Category: PilotEdge

Victorville (KVCV) to Boulder City (KBVU) – And The Cuban Missile Crisis

Posted on by Basement Fly Guy

Last night on PilotEdge I decided to fly from Victorville, CA to Boulder, City, NV (just outside Las Vegas). This is the first leg of a two-leg trip VFR PilotEdge flight from KVCV to St. George, Utah. KVCV is the old George Air Force Base, and is now a towered public field working as Southern California Logistics. My Dad was based at George in the early 1960s as a doc in the Air Force, and while it was before I was born, stories of going “over the hill to Victorville,” and the realities of high-dessert 1960s base life, still run through our regular family mythology.

While this was a VFR flight, I did file a flight plan online via PilotEdge so I could log and track the flight on PEaware. The sectional chart below shows the flight, and I planned it as direct GPS, 140 knots, 7,500 feet (necessary to keep from running into the shoulders of Clark Mountain). Other things to manage on this flight included getting clearance to fly through the Silver North Military Operating Area, avoiding the Las Vegas Bravo airspace, and arriving at Boulder City in the dark. You can click that chart image to see it full-sized.

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The route and vertical / speed profiles are below. I used ATC flight following the entire way, which is a smart thing to do because it’s safer, and it makes the handoffs near a Bravo like Las Vegas a bit less worrisome for pilot and ATC (you know they are watching, and they know you know where you are going). The PilotEdge side of things went well, save three small mistakes: I called to Joshua Departure before switching over from KVCV tower, I addressed Las Vegas Approach as LA Center for half-second before correcting myself, and when I went to the KBVU CTAF I told LV Approach I was going to their tower (when there is no tower). I was already correcting myself when the controller said, “I don’t think you’ll find a tower at Boulder City, but you’re welcome to try.” What can I say, it was late. Still, it goes to show that PilotEdge is an excellent training tool, and I learn something every time, even if just listening to the traffic. It can’t be beat as a simulation add on.

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On this flight as well, even though it was a simulated experience, some family history came back. The Orbx scenery is realistic enough that as I overflew the dry lake beds of Silver Lake and Soda Lake, I recalled stories my father has told about taking a light plane from George AFB during the Cuban missile crisis, and flying out into the Mojave to scout lake beds where he could land and caves where he could stash the family if the bombs started to fall. And they nearly did. He knew to make that flight when he came home one day and all the F-104 pilots had their flight bags packed and sitting on their doorsteps. They were taking on nukes and flying to Florida. Chilling times, ones I hope never return.

CTAF 101

Posted on by Basement Fly Guy

A lot of the airports in the PilotEdge coverage area are “nontowered” airports, meaning either there is no control tower at that airport, or there are times of the day when the tower is not staffed. This means there is no local air traffic control at those airports, and it qualifies them as “Class G” airspace to the FAA. In Class G airspace no radio communications are required of visual flight rules pilots, but that’s not a smart thing to do because pilots who don’t talk to each other at nontowered airports will probably have a tendency to bump into each other.

As a result, nearly all of these airfields have a “CTAF” radio frequency listed on the charts, with the exceptions being some private fields (which use a default frequency of 126.7). CTAF stands for “Common Traffic Advisory Frequency,” and it’s a radio frequency pilots near that airport tune into to report location to each other, especially their location in and near the traffic pattern for departing or landing at that airport. Basically, at nontowered airports pilots self police and exert their own air traffic control by all tuning into and talking to each other on a single VHF chat line.

Here’s a section of the VHF sectional for an airport near Philadelphia, Brandywine (KOQN). You can tell it’s a nontowered airport because it’s magenta, that it has a rotating beacon because it has a little star, and that it has services like fuel and maintenance because it has a the spurs of a plus sign on the edges of its circle. You can also see the CTAF frequency listed: 123.075, with the magenta “C” next to it. All pilots flying into, out of, or in the near vicinity of Brandywine should tune to that frequency to report their locations and intentions at least once, and if taking off or landing, their position and intentions at key steps along the way (like turning onto final approach).

Koqn

As I noted above, by far most of the airports you can use in PilotEdge are nontowered, and even though it’s just a training network, you have to presume that there are other people on the network who may be in that area or using those fields, so CTAF calls matter and you’re supposed to make them. Like most things in aviation, there’s a right and wrong way to do it. I was looking for resources to brush up on my CTAF calls, and found this great primer at Recreationalflying.com. Its official title is “Radiotelephony communications and procedures
in Class G airspace,” but I think of it as, “How to make proper CTAF calls.” It’s worth reading and bookmarking if you want to learn these rules of the air.

Hello PilotEdge V-02 Rating

Posted on by Basement Fly Guy

Last night after the kids were asleep I decided to take an hour and try for my V-02 VFR rating in the PilotEdge training program. This is a ATC “flight following” flight from John Wayne’s (KSNA) Class Charlie airspace to Ontario, CA (KONT).

