Fly with me.... NOW?!

[Cyrus]

There's only one thing I like more than flying on PE, and that's flying on PE with/near other traffic. By "other traffic", I mean folks with the same/similar flight plans, departing and arriving around the same time, etc. I'm not looking for formation flying, but anyone who's flown on PE in a group fly-out/convoy knows how much fun they are, and how they really add an extra dimension to an already-superb service.

The group fly-outs that are organized several days to a week in advance are usually well known by the time the event rolls around... This 'Fly with me' board gets looked at during the week and may generate some buzz, Keith will usually post about it on Facebook, etc. But I'm talking about having the ability to organize an ad-hoc joint/group flight for anyone who's on that is interested.

That's where I would have thought the IRC chat page (http://www.pilotedge.net/irc/) would come in handy. Personally, I open up a window and leave it running every time I log on to PE, but I seem to be in the minority. For example, right now there are 8 pilots on the network and only 3 people in the chat room.

No doubt, many folks just use PE to work on their ATC skills, and they're less bothered about other traffic. But I'm willing to bet that at least half the folks on here are more than happy to join in a group flight, even with very little notice. Assuming that this is the case, I would be very interested to hear suggestions on how we can go about facilitating such spur-of-the-moment flights (short of me hopping in an F-16 with smoke system and sky writing "Group Fly out in 15 mins!" up in the sky over every major airport in the PE area ).

[lwilliams]

Didn't even know about the IRC....I'll check it out next time I am about to fly.

[Cyrus]

That's great Lee. I enjoyed our last flight.

With the PE IRC channel, all you do is go to that webpage (it's linked from the main PE website too (under "Pilot Center" -> "Text Chat (IRC)" ) and let it sit in the background. I usually go with "CyrusK" or "Cyrus_N258E" for my handle. And if someone types something, you'll hear a little 'ding', which is handy. Another useful feature of that chat page is that you can type something to the Controller (they're always on it) that may not be appropriate for asking over the voice network itself.

Does anyone know if it's possible in the PE client to send a private message to a controller or another pilot?

[Pieces]

The best way to use IRC (in my opinion) to organize flights is to idle in there pretty much all the time. If you're only in there while flying, there is a limited amount of time in which someone can contact you about flying. By idling in IRC all the time you're available, it's much easier to get in touch/start discussions/organize a flight/whatever. It seems like most people join the chat, see that there isn't anything going on right that moment and then leave. That doesn't work too well since those of us who are in there aren't necessarily watching the IRC window every minute. Jump in and hang out for a bit. Just because no one answers right away doesn't mean nobody is there, or won't answer eventually.

I've lost count of the number of times pilot_xxxxx has joined IRC, said "hi" and left 30 seconds later. Come and hang out. Also, it's worth looking into a dedicated IRC client so you don't have to have a web browser window open all the time.

Bonus: If the IRC channel starts picking up more traffic/users, I'll be motivated to improve the bot with weather/current pilots/etc.

Edit: The controllers aren't usually available on IRC. Maybe that's something that could be improved? I guess that depends on what the goal of the IRC channel is.

[Peter Grey]

Regarding the controllers being available on the IRC chat.

Currently our policy does not require controllers to use the IRC feature of our website. Personally I've never actually used it.

I just logged on it to hear the "ding" that was referred to earlier and didn't get one when I got someone else to chat in it.

Honestly, most of our controllers have multiple windows open while controlling once you consider our scope client, internal communication client, policies and procedures documents, and other required documents. We actually took a poll on this within the controller ranks (for a different project) and some people run up to 10 windows while controlling (most are closer to 5).

Based on that I'm not quite willing to require our controllers to have another window open for the purpose of having another way to communicate with pilots.

If you do need to have a discussion with the controller that you feel shouldn't be on the controlling frequency let the controller know and as long as it's not busy we can generally get a second frequency up and running where we can have the conversation.

Additionally, always feel free to E-mail ops@pilotedge.net with any questions you have regarding our ATC service, or make a post in these forums. I see all of our controllers on a regular basis and can normally get a "what the heck happened?" question answered pretty quickly.

[Cyrus]

Thank you, Peter and Reece, for your detailed replies.

And what about using the PE client for pilot-to-pilot text messages?

[Keith Smith]

the xplane client doesn't support two way messaging. I used to receive messages when I flew on vatsim and it was painful. irc is the best bet, it's opt in messaging. when you fly in real life, there is no back channel to talk to atc, I'm not planning on doing it here.

gotta keep it short, posting from phone on vacation.