 |
|
|
|
|
I happen to be the owner of the VA that Ed Davis' op-ed tried to be very discrete in not mentioning by name. I wasn't aware of it until I got an influx of several new members couldn't for the life of me understand where these people were coming from until it was brought to my attention by asking these people.
Having spent some time at the forums, I agree with everyone's opinion on the subject of the virtual airline. I agree that back in the day it was a lot more fun than it is today. I agree to the right of choice and diversification, structure, ego minded management attempting to emulate a real world business structure. I agree a VA owner has a right to run his organization as he pleases but that isn't going to make he or she immune from the critics. And the critics are the vast number of virtual pilots that want to fly for a good organization but are not able to find a program that is tolerant and flexible based on the time constraints of real world obligations. Why is that? Simple, Ed Davis is correct about the lack of available virtual airline listings. He is correct in that abuse by a few over the years have turned off sites like FlightSim.Com and a host of others to hosting virtual airlines, this leaves less than a hand full of sites that do host and since VATSIM is one of the most popular sites has become the focus of this discussion.
Unless you know where to look and most virtual pilots don't know where to find a VA are as he said are left out in the cold. The choices are few the VA's are many.
Most of you remember when it was actually fun to fly for a good VA. Fun is a relative statement. To some of you it means acting out your fantasy to be in management at the expense of others, to others it is a hobby where you can chill out and do a little virtual flying and then there are the wannabee pilot trying to impress others they fly their flights on VATSIM "aren't I cool I'm just like a real pilot". But for the most part those who fly on the VATSIM Network or fly for a structured program do so because they enjoy that environment. So unless someone is going to make available a listing site for all quality virtual airlines and I use the term loosely as quality doesn't mean the sort of VA being discussed in the forums, there will always be this sort of flak.
I enjoy reading the articles presented here at FlightSim.Com and I enjoy the Outer Marker and other forums. I was really taken by the pro and con responses to Ed Davis' and Michael Talbot's op-ed. Does this mean there is a need for a Virtual Airline Revolution? Absolutely not. Everyone is entitled to their opinion. The VA I run is not a top flight program, what has made it appealing to many is its platform. You could consider it a lite virtual airline program catering to those who for the most part neither have the time or inclination to get involved in a heavily structures VA. But we are a mil style VA and it isn't going to appeal to the virtual commercial pilot. I read an interesting post at the Outer Marker by Kyle Ramsey of VATSIM that laid it all out. VATSIM has taken a lot of flak but I feel that it is misdirected frustration brought on by the lack of virtual airline hosting sites.
I want to share with you my experience with registering for the VATSIM partner program. Of the just under 60 members I have, only 16 including myself hold VATSIM ID's but enough to qualify. I was contacted by Kyle and we had several email exchanges only to find out not one of my members have ever flown a single flight on the VATSIM network. That was quite a revelation to me. But Kyle made an offer to help anyone on the roster to get started and help launch them using our callsign onto the network. The bottom line is you can't force anyone do make this jump, I haven't only because I don't have the nerve and secondly I'm running 64bit Vista and had an issue with software compatibility. The bottom line is, this VA will never qualify for the VATSIM Partner program, it is what it is, you can ace the ground school but if you're not willing to take the solo you're on your own. So for the critics of VATSIM, I found their extending themselves in this way to my program more than admirable and I appreciate their effort to help.
Virtual airlines like just about everything in life have evolved. The people who fly in this hobby are far more sophisticated today than they were when I got into this hobby in the early 90's with FS98. You cannot compare today's virtual airline with those of the past as there is a greater degree of "As real as it gets" that was not available back in the day. So for some of us old timers we need to be a little flexible and less critical to the change. We may not adapt with all the changes but we can find our nitch.
The heavily structured VA who rule with an iron fist are far fewer than you're lead to believe. A moderate program has some flexibility in their requirements but in all it is choice that dictates participation.
David Zaleski
dezaleski@optimum.net
Discuss this in the Outer Marker message forum
[ Back
| Home
| Main Menu
| Logout
]
Copyright © 1996 - 2012 by FlightSim.Com, Inc. All Rights Reserved.