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The flight requires several handoffs: from KSNA clearance, to ground, to tower, to SoCal departure, to SoCal center, to Ontario tower, to Ontario ground. You have to hold an ATC-assigned heading and a flight level of no more than 2,400 for the initial part of the flight, after which you can resume your own navigation (although I stayed below 3,000 to stay clear of the KLAX Bravo airspace, just in case).

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The flight was a lot of fun. I was tired (it was the end of the day), and I switched to SoCal departure before being released by KSNA tower (which is OK in some places but not there), but other than that the flight was straightforward and I passed. Above is the flight track from PEAware, along with a mostly hilarious vertical profile that shows me doing some nice roller-coaster work when I tried to use my auto pilot (it wanted to ascend and descend me to quickly, which I can and will adjust).

PEaware____N15JG_KSNA-KONT 2The next rating is the V-03, which involves flying two of the five transitions of the LAX Bravo airspace. These are quite a bit more complicated, and after some study and practice, I’ll go for it.

How To Talk ATC

Posted on by Basement Fly Guy

As I’ve been learning my way around PilotEdge I have by necessity been learning my way around the language of Air Traffic Control. One thing I’ve noticed is that sometimes pilots on PE seem to be working hard to sound “official,” whereas what I’ve noticed when listening to the real thing is that real-world pilots (and GA pilots with ATC in particular) are talking an official language but sounding natural (and often, like normal human beings). I’m certain much of that comes with familiarity, and remembering that the controller is, in fact, a person who wants to help you rather than someone waiting for you to screw up.

To that end, here are two resources from the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association on talking with ATC: their new pilot’s guide to ATC communication, and their PDF document, Communicating With ATC: Learn to Talk Like a Pro. Both are worth reading, as I’m sure that the better you get at knowing the official language, the sooner you’re able to manage it in a familiar and human way.

PilotEdge, Take 3 (And A Rating To Boot)

Posted on by Basement Fly Guy

The past few days I’ve been writing about my trial on PilotEdge, the as-real-as-it-gets subscription ATC service that covers most of the SoCal operating area. My first flight was all nerves (and a learning moment), the second more relaxed and fun. Today I went for flight number three, which was an attempt to qualify for the introductory VFR rating in the PilotEdge training curriculum (what they call a V-01 rating).

To qualify for the V-01 rating the pilot needs to start from the ramp at a controlled airport, get clearance to do pattern work (fly “closed traffic”), transition from clearance delivery to ground to tower control, make three loops of the pattern, and exit back to the ramp, all under ATC control and observation. I decided to do this at John Wayne Airport (KSNA) both because it is the airstrip used in the training examples, and because it’s Class C airspace and in a busier area of the coverage territory. I flew a few touch-and-go laps of the pattern there last night while not on PilotEdge just to get used to the scenery and pattern, and then today over lunch gave it a go.

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KSNA (John Wayne AKA The Duke)

It all went great, and I qualified for the V-01 rating on the first try. Now I can go to the next level of training, which is a point-to-point VFR flight with ATC flight following. The controller was great, and I did pretty well every step of the way. The PEAware tracking system captured the trace of my flight even though there was no flight plan as I was in tower control the entire time.

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The trace reports in time intervals, so it’s not a smooth trace, but you can see the pattern. I’m going faster downwind than upwind, which is why those turns are a bit more oblong. And I need to work on staying to pattern altitude (1,00o feet in this case – gotta work the trim wheel a bit). But overall all went well and I look forward to the next bit of learning and training on PilotEdge.

PilotEdge, Take Two

Posted on by Basement Fly Guy

This afternoon I returned to PilotEdge for a second flight, with the good and not-as-good of last night under my belt as experience. Taking the advice of the PE forums seriously, I spent some time in the PE pilot resource center, and watching most of the general VFR workshop in particular (and now I’m a much better reader of VFR charts in particular … who would have thought that all that magenta-bordered class E airspace was so run of the mill?).

My plan was to practice touch-and-gos, in a tower-controlled pattern, but far away from the more crowded airspace of Los Angeles. Looking at the PE coverage map I settled on Laughlin/Bullhead airport in Laughlin, NV (KIFP). Class D (which is what that dashed-blue circle means), controlled, but very quiet. A good place to get familiar with the calls and process before going for a V-01 rating on PE.

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Everything went great. I was much less nervous that last night, started up the SimCessna, got a radio check and weather, then got taxi clearance and departure clearance from the PE controller. Made my crosswind, downwind, and base turns, and was cleared for final. About then I noticed that the Saitek information panels in the sim had crashed (unusual … I dallied with a SPAD.neXt driver install last night and think things are still tweaked). This meant I had no airspeed or engine data. I realized this just as I was on short final, maybe a mile out.

