Pilot Introductions

[RogerW]

Okay, I've been on PilotEdge for about a month now and figured I'd post a message on here and say 'hey'.

My name is Roger, I'm 63 and live in east-central Florida. I'm a husband of 1 for 37 years, a father of 4, a grandpa to 18, and a great-grandpa to 7. It's a big family reunion around here!

I got my ears wet flight simming with my Commodore-64, a 12" color portable tv, and two Atari joysticks back in the early eighties and have never looked back. From there it was a pc with FS95, 98, 2k, and eventually FSX. I flew exclusively on the pc's with the keyboard until just about 5 years ago when I acquired a joystick. Then it started getting serious. Wow what an improvement! Then a couple more joysticks. Garage sales can be awesome! I only used one for the joystick but all three for the switches. I just had to remember what switch did what, but it was cool! I then got another one, a duplicate of one I already had. Just happened to be the one with the most switches! I had plans for this one. GUT IT! I fabricated my own rudder petals and yoke. It all worked pretty good considering it was all held together with wood screws, glue, and wires. I was moving up in the world! Then... a couple years ago I saw a used Saitek bundle being sold on Ebay. I Still use the rudder petals and the built in seat that comes with it, but my yoke is long gone. And then a month ago, the best thing I could have ever imagine experiencing on my sim: PilotEdge. Live ATC from a real person. I have found the missing link! So now I have to follow the rules and un-program myself of decades of bad habits. I've always considered myself a good pilot and don't really have that many bad habits but this Cat-10 I'm looking at scares me a bit!

My first RW airplane ride was in a 172 with the pilot and my two sons. A 30 minute plane ride around town was my father's day present that year. The tail number... N7365? I have no idea what the last character was. My son was blocking it in the picture of the occasion. So, with my last initial being W it was only a logical choice, right. Thus Cessna 182 N7365W was created. Yes, I have looked up that tail number and it belongs to a cherokee in RL but I don't care! Below are some pictures of my repaint of my A2A Cessna 182.

As far as real world experience I got serious in the late 80's, starting with ground school at Palm Beach Community College. I then passed the exam and signed up to be able to call myself a student pilot. After 7 hours officially logged in my logbook I had to quit with the lessons. Reality got the best of me and I didn't make the money to support a family of 6 and take flight lessons. I have to say that even as my simulator was back then, still my C64, I remember my CFI telling me how advanced I seemed to have been. At 7 hours she was telling me I would probably solo around 12 hrs. FYI... Plane rental, wet, was $27/hr back then. If I remember right, the instructor was like $35 or somewhere in there. You probably couldn't find somebody to clean the windscreen for that these days!

Okay... I will shut up. Blue skies, and I will see you all online!

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[zkline]

Hi All,

I don't know if I ever gave a general introduction, and in any case I'm coming back after a hiatus so I thought I'd post one here.
I'm Zack, a 20-something flight simulation enthusiast who happens to be totally blind. I am fortunate to be able to fly with the aid of some FSX add-ons, even if the experience isn't as realistic as I might wish.

I've flown in the real right seat once or twice, but was never brave enough to take the controls. I imagine if I were able to do that again I might give it a try now that I'm older and understand a bit more about the way planes actually work.

I really like the realistic environment PE provides, and look forward to enjoying the newly enlarged Western Expansion in particular. I wish I could enjoy the lovely scenery, but IFR is probably best with my specific limitations

[Casimir]

Hey all,

My name's Mike, and I've been on PilotEdge now for a couple of months and figured I'd finally post something here. I'm 49, have a career in IT, and live in N. Mississippi.

