Category: PilotEdge

Join Me For After-Hours Closed Traffic On PilotEdge

Posted on by Basement Fly Guy

Regular readers probably know that most recent Saturday mornings (US time) I join a group of other simmers on PilotEdge to do pattern work and practice radio skills together. The group is called “ACT,” for After-hours Closed Traffic (as the PE air traffic controllers are offline when we begin), and it’s been a lot of fun. The general plan each time is to start at a non-towered field, do some touch-and-gos, fly to another non-towered field, and repeat. After a few stops we then typically head to a towered field in PilotEdge to land under ATC control. There are usually four or five of us online each week. Here’s the schedule for this Saturday at 9 AM ET (all of which are fields in the greater Portland area):

W04 (Ocean Shores)
14S (Westport)
2S9 (Willapa Harbour)
7W1 (Port of Ilwaco)
KAST (Astoria)
KPDX (by MisterX – an excellent designer of freeware X-Plane scenery)

If you’ve never tried PilotEdge, I think you should consider joining us, even if just for the non-towered part of the flight. It’s a great service, and ACT is a great way to begin to learn the ropes. PE has a two-week free trial, so there’s no fee for entry, and we can talk you through the radio calls, so it would be a learning experience as well. If you’d like to give it a try, sign up for a free trial and download the software for your sim. Then, next Saturday at 9 AM ET, just position your plane at W04, connect to the network, tune your COM1 radio to 123.45, and fly with us. It’s a great way to learn the system and have some fun at the same time.

Finally, the hyperlinks in the list of fields above are links to the latest custom X-Plane scenery for each field, should you want them. Be sure to download the latest version as there are multiple iterations.

I hope to see you there!

Westward Ho! The PilotEdge Western Expansion (And Beta Test Flight Video)

Posted on by Basement Fly Guy

The PilotEdge Western Expansion goes LIVE tomorrow, December 27th. It’s going to be a fantastic addition to the service, with a remarkable expansion of the network’s the controlled airspace:

Operating_Hours_and_Service_Area_-_PilotEdge_net

I was fortunate to participate in the beta test of the expansion last week, and here’s a video I made of the flight. It’s a long one: KSLC to Heber to Price To Moab. This is the longest video I’ve uploaded to date, but I wanted to capture the entire flight (with some edits) and the ATC handoffs along the way. Thanks for watching, and if you cater to real-world ATC, PilotEdge is as real as it gets.

Fantastic News From PilotEdge

Posted on by Basement Fly Guy

WUS-launch-banner

The long awaited Western Expansion is finally ready and will go live on December 27th. This will bring a massive increase to the coverage area, offering seven new towered fields (six continual, one on a rotating basis) to the service area and many hundreds of thousands of new square miles in which to fly. Just as important is that PE will offer enroute coverage through the entire limits of the five ARTCCs that make up the expansion area. This means you can depart one of the towered fields and fly with advisories to any non-towered field throughout the entire western third of the US. FANTASTIC.  Learn more about it here, and I’ll see you in the KSLC Bravo soon.

P.A.T. Fun On PilotEdge

Posted on by Basement Fly Guy

A few PilotEdge users, led by Jiva, have arranged some pattern traffic together in the hours before controllers start manning their stations on the network (hence PAT – PilotEdge Afterhours Traffic). Today I joined the group a bit late at KDLO where we did pattern work, and then Jiva and I flew out Elizabeth Lake for a touch and go, and then to Bakersfield (which by then was manned by a controller) for landing. As always it was a learning experience, and it was a lot of fun flying from place to place as a flight. Here are some pics, and if you’re on PE, we’d love to have you join us. Watch the Fly With Me thread in the PE forums for updates.

Also worth noting in these pics: The hangars and airport textures of REX Worldwide Airports HD,  the wonderful haze and sky textures of As16/ASCA with the Service Pack 1 update, the fantastic textures of ORBX SoCal scenery, and the beautiful lines of the Carenado C 177 RG Cardinal II.

