EuroHarmony and IVAO 2013

[EHM-2832 Tomi]

Hey guys,

Back in the day (May 2013) I joined EuroHarmony as an offline pilot, happy and convinced enough with my MSFS addon, Radar Contact. But then I joined IVAO, where human pilots meet human controllers, following published ICAO procedures, delivering a whole further level of realism to flying experience only achieved by online flying. Early enough though, I realized that EHM's livery was for some reason missing from the IVAO MTL, although the callsign was still valid and correctly associated both in IvAc and on WebEye as EuroHarmony, and furthermore, EHM's liveries were also on the catalog, but no longer in the installable library.

Going through the EHM forums I've found a post according to which EHM's IVAO membership as a VA was revoked for not enough active registered pilots, which was from 2012...I also asked around on the IVAO forums, according to whom even EHM's callsign was already removed, only the mentioned software work with the old catalog still.

Nevertheless, that got me down enough, suddenly delivering the first ever negative impression I've ever had since the day I joined EuroHarmony. I love the fleet (especially the ability to use my much loved PMDG a/c with EHM), and the routes too, covering and even directly connecting several of my favorite European airports together. So here's my real question: since EHM is still an active airline, what happened to our online backbone? Is the airline today more focused on VATSIM, or rather flying offline? I understand that IVAO is a difficult world with far stricter expections, but -- according to the airline history -- once we did it, is there a chance that we ever will again?

Lastly, I believe my post may have gone a little bit more off-topic than I meant it to be, I'd just like to know if it's still worthwhile to fly the EHM callsign on IVAO.

P.S. I understand online flying is not a requirement at EuroHarmony and I am not trying to influence anyone into anything, I am just driven by curiosity and a touch of sadness to get a view on what happened to something that once, at least for a while, used to work.

P.P.S. To anyone else still flying EHM on IVAO, my greetings to those of you (also, my greetings to everyone taking the while to look at, and, maybe, answer on my topic)!

Thanks in advance for any positive answer.

[EHM-1465 Dominic]

Hi Tomi,

You raise an interesting question and one that has been debated a lot behind the scenes among the Management Team. The short answer is that there are not enough EHM pilots who fly regularly online on the IVAO network for us to maintain our VA status there. There are many possible reasons for that - lower pilot numbers than in years gone by, lack of confidence among those who have not flown online before to try it, lack of active MT encouragement through lack of time and personnel to push this area of activity...

We do have some online pilots and I'm sure you'll have seen arrangements to do group flights on the Forum, often for our Events.

We did ask the membership a while back if any pilot here wanted to take a leading role to encourage other pilots to try out online flying or return to it if they'd moved away but there was nobody in a position to take this on with the energy and time needed to take it forward. If you have the time and enthusiasm you might be able to encourage others to join you on IVAO in our colours - what do you think?

[EHM-2832 Tomi]

Hi Dominic,

Certainly I would be more than willing to take the effort to bring us back online. I think it would be worthwhile to conduct a survey (unfortunately I am not much on my own but if we could get some of us willing to participate then we are already one step forward), and then maybe organize some sort of training for our members to get them familiar with the principals of flying online the IVAO way - which, up to as far as my own life allows me, I'd willingly take on my back.

[EHM-1465 Dominic]

That's great news Tomi

I'll send you an e-mail to give you a better idea of where we're at currently and you can let me know what kind of plans you think would work best, ok?

[EHM-2832 Tomi]

Ok thanks, looking forward to coordinate with you and it's my pleasure to give a hand for the future of this great airline!

[EHM-2387 Eric-Jan]

Great to read about this initiative, Tomi 
Very much willing to contribute to any such plans, as I get back from holidays next week. Although,... I have just further limited my already little time available by entering in Real Life PPL theory classes, starting next week ... Let's see how I can contribute.

[EHM-2832 Tomi]

Good for you! Wish I had the money to enroll on PPL courses myself , though I just failed my IVAO-PrivatePilot theoritical yesterday Good luck btw
Back to topic, any amount of contribution will be great and certainly appreciated My motto is, one step forward is already forward!

[EHM-2832 Tomi]

On August11th we've had a great joint event on IVAO by the HU-FR divisions, becoming real as a Budapest-Paris airbridge, about which one of our pilots made a wonderful record, available here:

[HU-FR] IVAO Air Bridge Budapest - Paris 2013. August 11.

[credits to Adam at IVAO-HU]
If I were a new pilot and saw a video like this, I'd surely want to try it out for myself seeing all the planes gathering and pilots talking to ATC by all own voice.

