How this works, and a sample post

[Keith Smith]

If you're thinking of doing a flight (either VFR, VFR wih flight following, or IFR) and you would be happy to have others join you along the way, feel free to use this forum to get the word out.

Post the DATE/TIME (pacific) in your thread title, along with the origin/destination. The time should be the time you plan on connecting to the network to get started, not the wheels up time.

Here's a sample post:
[BEGIN POST]
Subject: [Dec 12, Wed 6pm] SNA - MYF - L35 (Big Bear)

Aircraft Speed: ~160kias
Flight Rules: VFR, with flight following
IFR route to file: n/a

Details: planning to follow the coast down to MYF, transition over Miramar. Brief stop at MYF, then NE to JLI VOR, north to PSP and into Big Bear. Will meet any other participants on the west ramp at SNA and will be on 123.45 (the chat frequency) to finalize departure plans.

[END OF POST]

Interested parties can then respond and let you know if they'll be coming.

If it's an IFR flight, go ahead and post the route you're likely to file. That way, you might get more people to come along if they don't have to do the work of coming up with a route (just a thought).

If you "just want to fly" and don't have a specific flight in mind, pick a starting airport and leave the destination open in your forum post. You can work it out with those that show up.

Lastly, if you know you're going to do a flight on a given date/time, please consider posting it here even if you're not overly concerned either way about whether someone flies with you or not. In these early days, people like to know when others will be flying, so to the extent that people can let others know what they're up to, all the better.

Group flight optional tips:
- Decide if you're going to arrive/depart as a flight. PilotEdge controllers are familiar with formation flights, and will treat you essentially as one large airplane, receiving a single landing/takeoff clearance for the whole group.

- Coordinate what your climb out and cruise speeds will be so that everyone is on the same page

- Lead should rarely be cruising with wide open throttle, nobody will be able to catch up (assuming all using same aircraft type)

- our experience shows that group flights of more than 3 people do much better if flown single file. This simplifies the landing sequence a great deal. Everyone should simply follow the person in front of them.

- small formations are incredibly enjoyable. If the formation gets too large, it becomes difficult to hold any meaningful conversations during the trip. 2-3 planes are ideal.