Pilotedge: a new online network, beta has started

[mbvdlza]

Just worked my way through this thread. I saw PilotEdge but didn't notice what it was.

Coming from IVAO, this looks really refreshing, I will muster up some courage and check it out, if our timezones correlate in a way I can make it.

But ja, courage, that's usually the number 1 problem for me, and most people new to networks like these, not knowing what to expect for our lowly skill levels

Hope to check you out soon, and thx for keeping an update on the thread.

[Keith Smith]

Thanks. I suspect a number of people are in your boat. That's why I thought it would be helpful to provide some information that would help someone in your situation to conduct a simple flight on the network, armed with the information of what to do and say at each step of the way.

Assuming you're already with the basics of operating the airplane and basic navigation, the best way to dip your toe in the water would be to start with the PilotEdge Training Center.  This is a series of 3 VFR flights and 11 IFR flights which step you through a number of common scenarios.  Each flight has written material, sample ATC transcripts, and even an introductory video to help you get through the flight.

If you're in South Africa, the timezone will be certainly be an issue for our formal beta hours, however, we have been going a lot of staffing outside of those hours, too (on an informal basis).  After we fully launch, this won't be a problem as we'll have ATC coverage 15x7.  For now, though, if you try flying Mon-Fri between 10am-6pm EDT (GMT-4), you'll likely have coverage during your flight.

If you have any questions at all, don't hesitate to ask. I strongly suspect what whatever you're wondering will likely be on the minds of other pilots, too.

[Keith Smith]

Hi guys,

I'd like some feedback on the following idea. 

The network provides the best experience for a given pilot when the radio is relatively busy with other live traffic. The drone traffic does a great job of providing something to see during the flight, and the occasional traffic call from ATC, but they don't actually talk on the radio. I'm fairly sure that pilots enjoy the system quite a bit more when they know that other pilots are around.

I also understand that while real world pilots are generally quite happy to part with a modest monthly fee for a service like this (it can truly save them money on real world flight training, and helps them to stay sharp), the same is NOT true for most sim enthusiasts. It could never be argued that PilotEdge SAVES money for a sim enthusiast.  Hence, as good as the service might be, they are likely to be a highly INTERESTED, but PRICE RESISTANT audience.  That is, they might love what we offer, but not be willing to pay for it.

To that end, I'm considering the concept of a 'frequent flier' program, mainly aimed at the sim enthusiasts.  Their subscription will be waived for a given month if they are able to participate at a certain level during that month.  It will likely be an hourly minimum, with certain parameters around the flight (must be conducted out of a towered airport, and must maintain communication with ATC throughout the flight).

This would be a win-win for PE as it would provide a base level of real-time traffic that also has a radio presence, as well as the simple fact that pilots generally like to know that they are not alone in the system.  If we can have a certain number of these people flying on a relatively continuous basis, it will help the 'snowball' effect that we need for this venture to be successful on the retail side in the long term.  Traffic brings more traffic....but where do you get those first few planes to start the ball rolling?

This program might be the answer.  Thoughts?

[mbvdlza]

The plan sounds good indeed, and I can imagine how hard this must be for you to configure(the marketing balance). I would indeed support such a system, but don't let it bother you too much.

Some of my friends, and me of course, are what you refer to as sim enthusiasts, and while we aren't really loaded with infinite heaps of cash, none of us would have a problem paying for P.E. I pay for a few services that I shouldn't even be trying to fit into my budget. So don't worry too much about that, but explore this idea further definitely!

At this moment, as stated in my previous post, our(friends and my) hesistance stems mostly from the 'alienation' factor of time zones and cultural divide, and that's not your fault or problem, but something we must overcome on this side. Heck. we have been pondering flying in S.A using PE, even if there is no ATC coverage, the other advantages (fast updates, radio attenuation, etc) is worth it already.

I wish you luck in this difficult time, but I think PE will make it to the top eventually. 

[Keith Smith]

Thanks for feedback.

I completely understand your point about alienation.  I'd assumed most of the interest in this would be from domestic pilots, but if there is an international community that would be interested in flying, then PE should put together a "getting used to US airspace/procedures" primer to help people such as yourself get started. Thankfully, all of the required charts and plates are available online for free, which makes it very easy to navigate and conduct flight planning.

Regarding timezone, I assume you're not from from GMT.  The operating hours for ATC will likely be 1500z-0600z. I have to imagine that mid afternoon until early morning will be well-suited to most people in Europe/Africa.

So, with the time sorted out and the available procedures/tutorials, I'm hoping it will be a good fit for you to fly in our coverage area.  You could certainly fly in your local area if you wanted, too.

[UH-60 Blackhawk]

I do like the frequent flyer program, that could easily be the tipping point for me making my first flight with you.  One thing, due to VA routes, some pilots might not be able to meet some of the requirements, so you may go with meet 3 out of 4 of these or 8 out of 10.