P.S. No intention of advertising or anything behind this post, just wanted to show what we at IVAO are capable of doing

[EHM-2387 Eric-Jan]

Where is that "like" button, when you really need it 

[EHM-2387 Eric-Jan]

On the other hand, I must say that for those that are still feeling insecure for stepping in to the world of experienced pilots and ATC, this may just confirm their "fears" of "I could not pull this off", or alike. For those peaple: rest asured, there are far more "quiet" areas around the world, which are very "starter friendly".
I personally had a lot of help from the Dutch Antilles (AN) division, but I'm sure there are more "friendlies" around. I expect Indonesia, and French Polynesia to be amongst those too. The Hungarian division has a tradition of being both professional, and understanding to starters, too.
If you are considering starting to fly online: pick a not-too-busy airport, study the charts, and connect a couple of times as an observer. Then, once you get a little feel for the lingo, connect as a pilot, and add "/RMK newbie" to your section 18 of your flightplan. You will be amazed by the amount of help you'll get from a controller

[EHM-1392 Justin]

Tomi, great topic and I understand your concerns. I also hope Euroharmony will regain its pilot count and people take up online flying. Rest assured, flying on IVAO is not as daunting as it seems. Immediately you will have a feeling of accomplishment and after a couple of sessions you will feel much more confident. Even though I can feel some nerves after some weeks pass without flying online, after a few handoffs the nerves go away. Few more tips:
- pick an aircraft with an FMC and autopilot you are very comfortable with, preferably a 'simpler' aircraft, so you can easily follow ATC instructions.
- don't hesitate to state that you're a newbie
- many procedures only occur rarely, such as GPS, NDB or LOC/DME approaches, holding patterns and so forth, so you don't have to study them exhaustively
- fly from familiar or simple airports so you know what to expect in terms of taxiways, runways and gates
- go online at less busy times, such as weekday mornings and afternoons
- test your microphone well and more importantly, make sure you can hear the average ATC transmission (I find Squawkbox for VATSIM terrible!)
- make use of the text function if you are daunted by voice operations. Even though most pilots use teamspeak, communicating over text is completely accepted. After a while you may find that voice comms is much easier, leaving you with more time to set up for approach or landing and such things
- if you don't know how to reply, say 'standby' and work out your readback
- use pen and paper to jot down all instructions so you don't forget them. Be prepared for notes especially during arrival. It also helps to have all the charts ready on you PDF software.
- if you are looking for friendly, welcoming controllers, stay on IVAO

IVAO or VATSIM really adds another dimension. I tried flying offline with AI traffic and AI ATC, but it's simply not the same.

[EHM-2832 Tomi]

Tomi, great topic and I understand your concerns. I also hope Euroharmony will regain its pilot count and people take up online flying. Rest assured, flying on IVAO is not as daunting as it seems. Immediately you will have a feeling of accomplishment and after a couple of sessions you will feel much more confident. Even though I can feel some nerves after some weeks pass without flying online, after a few handoffs the nerves go away. Few more tips:
- pick an aircraft with an FMC and autopilot you are very comfortable with, preferably a 'simpler' aircraft, so you can easily follow ATC instructions.
- don't hesitate to state that you're a newbie
- many procedures only occur rarely, such as GPS, NDB or LOC/DME approaches, holding patterns and so forth, so you don't have to study them exhaustively
- fly from familiar or simple airports so you know what to expect in terms of taxiways, runways and gates
- go online at less busy times, such as weekday mornings and afternoons
- test your microphone well and more importantly, make sure you can hear the average ATC transmission (I find Squawkbox for VATSIM terrible!)
- make use of the text function if you are daunted by voice operations. Even though most pilots use teamspeak, communicating over text is completely accepted. After a while you may find that voice comms is much easier, leaving you with more time to set up for approach or landing and such things
- if you don't know how to reply, say 'standby' and work out your readback
- use pen and paper to jot down all instructions so you don't forget them. Be prepared for notes especially during arrival. It also helps to have all the charts ready on you PDF software.
- if you are looking for friendly, welcoming controllers, stay on IVAO

IVAO or VATSIM really adds another dimension. I tried flying offline with AI traffic and AI ATC, but it's simply not the same.

+1! Absolutely agree with the above stated. I would like to add a few more points to the list:
- Addon Scenery. Not sure about FSX, but FS9's generic airport textures are simply horrible, but more importantly, severely outdated. For instance with EHAM you'll find 01L(=36C) and 01R(=36R) in default scenery, and I had the luck to end up with controllers getting all nervous when I couldn't identify rwy36L, which in fact is a newly built runway; similarly in LSZH often 28 is in use, which is not in the FS9 def scnry either. To make sure what you read out of your charts will match what you actually see in FS (and what ATC will see on his radar!), keeping your scenery current is recommended.
- Navdata/AIRAC. Again not sure about FSX, but from FS9 default Garmin GPS, 98% of waypoints used in SIDs/STARs are missing, and without them your head will smoke by the time you manage to put together a valid IFR FPL. FMC was also mentioned above, but it also needs the latest AIRAC cycle to navigate as you (and ATC, too) expect it to do so. Unfortunately the official Navdata vendor has gone payware lately.., but one subscription is enough to get yourself updated for once, and you'll be happily flying with that for a good while (I've seen people around with Cycle 1306, personally I go with 1308, the latest is 1309).
- Approaches. Most of the time ATC will either tell you to fly according to a specific Standard Instrument Approach Procedure, or give you vectors for ILS. If you are not 101% clear on what you have been requested of, don't hesitate to use say again, or unable to comply. Remember, you as pilot are the first and last authority to the safe operation of your own aircraft, and while ATC is there to provide safety, he can't see out of your cockpit!
- Departures. If you are not too familiar with the area, request text clearances. I many times ran into the "Cleared to XXXX via the [whatdidhesay??] departure" on voice
- If you (or a friend) are able to afford aircraft such as PMDG, I can only recommend it. Flying with fully featured FMC/LNAV/VNAV/TCAS/etc and highly realistic gauges, flying can be a true heaven. You will also find yourself suddenly much more able to comply with instructions such as >>proceed direct (waypoint)<<.
- As already mentioned above, don't be afraid to add RMK/NEWBIE to your flight plan. IVAO is a largely friendly community and we certainly won't eat you, remember nobody was born as an Instructor Pilot!

