New Multiplayer Flight

Sounds great Oswald, If you fill the tanks, you may not need to refuel, as we will only get through a few of the stops during the 1.5 to 2.0 hour flight time I have planned. Like I said, we can plan our stopping point "on the fly" as they say - depending on the number of participants and general speed of planes and things.

Note to all pilots, you can use ACARS to record the flight (or manually if you choose), but don't use Econ Mode in SPAACARS or it will stop after your first landing and file your pirep. By turning off Econ Mode, you can probably fly the entire flight and then send it as one pirep with the push of the Send Button. Also - fueling up as much as possible without exceeding weight limits, will make for longer flights. If you're one of the early planes to land, you can refuel as the others land. We generally line up behind each other and take off one after the other, announce takeoff and wheels up so the next plane can go. When landing we land one after the other. This can sometimes get crowded with planes not always seeing each other. For this reason, it's a good idea to turn off Crash Detection in your simulator's realism mode so you don't have your system reset after an inadvertent bump by another pilot.

Larry, our SOP manager, will probably organize the takeoffs. Landings are called out as pilots arrive at the next airport. Generally we try and line up in the order we landed for the next takeoff, that way the next order is easier too. Be prepared to turn off real world weather because we want to see each other and the nice scenery and not be flying around blind for this flight. Slower planes may be asked to touch and go or continue on to the next airport to catch up ( we do allow accelerated sim rate to catch up with the other fliers for late arrivals or those who had technical problems during or before the flight). Just ask on team speak and Larry will give you the current airport.

For preparation, it might be in worth creating a flight plan for your GPS with the Caribbean Tour airports (I would add the first 10 stops, although we'll be lucky to get farther than the 6th airport on the list I'm guessing). This is in addition to making sure your plane and sim are ready in time for takeoff and that your voice and multiplayer apps are behaving properly.

Lastly, again a reminder that this is for non-pilot types, so don't worry about knowing ATC jargon. We fly very informally and do lots of friendly chatter between takeoffs and landings. During takeoffs and landings we need to reserve some airtime for pilots to coordinate takeoff and landings.

We generally don't worry about red-lining our engines to keep up with other pilots, so you purists might want to adjust your realism settings if your plane is prone to engine fire if you exceed 160 Kts. Again - you can fly as you want, but if we drop below 160 Kts. then the rest of the group will be waiting too long for slower pilots unless they occasionally speed up the sim, do touch and go, or flyover one of the stops.

Hope this makes sense to everyone. It's meant to be a fun time of socializing a bit and getting to know your fellow pilots here at SPA. Neither Larry or I are actual pilots, and I failed a Radio Check on Vatsim, so we won't be using ATC protocol, just informal banter and letting people know when we're taking off. We generally use pilot numbers or names if we recognize each other. For example, I'll say "St. Paul 534 lined up and waiting or holding short", "534 rolling" , "534 clear of the runway - left departure", "534 has the field in sight for runway 34", "534 on short final", "534 clear of the runway". That pretty much covers the necessary traffic control communication with other pilots.

Have your plane label information set to your Pilot number in JoinFS as that will help other pilots identify and speak to you.

If I missed anything or you have more questions or want help with something, feel free to post them here or email me.

John<br /><br /><!-- editby --><br /><br /><em>edited by: jer029, Apr 03, 2020 - 01:18 PM</em><!-- end editby -->

Thanks to you and your fellow truckers Paul - everyone is appreciating what you do a bit more today. There is a teamspeak app, but I've not tested it.

Stay safe, and perhaps we'll have a future flight on one of your home days.

John

<span >Larry has created a FSX/P3d plan pilots can download and use for this multiplayer flight if they don't wish to manually enter waypoints or create a flight plan of their own:</span><br ><br ><a href="index.php?name=Downloads&amp;req=getit&amp;lid=158" target="_blank">CaribbeanFlightPlan for FSX P3d</a><br ><br ><span >John</span>