[Dozer]

So... we'd pay to join PilotEdge, then essentially be paid back by PilotEdge if we fly often enough? (Assuming we're all reasonably competent or at least less incompetent than real PPLs can be...)

I rather like the idea. It seems completely bizarre to pay for a service that would benefit from me using it, but I understand how it works and it does make a very pleasing kind of sense.

I've been meaning to try PilotEdge for a while now but haven't had the opportunity. Is it still open to the unwashed public for free?

[michelebk117]

I would not mind to pay for the service if indeed work well as I am sure it does.

Still, it is great to have an option and be able to use the service and not to pay for it.

A win win situation indeed.

[Keith Smith]

So... we'd pay to join PilotEdge, then essentially be paid back by PilotEdge if we fly often enough? (Assuming we're all reasonably competent or at least less incompetent than real PPLs can be...)

The process by which someone will join as a frequent flier has not yet been established. I suspect that once someone has made it into the program, they would not be charged at all, as long as they continue meet the monthly minimums. People don't like surprise charges on a credit card, so if they don't meet the minimums, then I suspect the right course of action is to temporarily disable the account, as opposed to charging them, and then generate an email asking them to either swap over to a normal account, or meet the hours within a certain amount of time.

I'm not sure yet. I need to make sure the system doesn't take armies of people to administer on our end.

I rather like the idea. It seems completely bizarre to pay for a service that would benefit from me using it, but I understand how it works and it does make a very pleasing kind of sense.

If you fly on the network a few times a month to further your training, then you are using the system for your benefit and not necessarily benefiting PE all that much. If, however, you're flying a great deal, on a semi-predictable basis, then, up until a certain number of pilots, this is of value to the venture, hence the compromise in waiving the fee.

If you're looking for precedent for services that charge you but still benefit from your presence, look no further than World of Warcraft, probably the most popular gaming subscription service around today. $15/mth.  Without a critical user base, the service is not useful to people...yet, they don't offer it for free to anyone (as far as I know).

I try very hard to put myself in the shoes of the consumers of our service and ask the question, "what would I want to be pay? What incentives would I consider to be interesting and relevant? How would I want to be treated?"

I've been meaning to try PilotEdge for a while now but haven't had the opportunity. Is it still open to the unwashed public for free?

Sure is.  We've actually stepped up the staffing (informally) to include mon-fri during east coast business hours, too, at least with a single controller.

Btw, Dozer, your avatar is pretty net. I had  no idea that they ever made an analogue DME gauge.

[Dozer]

Btw, Dozer, your avatar is pretty net. I had  no idea that they ever made an analogue DME gauge.

Thanks! I have a... fetish? (there's probably a better word) for 1960s/1970s/1980s instrumentation, from the approximate time people started navigating by VOR until GPS and EFIS became widespread. I've actually turned my avatar into a working, plugin-driven X-Plane instrument and uploaded it to x-plane.org. I to fly the airways by mastering a lot of little needles and switches, rather than LNAVing along a magenta line...

The process by which someone will join as a frequent flier has not yet been established. I suspect that once someone has made it into the program, they would not be charged at all, as long as they continue meet the monthly minimums. People don't like surprise charges on a credit card, so if they don't meet the minimums, then I suspect the right course of action is to temporarily disable the account, as opposed to charging them, and then generate an email asking them to either swap over to a normal account, or meet the hours within a certain amount of time.

I'm not sure yet. I need to make sure the system doesn't take armies of people to administer on our end.

It seems strange to disable someone's account in order to encourage them to fly more. What if users pay a one-off fee for limited membership, which expires if they don't fly x hours in y weeks? That way, a PPL holder who flies once or twice a month will pay (say) $15 each flight, because their membership lapses between each infrequent flight, while a sim hobbyist who flies twice a week will pay $15 once and stay flying frequently enough for it to never expire.

Or, each user pays (say) $15 for membership, but each flying hour accrues credit to claim against a discount on the next membership application. The credit progressively 'evaporates' when the account is inactive. So, Mrs PPL pays $15, flies three hours in a week and then doesn't come back for a month. Her three hour's credit is gone so she then pays another $15. Mr Hobbyist pays $15 and flies on average two hours a week* for four week's running, gaining eight hours credit, then goes on holiday for two weeks (meaning his account becomes inactive). On return the remaining credit is worth, say, $10 so he immediately pays $5 to reactivate the account - if he delays he'll be paying more - and starts flying regularly again. Hopefully such a system is easy to set up and automate and provide user info such as a graph showing how their credit will decay if they stop using the service.

*I have no idea how much time other hobbyists can spend flying online...

Also I have no idea what sort of rate hobbyists would consider appropriate to pay, I'm afraid. You're definitely and tangibly delivering a service, by having guaranteed controllers and traffic, so I don't think it would be hard for people to persuade themselves it's worth paying regularly. But people have a depressing tendency to start screaming at the idea of paying money for stuff they enjoy that's provided via internet...