Thanks for your comment Justin, I also hope if newbies learn that we also were newbies a day and once they get the gist of it it's suddenly not even as scary as it seems by first look, EHM will indeed take up online flying more once again and re-gain it's old shine in the worldwide online community!

[EHM-2758 Peter]

This is a copy from the message in "Flight Reports"

Had to catchup a leg of the Dakar Rally last evening as I mentioned before and fortunately Trevor joined me for the 289nm from Potisi (SLPO) to El Loa (SCCF). No VOR's or NDB's to rely on, just a straight forward VFR-flight over a high mountainous area of Chile. Mumble failed occasionally and did disturb our very pleasant conversation. The more reason to plea for a reinstallation of an Euroharmony Company Channel on IVAO. One of the topics, by the way, that Trevor and I discussed during the flight, without forgetting to monitor the movemets of the Beechcraft 1900D. Both of us has followed the discussion on the forum that EHM should take up online flying again and agreed that, despite of the hugh amount of information, which is necessary to absorb before going online, we still are missing active contribution from our pilots.

Perhaps , and I volunteer to make a start, we can extend the discussion by suggesting practical proposals that will promote online flying:

- a visible registration of online flights, put on a prominent spot on the website;
- an online tour; to gain an award, one has to fly the legs online;
- an every week online special;
- an every month online trainings session (f.i. VFR-flying and ATC - SID & STARS and ATC);
- regular reports (tekst/screenshots/film) of online flights;

I hope some of you will add some more suggestions to this list and hopefully this will lead to some practical implementations!

Meet you all online!

Peter

[EHM-2589 David]

Nice topic Tomi and first of I really like to fly planes, I mean with my limitations only FS9 or FSX simulator. Before a couple of years I only flew with AI and it was a nice experience. But deep down I was looking for something new or more exciting, something “as real as it gets”, and I hit upon the life of VA and I’ve the luck to come across EHM, my first and only love for the moment  

Then step by step I get lots of information about Pro pilot and little by little some information about flying online and it makes my skin crawls, because after reading some manuals from our VA, then IVAO and VATSIM…

I make a decision to join IVAO and a new life was started in this hobby in 2010 then I join VATSIM in 2011. I practice, practice and practice and right now and day to day I still learn new things. I mean I'm only advanced student by IVAO (AFS 3888 hours and 58 minutes, flown. And my remarks always: RMK/TCAS EQUIPPED/NEWBIE/FIRST TIME WITH VOICE/FS9/FSPAX/STEP CLIMB/ and no problems with ATC of course  ) and pilot observer in VATSIM (PO Hours Pilot 841:39), but to tell you the truth flying online is another way to practice my favourite hobby, because I’ve the opportunity to chat with other people and first of all with my mates from EHM and sharing with the ATC if I’ve minutes before departure or after landing, and flying online is as I said before “as real as it gets”.

I really encourage all of my partners in EHM VA to join us by IVAO or VATSIM and after some days you won’t regret this very important change in this hobby.

My purpose is only trying to share my little experience about flying online.

See you in the skies guys and many happy landings  

[EHM-1546 Nuno Santos]

I fly online all the time and honestly I can't imagine myself flying offline ever again. Once you taste online flight you will never look back. Most of the time I fly on IVAO but sometimes VATSIM too. I prefer IVAO because of the pilot's software, amount of traffic and ATC in Europe and voice quality from most pilots/controllers. On VATSIM most of the times it's very hard to figure out what a controller's saying if he speaks too fast because the sound quality is usually awful.

So everytime I am online with my EHM callsign I go on the Webeye and search for other EHM callsigns. I've seen a few flying on IVAO so my suggestion is maybe we can start sending a PM to other EHM pilots everytime we spot one, even if only just to say "I wish you a nice flight". That gives a sense of community, you feel you are not "alone" as there are other people from your VA flying on the network.

I'm also a controller at IVAO, so if you are a newbie or feel unconfortable with all this online thing feel free to park your favorite aircraft in one of Ireland's airports and I will help you out on your first steps. I am not there controlling everyday but you can find me doing Shannon Control (EISN_CTR) quite often, mainly in the afternoons, so if you find me there feel free to connect with your EHM callsign and I'll be more than happy to guide you through your first steps.

[EHM-2589 David]

Strange or real... still EHM on IVAO MTL - Catalog
http://www.aircraftdispatch.net/mtlcatalog/index2.php?mtl=home&company=1543