Airplane & things in ACH [discussion, all welcome]

[Szymon Kurzacz]

I was thinking again about usability of aircrafts and few other things, like how to encourage pilots to fly more scheduled flights... Here comes my conclusions for few things...

First thing. How to make pilots encouraged to fly more scheduled flights?
Answer may be quite simple, and also gives nice support for another topics. Lets give pilots 50% points per flight made in charter, rounded up. So if someone fly charter for "normal" 9 points, should get only 5 points for finishing such flight. Scheduled flights stay at their 100% payment. That will make people little harder to make career in ACH if they choose to fly some easier flights on random airplane and not so long flight distance, lets say EPKK-EPWA in B737 or something fast and easy simmilar to that.

Toughts about recent requests for new airplanes in retro style, requests for bush flying and other more specific areas. That will include my own eralier proposals about adding more variety in fleet.
Some of us want more retro airplanes or bush airplanes, that are hard to fit in our current hangar. That includes my idea for small bizjet family (like CitationX) and some helicopters. One of nice way to do that may be to split our fleet in 3 main aircraft groups: Passenger Modern Fleet, Cargo/Freight Fleet, Charter Fleet. Pax/Cargo fleet would work as for now, that includes same style of aircraft chart usage. Charter fleet can be splitted into few more groups: Retro, Bizjet, Heli, Bush, or more - each with own airplane usage graph in statistics and each machine available ONLY in charter mode, witch in additon may end as above with lower point gain per flight. In this way we can have few more airplanes to fly in retro or bush style, with only few airplanes (like 1 beaver, 1 B707, 1 Bell 205 or whatever, and only "buy" more machines of specified type if they will be often used). Such stuff should be easy to do in our current model of airline and give quite big variety in use. And i DONT want any military airplanes in this category - we are civil and bringing peace as UNICEF...

Any toughts or questions in this style? I will describe more details if i will be asked to in this topic.

 

[Peter Schindler]

Re: Airplane things in ACH

Thank you for these ideas, Szymon. There's some good stuff here. Some time ago we already thought about if we could (or should) do something to somehow increase schedule flights. On the other hand we know that not everyone has a broad range of aircraft models. So, maybe you find a scheduled flight from A to B, but it's scheduled for the 763 and you don't have that and want to use a 737, for example. So what you do is book a charter for the same connection, using a 737. Nothing bad about it. Happened to me also, more than once.

But we'd sure like to see more scheduled flights made. I just don't think that different points would be the right solution. We also discussed introducing an award system for certain things, but I think Norbert was not so fond of that idea (speaking of competition, again).
I think this should be discussed further. And this topic is the best place to do that

Same for the fleet questions. Personally, I still favour the idea of separate divisions, even separate websites - but one pilot account for all. Since this would be a lot of work and take a long time, we can think about intermediate solutions. However, I only see this for the retro planes, not for the GA and bush flyers. They're just too different from the usual airline operations.
Totally agree on the military stuff. No way - but we already said that before

Please state your opinions, ideas, suggestions. We all know it's easy to complain, and much harder to develop ideas. But we can always try

 

[Szymon Kurzacz]

Re: Airplane things in ACH

IDEA 1
For harder difficulty levels in career mode we can made some restrictions:

basic - charter always available
advanced - charter available from lets say First Officer level (or any officer level)
professional - charter available from Captain level (or any captain level)

IDEA 2
I was also thinking simmilar stuff as limiing points but with limiting UNICEF support, but reconsidered as bad idea - people will fly, but we will get no support with that... Idea (R.I.P.) was to count only scheduled flights for UNICEF sponsors...

IDEA 3
Some type of competition for example giving opportunity to "order" personal airliner named after pilot for
a: pilot who makes most scheduled flights in calendar year
b: after flying specified number of scheduled flights (like 500+)
c: after getting specified number of points
Such airliner should be charter only, and should be of type that is already used in ACH. Question is how to manage multiple wins of same pilot or changed pilot flavors (I liked to fly TriStar, then 747, then C-17, etc.)

IDEA 4
Reverser of earlier idea with 50% points for charter... We have 3 pts for each flight + 1 pt for time spend in air... We can give another +X pts (given once per flight) if flight is scheduled. So for example basic 3pts/flight would be 4 or 5 pts if flight is scheduled.