I'm quite keen to log in now and give PE a go! The problems being, I'd need some practice flights to make sure I can actually fly a SID/STAR with some degree of competence first, and I really really should turn off the computer and finish cleaning this flat so I can definitely get the deposit back.

What's PE's policy on users flying 'dead' aircraft? There's a rather lovely de Havilland Comet on my hard drive, as flown by Mexicana until 1970...

[Keith Smith]

Dozer,

Always a sincere pleasure to find another person who knows that a radial isn't just found on a tire I, too, learned to fly with VORs alone, and still enjoy it.  Truth be told, I have come to really appreciate GPS, but tend to use it as a more accurate form of a VOR, even on RNAV routes. I basically fly (real world, that is), on the 'nav 1' page on the Garmin 430, which shows my desired track, current track, cross track error, bearing to station, etc. It's a hyper sensitive 'VOR', with unchanging sensitivity...but the concept it all the same. The instrumentation displays position relative to a course.  Every now and then I swap to the map mode to double check a few things, but to navigate the airplane, I use the technique described above....all backed up with a real VOR on another gauge   This is my happy compromise between using VORs and adopting newer technology without becoming a slave to the pretty magenta line.

Thank you for your suggestions regarding the program. I spent much of the afternoon on the phone with an associate, running through various models, figuring it was really time to nail down the terms of this frequent flier program, since it's clearly going to be of importance to the price-sensitive sim enthusiast community.

So, here's what we settled on.  The FF program is a 'thank you' offered to a finite number of users (don't sweat that part too much, we won't be hitting that limit for quite a while, I would think), as an acknowledgment that they are providing a value back to PilotEdge.  Note, there will be a time when having additional users participate in the program will not provide value to the venture, and basically represents lost revenue to PE, hence, the need to limit the number of users.

All that said, the program itself is simple. The standard subscription fee for PilotEdge will be around $19/mth. Qualifying pilots (ie, those who have completed a certain number of ratings in the Pilot Edge Training Center) who met the hourly requirements in a given month will receive their next month of service free (ie, they will not be charged).

If a pilot does not meet the hourly requirements in a given month, they will not receive the credit the following month, hence they will be charged their normal subscription rate in that next month.

The initial program was going to be far more complex with all sorts of allowances for a bunch of edge cases that had the potential to make 100% of users happy 100% of the time (well, close to it), but would've been a bear to design, implement and administer.  This version is incredibly simple.  I think it makes sense if you picture it as an earned credit for a paid service.  If you don't earn the credit, absolutely no harm, no foul, you're billed for the service just like any normal user. No surprise or ill-will (I hope). All of this will be spelled out in detail, of course.

My goal is to make it easy to understand, and to provide incentive for people who would've otherwise said, "I would love to fly there, a lot, but I just don't want to (or can't comfortably) pay for it."

Once the program has reached its goal for PilotEdge (I don't detail those here, they're not particularly relevant in any case), NEW users will not be eligible for the credit. Users who had earned the credit in the past would remain eligible (although I suspect we will reserve the right to completely discontinue the program at our discretion).

If I were looking at this as a consumer, I think I'd be satisfied with the choices.

I should also note that PE will retain the right to discontinue someone's service. I say that not to dissuade anyone from joining but more to let people know that we are going to do our best to make sure that the 'right' people are flying on the network.

Lastly, Dozer, of course you can fly the Comet. That would be awesome. I can't promise that you will be seen as a Comet by other users by default (the day will come, mind you!), but you are absolutely welcome to fly any aircraft you like.

Thanks for the feedback so far, keep it coming. Hopefully it's clear that we're trying to make this appealing to a wide variety of people, while still maintaining a standard of quality on the network.

[Dozer]

That sounds great Keith! Seems a sensible system. I'm looking forward to trying PE now - it really sounds like you guys know what you're doing!

Just looked at RealityXP's X-Plane GNS430W - it's €35 - I think that can wait until after I've paid off the credit card...

[steven winslow]

Login Dozer!  You won't regret it!  I just passed my V-3 rating and I'm looking forward to going the the IFR ratings.  PilotEdge is super user friendly.  As far as I know, there are no restrictions concerning the aircraft you fly online.  As long as there is an ICAO code for it, you can fly it.  However, if there isn't a CSL for it, you won't show up correctly for the other pilots.

[Keith Smith]

Thanks to Cameron for adding a dedicated PilotEdge forum to the system.  This way, the discussions won't be confined to a single thread.

[Keith Smith]

Update: the launch date has been set for Oct 1.

As of today, the free beta program is expanding from 2 days/wk (Wed and Sun nights) to 7 nights week (6pm-9pm PDT). This is to provide ample time for the newly hired controllers to go through our required training program.