Flight1
Ready To Go
Headed East
Flight2
In Formation
Flight4
A Flight To KBFL

The PilotEdge CAT-04 Rating

Posted on by Basement Fly Guy

Yesterday I did the fourth PilotEdge Communication and Airspace Training rating flight, which is a Class D towered field (KSBP) to a Class D towered field (KSMX) with no ATC services in between:

CAT4Route

Here’s the description from the PE briefing page, but the short story is that you:

  • Get the weather at San Luis via the ATIS
  • Contact ground to tell them our position and let them know we want to depart to the South
  • Taxi to the runway as directed by ground
  • Contact tower at the end of the runway to let them know we are ready to go
  • Depart via their directions
  • Contact Santa Maria tower about 10 miles out and let them know our position and that we’re inbound for landing
  • Follow their directions for entering the pattern and contacting them when there
  • Land
  • Contact tower when clear of the runway to tell them our position and request taxi
  • Follow their directions, including whether or not to contact ground

Note that each time we talk to a new controller we tell them our position and our intentions. This is a solid rule for any initial ATC contact: “Here is who I am, where I am, and what I wish to do.”

Also, this “inside / out, outside /in” pattern of communication was a good way for me to think about the handoffs in ATC service when I was learning the airspace system (originally I found the rules of who to contact when and where a bit confusing). When departing you start with the controller closest to where you are – ground – and then progressively work your way out as your position changes (tower, then departure, then center). Coming in to a region or to land, you then work your way IN as your position changes (approach, then tower, then ground). One exception is clearance delivery, whom you contact before you start with ground if you’re filing an IFR clearance, or if you’re at a field that has a local clearance delivery (that will be on the chart). The CAT-04 flight is a good, simple example of these outside / in, inside / out handoffs: ground, tower, tower, ground. We don’t talk to a departure, center, or approach because we don’t have “radar services” (also called “flight following”), which is asking ATC to track you between towered fields as a safety measure, which is something they only do for VFR aircraft on request and if workload allows. “Picking up” flight following en route is the subject of the next CAT rating.

So here’s the flight. It goes right according to plan until the very last second – and then the technology fates intervene! We do this flight in the Carenado C177 Cardinal over ORBX SoCal/Vector scenery and AS16 weather with REX textures. Thanks for watching.

The PilotEdge CAT-03 Rating

Posted on by Basement Fly Guy

The PilotEdge Communication and Airspace Training ratings continue, this time with the CAT-03, which is three laps of the pattern at San Luis Obispo. I actually flew this twice. I forgot to hook up the mic to the GoPro in the first iteration, so I flew it again the next day to re-record the video. That flight involved its own set of interesting factors, not least of which was a hot mic on PilotEdge, which means I regaled the network with my narration for five or 10 minutes. Things happen, and I’m getting the stuck push-to-talk button on the Yoke fixed as a result. Nonetheless, here’s the flight video. I think it will be helpful to new PilotEdge flyers because it involves small variations on a standard pattern in each of the three laps (line up and wait, expedited landing, and an extended downwind). Thanks for watching.

The PilotEdge CAT-01 Rating

Posted on by Basement Fly Guy

PilotEdge has come out with yet another wonderful service for pilots and simmers: their new Communication and Airspace Training series of training ratings. These replace the “V” series of VFR ratings. There were three V ratings, and while excellent, the CAT ratings provide VFR fliers with a larger number of rating missions (11 rather than three) and a more gradual progression from introductory to advanced airspace and ATC skills.

I hope to video all 11 ratings. The first is a flight between two non-towered fields, Oceana Co. and New Cuyana. In this VFR flight we learn basic CTAF call procedures for departure and landing. You may see the full description and set of briefing materials for the CAT-01 rating here.

PilotEdge I-01 Rating Video

Posted on by Basement Fly Guy

Here’s the aforementioned run at the I-01 rating on PilotEdge, which is flying the 20R ILS approach into KSNA. Passed on the first try (although the intercept and landing are nothing to brag about, and in fact, the landing goes in my “Bottom 10” list!). But it was a lot of fun, and I’m looking forward to trying out the I-02. The only big miss is I didn’t have the camera running when I got my clearance. The rest of the ATC communication is there.

Passed: PilotEdge I-01 Rating

Posted on by Basement Fly Guy

Woo hoo! I passed my first IFR rating on PilotEdge, the I-01 rating. It’s actually a very simple ILS approach procedure into John Wayne, but still, I flew it, and I flew it without autopilot (which made it a bit ugly at times). Video to come …

https___skyvector_com_files_tpp_1610_pdf_00377IL20R_PDF