IDEA 5
Will work after making some kind of pilot salary or other economy aspect... Scheduled flights could have cheaper fuel, more passengers available to take, better salary for flight etc.

IDEA 6
Introduce in flight preparation limited number of passengers/cargo available to fly with. Lets say that variety of 75-100% of airplane capacity (random) for scheduled flights and 50-90% for charter, as maximum available and pilots decision about how much state in papers to fly with. (RPG stuff, for example there is no way to check if pilot flown with empty airplane, even if stated that had full cargo, anyway in xacars).

IDEA 7
Upgrade pilot lounge with separate top5, where only scheduled flights will count, and leave toplist current toplist with total flights - that will give another area for competition. We could also have both leaders visible on main page, next to newest pilots, current flights etc.


about retrojet division
after havng quick look into our website code, there should not be much edit to do to copy what we have, change some stuff and get working division site within few hours. Just ned new sql tables and few areas separated in menu for that (as roster, dispatch*, forum will stay untouched and same for both divisions)
* - dispatch need to be upgraded to new airplane models, but thats almost (routes stay same, mostly as from point A to point B) pure cosmetics...
Question for that is also if sponsors will be willing to pay for retroDIVISION flights in same manner as for main ACH flights, and do/should we make separate flight summary for all areas (like points are same, but number of flights, distance, time may be counted in separate areas).

 

[Rafal Zielinski]

Hello

I want to present some of my thougts.

I looked through the statistics and I wonder if we could take Top10 chaerter statistics and make one or two more shceduled flights from hub airports to the 10 most common charters.

When I try to occasionally make charter flight, dispatch states that the flightplan is already availble. My idea is that if scheduled flight is not booked, it can be done by charter, but with the number of scheduled flight. It would be of course marked somehow different, for example ACH4004ch.

Can we change the website code so that the pilot decided what kind of operation he wants to do and on this basis dispatch allocate dynamically the flight numbers. Of course, all in accordance with the present division into hubs within which flights would be started EDDK from 1xxx, LOWW from 2xxxx and so on. This option requires dividing the space on the hubs and airports around them, but I do not know if this is feasible from a technical site (or whether it requires a large programming work).

Any comments are welcome

Regards

 

[Peter Schindler]

Thanks for your input, Rafal!

I wonder if we could take Top10 chaerter statistics and make one or two more shceduled flights from hub airports to the 10 most common charters.

Yes, we can go through the stats and see if we can add some flights to certain airports. However, some of the popular charter destinations are hubs with already lots of connections. Also EPKK has many scheduled flights, already.

When I try to occasionally make charter flight, dispatch states that the flightplan is already availble. My idea is that if scheduled flight is not booked, it can be done by charter, but with the number of scheduled flight.

That would not really improve things. They would still be charter flights, and we would still have to count them as such

Can we change the website code so that the pilot decided what kind of operation he wants to do and on this basis dispatch allocate dynamically the flight numbers. Of course, all in accordance with the present division into hubs within which flights would be started EDDK from 1xxx, LOWW from 2xxxx and so on. This option requires dividing the space on the hubs and airports around them, but I do not know if this is feasible from a technical site (or whether it requires a large programming work).

I'm afraid I didn't completely understand your question Are you refering to this:

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?
Maybe you can explain it a little more.


@Szymon: I didn't comment yet on your ideas 1 to 7 because I would like to see more comments by other members, first. Before this thread becomes a dialogue between you and me

 

[Rafal Zielinski]

Thanks for your input, Rafal!

Yes, we can go through the stats and see if we can add some flights to certain airports. However, some of the popular charter destinations are hubs with already lots of connections. Also EPKK has many scheduled flights, already.

So maybe we should carry out a survey among pilots. Ask them if they have any special requests. I know that there is a special thread on the forum but you can as I wrote earlier to take a combination of these top 10 departure airport , top 10 Destinations, and possibly one field calle "other" in which they could write their proposals.

I'm afraid I didn't completely understand your question Are you refering to this:

You do not have permission to view link please Log in or Register

?
Maybe you can explain it a little more.