[Keith Smith]

Sky Blue Radio is hosting an FS InFocus show in 40 mins from now (6p/9e) for 2 hours to talk about PilotEdge. If anyone has read about the network and is curious about learning more, feel free to head over there and listen in. Listeners can call in live with questions and comments.

[Keith Smith]

It'd definitely taken longer than I thought, but we did indeed managed to get PilotEdge launched to the public. We opened the doors today with 15x7 staffing of the Los Angeles ARTCC. Norcal will be added in a couple of months.

The web site is been completely rebuilt, too.

The first 150 signups are receiving a 20% discount on their monthly subscription in an effort to start building a body of traffic. We know it's going to take some time, but we'd like to reward those who come on board early on.

[Cameron]

Great news, Keith! Congratulations!

[Keith Smith]

We're adding Fri-Sun support for the Oakland ARTCC (SFO, OAK, SJC, MRY, RNO, FAT, etc) starting today. The specifics are described on our coverage area page. This will expand to full time coverage in the future.

If anyone's been waiting to do the famous LAX-SFO roundtrips, this would be the time.

We've also added pilot/ATC audio recording capabilities, see http://pilotedge.net/audio for more info.

[Dozer]

Excellent. I can't wait to get my own PC back to Internetland and do some online flying again!

[Keith Smith]

Some more updates on PilotEdge:

- Linux client has been tested and will be released in the next week or so

- 3 pricing models available: $4.95/mth and $2/hr, or $19.95/mth unlimited, or $179/year unlimited.

- streamlined trial process, no credit card required for signup.

- audio recordings of each day's interactions are available at http://pilotedge.net/audio

We'll be demonstrating at EAA AirVenture (Oshkosh) next week (July 23-29) at the Precision Flight Controls booth and connection-permitting, there will also be PilotEdge demos at the Fly This Sim booth, showing several models of the TouchTrainer.

Edited July 19, 2012 by Keith Smith

[MdMax]

Hi all !

I just listened to this very interesting show with Keith Smith about PilotEdge:

http://www.fsbreak.n...t-and-more.html

IVAO is still my favorite network, but it's nice to know all the amazing features and training services available on other networks.

Edited November 25, 2012 by MdMax

[Wetted Area]

IVAO is still my favorite network, but it's nice to know all the amazing features and training services available on other networks.

 

Wow.  You mean I now have three of things to evaluate!  I've heard of IVAO, but I've always thought it was just a Flight Simulator Forum (I never checked).

 

I understand the differences between VATSIM and PilotEdge.  I'll have to see if there are any real distinctions between VATSIM and IVAO.  Based on what I've studied thus far, PilotEdge, with its guaranteed coverage claim and the promise to provide a "real" structural ATC environment (Ground, Area, Center, En Route), becomes the ultimate choice I would think.

 

Knowing me - I'll most likely end up trying all three before setting up shop with one or the other.  Thanks for the IVAO tip - didn't know that was out there. 

 

The next one is on me.

[Keith Smith]

IVAO and VATSIM are functionally similar (definitely try them out).  IVAO has very sparse US coverage as far as I know, so if you're planning on flying in the US, the more realistic decision is whether you want to use VATSIM or PE.

 

The plugins may not happily coexist, though, since they compete to grab the XP AI aircraft subsystem, so be sure to rename the plugins you're NOT using to a .bak extension or move them to another folder so that they don't conflict.

 

You have the right idea regarding the difference between VATSIM and PE. There's also a few more small items:

- 100% voice on PE, compared to text and voice on VATSIM

- voice support for non-towered fields, not available on VATSIM for X-Plane

- 300+ GA and military automated aircraft flying around 24/7...neither of which have much presence to speak of on VATSIM

- all ATC interactions made available at the top of each hour and posted on the web site (http://pilotedge.net/audio) for later debrief and training

 

The big question is how much of this is important to you. If ATC is a must-have and you're ok with the limited coverage area, PE is probably the right choice. If you're a heavy metal guy, you want to go long distance, and ATC is not a must-have, then VATSIM is probably the right choice. 

 

There isn't a clear winner for all audiences/markets, it really comes down to requirements and priorities. Once you establish those, it should be easy to pick.

 

Given my position as the Founder of PilotEdge, people are surprised to hear that I'm very supportive of VATSIM. I'm glad it's there, its serves a market that I cannot adequately serve, and choice is a wonderful thing. What WOULD be a shame is another direct competitor to VATSIM. It's bad enough that there's already the VATSIM/IVAO split with overlapping coverage.

Edited January 31, 2013 by Keith Smith

[Keith Smith]

64-bit Windows plugin is now linked from the plugin download page on the site. Mac plugin is in the works, pending some research on the availability of 64-bit build of our version of the voice library.

We now support web-based filing of flight plans, too.