Econ/Business Model or other possibilities

Pilots:

Ok...so I've toiled over SPAACARS and frustrated pilots like Steve, Larry M. and our new member Stein L., and many other pilots who have given SPAACARS a beta test - which will continue to improve and frustrate I'm sure .

The latest features give us the opportunity to add some additional fun to the mix by adding additional upload features to track and compare with other pilots.

Just some thoughts so far...Steve mentioned adding landing rates to recognize periodically those pilots who nail a soft landing. This can be done (shame on me for not including this in the latest release) - but I'm impatient and want to share my latest addition - often before it's been bug-tested enough (hence the immediate change from version 2.0 to 2.3) - and the added frustration to those testing the software - sorry about that.

So...that is one option. I was also thinking about something similar to what FSPassenger does - for those familiar with it - or perhaps those other VA's that use the PHPVMS VA system that includes an economic/business theme.

Here at SPA I figured we might set up something on a secondary page that would track a business progress where pilots would act as subsidiaries of SPA - much like the smaller companies that fly the major airline logo's but are subcontractors. Pilots could fly and participate in those flights and still get SPA flight credits on their main PIREP entries, but it would also be recorded on a secondary business page (similar to the arrivals area on our main page - now tracking passenger and cargo carried).

Unlike other VA's, and like most flight options here at SPA - participation would be optional, but offer yet another addition for our pilots to enhance their enjoyment of our hobby.

I was looking at what Yoland has in his Special Ops area - the Cargo/Freight Division, and what we might do with something like this now with the additional inputs we can upload using our own ACARS program.

Just a thought.

Feel free to offer your input - and of course any final decisions will made by the SPA Mgt. team.

For those using P3d (like our president here at SPA), I hope to work on the minor compatibility issues so that those users might also participate in any future options requiring SPAACARS while still flying their favorite simulator. Special thank you to Stein for giving SPAACARS a test run on P3D (Please pilots, no more testing with P3D until I get a shot at correcting flight plan parsing issues related to P3D).

Just thinking about possibilities here now and what other pilots think.

As always...happy flying.

John

Yoland,

Yes...I agree about nothing mandatory!

That's why I stated:

"Unlike other VA's, and like most flight options here at SPA - participation would be optional, but offer yet another addition for our pilots to enhance their enjoyment of our hobby."

I would not implement any changes related to flights or the general direction of SPA without full support of Mgt. team.

I must say I didn't think about pilots doing strange things like flying at 50 feet to get a soft landing or otherwise feeling compelled to participate or compete in various things so as to detract from fun of the hobby.

I just thought it was something that could add some additional interest and perhaps enhance some things we already have - such as your cargo/freight division. This could be done by simply displaying information totals on a separate page for those interested in tracking their "company's" progress - basically - a view of their flights (passengers carried, cargo carried, fuel costs, etc with financial numbers calculated by a yet to be determined method). Thus...pilots will have added incentive to adjust payloads and avoid empty flights (if flying such things as your cargo/freight flights, or any other flight for that matter). All flights will still show as normal SPA flights on pirep reports and pilot log books. Only company data added on the "company display page" - which would be similar to a bush flight page you put together, only displaying pilot flights with the econ/business data included.

Just a thought. I don't need to move further with this if it isn't "going to fly".

John

Surprisingly, the additional details has made me think more about various flight variables and settings - just like the FSPassenger addon.

Yoland...I already set my flight to realism mode and have the various yoke and pedal addons to further the realism.

Still, it wasn't until I added the payload information to the arrivals page (and was testing it), that I experienced the change in flight dynamics of the lowly Beaver. I have always tried to keep my descent rate for landing less than 500 FPM, as it would crash or blow tires using FSPassenger, but this new balance of passengers and cargo and the effect on the flight dynamics and trimming out the aircraft in flight was a new feel for me.

While it's true that I didn't need to have the additional information displayed at SPA to fiddle with these settings, it was my inspiration. Plus...it's kind of fun to see who's carrying passengers / cargo or both.

As for the landings...I'm not too worried personally about being 'bested' by another pilot...after all they might be flying a default fsx plane set at easy settings while I fly payware models with realistic settings and white-knuckle my plane onto the runway. To each his own on these things I guess. Although it might inspire a pilot with crash-detection turned of who is landing at 1000 FPM to try to improve their technique.

Perhaps we could give some of this a try?

I've finished adding the landing rate to the next revision of SPAACARS to be released. It shows in the log area of SPAACARS after recording the landing, but it is not yet configured to upload or store this information at SPA.

John

Well said Yoland, and no fear trying new things. Fortunately technology allows us to add things not on stone tablets anymore (although Postnuke comes close ). If something causes problems we can always remove it.

We can tread carefully.