CARGO ECON REMATCH :)

Hah James,

Interesting suggestion, and something I never considered. My initial thoughts are to leave that alone and move on to new and other challenges. That way others can try what you've already completed, yet you can start again on an entirely new group of flights. There's also some thoughts about changing some things in the current cost/revenue model for future "flight groups" so there might be new challenges, yet those previous flights groups would fly under the original cost/revenue model so that all pilots flying that group are flying with the same revenue model.

Right now there are the 3 "centers" established by Yoland, each with their own group of flights. I intend to have additional "groups" added to each center, but have yet to invest any time with additions. My plan is that each time you start a new "group" of flights for a center, you get a 'fresh start' - just as you do now with the different center's group flight. This way you get to start 'afresh' each time you start a new group of flights, regardless of the center. This will give you some added challenge of new airports and scenery, approaches, terrain, etc.

My apologies for not being more active in flying and updating these things, but I've been working on a personal program I wanted to complete, and did some updating to the Awards Page (manual awards) and the necessary database update and menu-driven access so that our Hub Managers can create their own awards and issue them to their pilots without webmaster assistance or additional code writing to implement. This is now completed and the awards fall into the two categories of "Service Awards" and "Hub Awards". Currently the only Service Awards is for "Distinguish Service", which is the only award that I've brought forward from our old awards page for SPA pilots who have distinguished themselves in service to SPA in its 14-year history. Currently there are no "Hub Awards" - but that option is now available for our Hub Managers. Additionally, I had to fix some things so that the hub managers can manually add additional flights to their hub's flight schedules - again, without additional webmaster assistance or additional programming.

While I know that pilots have mixed feelings about awards, but I think it's a good thing in that it allows both current pilots and visitors to our VA to see the accomplishments of our pilots (not only in their flying activity - which is vital to the continued health of SPA, but to those who have contributed additional time and talent to keep things exciting and relevant here at SPA).

Sorry if I got side-tracked on a tangent here, but it explains my prolonged absence from visible changes and improvements for a while.

Lastly, I have to admit that, with the increased challenge of the Econ flights, I can no longer just "jump in my plane and go", as I really sense the increased gravity of the flight I'm undertaking. Since I've been away from my CRJ700 for a while now, I will probably want to make a "familiarization flight" with it first before flying my next Econ flight I'm scheduled for.

So...those are my thoughts, but I'll certainly consider the desires of the active pilots of SPA and the rest of the management team to make any final decisions.

For now, enjoy the rest of the Econ center flights. Each center has it's own flight group, a fresh start, and some new scenery and challenges.

John<br /><br /><!-- editby --><br /><br /><em>edited by: jer029, Feb 04, 2018 - 09:22 PM</em><!-- end editby -->

I think that should be the motto for our Econ Flights: "It's more fun when it counts".

Mike