“What would happen in the real world?” I thought. “You’d call off the touch-and-go and ask for a full stop landing,” I replied to myself. So that’s what I did: I called KIFP tower (and this was on very short final), said airspeed was inop, and asked for a full stop. “No problem,” he said. I landed, taxied off, and got direction to taxi to the ramp on the frequency. I did so, then let the controller know that I was going to disconnect to solve the sim issue. “No problem,” he said.

It was all very cool. Very real (for not being real). I’m definitely hooked on PilotEdge. It absolutely adds an entirely new and significantly richer texture to the sim experience. And using it means learning, which is always good. I’m all in on PE.

(As an aside, I had a member of the PE forums give me some advice on my mistake from last night, both in the forums and on the OTG Facebook page. Turns out that commenter, Kyle Sanders, was actually my controller for this flight. I had no idea he was a PE employee. He said I did great, which I was glad to hear. The Interwebs are an amazing place …)

Flying On PilotEdge (And On Being A Noob)

Posted on by Basement Fly Guy

One of the things that’s a challenge with simulation flying is realistic air traffic control. There is automated ATC in the software, which you interact with via a keyboard. It sounds OK, but ties you to the keyboard and shows a window on screen, both of which can kill the immersion. It also is very basic in giving routing and separation directions, and does not follow the vast majority of real-world instrument flight rule procedures. You can also use an add-on like Multi Crew Experience, which when configured well does a pretty good job of recognizing what you say into the headset and interpreting it as the right keyboard direction. But both interrupt the simulation immersion in their own ways.

There are two other very popular options, VATSIM and IVAO. They are staffed by a mix of hobbyists, ATC operators in training, and the real thing. While popular, the critique is that they can be very inconsistent, both in what is covered when (that’s left to the ATC nerds online, not the simulation nerds, and often in the US there are just a few towers and centers up and running), and in their realism. So last night I signed up for a free 14-day trial (and did my first flight) on PilotEdge. PilotEdge is a subscription service that offers a very realistic ATC training environment, 15 hours each day, over a large swath of Southern California and parts of Arizona, Nevada, and Utah:

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How realistic? Extremely. The business was founded and is staffed by real air traffic controllers, using realistic equipment, and managing the airspace just as they would if they were in the tower. The folks who fly on PilotEdge are typically either simmers in search of realism, real-world pilots keeping their skills fresh, or flight students practicing with their instructors. Just about everyone who has used PilotEdge has had roughly the same thing to say about it: this is as real as it gets, and these guys are by the book. (You can hear for yourself here.)

So last night, toward the end of the coverage day when things weren’t too busy (just five or six live pilots online but hundreds of drone aircraft filling the skies) I completed my first flight on the network. This is a suggested intro flight from L52 (Oceana) to KSBP (San Luis Obispo). Given that I’m not a real-world pilot, but a guy who has gotten increasingly serious about simulation, this was my first time dealing with anything this … real. And it was cool.

The only stuff I know about VFR flight rules is what I’ve been able to read and learn in the sim. So to prep I watched a training video of the suggested intro flight, and flew it a few times before logging in to get my wits about me. Still, I can’t believe how nervous I was. It was ridiculous. Truly. Even though this is all simulated, I knew I was in new waters, where I could not touch the bottom, surrounded by people for whom this is their job.

Nonetheless, I thought I handled myself well. I wasn’t sure if the push-to-talk switch on the yoke was configured right, so while at L52 (which is an unmanned airport with no ATC) I got on the San Luis tower frequency and got a radio check. “Loud and clear,” he said. Wow. A real person talking to me on the basement sim. Amazing. I announced my departure intentions on the L52 frequency, contacted KSBP tower once out of the pattern, and got instruction to “make straight in for runway 29 and report when on two mile final.” Cool! I made the final call on two mile final, got clearance to land, and even though I was ridiculously anxious I greased the landing. I made a right-hand turn off 29 and waited for direction.

I was feeling pretty good about myself. So much so that I sort of stopped paying close attention and I missed a call from tower. “Was that to me? Was he talking to me?” A few seconds later I thought, “Did he tell me to taxi to the ramp? He must have.”

So continue to taxi I did. Wrong move, bucko. The next thing I heard was: “Uhh … Cessna 5 Juliet Golf, where are you going?” The tone, which inferred a “seriously?” at the end of the sentence although it was unspoken, was more notable to me. I cringed, and I apologized that I had missed the call. A brief but well deserved (and terse but not impatient) reminder to wait for instruction after leaving the runway followed. I didn’t tell him I was a noob. I figured I probably didn’t have to.

I woke up this morning excited to do it again, and I’ll be sending in my check. I’ll also be hitting the trainings and workshops — and there are training ratings for PilotEdge as well as many hours of instruction workshops — because I definitely want to get good at this.