Let's talk about the PilotEdge Expansion!

[Rick Stratman]

Not sure I would want to make comparison to cable, as they will nickle and dime yea

Also, to be clear, it will be optional to add this area to your existing subscription. It will only cost more if you actually add it to your subscription (somewhat like a premium cable channel).

Great Service, and sure I will buy in once I start flying jets Hopefully there will be a yearly rate.

[Nelson L.]

That's something you don't bring up in a public forum

[Nelson L.]

Though since you need to log in to the client in-sim, and that is linked to your PE account, which has purchase history, and since your PE account is linked to the controller's scope in some way or another (based on the streams), I'm 99.9% sure the controllers will be able to tell. Though I can already sense next year's (this year's?) April Fools jokes


Huh, meant to post this as an edit to my above post, but for some reason, it's a whole separate post... Hmmm...

[Keith Smith]

Pilots who don't have a subscription to the new coveragea area won't be able to fly in that ARTCC. As Steve pointed out, we can't have a mix of traffic in the flight levels where only certain people are talking to ATC.

The system will not permit you to remain connected as you cross the border into the expanded coverage area. So, if you want to fly LAX to DEN but you decide not to have the appropriate subscription, then you can fly with PilotEdge ATC to the ZLA/ZDV border after which LA center will drop you and you will fly the remainder of the flight offline. I realize that's a shift from what happens now, but we can't retain the old model while providing quality service in the new area.

If you do plan on flying into those areas, it's likely that you'll want to add the expanded area to your subscription. If longer flights outside of ZLA don't interest you, no problem, your subscription costs won't change and it'll remain business as usual. We thought long and hard about whether to simply increase the subscription costs for everyone by a lesser amount versus making this an add-on. We went with the latter because it stood out as the fairest course of action for all involved. The coverage is different in nature to ZLA's comprehensive coverage in that we're only providing service to aircraft going out of specific fields within those ARTCCs. For that reason, it will have limited appeal to the single-engine piston community for whom flights between ZLA and the new area will generally be too far apart. As a result, we opted to make it a separate subscription.

[Keith Smith]

A quick note to clarify intentions. Realizing that piston pilots would have almost no interest in this expansion to just the primary fields, one of the goals of the bonus fields was to open up some city pair combinations which WOULD be of interest to piston pilots.

Specifically, notice that the bonus fields are not too far from the primary fields in the expanded coverage area. As a result, trips such as SFO-RNO, SFO-SMF, SMO-MRY, BFL-SJC all become valid options, and are all doable for a piston single.

[Daniel Kofman]

Will bonus fields also be extra to our subscriptions?

[Keith Smith]

The bonus fields are part of the expanded coverage area. None of the bonus fields are within ZLA which is already fully covered by the basic subscription. So, yes, to be able to fly to a bonus field, you'd have to have a subscription to the expanded coverage area. However, the bonus fields don't cost anything extra on top of the expanded subscription if that's what you're asking.

[Daniel Kofman]

The bonus fields are part of the expanded coverage area. None of the bonus fields are within ZLA which is already fully covered by the basic subscription. So, yes, to be able to fly to a bonus field, you'd have to have a subscription to the expanded coverage area. However, the bonus fields don't cost anything extra on top of the expanded subscription if that's what you're asking.

Thanks for the explanation!

[twharrell]

Keith,

Thanks for the great information. Charging a separate fee is very fair IMHO, and non expansion subscribers being automatically logged out when crossing ZLA boundary sounds like the most elegant solution.

Stupid question: Just to be clear, will it be possible to fly from, say, KPHX to KDEN, or will all flights to expansion airports have to originate or terminate in the ZLA ARTCC? I assume flights to and from expansion airport pairs will be possible, but just wanted to get that straight from the Grand Poobah's mouth.

[Keith Smith]

flights that occur entirely when the expansion area are absolutely fine. so, den to phx... good to go. We anticipate a lot of that, in fact.