,and i just LOVE THIS! I'm hooked big time..

I would love to see just a one time event next year for Air Venture (OSHKOSH) for one week.. could that happen? or what about sun n fun at lakeland FL?

I've tried on VATSIM and the connection and quality of the audio has been so crappy that it is a big mess.

Re: flights outside of the coverage area

Posted: Mon Oct 08, 2012 10:44 am
by Keith Smith
Welcome to the network, glad you're enjoying it. It's not out of the question that we might try Air Venture at some point, using visual procedures on our end (rather than the scope), just like the real thing. We send position updates fast enough that a wing rock could actually be seen by our controllers.

Re: flights outside of the coverage area

Posted: Wed Jan 01, 2014 12:42 pm
by Challenger604
I would say before the area can be expanded there needs to be a way to prevent the from hearing the controller on every frequency. If I'm taking off from SMX I will be hearing someone in Colorado getting clearances? That would be weird. My last flight the controller was so busy I had to wait quite a while just to get a word in asking to taxi because of all the traffic originating out of the LA area. There will need to be more controllers and the ability to operate in smaller areas I think. Also keep in mind this is a business. The ATC is not doing this for their health. They get paid I'm sure. To hire more people to do all this out of area controlling will take money. Maybe as thousands more people pay their yearly subscription they can expand.

Re: flights outside of the coverage area

Posted: Tue Jan 14, 2014 12:09 pm
by Daddy O
And voice modulators. If the voices changed from freq to freq, maybe even a tone or hiss or a nasal tone from encryption. I know that RW controllers often cover multiple areas as manpower requires, but itd be a nice touch if it twerent so obvious that its the same guy all day. Even still, PE still kicks ass over any of the other online networks.

I also always wondered why PE doesnt have a sideband to communicate with pilots on the sly. Instead of broadcasting to the whole PE world about a mistake a pilot is making, sideband 'em. Like the otherday when you were trying to keep thatguy from running into class B airspace, on sidebandyou coulda educated him without diminishing the quality of service by breaking character.