Pilot Introductions

[norman99]

Hi everyone.

My name is Michael. I've been using flight sim since v5.1. and whilst I've never used any online ATC, I've been on and off FSEconomy since 2008. That's where I first heard about PE. I'm also a RW airline pilot currently flying a 777 out of Hong Kong. Before that I spent almost 10 years flying GA IFR in northern Australia on Cessna Caravans, twins (402, 404 etc) and B200 King Airs.

I'm planning on doing some RW VFR flying in the L.A. and San Diego are when on my LAX layovers this year. I'm not yet sure where I'll be flying out of, but as we stay downtown, Santa Monica, El Monte or Hawthorne are the most likely locations. If I get a long enough stay, I'd love to fly down to San Diego for the night, as my sister has just moved there.

I hope to use PE to get really familiar with the area, its airspace, and communications procedures. Its been 10+ years since I've flown VFR and its seems I've picked the most complicated/busy airspace in the world to give it another go so PE is an absolute godsend in helping me prepare properly.

Ultimately my goal is to get comfortable enough with the area that I only need one or two RW flights to get checked out on a rental, rather than 3 times that many.

Anyway, thanks for truly remarkable service, and I hope to see and hear some of you in the skies shortly.

Cheers, Michael.

[bbuckley]

Welcome Michael! This is going to be PERFECT for you. With your background, PE will provide you with a great familiarization of the SOCAL airspace. Looking forward to seeing you online and especially in hearing how it goes when you get to try the RW SOCAL VFR. Don't hesitate to use these forums to ask about the SOCAL nuances, the members and staff are great about helping out and the PE controllers are awesome!

[olderndirt]

Dave Ronaldson, brand new for 2018 - my eightieth year. Got my shirt tail cut in '63 and aviated for about forty years - mostly in Alaska. Counted radar sweeps for the FAA for over twenty and was a pilot briefer with NWS so this looks a likely spot. Started simming with FS9 then FSX and now giving AFS2 and XP11 a go. Must admit, if I'd crashed in RL as much as I do in the sim, you wouldn't re reading this.

[rtataryn]

Welcome Dave. Very cool! Glad and honored to see you here.

[oyapock]

== Summer '93, N3.958 W51.857 ==
A fifteen-year-old boy, sitting just behind the pilots of a small twenty-seater airplane, fascinated by all the gauges and buttons in the cockpit. This might be his second flight, but the previous one was the long-haul that brought him on this continent. Still impressive but really, this was nothing like this one : now it's almost as if he felt the air around him...

But he's also torn appart between his newly-found wings, and the breathtaking view out the window.

A giant green ocean, made almost unreal by the constant roar of the engines, the thick canopy of trees extending everywhere he looks, only broken in the distance by a muddy-ish blue serpent. This is where he's headed, the Oyapock river, the natural border between Guiana and Brasil.

Only a few miles left and he'll land there, on the nondescript strip of Saint Georges de l'Oyapock, about to spend several weeks paddling some 60 miles upriver, toward the Camopi village and its inhabitants.

== Present day, somewhere near LFBO ==
I'm now nearing my forties, but I sure haven't forgotten this Indiana Jones-like experience. My love for aviation was definitely born at that time and I now work as a sofware engineer, for a company designing various avionics systems.

I never got my PPL ($$$), but I "played" flight sims a lot since that trip, starting with that FS4 copy my father had so carelessly left on the desk. While growing up I haven't simmed that much, but I came back to it about 2 years ago, with X-Plane 10 and now 11, flying mostly GAs and happily learning as much as I could from various online sources.

In this regard PilotEdge is for me a new, pretty significant milestone in that self-teaching journey. But I can see there's plenty to read and watch here, so I'm sure I'll be fine.

See you all online, I'll no doubt trigger a few smiles when you first hear my how-so-frenchy accent

-- Pierre-François

[Keith Smith]

Some great introductions here. Welcome Dave and Pierre!

[Frank White]

PilotEdge has driven home just how important it is to have my CFI sitting in the right seat. Alas, he's not there. Only on PE can I work through my errors and live to learn from it or make the same error again. About 10 years ago, I was a bonafide student pilot with about 12 hours of realworld PIC time. A few months ago, I bought X-Plane on impulse and now I'm hooked again. I've reached out to my old flight school and am seriously considering starting the process again - manual E6B, W&B calculations, weather, etc.

Back then, I tried to learn ATC phraseology using a program called COMM1 (anyone remember that?) I never thought I would get comfortable with ATC. Now I want to take my old CFI up in the pattern and make those CTAF calls, but first things first: ground school. Thanks PilotEdge for the environment and the inspiration. If I don't pursue getting my PPL, I can still enjoy a virtual $200 hamburger. I'm glad I found you.

Frank,
For now, 'low and slow'. That's my motto

[Salire]

I’m really touched reading some of these intros. Wow!
I got my PPL decades ago, but wasn’t flying enough to feel safe, so I haven’t been current in a long time, but I’ve always missed flying. I dabbled with flight sims on a whim, on occasion a few times over the years going all the way back to my Commodore 64, but it never really stuck. Somehow, recently, the perfect storm of X-plane 11, fast computers, Oculus goggles, and Pilot Edge have got me hooked. Give me the blue pill and vector me to the IAF. This is AMAZING! Thank you!

Sally

[jimson]

My name is Jim, i am a post solo sport pilot student but had to take a break for financial reasons. Me and my dad have recently acquired aircraft to start a club.
We have a hanger at a controlled airfield so I thought I would sim on pilot edge and get comfortable with ATC since I will need that endorsement when I resume lessons.

[Mr H]

Hey folks. My name is Gary, 52 yrs young, and I am a student pilot from Spartanburg, SC. I have almost 20 hrs, training in a C150, waiting on a day without hurricane-force winds to convince my CFI that im ready to solo! I fly out of a non-towered airport, and have no ATC interaction. i hope to learn what i can with you guys at PE as i will eventually have to move on from the non towered strip if I ever want to fly somewhere different. I have a pretty neat sim package with XP11 and a modded REP C172. Amazing how realistic the simming is. Anyway, I hope to continue with you guys, but I do work nights here and wont have a whole lot of time to sim before you guys shut down for the eve. Any help is appreciated, because I am sure I will have plenty of questions before this flight is over.