Got back in the virtual air this last weekend, flew flight 486 For US Airways Virtual. You can check out the Vataware Tracking Here.
It was a largely uneventful flight. The A320 is easy to fly, as long as you keep on top of the MCDU. Traffic was light, and there was no ATC to screw me up as I came into Denver.
One of my pet peeves as a pilot on VATSIM is the spotty ATC. I like flying with ATC, but I get so frustrated when I have to guess coming into an airport which runway I’ll be landing on, and then set up the FMC for that runway, just to have ‘Approach’ sign-on and tell me that I’ll be landing on the other side of the airport. I know in the real-world, pilots know heading out of the gate where they’ll be landing on the other end – and if that changes, they find out well before they start their descent. It just makes it difficult to have to deal with the change all at once, as you’re trying to gracefully bring down a hundred thousand pounds of metal.
I’ve flown between KDEN and KPHX at least a dozen times this last year. The only other city pair that comes close it KMCI and KDEN. As a pilot for US Airways, I’m limited to their hub cities – which are Phoenix, Charlotte and Philly. Those are good cities, but a number of the routes between them are three to four hours long. When I fly, I really don’t want to take that long away from everything else I’m doing, so I look for a quick flight instead – which ends up being KDEN – KPHX for US Airways and KMCI – KDEN for Southwest.
Happy Landings!
Flight: US Airways 486, KPHX – KDEN
Route: SILOW1.RSK HBU.POWDR7
Aircraft: Airbus A320 (iFDG / PSS Merge)
Paint: Legacy US Airways (Black)
Block Time: 1:44
