Delta Virtual Airlines
Water Cooler

Andrew Vane wrote:


Flight reports for flights not in the DVA database will not be approved. If there is a real world flight not in our database, send Operations an email with a link to the real world flight and we'll do what we can to get it in there. If a pilot would like a flight not in our database, they may request an occasional charter via the help desk.

Andrew Vane wrote:

Eric I just saw your comment. It sounds good in principle but would require lots of checking to verify if the flight is valid or not. Some are not valid on certain days of the week. Some days there are 1500 flight reports to review for our all-volunteer staff. The system is set up to update each day based on a past cycle of flights. Even when we received the updated schedule, it was only updated quarterly so any changes in the schedule as far back as 3 months would not be reflected in the database. The cost of updating quarterly was something like $100 each time. Now it's closer to $5000 each time we update. With a budget of $2200 per year based solely on contributions, we can't afford it. We have a schedule database and we use it as our source.

15 years and 12,000 pilots through our doors is hardly what I'd consider "turns people off from wanting to participate in this VA". We've had talks with other VA's and they have the same struggles we do with the schedule database. Believe me, we're as tired of having to deal with this schedule thing as the pilots are. If there was a magic wand that solved all our problems I'd wave it every day.

We have a lot to offer that many other ones don't including a flight academy, increased difficulty in higher stages, real world Delta pilots on staff, a real life CFI VP of training with over 6,000 hours, a great relationship with the VATSIM controllers, and human flight report reviews. We're getting ready to release an airman course solely for the 737 program to test what those pilots really know. We haven't settled for xacars and the fact that xplane's developers had no interest in helping us capture more data to fully implement their product so one of our staff members is creating his own script. I'm hoping this can be released this year and we can fully implement xplane fliers. We don't have advertising. We don't have a link for donations. These things would make us dependent upon others and others' requirements. As with everything, we're a work in progress and growing and increasing what we have to offer. Thanks for being a part of DVA for so long.

Sorry for the rant. Your "turning people away" comment struck a chord in my spine on a Monday morning. :)