The Pros And Cons Of Being A New Virtual Airline Part II

By David Zaleski (27 March 2006)

On March 1, 2006 I submitted an article to FlightSim.Com on the title "The Pros And Cons Of Being A New Virtual Airline". I didn't provide any link to Business Class Express. I'm not going to now. I did receive quite a few emails requesting more information about the program and a thank you for the article itself. I would like to share some of the issues I have addressed at BCe. The vpilot as I mentioned previously is the heart and soul of a virtual airline (VA). Keeping him or her excited about being a member of your VA takes a lot of work. Ignoring the vpilot will cost you.

People who join a virtual airline do so for many reasons. Different people want different features. Some want it to be "As real as it gets" and others want to keep thing simple.

There are those who don't mind the extensive training required before they can fly anything serious, others would be content with a check ride or preferably no training. There are those that join a virtual airline with the hope they can fly everything available, maybe getting into management. Different strokes for different folks. But what you need to remember above all is that it is a game and nothing more then a game. It is not a real job, no one is getting paid to do what they do and everyone at some point is transitory, if they're not happy they will move on.

When you find you're getting reprimanded for your lack of performance and you are threatened to be fired by some over zealous vmanager it's time for you to move on and find a fun VA. One that satisfies your demeanor.

We the hard core simmer want purpose to the use of our FS98 ~ FS2004. The VA is a medium that allows us to fly all our freeware aircraft we downloaded from FlightSim.Com and to justify the money we spent on all those payware aircraft we have in our inventory. Try and convince your wife how you are justifying the expense of those un-intangible binary aircraft plastered all over your credit card. But we guys love our airplanes. Hey honey check out the doors on this aircraft, look how they fold into the fuselage and she looks at you with the same excitement she has when doing the laundry. Or you are on final and just passed over the middle marker and a voice behind you says "honey can you do me a favor please"; you get my point.

You the owner or owners of a VA, listen to the vpilot. Treating him or her with contempt is not going to win you friends but you may influence enemies. The vpilot is doing you a favor by choosing your VA to fly with so you need to treat that person with the same respect you would treat someone working for you in the real world, for free.

Previously I mentioned the VA's that emulate their real world counterparts. If you plan to build a VA, do yourself a favor. Don't be going to the web site of the real world carrier and start stealing images and other information to post on your web site and be stupid enough to advertise that VA on the web. Be creative and build your own program. Business Class Express is a fictitious regional airline. I don't have to worry about being politically correct. BCe is evolving around its members, their ideas and feedback, not to mention their participation in its overall development. BCe has one aircraft type and it is a top of the line freeware version of the ERJ-145 found in the library here at FlightSim.Com. There are those that are using the FeelThere ERJ - 145 (payware version). We are presently working on a repaint for this version.

Don't take yourself to seriously. I realize a lot of work goes into building the web site to house your VA and some are far more involved then others. But unless you treat the vpilot with respect (he or she is a hard commodity these days) they will move on. Why are they a hard commodity? Back in the mid to late 1990's the virtual airline was in its prime--there weren't enough virtual airlines and vpilots were in abundance. Now the table has turned. The virtual airline has saturated the market and vpilots are few, vpilots consequently started going into vbusiness for themselves because they were being neglected and treated as insignificant entities. Many virtual airlines were and still are abandoned on the web and listing sites. Listing hosts grew weary of policing the virtual airline web sites and today you find very few that host a VA without a lot of scrutiny.

I was asked by a new member what inspired the article? I believe the VA industry is and has always been very significant with flight simulation. Microsoft made it possible and I won't get into the history of the sim. Everything you download or purchase today was inspired by the needs of the VA. The people and the creativity of the founders of this industry we owe a debt of gratitude for their contribution. Today's sophisticated VA particularly the ones legally emulating their real world counterparts are caught between a rock and a hard place. Many are flying the payware models so unless your fleet includes something in the pilots inventory the don't want to download the lesser freeware version. It is my ambition and personal drive to breathe life back into the virtual airline to thank that vpilot for their contribution and provide and help provide a program they can have fun with, to inspire those who presently own and run a VA to either put their heart into it and make it work or get out.

In closing, there are those that feel that flight simulation can make it without the VA. Guess what, you're wrong. You shut out the VA you loose the purpose.

David Zaleski
Business Class Express
Businessclassva@aol.com

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