Online Spies!

[EHM-2758 Peter]

Monday, sept. 11th 2012: 19:00 GMT

What a magnificent sight on Webeye or Dolomynum as four Euroharmony planes approach Venice on leg 19 of the 007 Event: 50 years of James Bond.  EHM2589-David was the first to hit runway 04R of LIPZ, followed by EHM2758-Peter and EHM1889-Gian and last EHM1882-Trevor.

What a pity that we had to communicate by chatbox, which caused problems several times and not via an Euroharmony Company Channel. What a pity that we had to choose a different plane on IVAP to be recognized as an Euroharmony plane or just fly a A318 Elite of Air France or Easyjet , because there are no EHM-MTL planes. What a pity that we cannot promote our airline by showing off online with our beautiful colours. What a pity that so few EHM-pilots fly online.

Still... we had a lot of fun yesterday!

IT'S FUN FLYING ONLINE TOGETHER!

Peter

[EHM-1465 Dominic]

Nice to see you guys had a great flight together Peter

You're right that it's a pity we don't have more online activity, whether on IVAO or VATSIM. I think many pilots can be initially put off online flying by the learning curve and/or the idea of making a fool of themselves. One way to combat this would be for experienced online flyers to help them overcome their fears by showing how easy and enjoyable it can be - perhaps start off with some screenshots of an online flight like the one last night with a commentary indicating what happened at different stages? This could help newbies to see that its worth trying out

[EHM-2758 Peter]

How do we get more pilots online? That's the question! I've made some effort to contribute to a possible solution in one of the forum items with the following:

 - If I may, I would like to make a suggestion:

If those pilots who are experienced online flyers, would consider to offer themselves as a kind of buddy for those who want to go online but hesitate for any reason?
There's a simple and safe method of flying together: Teamviewer is a piece of free obtainable software that makes it possible to monitor each others screen! Protected by password an ATC-newbie can give permission to an experienced onliner to witness his flying and assist him step by step.

Think it over and respond! -

.....

Only David did respond unfortunately!

Peter

[EHM-1829 Trevor]

 

 
     I have to say, it was great having a  group flight, and a barrel of laughs was had by all.

     I agree with you Peter, it's a pity that we have got to this level. One flight now and again is all it takes to get us back up and
     running with IVAO; (even if it's only from (EGEW to EGEP)  .

     TeamViewer; it's a very useful tool and the password PIN is changed each time you use it, so it's reasonably secure.

     Dominic, would it be possible to establish a list of all pilots that are committed to flying on-line. The list becomes obscure when in the forum.  
 
     Cheers
     T  
    

[EHM-1838 Andrew]

Hello All
I used to fly on-line years ago with a VA called Livewire airlines.I did used to enjoy it ,however there were performance issues when a lot of members were online (much lagging etc etc)there were also problems with the connections going down and all the hassle of trying to reconnect to re join the session ,eventually I gave up as it all felt rather crude in operation.
What I did like about Livewire was there emphasis on fun ,and although initially I felt very self-concious about talking into a mike and also  worrying about getting the procedures right ,I did soon get into it ,and wasn't booted off if i didn't always get things right .
I am talking at least six years ago now ,so perhaps the on-line experience is better these days and if that is the case I might possibly tempted to try again.
cheers from Lima Alpha 2783 (my Livewire ID at the time)

[EHM-2758 Peter]

Good to read your experiences with online flying, Andrew, despite of the fact that it has been a view years ago. Has the online-community changed since? I don't think so: still there are a lot of pilots (at this moment online 655 on IVAO and  426 on VATSIM) who all made there first step online and experienced the same problems as you did six years ago and probably still do. If I go back to my first experience online, a lot of years ago, after I finally had conquered the problems how to get online, I had no idea how to behave and when I was called by a controller on one of the bussiest airports (Schiphol) to 'state my message'. I paniced and disconnected immedeately. Only after several months of building up enough courage and studying several tutorials, I tried again, somewhere in Africa, where I hoped to avoid ATC. The controller, who wasn't too busy, did a great job: he helped me through the procedures and - what's more important - gave me enough confidence to get online the next time. A few things he mentioned were very important: all controllers are active flyers too, so they know what it is to be a newbie; online flying tries to get as close to reality as possible, but... we are and stay simmers; it's a hobby and the purpose of it all is to have fun.

I'm flying online now for, I think, 12 years. I'm still learning and the only way to get more experienced is to keep on flying online. And, of course, with the help from controllers and as far as I'm concerned with the help from our Euroharmony colleagues.

I hope to meet yo soon online!

Peter