cvearl Posted December 6, 2012 Share Posted December 6, 2012 I wonder how many more pilots would subscribe to this service if ORBX made scenery for the service area... />http://www.pilotedge.net/pages/operating-hours-and-service-area That and some of their clients would become ORBX customers as well. Digital theme park hosts weekly flights on pilot edge as well. />https://www.google.com/calendar/embed?src=obf8gd671b30e3of0quug8db6s%40group.calendar.google.com&ctz=Etc/PT C. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruce Hamilton Posted December 6, 2012 Share Posted December 6, 2012 Maybe they should expand into an area that ORBX covers. With the small area they cover, I question how many subscribers they have. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
briansommers Posted December 6, 2012 Share Posted December 6, 2012 I sure wish they would.. PilotEdge is AMAZING... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WilliamJSS Posted December 6, 2012 Share Posted December 6, 2012 Pilot edge is indeed amazing, but at the same time a bit confusing. The area they cover is the Sim communities major "tubeliner" area, and because of that I find myself using it hit and miss. I agree if it was in 1: a better visual area 2: a more GA friendly area 3: a larger area for longer flights It would see a lot more traffic than it does now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
briansommers Posted December 7, 2012 Share Posted December 7, 2012 you can do lots of GA flying in that area.. have you gotten your v3 rating yet?? there is some serious GA/VFR flying.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keith Smith Posted December 7, 2012 Share Posted December 7, 2012 I can remove some of the mystery. - We did expand into Norcal with weekend coverage. 95% of the traffic continued to fly in Southern California on weekends. When we expanded into Norcal, we did it by robbing some of the staffing from Southern California and putting them in Norcal (ie, fewer concurrent controllers in Socal on weekends) - We have around 350 paying subscribers and an undisclosed number of commercial customers, some small, with some very large and exciting prospects moving dangerously close to the end of the sales process - Providing full-time coverage in a new area costs around $8k/month. We are still working to cover our existing obligation in the existing coverage area. Those who suggest we expand are generally not aware of the costs and preparation involved in such an undertaking. Regarding the coverage area being in the 'tubeliner' area, I think you might be underestimating the size of the airspace that we cover. What you'd be saying would make perfect sense if we only covered, say, LAX, SAN and LAS. However, we cover _39_ towered airports, many of which have no real world airline service or even regional airline service. Places like MYF, CMA, OXR, SMX, SEE, RNM, CNO, FUL....all GA training havens. We had a 'larger area for longer flights' and 95% of pilots continued doing short hops in ZLA, ignoring ZOA completely (and yes, they were aware that it was covered). The airliners that did fly generally flew between LAX, LAS, and SAN. We cover Socal because it really does have something for everyone, and is an amazing place for real world student pilots to train, since we have everything from dirt simple airspace, to completely hairy layers of Delta, Charlie and Bravo airspace all on top of each other, and everything in between. If anyone is looking for a partcular length of flight through certain types of airspace within the PE coverage area, fire away and I'll come up with several flights that fit the bill (we do this for commercial customers quite frequently). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keith Smith Posted December 7, 2012 Share Posted December 7, 2012 Maybe they should expand into an area that ORBX covers. With the small area they cover, I question how many subscribers they have. A quick note about the 'small area' that we cover. There's over 100 public use airports in the area that we provide ATC. That's 100,000 distinct city pairs right there. From a training perspective...that's plenty. From an entertainment perspective, that should be plenty, too. From a 737 perspective...if you're looking to watch the autopilot fly at FL330 for 3 hours, there are other networks which provide a hope (although, no guarantee) of service during the flight. If, however, you want to fly a departure, a short enroute, then an arrival (which is where all the work and training benefit lies), then we can do that, too. I don't mean to appear to be defensive, but we routinely hear the 'small coverage area' almost exclusively from people who either don't understand the number of airports in our system, and/or haven't flown on the network to enjoy the service we provide (despite the free 2 week trial with no CC requirement). The coverage area is indeed smaller than the global volunteer networks (VATSIM/IVAO) that everyone is accustomed to, but it's big enough to provide the level of service to which it aspires, and the audience to which it appeals. Oops, the one thing I failed to mention....we would DEARLY love to have ORBX providing scenery for our area. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
briansommers Posted September 12, 2013 Share Posted September 12, 2013 well we do now have FTX Global Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keith Smith Posted September 12, 2013 Share Posted September 12, 2013 An update here, SFO is now included in the coverage area (just SFO, not all of the surrounding airports). This was added for a commercial customer project, but we decided to make it a permanent change. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Todd Harrell Posted September 12, 2013 Share Posted September 12, 2013 I love Pilot Edge. Many soon to be released enhanced freeware airports Neil Hill has been working on are in the area served by Pilot Edge. I, personally, am working on improving KSMO, and hope to more in the future. By the way, I would say a majority of members flying on Pilot Edge are GA folks, not tubeliner drivers. It's a good mix, really. Todd Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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