On The Glideslope

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 …)

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:

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.