Custom flight

Hi James,

Yes, this is easy to do. Just pick a flight number designation not used for one of our scheduled or Special Operations flights and file your flight using that number. As far as I know there are no flight number syntax limitations (other than, perhaps, length), so use something it will be easy for you to understand/remember. Back in 2014 when I was developing a new Cat V schedule for the MSP Hub Schedule, I flew a series of flights in a Boeing 737-800, nominally to test out various proposed routes for the schedule, but really just to give me something interesting to do. So I numbered and filed these flights as 15X1, 15X2, … The 1 designates the MSP Hub, the 5 designates a Cat V flight, the X designates "experimental" and the last digit(s) are just the numerical sequence of my test flights.

To put this simply, our system would log "a ham sandwich". The flight logging system in our base VAHQ or SPAACARS system only takes action based on your flight number if that number corresponds to an assigned flight (it removes that flight from your assignments), or a special group of flights, such as our Econ flights. So, as long as you stay clear of those numbers, the flight number designation you choose doesn't matter.

Hope this helps.

Mike

No problem Oswald. Those flight designators should work.

Mike

I might suggest that a singular flight number be used by all pilots for all custom flights. Otherwise, it becomes increasingly difficult to identify flight numbers and patterns in the database - especially for special flights like Econ flights and Adventure Pack flights that have automated award icons or automated tallying and flight assignments like the Econ flights. There are already too many ad-hoc flight number creations over the years that it is now necessary to do some "house cleaning" of old flight numbers on the back end to ensure no conflicts with the current "scheduled" flights.

I had earlier suggested that pilots use the "9ONLINE" flight number because it was the only authorized, pilot-customized flight number that I could find in the rules or in Yoland's Bush Ops. The fact that noone might be joining you - or that it might not actually be an on-line flight didn't impact our data handling or record keeping. A similar number could be designated for pilot customized flights.

John<br /><br /><!-- editby --><br /><br /><em>edited by: jer029, Jun 09, 2019 - 04:53 PM</em><!-- end editby -->