Partially yes. My proposal is to change dispatch on a special way. I would like to divide the world into parts. And for example if I go into the dispatch and wants to take flight EPWA LOWW, Dispatch will automatically assign me a number ACH5001, because the hub is numbered 5xxx. In turn, you are doing at the same time a flight LIRF LOWW and automatically get the flight number ACH5002, as LIRF will be subordinated to the numbering LOWW.

I've got 2 more Ideas.

both refers to change carrer settings and to aply economic matters.

First: No matter what kind of career you held, you've to fly an amount of scheduled flights, in order to be able to unlock the ability to perform charter flights. With that in contrast to the Szymon's idea I didn't think of the ranks, but only a division into basic, advanced, and professional. If you fly basic carrer you have to fly for example 100-150 scheduled flights to be able to fly charters, In advanced 75-100, but in proffesional only 50, but when you're student and flying Dash, got enough points to promote you get new aircraft so you have to once more make some scheduled flights to be able to fly charters. Hope this is clear.

Second refers to economical aspects. If someone wants to fly charter from EPWA to HECA with A320, but the Aircraft is at LOWW you've to pay also for fuel and salary for pilot which get the plane from LOWW to EPWA.

Waiting for comments

 

[Piet Biervlek]

Point 5 from Szymon's post (the economical aspect) I like a lot, in line with what Rafal just said. Most of the other points brought up are about how we can manage to fly more scheduled flights instead of charter flights. Now that brings me to my question: why is it, in the first place, important that we fly more scheduled flights?
Is it because we are, after all, an airliner, or is there a more technical aspect underlying it all?

I'd love to take part of the debate going on here, so I hope you can help me understand why this (more scheduled flights) is important.

 

[Norbert Woeller]

There is one thing, that is whery importend for me: "Do what you like!" And that is the BASIC career! This is a Hobby. We all try to make it as real as it gets. So we have a large amount of sheduled flights. But we never will please all member wishes. That's not possible. If you don't find a sheduled flight for you, you will take a charter. That's importend for me although I'm one of the dispatchers who will take hours of hours to create all this sheduled flights and routes So let me say: "Don't touch the BASIC career"
But I also want to have some tasks. Thats what we want to do in the Advanced and Professional career in the future, where it will be more realistic.
But also importend for me: I must have the possibility to switch back to BASIC career at any time, to fly a charter.
E.g. yesterday I have read that a controller at Tripoli has to pass a test and needs some pilots who will fly from or to Tripoli. I want to support him, so I have take a charter from Malta to Tripoli (b.t.w. a very "nice" landing yesterday evening. There was a dust storm at HLLT...)

So for me it dosn't matter if we have more or less charter flights. It's impotend for me that we have more pilots who have the possibility to do what they like, then less!

 

[Szymon Kurzacz]

I looked through the statistics and I wonder if we could take Top10 chaerter statistics and make one or two more shceduled flights from hub airports to the 10 most common charters.

Add top 10 charter departures chart. Then we could try to add lets say 5 scheduled flights per month from top 5 charter departures to top 5 charter arrivals (if not exist) with most popular charter airplanes...

@Szymon: I didn't comment yet on your ideas 1 to 7 because I would like to see more comments by other members, first. Before this thread becomes a dialogue between you and me

Understood... Still adding to topic am I

So maybe we should carry out a survey among pilots. Ask them if they have any special requests. I know that there is a special thread on the forum but you can as I wrote earlier to take a combination of these top 10 departure airport , top 10 Destinations, and possibly one field calle "other" in which they could write their proposals.

For my personal i have in head Poland to fly, but does not very like pl-vacc. I sicked to world flights, but now have limited time and only europe installed. I like interesting airfields like EGLC, not big "hubs" like lets say LFPG, unfortunately small airport usualy need smaller plane, and here is problem with airplane choice. I like massive airplanes, probably for their "heavy" feel in air (not making rapid rolls when joy peressed to its side). Like flying fast, so B747 and (even more) Concorde are nice, but with confrontation with small airfields... There is not much to say. My favorite small jet is A319, and even smaller Cessna Citation X (but waiting for more details and models about Gulfstream 650). From bigger irons there is A380, B747... I was also flying much with Lockheed Tristar (L-1011-500) and B787-8. Unfortunately we have not many of those planes in fleet. I can book A320/A321 flights and fly them actually in 319, i have 747, 380... Can replace MD11 booking to fly with Tristar and bookings of 777 by 787 model. So its still fun.
For now i will fly only B73F on scheduled flights around Baltic sea. And what else - will see next year.

