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Our group was formed about four years ago when myself and two other retirees found a mutual interest in flight simulation. All of us had been "flying" since the '96 version so we were fairly comfortable with it except that we had never flown with anyone else, nor on-line. So we decided to form a local group and have come a very long way since then.
Over the years we have attracted many more members and now have at least six flying members and others in various stages of learning the trade. We hold monthly meetings at a local watering hole where we have the use of a giant screen and projector to illustrate the finer points to newer members...the enthusiasm is so solid you can feel it in the air. Of course we use the meetings to exchange ideas and help our newbies with all sorts of problems in software and hardware. Our monthly education programs give an idea of what we do...the experienced flyers acting as tutors:
CURRENT MONTH: Understanding ATC Terminology and procedures, use of Unicom, Vatsim rules.
NEXT MONTH: How to download and install new aircraft and sceneries...and where to find them on the net
THIRD MONTH: Navigation basics using FSNavigator/FSCommander...using VOR's, NDB's and ILS's
FOURTH MONTH: Communications using SquawkBox/FSInn and personnel chat frequencies
FIFTH MONTH: Recommended minimum hardware setups and useful add-on software
We original three commenced online flying about 3.5 years ago and now we have six of us flying twice a week in a structured organised group. Each flying member is expected to create flight plans on a roster system. Monday evenings are dedicated to our "world tour" flights where we have previously agreed to a general route, say from UK to Australia via the Middle East, India and Indonesia. We fly this route in legs of approximately 200-300 nm each week, each member picking up where the other terminated and trying to find interesting en route scenery, etc. That tour took us 15 months to complete!
We are currently flying from the top of Alaska down the east coast of USA right down to the bottom of South America...right now we are near the Great Lakes area. The flight leader on the night is the flight plan author. He will decide which aircraft we use, the time of day, weather and season and so we get to use a great variety of FS options.
Our Thursday night flights are "fly anywhere, any how" and again, flying members submit interesting flight plans as rostered. This is where we try out new things like night flying in poor visibility, gliding, difficult landings using helicopters, etc. and local VFR stuff in our home area.
Of course we can see each others' aircraft and communicate using one of VATPAC's rw1 or rw3.vatpac frequencies for our own private chat channel. All this adds up to a whole lot of fun for our enthusiastic retirees. So why not form your own local group and enjoy all the delights of online flying.
John White
piano22@iprimus.com.au
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