New NOTAM : Online Callsigns

[Ben Hunwicks]

"Why on earth has this new rule come in insisting that we use our pilot numbers online? For a VA that goes out of its way to heavily advertise as being one based completely around realism and mirroring of the real airline, this is about as unrealistic as you can get! When was the last time anyone with a scanner or listening to live ATC on the net heard an Atlas or Polar crew using their pilot IDs as callsigns? Never! The reason about no-one else being able to log on using that callsign, is fairly irrelevant because there are so few globecargo pilots flying online, the chances of having two people flying the same flight online at the same time is very rare. In all my years flying online, I have only ever not been able to log on once in over 1500hrs online, and that was flying for BAVirtual who have hundreds of members online at the same time."

[hawkeyeted]

"Why does this seem to irritate you so much? There are several VA's that do the same Ben. I personally have been kicked for having a duplicate callsign by, guess who, a fellow GCI pilot flying the same route. It will ELEMINATE that possibility, no matter how small the chances are, of getting the VATSIM boot for having duplicate callsigns. Bottom line: It can and does happen. Its a choice the committee decided on. So it is written, so it shall be done."

[Craig Applegate 1207]

"I have to agree with Ted. Even though we are trying to keep it real, its much easier for those who fly online to use their PIDs. Its also easier to see who is flying online. There have been times in REAL life that Polar had two flights in the air at the same time with the same flight number. ATC frowns on this BIG time, so we have to amend the callsign. Most VAs who fly online use pilot IDs."

[thansson]

"This would have become even more of an issue as we implement the double-bids for flights in the near future. (One for Captain and the other for First Officer). Then the probability of duplicate callsigns would go through the roof if both pilots decide to fly on-line! I have flown with a number of VAs and they all do it differently. There were some where the flight were assigned to you by management and it then wasn't much of an issue. There were other VAs where you picked your own flight and then it was more of a challenge... Alaska for example that I flew with was using the flight number on-line and it created quite the mess in the on-line records. If you look up my VATSIM record (http://data.vatsim.net/stats/private/li ... ?id=840812), you will see tons of entries for ASA but only one for SWA (my current passanger VA). Now, which one is easier to read? Besides, as I already mentioned, with the upcoming changes we don't really have much of a choice..."

[nwadc10]

"

Why on earth has this new rule come in insisting that we use our pilot numbers online? For a VA that goes out of its way to heavily advertise as being one based completely around realism and mirroring of the real airline, this is about as unrealistic as you can get! When was the last time anyone with a scanner or listening to live ATC on the net heard an Atlas or Polar crew using their pilot IDs as callsigns? Never! The reason about no-one else being able to log on using that callsign, is fairly irrelevant because there are so few globecargo pilots flying online, the chances of having two people flying the same flight online at the same time is very rare. In all my years flying online, I have only ever not been able to log on once in over 1500hrs online, and that was flying for BAVirtual who have hundreds of members online at the same time.

PAC and GTI flights can be flown by non-GC pilots as well. I've seen several flights being operated by non-GC pilots. Unfortunately, because this is a simulation we have to make compromises and sacrifices in areas. This just happens to be one of those things which imposes an unrealistic limitation on us. Justin"

[Mike Schmitt]

"

When flying online with Vatsim or IVAO, callsigns shall be the pilot's GC Pilot Number. For example, no matter what flight I am actually operating, say PO602, my callsign on Vatsim/IVAO will be Polar 1040 (1040 being my GC pilot number). At least Vatsim does not allow duplicate flight numbers when logging on to their system. If another pilot was also flying PO602 and logged on before me I would be unable to connect until I changed my flight number. Using your GC pilot number will avoid this issue. All other references to the flight number shall be to the flight you are operating. Enter, in the case of my example, PO602 in FSACARS or FSFK.

I don't have a problem with using my Pilot Id number but i d have a question astto how we are use are Id in a call sign. My Id is 1417 so are we log in using POLAR1417 or PO1417, or PAC1417 for POLAR Flights. I was just wandering if you are looking for any uniformity in this or not."

[cyoo eddie]

"Mike, on line log in for polar flights it would be PACxxxx and you would call yourself polarxxxx (xxxx being your pilot id), for atlas it is GTIxxxx, and you would call yourself giantxxxx when talking to atc. just be sure to use in flightkeeper or acars what ever you use, to put in the orighinal flight numbers. fsacars and fsfk have nothing whatsoever to do with on line atc. ed mosier 1287"

[maj]

Where is this NOTAM? Globe Cargo or VATSIM? Couldn't find it on either site...

[nharwood]

viewtopic.php?t=2103

[maj]

Thanks for the link Nathan... so this is a Globe Notam based on a new VATSIM policy?

[Ben Hunwicks]

"No it's nothing to do with Vatsim, in fact it is quite the opposite, Vatsim positively encourages the use of realistic callsigns."

[nwadc10]

"

No it's nothing to do with Vatsim, in fact it is quite the opposite, Vatsim positively encourages the use of realistic callsigns.

It is a Globe Cargo policy. Keep in mind the reason this has come up. Soon we will have captain and FO bids, in effect doubling the flight schedule. On top of that 1 flight number is operated many times per month. The odds of having a flight number being operated more than once at any time will greatly increase. This applies *only* to flights using an online ATC system. I flew a couple nights ago on Vatsim using this policy and it's just like any other flight number. Justin"

[cyoo eddie]

"I think it is a smart idea considering were the va is going, it sure makes it easier to remember the flight number, but you still have to remember if your call sign is polar or giant.... There have been a few times in a stressful part of the flight trying to remember all this stuff... ed mosier 1287"

[maj]

"OK, thanks for the explanations guys..."