First: No matter what kind of career you held, you've to fly an amount of scheduled flights, in order to be able to unlock the ability to perform charter flights. With that in contrast to the Szymon's idea I didn't think of the ranks, but only a division into basic, advanced, and professional. If you fly basic carrer you have to fly for example 100-150 scheduled flights to be able to fly charters, In advanced 75-100, but in proffesional only 50, but when you're student and flying Dash, got enough points to promote you get new aircraft so you have to once more make some scheduled flights to be able to fly charters. Hope this is clear.

I like this idea.

Now that brings me to my question: why is it, in the first place, important that we fly more scheduled flights?

I like schedules mostly because i do not need to search flight levels and route for that route. More of "jump in plane and fly"

 

[Morten Grandt]

Dear All,

I like this discussion about potential improvements of "our" airline and the ideas which have been brought up so far.

I would like to contribute to this discussion with the following:

Closely related to the idea of considering economics of operations is the aspect of ecological operations. Wouldn't it be a good signal to make Air-child a "green" airline in terms of reduction of fuel burn and CO2 emission ? That would mean that we analyse e.g. the deviation of the flown route from the optimum which is the great circle, the fuel burn in terms of kg per tons of payload etc. In this context we could also integrate the idea of "transfer penalties" for flights which are necessary to bring the aircraft and/or the pilot to the airport at which the next flight departs. If the ranking system would comprise these ecological indicators some of the aspects Szymon is aiming for can be (partly) covered as well.

If we are discussing about incentives for scheduled flights we should also discuss about another topic: incentives for online flights. Very often we see let's say 7 active flights in the ACH world chart whilst only 1 or 2 of them are online flights. The current ranking system rewards pilots based on the pilot's effort related to a flight. However, it does not take into account the higher demands arising from online flying in terms of flight preparation, continous physical presence in the cockpit and so on. Furthermore, it does not reward the pilot's contribution to the publicity of ACH when participating in the online network.

So, these are my "sunday thoughts" for this discussion. I am looking forward receiving your opinions.

Best regards
Morten

 

[Peter Schindler]

First: thanks for all the comments! It has really become a discussion, which is great!

Some thoughts from my side (not covering all of the suggestions, atm):

Most of the other points brought up are about how we can manage to fly more scheduled flights instead of charter flights. Now that brings me to my question: why is it, in the first place, important that we fly more scheduled flights?

Excellent question! Actually, that's not something we consider as massively important. It looks as if some people (including me) would like to see more schedule flights made in relation to charters. You can see from the stats that schedule flights are decreasing each year.
For me there are two reasons. One is that creating and maintaining the schedule (done by Norbert and Mario) is a hell of a lot of work. I'd like to see this work honored a little more. But I also know that quite often the schedule just doesn't match what you are looking for right now. And as Norbert has stated himself: the most important "rule" is that everyone finds a home here to be able to fly exactly the way he likes. Also, since we included the "give me a route from the schedule" feature in charter briefing, the work of the dispatchers is already honored, even if you fly charter.

My second, and less important, argument is that I also see the management side and the attempt to simulate an airline in a more or less realistic way. Only from that aspect I'd like to see a more balanced ratio between charter and regular flights. But this is entirely my personal view of things. I've learned my whole life that what I wish for, and what I get, are totally different things. :lol:

Wouldn't it be a good signal to make Air-child a "green" airline in terms of reduction of fuel burn and CO2 emission ?

It totally would! And this is exactly the approach we currently follow the most. Because it involves you as a pilot and adds some more responsability for your company and for the way you fly.

However, it does not take into account the higher demands arising from online flying in terms of flight preparation, continous physical presence in the cockpit and so on. Furthermore, it does not reward the pilot's contribution to the publicity of ACH when participating in the online network.

I see your point, Morten. There's two aspects in this quote. One is a different treatment of online and offline flyers. We have discussed that from the beginning and we stick to our opinion that this would create a two class society which we do not favour. On the other hand it would be great if we had more tutoring for interested newcomers in online flying, done by experienced members.

