MetroAir Virtual Airlines - My first flights

[TX-Rahman]

Eco (& gents),
                        I made my first flights on the virtual airlines I joined recently.  I was hesistant to do them online but did so anyway.  VatSim is great.  

Eco:  I ended up using the panel from that model you found on flightsim.com.  I placed it in the model I got from my airlines.  It works great!  So I can do DME stuff now also.  Fun fun fun!!  Thanks for your help the other night.  I've printed more maps online and I know I have an AOPA airport manual somewhere with all of this information....I'll have to look for it!  Thanks again!

To you other Gents... If you have some time and FS2k4 check out http://www.metroairvirtual.com .  Great buncha folks...





Regards,
TX-Rahman
"BLACK 4"

[TX-EcoDragon]

Hey Rah, that's good to hear it's working for you!Ben and I tried to meet up with you Saturday night on TS for doing some controller work with you, but it looks like we just missed you. He's perfectly willing to do some work with you if you want, or if there aren't other controllers online. Just let me know and I'll mention it to him.S!TX-EcoDragonBlack 1TX-Squadron XO

[TX-Rahman]

Eco,           I got on TS and he was logged in but away.  I did logon and listen last night to ATC on VATSIM first in the Cleveland area but there wasn't much traffic.  So...I moved to L.A. and WOW!  There's still alot that I don't understand...  The controller was telling some of the planes to pass "Wilmey" (Insert weird names there) at 10,000 etc.  I know this is probably fixed locations that are defined somewhere but I was lost.  Alot of stuff like that, that frankly I don't understand yet.  Also...he was barking out instructions at such a frantic pace...wow.  Telling people to expect 24L etc.  I guess you must have to have a book of approach procedures on hand to look it up immediately so you can enter the frequencies to intercept the localizer/dme gear right?  I'm going to look for my AOPA airport book tonight....           One of the guys from my airline was on and towering an Airport in Singapore... asked me what I was doing so I told him I was observing ATC to try to learn more.  He was blown away by this...  I told him that I need to learn more about instrument approaches etc.Regards,TX-Rahman"BLACK 4"

[TX-EcoDragon]

Well Rah, as you've surmised, what you heard was an instruction to cross a fix at a specific altitude, these fixes are used to define your routing, and are given 5 letter names written in all caps, some that are local to me are COUPS, BESSA, PIXEY, MERET etc. These will appear on any IFR procedures. What you need is a combination of enroute charts and approach plates. Low altitude enroute charts for IFR navigation below 18,000 feet, and high alt enroute charts above 18k. These you must buy, but they are quite cheap, and unlike real world IFR, I'd not be too worried about using expired charts for VATSIM use. I think that in VATSIM land you can type "no charts" in the comments section when you file a flight plan and then be given greater assistance by ATC, but this isn't a very realistic way to do things. I bet there are some other things that the VATSIM crew uses. . .it's probably worth a look in their forums.If you have a specific area to fly in, you can just order the enroute charts for usually around $4.00 a chart, and the charted area is fairly large, similar to that of a sectional but slightly more coverage.Here they are for 3.99:http://www.flightessentials.net/index.asp?PageAction=PRODSEARCH&txtSearch=enroute+charts&Page=1S!TX-EcoDragonBlack 1TX-Squadron XO