It has a “Gyropilot” very basic not much more than a wing-leveler and a basic barometric altitude hold. GPS is an option. You can operate it without one and use the very good Celestial Nav (CelNav for MSFS by ElectronVolt) and plotting on Little Navmap to navigate by Sextant and DR.
That and managing the fuel tanks (eight or ten with eight cross-feed options) monitoring the cylinder head temps, tweaking the cowl flaps, checking the circuit breaker panel every half hour, checking the WX every hour at the destination and alternate, sending position reports, adjusting carb heat and dealing with icing at the altitudes the ‘6 flys at (you can’t just leave it on because it burns fuel) means you need to rush to go to the toilet or you will fall behind the aircraft. If you mismanage the aircraft you will soon be out of engines and on your way down.
While that might seem like a lot of bother, that’s how the gig was done when I was trained as an Air Navigator many years ago before I moved to the front seat, and is for me, the attraction. Downloading a flight plan into an FMC all the way to the destination and pressing VNAV, LNAV, TOGA and doing nothing but watch it for 15 hours until you press the second AP to get an Autoland is not my cup of tea. Those are the snoozers that you might want to look at.
Your mileage may vary.
The Vulcan or the Lancaster is next. Also very manual aircraft.
So you confirm that you got an autopilot in the DC-6, which absolves you from flying the aircraft manually - that was the point I was trying to make. The rest are just details.
When I take my Falcon onto a longhaul flight I also need to check my navigation and log it at regular intervals, make position reports (where required), check the enroute weather, check the outside air temperature (we have limitations, too), then pull ourselves together after 7 or 8 hours of flight time and get our brains up to speed for a busy New York airspace on arrival and approach into Teterboro.
But that’s not the point. You can fly your plane(s) the way you want and when you exceed 6 or 8 hours of online connection time, your connection will probably show up on a list for SUPs to go through. Should the SUP have pinged you while you were already descending into your destination? No, since it shows that you were at your controls. Does it still happen? Yes, too bad. Just say “Hi, I am here” and the case is closed. If it bothers you so much - and I repeat myself once again - send an e-mail to the VP SUPs to make him aware. You are not the only pilot who gets checked.
If you do not want to send feedback by e-mail, better don’t bother posting here either, because it not change anything.
Maybe I should just .wallop every hour or so after five hours with a “I’m still here” message. Let’s see how they like to get pinged when they are doing something else.
I really fail to see where this anger is coming from. Why is a short “hi” or “yup” in response to this standardized check-in by a SUP such an issue? These check-ins have existed since basically forever and even controllers are being checked in on if they do some really long sessions, so it’s not like this is something that just popped up (apparently the rate of check-ins has increased, as Don said above, in response to a perceived or actual increase in AFK long haul pilots, but even then, if the values Andreas mentioned relatively early in this thread still apply, you will get such a message once per flight, maybe twice if it’s a really long flight, so that shouldn’t be too much of an inconvenience).
I also occasionally fly the DC6 when I find enough time, and while it is a significantly more manual aircraft than your average modern jetliner, it’s not like you’re continuously at capacity with the increased workload of flying that aircraft. Managing the tanks, carb heat, cylinder head temps, etc. is, first and foremost, a monitoring task and none of these things are so incredibly time-critical that you don’t have 5-10 seconds to quickly give the SUP a life sign, especially when considering that it should be completely fine if you take a few minutes to reply to that message so even if you are taking some measurements for celnav or are in the middle of checking the circuit breaker board, you can finish doing that before sending a quick reply.
If you really feel that you don’t have the capacity for a quick reply, then - with all due respect - you should maybe reevaluate your choice of aircraft or the level of realism at which you fly them on the network.
Honestly, I applaud his selection of aircraft and the level of reality that he wishes to utilize when flying it.
However, we have explained the current network stance on monitoring and enforcement, including the fact that we’re trying to balance risk prevention with enhanced monitoring and enforcement, at least for the time being. That is the current network stance. As with most things, monitoring and enforcement stances tend to shift over time, especially when the threat(s) they are trying to mitigate are mitigated. So it’s likely that this monitoring and enforcement stance will reduce over time.
So, while we always try to find the right balance, if the initiative is offensive to some (or one), they are more than welcome to stay off the network for some period of time, and perhaps try again in the future to see if the atmosphere is more appealing to their liking.