The other point is spreading the company's name on the networks. This is another wish we have (and that we already expressed earlier): when people fly online and later report that flight for Air-Child, it would be great if they also use an ACH callsign on the network. :yes: But we will not force anyone to do it this way or another. It's something that will or will not establish itself. But, of course, it's a vicious circle if you say "Air-Child is not popular enough, so I'll better use a DLH callsign". This way it will never get popular.

 

[Zeljko Budovic]

This is becoming too serious, i'll keep an eye on this topic op:

Just to be sure that you will not introduce mandatory ishihara plates test for new pilots...

 

[Szymon Kurzacz]

Few more toughts.

First. I need to read our pilot manual from PDF. AS to remember things, and also in check of what should be there, and how easy is that to tundersand. Also check if there are correct numbers in pilot rank vs pilot points.

Second. Same thing as above for example flight tutorial. We can also make few more routes for tutorial flights.

Thrird. I would like to see some more clear rules of how to request airplane to fleet - in both cases, as new airplane type and as another plane of already available type for charter or scheduled flights. Here will also lay info about requesting new schedules and sending missing airports in database. Also www credits should state more clear who is responsible for what, like ask Pierre of www things.

 

[Christian Neumann]

On the other hand it would be great if we had more tutoring for interested newcomers in online flying, done by experienced members.

I fully agree with you, Peter. And I want to give you an idea, how it could work:

A lot of our guys are active controllers. Just for VACC-Austria, I can remember Chris Wirowski, Dietmar Schocklitsch, Martin Tiefenbacher, and last but not least, me.

All of the named above are willing and able to support newies at online-flying during "non-peektimes" from the ATC-point of view. Anyone interested, just send me an pm for a online-date.

Additionally, VACC-Austria is performing a "discover-the-world-tour" at this time. Any pilot of airchild is highly welcomed to join one or some ore mor legs. At present, the number of pilots participating varies between 2 and six, who fly as a group flight the destination of the week on every Friday evening.
For details: http://forum.vacc-austria.org/viewforum ... 6a102e95b0

Many regards

 

[Rafal Zielinski]

Few more toughts.

First. I need to read our pilot manual from PDF. AS to remember things, and also in check of what should be there, and how easy is that to tundersand. Also check if there are correct numbers in pilot rank vs pilot points.

Second. Same thing as above for example flight tutorial. We can also make few more routes for tutorial flights.

Thrird. I would like to see some more clear rules of how to request airplane to fleet - in both cases, as new airplane type and as another plane of already available type for charter or scheduled flights. Here will also lay info about requesting new schedules and sending missing airports in database. Also www credits should state more clear who is responsible for what, like ask Pierre of www things.

If I can add to the above. On Hangar page there is a note that we're going to prepare repaint tutorial. I want to paint one aircraft. I've read a lot, watch a lot of you tube videos and stuck. So maybe our court painter could prepare something for us.

One more thing: since I'm looking lately for a VA which has an online flying school, I've read few statutes. In those I read that all pilotes have to have let say 50-100 hours scheduled flights before they could start charter flights.

 

[Andreas Stangenes]

Im not that concerned with the scheduled vs charter debate. I guess 90% of my flights are scheduled. I see other pilots have 90% charter flights, and thats really none of my business. My joy of flying doesnt take an impact from this in any way, shape or form

Perhaps you could let us add scheduled routes ourselves, and make it so that if it doesnt have any traffic in a 3 month period, it will automatically be shut down?

What I miss is communication with other ACH pilots. I love the atmosphere on the forums, but whenever I check on the teamspeak server, its empty. It would be so cool to have some sort of acars system that is tailored for ACH, and that would let us chat directly to other pilots flying. Voice chat through this system would be really cool!

I like the idea of a basic, advanced and professional career mode within ACH. As Norbert already said, Its important to me that my freedom to choose remains unhindered. If I suddenly found myself only getting long haul flights, I would probably quit... What those modes would consist of, I dont know. Maybe add points based on
a) landing rate
b) being on time
c) flying green (ci, routing, flight levels = fuel burn)

Perhaps make a cargo division, on its own site? What would be cool would be really big cargo loads that are too big for any one plane, and that can be divided among several ACH members. Teamwork = great

Oh and finally I just need to say I really enjoy being a part of the airchild family. We fly for a great cause, the leadship is great, the layout is clean, and best of all - I get alot of freedom in regards to where and why to fly Love it!

