PilotEdge Forums

Received via email this evening...

I want to tell you, pilotedge is a great tool for practice my radio communication, in México I held my commercial pilot license, but all the radio slang is completely different, technically I learn English 11 years ago when I met my wife I'm 44 years old, I'm trying to get my FAA pilot license, and still talking and writing backwards, but I prefer make a mistake on the simulator than the real world, yesterday I make a few mistakes, pilotedge twr correct to me. PLEASE tell your staff thank you for helping me.
Foreing people we appreciate it any language is easy to learn.

I'd like to +1 all of the good things that people have said about PilotEdge. It's really helped my radio communication in the real world. I was usually alright until I got an approach clearance and my brain would lock up about half way through it. With PilotEdge, I've been able to fly IFR flight after IFR flight after IFR flight, and I'm slowly getting better on the radio. It's saved me a fortune over trying to replicate that same amount of experience in the air.

I've also been really impressed by the quality of the controllers I've worked with on PilotEdge. They show a lot of patience for us task-saturated IFR students. Thanks for all of the help, especially whoever was handling Santa Barbara approach tonight when I had to request an amended clearance mid-approach due to a baby waking up.

[quote=".... due to a baby waking up.[/quote]

Baby in the cockpit?? I hate it when that happens!

Yes Pilotedge has a great group of people.

I'd like to take my turn with a big shout out to Keith and all the ATC folks on PilotEdge who put up with my constant mistakes and my guts coming straight out of my mouth because of mic fright lol.

Thank you! I'm thoroughly enjoying my time in PilotEdge.

Every time I participate I learn something new and that is pretty sweet. Controllers are both kind and "real world unforgiving" at the same time, and I think that is a good thing and helping me prepare for real flight so much, if that day ever comes.

But also, in these uncertain times and not having a normal life right now and having to self-isolate even now because of my medical condition, it's been just wonderful firing up X-plane, and getting away from all of this nonsense and immersing myself into a world, and an industry and profession I previously knew not much about. Awesome. I love to learn.

The other thing that I really enjoy is the sort of tour I'm doing as a result of progressing through the CAT tests. I'm at CAT 7 now. As I write this I'm assuming everyone knows, you start out at one airport and progressively move onto another from the destination airport (at least until CAT 7). That's a lot of fun because it gets (realistically) and progressively harder and I get to see (with the help of Orbx) parts of my native California (I live in Maine now) that I've never seen and certainly haven't experienced from the air. So, I make a bit of a game out of it and promise myself I won't look at the next CAT rating until I've passed the present one. Stupid and corny, I agree but fuck Covid, I need to escape lol. And I need to learn and develop a new skill.

So thank you for giving me the opportunity to learn something new in a solid, realistic environment.

PilotEdge is truly awesome!

My turn -- 3000+ hour commercial/multi/instrument no stratosphere, no instructing, just thick air aviating around the Western USA from age 10 onward with the dream of being a down-and-dirty master IFR pilot. I reached a high point in my skills around 1990, then my hours/year dropped and dropped. No flying 2004-2012. Then 5 years as a Tactical Flight Officer for the local Sheriff's Office (long story how this came about). I did get my rotorcraft add-on. I retired from there in 2017.

Why all that background? Because even when flying with the Sheriff's Office and managing law enforcement communications, ground nav, thermal imaging, goggles, and flying home PIC from calls ... my IFR navigation and ATC skills were in smoking ruins. I had little hope of recapturing my lifetime dream come true.

Enter XP, the 412 and 429 helicopters, and Pilot Edge. I got my CAT ratings except 11 (I forgot) then more recently flew around as Army and Navy helicopters (just to keep things weird and interesting). Then I just got CAT-11 and I decided to start the I rating process. While reading up I saw Keith's advice to watch the free training workshops. I just finished the Departures Demystified one. Years and years of flying real world LO IFR and going to Flight Safety yearly.. and I learned new things. But more importantly it was an amazing refresh.

Thank you Keith and your team. I have great respect for the PE software engineering (my lifelong vocation, literally since 1970, and still currently my business), and for you as an aviation teacher. PilotEdge is a masterpiece of engineering and service. Your engineering team to include Tim Krajcar(!!) should feel really good about the job you did in design and implementation. And the service level provided by the controllewrs is simply first class. I hope like heck you are enjoying the fruits of your creativity, capability, and efforts. And compliments to your controllers. They are amazing.

I'll add my praise to this list! I'm a real world pilot working on an instrument rating. Radios have always been my weak point!

Yesterday I was doing the Alphabet Challenge flight from Long Beach to Montgomery in a Mooney M20L. Weather was a bit sketchy, but I figured this would be a good opportunity to practice. I took off VFR and flew east at 2400 to stay below the clouds. As I approached the mountains I told myself there was absolutely no way I would continue this flight in real life, but since it was the sim I gave myself the opportunity to learn. I tuned in Approach just in case and started to pick my way through the mountains. Unfortunately I ended up in a box canyon and was actually very anxious about getting out of there. I was able to turn back to the west and called up Approach to get a popup IFR clearance so I could continue. I hadn't done one in the sim yet and it worked great! I continued the flight and found that Montgomery was socked in down to 200 feet with 3/4 mile visibility even though it was forecasted to be VFR. I was able to pull up the charts on the fly and request an instrument approach. I broke out just as I was starting the missed and landed safely. My 45 minute flight took about an hour and a half and I left the chair sweating. I never thought I would learn so much in such a short period without actually being in the plane!

Thank you to the controllers that make this possible and also to my fellow sim pilots that do their absolute best to treat this like the real thing. All of your efforts do not go unappreciated!