How PilotEdge helped me made my dream come true ...

[mtn]

Hi everyone,

My name is Maritn, I've been around for almost two years, and I think I've never posted on the forum, so hey, how are you all doing!?

I just want to share with you all my happiness. I'm an Argentinian pilot with +200 hrs of real flying, plus several thousands of flightsim hours (since 1998). These two last years spent on PilotEdge helped me make my dream come true: to fly in the congested airspace of SoCal! Yes, this was my first flight in the US, and it was in SoCal.

I departed from KVNY, VFR to KSBA through VTU. Of course, I wanted to try everything PilotEdge had prepared me for, so I climbed out of KVNY, with less than 2500ft under the KBUR airspace and as soon as I cleared the C airspace I continued climbing to 4500ft, and YES, I requested flight following. Needless to say, these were my first real flights in English.

This was my first flight, my second one was KSBA-KAVX transitioning over LAX though the mini-route (thanks again PilotEdge!) and my third one from KAVX back to KVNY.

Enjoy the first one:


Will post the later ones in the upcoming weeks.

See you up in the virtual skies!
Martin.

[Keith Smith]

This was heart warming to read and watch, I just watched the whole video. Your passion comes across very clearly, and I'm glad you had a successful first flight in the US, especially in such busy airspace. I'm glad that PE helped give you the confidence to get it done. I imagine that many pilots attempting this for the first time would be overwhelmed by the process, but you handled it with ease. Those were some beautiful visuals, too!

The radio work was very good (trust me, if I had to try to handle ATC in a language other than my first language, I would be in terrible shape, so I have tremendous respect for what you are doing). English being your second language puts you at a disadvantage as your rate of speech is slower in English than your primary language (I can tell that from the narration where you're speaking 2-3x faster). I don't suggest you try to speed up your English, that would be unreasonable, HOWEVER, if you want to speed things up (ATC will be thrilled if you can do it), there are a few shortcuts you can take:
1) if ATC shortens your callsign, then you can, too. "Cessna Eight Eight Sierra" is considerably shorter than "November One One Eight Eight Sierra" (I maybe wrong on the specific callsign, but hopefully you get the idea). Every syllable counts if you're not talking at your full speed.

2) "at the moment," "with you" and "feet" can be removed from all the transmissions. "Socal, Skyhawk Eight Eight Sierra, 4 west of Van Nuys, request advisories to Santa Barbara at 4500." Then, once you've established contact with a given controller, you do not need to continually use their facility name, you can just call with your callsign, "N88S, field in sight." It's a lot faster than including "Santa Barbara Approach" in every call (6 syllables), and using your shortened callsign saves another 2 syllables. That's 8 syllables in a single transmission. It adds up if you have 3-4 exchanges with that controller before swapping to tower.

I mention these things as I get the sense you're interested in doing it as correctly as possible. Please don't take that to mean that your flight wasn't an excellent start...it was better than a significant number of US-based pilots for whom English is their first language, so you're doing an incredible job, I just thought I'd offer some tips for how to clean up a couple of things, especially since you're working with a slower rate of speech as you're translating as you go along (which is, once again, a task at which I would perform horribly!)

Congratulations again, and PLEASE post the other videos! That was some amazing weather and footage!

[uncertifiedpilot]

"Socal, Skyhawk Eight Eight Sierra, 4 west of Van Nuys, request advisories to Santa Barbara at 4500."
Then, once you've established contact with a given controller, you do not need to continually use their facility name, you can just call with your callsign, "N88S, field in sight."

@Keith: Interesting feedback So, just to be clear: when on FF I could just establish contact with a new departure/approach/center by saying 'Socal' (without mentioning the facility name)? Also, while in contact with the controller, if I have any requests or announcements to make, I can just start with my callsign without starting with 'Socal'?

[zerofay32]

@Keith: Interesting feedback So, just to be clear: when on FF I could just establish contact with a new departure/approach/center by saying 'Socal' (without mentioning the facility name)? Also, while in contact with the controller, if I have any requests or announcements to make, I can just start with my callsign without starting with 'Socal'?

I think this is an artifact of flying on PE with one person working all positions. I will use the facility name more on PE than I do RW. The reason is because I'm trying to 'help' the controller on PE with where I am and 'who' I'm talking to. I'm sure this isn't necessary, but I think that it would help

RW you're talking to the same person only in a single sector (usually) unless there is a shift change. Even so, that controller would be the same TRACON or Center. RW doesn't have to be Salt Lake, Seattle, and Denver center all at the same time...

So far this habit hasn't shifted over to my RW flying and I only use the facility name on the initial callup.

[Keith Smith]

I think this is an artifact of flying on PE with one person working all positions. I will use the facility name more on PE than I do RW. The reason is because I'm trying to 'help' the controller on PE with where I am and 'who' I'm talking to. I'm sure this isn't necessary, but I think that it would help

Yep, no need to do that. We know what role we're serving for you once it's established and it's very easy for the controller to check the freq you're on if it needs to be double checked.

[Keith Smith]

@Keith: Interesting feedback So, just to be clear: when on FF I could just establish contact with a new departure/approach/center by saying 'Socal' (without mentioning the facility name)? Also, while in contact with the controller, if I have any requests or announcements to make, I can just start with my callsign without starting with 'Socal'?

Socal Approach is the name of the facility. There isn't a Socal ground, tower or center, so there's no ambiguity if you just call them "Socal" as a shortcut. Feel free to call them "Socal Approach," though if you prefer. Once you've established comms, I wouldn't worry too much about using the facility's callsign after that.

[zerofay32]

I think this is an artifact of flying on PE with one person working all positions. I will use the facility name more on PE than I do RW. The reason is because I'm trying to 'help' the controller on PE with where I am and 'who' I'm talking to. I'm sure this isn't necessary, but I think that it would help

Yep, no need to do that. We know what role we're serving for you once it's established and it's very easy for the controller to check the freq you're on if it needs to be double checked.

Thanks Keith.

[rtataryn]

Martin,

Awesome! Thanks for posting that. Congratulations and well done!

[uncertifiedpilot]

Hm, makes sense.
But you wouldn't just call ANY dep/app/center 'socal', right? There are also 'Los Angeles' dep/app/center. Could I call ANY of these 'socal'?

[Keith Smith]

uncertifiedpilot, I'm not suggesting you randomly call any facility "Socal." However, I am suggesting you can "Socal Approach" just "Socal" because there isn't any other facility (tower or center) with the name "Socal". You would not call Bakersfield, Santa Barabara, Yuma or Las Vegas Approach "Socal Approach" because that is not their facility name. However, when you want to address "Socal Approach" I'd argue "Socal" is a reasonable shortcut because it's impossible for it to mean anything but "Socal approach".