A question for you guy's regarding the VA or flying for a VA

[DaveB]

Hello Lad's and Lasses,

A question for you all really. We have over a thousand members here on the forum and I know that many of you fly regularly. What I (we'd) like to know is why do we not have more active pilots flying for our VA??

If you are already part of a VA and use FlyNET, the question above is irrelevant as with FlyNET you can only fly with 1 VA anyway so this is aimed mainly at the 1000-odd forum members that idle their hours away in the privacy of their own homes.

Do you think that flying for a VA is too restrictive?? By this I mean you are kept to a strict roster with a minimum amount of flights to be completed each week/month??

Does flying for a VA seem too complicated?? I know that our FlyNET info forum is full of DO's and DON'Ts and the list of things you CAN and CANNOT do seems very daunting.

Have you not joined our VA because you don't particularly like the selection of aircraft we have available?? I would certainly question this as a dubious reason as I'd like to think that the only reason most of you are here in the first place is BECAUSE of the aircraft we have available :-$ Regardless, we'd be interested to hear your comments.

Do you think perhaps that you have to have 'special' qualifications to join a VA?? Not that long ago, most VA's operated under the VATSIM banner which required all pilots to have a VATSIM ticket.. something which turned a lot of folk off (me included!).

Is there any other reason why you feel the urge not to become a member of our VA (or any other VA for that matter)?? If you simply CBA.. then don't bother replying but for anything other than this, please post your replies below The hope is that from the info received, we can post a definative FAQ list that will either confirm or dispell any misconceptions you may have about VA's and ours in particular!!

ATB

DaveB :tab:

[jps]

Most of the reasons above, really.
No, the choice of aircraft is not a factor.
I don't fancy having to meet any more deadlines, it looks complicated and I can make up lots of flights and scenarios for myself.
Obviously, other folks get pleasure from it, but not for me. Of course, no offense meant at all.

[TobyV]

For one, I am not a great pilot and my rating would fall alot very quickly, for two there seem to be a lot of rules and complications and for three I doubt I would have time to do so many flights or so many hours minimum per week.

[Garry Russell]

My question would be about time

Quite a few would have an hour or two to make a flight in an evening, but only 10-15 minuets at a time during chores.

Can the flights be paused without penalty and done in chunks?

Garry

[DanKH]

whoops, I wasn't aware of a minimum flight time?.....

[Reheat]

For this specific VA my reasons for not taking part is that it all seems a little cliquéy.

Same names with similar responsibilites, would lead me to think that it may be a hard to progress in airline if you aren't one of "The names"

Purely an outside opinion, just offering what it looks like from a simple forumite's view.

Routes an aircraft are, of course, perfect

Alex

[delticbob]

I spent several months as part of a similar set with Microsoft Train simulator. For VA read Virtual Depot. Given duties to perform, locomotives to drive etc & that put me off joining a VA.

Also (& its a major also) I suffer with multiplayer flying. I find that my connection (TalkTalk.net but using BT equipment & exchange) it not stable. I go to great lenths to open ports through my firewall etc but find that when other people disconnect - & this effects my flying on several sites, including some well known names, it causes a 'ripple' effect & that causes me to loose my connection. The only way round this didconnection is to exit everything restart the computer & go back to square one.



Bob :-({|=

[alemaobaiano]

Dave

As a member of the VA I may be out of place here, but I don't put in as many hours as I could because the route structure is a little restrictive for my personal preferences. Being limited to one VA on Flynet is part of the problem, and much as I like flying UK routes, I also like flying in South America (revisiting places I've been to or high altitude work, for example).

This month I've been flying the Budgie (Aerolineas Argentinas colours) around the Bariloche ski region on real routes. It's a type of flying that doesn't exist in the UK, but one that offers a real challenge to the FS aviator (mountains, crap weather, few navaids and some short runways). Last month I was zipping around Mexico with a virtual Aviacsa 732, having just been there on business and flown quite a few of their sectors on a real Aviacsa 732.

The VA does provide a rough measure of my virtual piloting skills, and impose a little more discipline on flight planning, but it probably only accounts for 20% of my FS time these days. If there was the possibilty of flying for more than one VA I might use it more, but I do like the freedom of being able to choose which part of the world I want to fly in today.

[DaveB]

Interesting replies chaps.. very interesting. No offence taken at any comments made thus far and none will be.. this was not the point of the exercise

The reason for me asking the question is that we've been discussing increasing/adding-to the VA fleet and one side of the coin says.. 'Do we not have as many pilots on the roster as we could have because of our aircraft choice' and the other side says 'perhaps we don't have more pilots because folk think it's too darned complicated'. It does seem very much like the latter is head and shoulders above any shortfall in our current fleet so what we're going to try and do is produce a FAQ to cover the queries above (as well as those which will surely come after) and show just how easy it really is I'll wait for more responses first but please stay tuned

TksVM for your replies thus far

ATB

DaveB :tab:

[DanKH]

Isn't there an option of flying "codeshares" wiith other VA-airlines? Or am I totally off here?