You missed the point, Don. The fact is that they are barking at the wrong tree. If you leave a DC-6 to its own devices, it will be out of fuel and prang in a few hours. Go bug the sleek plastic automated jets and the guys clobbering ramp space overnight. A bit of judicious judgment is needed. Don’t waste your time on things that can’t be left alone.
I have no idea you’re flying the PMDG DC-6 when I do connection checks. I frankly don’t care how attentive you need to be when flying it. I’m not sifting through a big list of pilots and aircraft types to find who I can inconvenience the most by asking for a very simple response.
If you’re connected to the network for any period of time flying any aircraft, you may get a random connection check.
I think the fact that we don’t really care about the aircraft type, route, or other particulars of your flight plan (say, your flight plan indicates that you just crossed a point with a filed a step climb) goes to show how much we don’t care about who we’re checking but instead just the connection itself.
If there’s a connection that has been online for a long time, I will conduct a check if I see fit. It’s not about you, it’s about the resources a dormant connection on the network is taking alongside the potential conflicts it may pose.
Hopefully when we work on behalf of an organisation, we remove our personal bias and do what the community sees fit. I believe as we have been told further back, there is a list of priorities for checking. Given the number of pilots not on 122.800 and the problems they cause, I would see length of connection a secondary target unless you are looking for the easier things.
Yes, the same supr who checked me on at least two separate long-haul flights. Just no reason as I’m on a filed flight plan monitoring 122.8 / 121.5, I have stopped my donations until this harassment stops. I have over 8,500 VatSim logged hours with no problems until this BS! In my last six long-haul flights, I was Dead or Alive Checked. I joined VatSim in 2013 and this Dead or Alive Check just started in the past two months.
I’d say the same thing as these guys. Where in the world don’t people withdraw funding if they disagree with the direction of the organisation? I cannot understand why they would continue supporting IF they disagree with the direction. It’s simply logic 101 to me.
For what it’s worth (like that $ LOL), an organisation cannot manage by dictatorship and lack of empathy and expect to prosper.
When Board says yes there is a policy and it has priorities, that is calming.
When a SUP gets on and says I’ll do whatever I please, that is disruptive and counterproductive to the board and the organisation. Demonstrates a lack of inclusiveness and understanding of there role.
If this had been left at post #xx where the board made an appropriate response this would have been much better.
It would be much better, if people, who are not capable of sending back a ‘hi, I’m alive’ to a SUP, but calls it harrasment, not only stopped donating, but also left the organisation, so we didn’t have to spend time on the “flueknepperi” as we would say in Danish.
I have looked through the supervisor tickets since the end of last month. There are 0 [zero] related to supervisor conduct on the topic discussed here. This also includes 0 [zero] tickets from those who have expressed their dislike and that they feel harassed.
Several people have explained why connection checks have reappeared. I can not share data on case statistics, but the number of cases of pilots being away has rapidly increased. As others said, there are no plans that I know of of this stopping. And no, no one here is special enough, even if they feel/think so, to be flagged personally for a connection check as soon as they connect to the network. Only after they have been on there for long enough. If they stay on long enough on every connection, then sure, they will be flagged every time…
It has also been explained that there are priorities for supervisors and connection checks are low on the list. Personally, for me, this would be something I do in between wallops or when there are none, workload allowing… Cases of connection checks have not and do not make other work on the network less important or push it to the side - quite the opposite.
So after all these, I fail to see where this is going, if someone could help me - is it people complaining they can not do 3 keystrokes (h+i+enter) or people who feel intimidated by or harassed by a staff member performing their work on the network as they should by governing documents?
When a SUP gets on and says I’ll do whatever I please, that is disruptive and counterproductive to the board and the organisation. Demonstrates a lack of inclusiveness and understanding of there role
Sean, can you clarify, please? I fail to see where this is coming from. Also, I agree with you that the BoG should listen to and take feedback from the community and they do so regularly. But it is also true that VATSIM has never been and never will be a democracy (thankfully!).
I find them annoying af and hope this stops soon! It was all fine for years now until those annoying and unnesessary checks started again a couple of months ago! Stop it already! Last time i got one of those annoying messages on a 4 hour flight with no ATC or traffic anywhere near me at all! I mean wtf!!! Stop it!
that’s exactly the type of occasions where people are most prone to leave the connections unattended, and as such, requires that supervisors do random checks
