Coverage area update: Oakland ARTCC, Mar 9 2012

[Keith Smith]

PilotEdge will be supporting part time operations in the Oakland ARTCC (ZOA). Starting on Mar 9, we will provide coverage in ZOA every Fri 4pm pacific time until Sun close of business (11pm pacific). Edit: it closes each night at 11pm and reopens the next morning at 8am.

The Oakland ARTCC contains popular airports such as SFO, OAK, SJC, RNO, FAT, and MRY, just to name a few.

A map of the coverage area can be found here: http://bit.ly/yE99IK, and also on the coverage area and operating hours page.

We are excited to expand into this airspace and know that many people (current members, and those observing from the sidelines) have been waiting quite a while for it to happen.

This expansion has been made with two compromises, though:
1) we're starting out with part time coverage of ZOA, Fri-Sun, rather than full time support. The thinking here is that it's better to have SOME coverage on a well-published scheduled than it is to having nothing.

2) we're temporarily reducing the staffing of ZLA while ZOA is open. You'll still have full-time coverage in ZLA, but you're likely to hear just one controller working all of the positions instead of the usual division of labor between the tower and TRACON/enroute positions. This allows us to operate ZOA without increasing our expense. As the network grows, both in terms of at-home users and commercial users, I expect we will return to a normal staffing levels at each facility.

If anyone has any questions about the expansion, fire away! Otherwise...enjoy the wonders of the Oakland ARTCC and the always-popular SFO-LAX and LAX-SFO runs!

[AviatorScott]

Keith, this thread is useless with out a like button

Yeah!!! Expanding into my home turf... Thank you, Thank you, Thank you...
Now I've got to work on flying faster planes so I can make those trips back and forth!

Scott

[TheMadDocMD]

Pretty Excited about this one - - been waiting for this through the 'building process' behind the scenes working with the SOP's etc - - Just a note to our pilots = feel free to ask questions about the airspace because there are some pretty interesting airspace in the Bay area. Looking forward to Friday - those flying will find me on the other side of the headset looking at you from the Radar side!

[AlJ]

ahhhh yes. The Bay area. I lived in San Jose for many years and had a little Cherokee 140 that I kept at the Fremont airport. Fremont airport was the only none tower airport in the bay area at that time and sadly, as the boom in commercial land continued the Fremont airport fell victim to the rapid growth due to the silicon industry. I sold my plane just before the airport had to close. Keeping it at one of the larger airports was not in my budget. Should be fun flying the bay area skies again with Pilotedge.

Al Jones

[Steven Winslow]

The marriage license bureau in Las Vegas is open Mon-Thur from 8am to 5pm, but they are open from Fri 8am to Sunday Midnight. So, you say ZOA will be open from Fri 4pm PST to Sun 11pm PST. Does that mean it will be staffed for 55 hours straight? Or will it be closing at 11pm as ZLA does? Just wondering...

[Keith Smith]

It closes at 11pm each evening and opens at 8am like zla.

[Daddy O]

It would be great if the plugin threw up a small <optional> window to let you know about fly-ins in progress, special air space like oakland, and current focus flights. I have been online during fly-ins and missed it because i didnt even know it was going on.

While i heartily endorse familiarization with the PE forums, sometimes ya just want to jump online and fly without a lot of research.

[Keith Smith]

Adam,

I agree, it would be great...but it's not happening any time soon. That requires development resources that are tied up with other projects. If events sprung up at the last minute, I would agree with you more, but they're generally publicized roughly a week in advance, on the home page, the facebook page and here on the forum. I would be surprised if most active PE pilots weren't checking ONE of those 3 sources from time to time.

[TexFly]

Keith,

Would you publish the Facebook link please? It would be a good idea to add an icon somewhere on the website.

Also, what about Twitter? It might be a better solution because the followers will get automatically notified about the events!

No programming required...just a post.

Thanks.

[TheMadDocMD]

All you need to do is search for PilotEdge. http://www.facebook.com/pages/PilotEdge/107702095966463