I've been a lifelong aviation fanatic. It started when I was introduced at a very young age to a friend of the family who had a 172. We went up out of Fairbanks Alaska (I grew up there) looking for Moose at the beginning of the season. I was only about 7 or 8, but I was immediately taken by the plane and flying. Since then I've been lucky enough to fly in and out of extremely remote locations in S. Alaska with my father in a Beaver w/ floats (out of Beluga Lake in Homer, AK), and have been in many other GA planes since. I tried to get started with flying lessons back in 2006, but family issues came first - and then of course came the economy crash. Now, finally, I've got the time and the means, and will be starting lessons for my PPL out of KOLV in a few weeks. I cannot wait to get started after all these years.

As far as sim flying goes, I've been messing with it since the Commodore 64. Most of my flight sim history consisted of combat sims for a lot of my earlier years, but that changed with FS2004. I got involved with the VA scene for a long while, but I have always preferred to fly GA over big iron, and eventually stopped to just fly on my own. Since then I've taken completely to flight simulation as more of a tool to work toward learning what I can when I started actual lessons (as I knew I would eventually). I knew about PilotEdge from the beginning, but didn't get involved until I knew I'd be flying for real in the near future. I didn't want to repeat what happened on my very first Discovery Flight - the instructor let me taxi the plane to the hold short point, and asked if I wanted to make the ATC call. I said sure, why not! I hit the button, called out for Tower... and completely blanked out. So here I am working to get comfortable with comms before I even get started RL.

It's only a sim plane, but I'm a stickler for painting my own personal aircraft in the sims I fly, so here's N5351E in all its XPlane 11 glory:

[CorNut]

My name's Cory, I have a PPL with instrument rating (not current). I obtained my instrument rating 1.5 years ago but due to finances I've only had a couple VFR flights since the checkride. I'm wanting to get back to flying but I'll need an IPC. There's no way I'll pass one right now, my goal is to get proficient before spending the $ for an actual flight. I'm still spending $ trying to mockup a cockpit, but it'll save me $ in the long run, plus I'll be able to stay proficient moving forward.

The aircraft I got my rating in is a KLN 94 equipped C172, the Garmin equipped C172 in X-Plane 11 is what I've been flying to practice for my IPC. I have some Saitek gauges and a radio panel so I can fly airways/VOR/ILS's fairly easy but GPS approaches via mouse are difficult, especially using a GPS I'm not as familiar with. I'm making do for the time being but I'm in the process of getting a better setup for GPS approaches.

To any controllers, please bear with me as I get back into the swing of things. I'm new to flight sims on top of being out of practice so I'm falling behind on occasion. I'm currently signed up for the trial, once that's up, I haven't decided if I'm going to stick with the Western area or do ZLA. If ZLA, I'm forced to always be on my toes/in an unfamiliar area but I'm leaning towards Western so it's easier to be prepare for my IPC (only a few places we can go). I should've done this sooner, being belittled (exaggerating) by ATC when I screw up is just like the real thing. It adds so much to the realism, I honestly feel I'll pass an IPC after a few months of this. ATC has pointed out mistakes that could've failed me, thank you for that. While it's "just a game" and it sucks at the time when I'm told I screwed up, that's exactly what I need to ensure I pass.

[mabbts]

Hi, my name is Matt. I earned my PPL in Ann Arbor, MI. (The plus of learning to fly in Michigan is wind doesn't bother me.) I got most of the way to my Instrument rating in Davenport, IA working toward a flying career. I changed paths and went to seminary and am now an Air Force Chaplain. I still flew some but once kids came I couldn't justify it any more.

I first flew with PE in 2012 so I've got a fairly low pilot number. I look back and see I only did about three flights. I actually remember two of them. I had to take a break I thought would last a couple of months but turned in to six years.

On the plus side I have a better set up now. Back then I failed one of my first CAT attempts because I had the sim scenery turned so low I ended up at the wrong airport because I had no landmarks!

Now I've got a GTX 1060 video card and it works well. That paired with a couple of monitors including a touch screen for the instruments that displays an air manager panel and lets me use a knobster to turn the knobs. And then a realsimgear GNS530. Flying is a much more pleasurable experience--I'm not fighting my set up any more.