 

[Norbert Woeller]

What I miss is communication with other ACH pilots. I love the atmosphere on the forums, but whenever I check on the teamspeak server, its empty. It would be so cool to have some sort of acars system that is tailored for ACH, and that would let us chat directly to other pilots flying. Voice chat through this system would be really cool!

Last December we did an Urgent Action Event for the Philippine UNICEF Section after Tropical Storm.

Some Air-Child members did something similar to your idea. Pilots who like flying long houls, brought Cargo with big airplanes to Manila. And other members who likes more to flying middle or small airplanes, pick up the cargo at Manila and brought it to RPML - Cagayan de Oro, the destination of that event.
http://www.air-child.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=36&t=1368&hilit=manila

 

[Tibor Kolena]

Hello,

I like this cargi sharing concept! It is annoying to travel with empty cargo compartment all the time when I fly a passanger flight.
It makes more interesting if I know some other connections are waiting and relay on my flight

Idea supported!

Tibor

 

[Thomas Adler]

Hello, dear colleagues!

I need a few words to sketch my point of view on this topic:

One of my major reasons to join Air-Child was the free and flexible layout of the company policy:
- a wide range of aircrafts, including my favourite models, over the years Fokker 100, MD-11, and now mostly PMDGs B738
- not only a stringent and mandatory route network, but also the possibility to do charter flights to my favourite destinations (which i have as addons on my simulation, i don’t like the default airports).

I don’t have a problem with flying scheduled flights, but see what is happening most of the time. For example I want to go from Berlin-Tegel to Amsterdam-Schipol, in our schedule it is available for the B737 … not for my B738 (I could cheat this with my FsAcars, but how does this look, a landing with an overweight of eight tons :think: ) --- no problem, get a charter flight. Nothing new until now.

If we want to get more scheduled flights in this situation … without loosing some real-as-it-gets aspects … then we could have a look at www.libhomeradar.org . Just pick out an ordinary Lufthansa-flight, let’s say the DLH 1LJ from Frankfurt to Munich. Within one week, they perform it with the A321, the A320 and the A319 (not consistent over the days of the week, but erratic, I guess it is depending on the load factor of the planes). The same with the DLH 3YM (EDDM – EDDL), the DLH 1CJ (EDDH – EDDK), and so on, switching from Boeing to Airbus to Embraer, I guess we can find this in nearly every short to midrange connection of them.
So, if this method is good enough for Lufthansa, why shouldn’t we be able to open our scheduled connections to a variety of aircrafts, for example all european midrange-flights to all of our narrowbody-types?


A second possibility (as least in my eyes) could lay in our route network itself. An example may show what I mean:
Thursday evening, “King Size ATC” on VATSIM in Hamburg, why not going there from Aerosofts tiny Palma de Mallorca … but not on schedule, no way, we have to charter it. Hello?!? Not enough people in Germanys second biggest town to offer them a trip to Germanys very own mediterranean tourist-roaster :cheers: ??? But two trips a week to Rovaniemmi (ten minutes ago I didn’t knew that they have an airport :wink: )?
Just kidding, but I hope you see what I mean. If we check out the charter flights for the most common origins and destinations, I wouldn’t be surprised if we find more big towns and classic holiday-locations than little towns like Poznan (where the h*** is Poznan?). And I suppose we will find much more airports depicted in simulation by a good freeware- or payware-addon than default-airports without such eyecandy.

As far as I see it from today, we are a global operating carrier with hubs on every continent. Would it be that bad to move smaller destinations to the charter section?
Long text (I know, I know :yawn: ), little tenor: Maybe we could win more flights for our schedule by – adjusting it.

Just my two cents.

Happy landings, Tom

 

[Rafal Zielinski]

Hello

Just a thought. Mybe like normal airlines we should have two different flight schedules. For autumn and winter with a lot of scheduled flights to the swiss and "mountains" country's especially on weekends (friday afternoon till sunday evenings). And spring and summer with more scheduled flights to Tunisia, Spain, Morocco etc. not only from the hub airports but also from bigger airports in the country's.

Any comments welcome. One more thing is question to Peter or Norbert about technical possibilities of such solution.

Greetings