ProPilot Return Flights

[EHM-1570 Bruce]

I don't know how other pilots feel about this little moan. Pilots are flying aircraft out of the various hubs and not returning to the hubs, this is fine if you are flying a round robin flight, because you lock the next flight straight away. However there are a large number of flights that are not round robin, and consequently aircraft are scattered all over Europe, and they remain there for weeks. It is very frustrating when you decide you want to fly a particular aircraft (in ProPilot), you go to lock the flight and non of these aircraft are available, they are all over the place, you can only retrieve an aircraft by waiting 24Hrs. As  we try to make things as real as possible, an Airline with aircraft on the ground for weeks would very quickly go broke. Is there a way to return aircraft to their respective hubs if they have not moved for a particular length of time (ghost ferry pilots).

[EHM-1651 Christian]

I'm in with you this one:>

[EHM-1703 Philip]

I must admit Bruce, I seem to spend my life picking planes up from outlying airports and flying them to my hub. I have noticed just lately that the fleet is getting spread around, maybe we are getting near to the time for another fleet injection to replace some of our lost planes as a few of us have noticed that the 737's and A320's are getting a bit thin on the ground. (Hint )

[EHM-1670 Bill]

What we need is a ferry pilot.

[EHM-0948 Bruno]

Hi Bruce,

Can you give us an example of an airplane who is stalled on an airport without possible flights ?

We have a script who checks that and I think that now we have all the aircrafts on airports that have at least one possible flight to be done.

We cannot automatically move airplanes like you said, Bruce. It would broke the concept of this idea. Airplanes only move when someone moves them.

About the airplane injection, we are already preparing one.

Regards,

[EHM-1570 Bruce]

Hi Bruno

The issue I was pointing out is not a problem with Propilot, Propilot is working as it should, the issue is with pilots who fly an aircraft out of a hub and leave the aircraft at some remote airport. In order to retrieve the aircraft any other pilot will have to wait 24Hrs if they wish to fly the aircraft in ProPilot, also the pilot leaving the aircraft at the remote airport cannot himself use ProPilot for 24Hrs. I find it hard to understand why a pilot would want to do this.

[EHM-1703 Philip]

Maybe they only fly at the weekends Bruce

[EHM-0948 Bruno]

Hi Bruce,

The travel mode works only for the pilot.
I mean, if you do a flight, and you want to do the next one starting on a different airport, you need to wait 24h to travel to that airport. That's why you cannot fly the next flight immediately.
Do you know, in real life, a pilot that is in Luanda, and in the next second, starts a flight in Tokyo ?

Now, a different thing (and this could be a non-detected bug) is when another pilot, that is not on travel mode, wants to grab an airplane that just arrived at an airport, and the system doesn't allow it.
I am going to test the second situation and if it exists, we will correct it.

Regards,

[EHM-2089 Vincent]

I was also looking at the same problem. I flew from LSZH to LIMF, got promoted, so wanted to fly a bigger plane on Class 2, but I dont want to do it because my B1900 will be stranded in LIMF then.

I think we should have a policy in place, where we have a rule which says that, you can fly a good flight around various airports, but the plane should be returned to the hub before you try and fly some other plane either due to promotion. Ofcourse you can leave it back, if you are acting like a ferry pilot, to bring planes to particular airports ....

Thats my view, so I am going to fly my B1900 back to LSZH and then go on to a higher plane, than leave my plane lying in LIMF, unless I have ferry pilots.

The main policy I feel is that that EHM should encourage pilots to fly a clean league, where the flight started from a particular airport/HUB should be returned back before flying anew ...

what say??

[EHM-1821 Javier]

Having round routes is a good idea, i personally spend most PP flights flying planes back to hubs :s

[EHM-0948 Bruno]

Hi,

The ProPilot concept was based on a real airplane movement idea.
So, in this case, when you fly with an aircraft to an airport, we should assure that there is a return flight compatible with the same airplane. Not for the pilot class, not for the flight class.

So, we can't implement that approach because if so we de-virtualize our main guideline that, for us, it makes all sense.

Still, we are always open to ideas to improve the current approach in order to enrich our "beloved" system .

[EHM-1671 Ben]

I try to return aircraft to the hub they started at whenever possible, the entire fun of ProPilot is making the round-robbin routes (kind of like your own customized miniature tour) and maybe pilots could make it a point of simple courtesy to return aircraft to the hub they started at? Before flying a flight pilots should make a consideration whether or not they will be able to return it to the hub. Waiting 24 hours to fly the flight you want isn't the intended purpose of PP