I am forcing myself to fly every day right now. I used to be a master on the radios--I could convince O'Hare to let me transit the TCA VFR enroute to Meigs from Iowa (that was a long time ago!) I even departed from Meigs via light signals once because the radio broke and the FBO that rented the plane wouldn't pay for repairs in Chicago. But now, I am way rusty and I'm hard on myself. But I know doing this every day is the path to getting that proficiency back. Ultimately, I think I'll end up back in a RW cockpit and confident because of this experience.

My goal on PE is to work my way up to use the rollon CRJ I bought a long time ago and then airliners and fly some routes--I can live the alternate reality if I had stuck with aviation.

It's good to be back.

[NMCJustoJr]

Hello everyone, I’m Napoleon. I recently started using PilotEdge on a trial basis and began to pursue the ratings, and I am enjoying it day by day.

I was exposed to flight sim around 12 years old with the Falcon 1.0 F-16 game, then went on to Microsoft Flight Simulator Version 4. During the course of my flight sim career I encountered most of the sims and add ons from both SubLogic and Bruce Artwick: Flight Assignment: ATP, Flight Light, Aircraft and Scenery Designer, MSFS 5.0, 5.1, FS98, Fs2004, FSX. Most recently I started using X Plane 11.

In 1998 I discovered SATCO (Simulated Air Traffic Controllers Organization), now named VATSIM, which opened a new experience in our hobby by having real time ATC service. I also became an ATC and rose up the ranks until student-3.

I am currently a rw pilot flying a cargo plane “full of rubber dog poop” out of Hong Kong During my free time I am flying the Cessna 172 on X plane and PE.

[yycflyer]

Hi everyone

Mike here, from CYYC. Been around FS and FSEconomy (MikeT) for a long time, but have never had the strong urge to ramp up my aviation knowledge seriously until I met PE. I'm not a RL pilot, but fly a fair bit for work, which is where my interest came from.

I'm looking forward to actually learning and applying that knowledge here with you.

Hopefully I won't mess up too much (at least in big ways!).

Cheers.

[Terry T Be58]

I have to say right off the bat, this is the greatest thing I've done in years!!! My name is Terry Turner Sr and started flying in 1974 and yes they had powered airplanes way back then. I have a CPL ASEL, AMEL, Inst. and with roughly 6000 hrs total time, I instructed from 1987 to 1990, then sadly lost my medical. I have been flying the flight sim for about a year and flying with PilotEdge is as close as I have come to getting the REAL feeling of real flight. Just made my first flight and totally messed up the ILS 28R into PDX and when ATC came on and caught me....it felt real. Hats off to ATC I do not know who was handling my flight, but they handled it very clamly and got me back on track. Thank you so very much for putting up with a rusty old man that will now go and do the training flights you offer to clear out the cob webs and get current.

It is good to be here! Now I can fly again with with the heart pounding excitement thanks to all the PilotEdge crew.

[bbuckley]

I have to say right off the bat, this is the greatest thing I've done in years!!! My name is Terry Turner Sr and started flying in 1974 and yes they had powered airplanes way back then. I have a CPL ASEL, AMEL, Inst. and with roughly 6000 hrs total time, I instructed from 1987 to 1990, then sadly lost my medical. I have been flying the flight sim for about a year and flying with PilotEdge is as close as I have come to getting the REAL feeling of real flight. Just made my first flight and totally messed up the ILS 28R into PDX and when ATC came on and caught me....it felt real. Hats off to ATC I do not know who was handling my flight, but they handled it very clamly and got me back on track. Thank you so very much for putting up with a rusty old man that will now go and do the training flights you offer to clear out the cob webs and get current.

It is good to be here! Now I can fly again with with the heart pounding excitement thanks to all the PilotEdge crew.

Welcome! I was taxiing in to Atlantic and passed you sitting on the ramp. All the controllers are superb, you're gonna love it.

[Keith Smith]

Terry, that was a great intro, thanks for posting!