DC-3 Airways Operations Manual

Table of Contents What Is DCA? System Requirements Membership Membership Status Membership Dismissal Non-Commercial Nature Pilot Instruction Navigational Tutorial Promotions Route Bidding Hub System Credit for Flight Time On-Line Flying Charter Flights Partner VAs Feedback Management Opportunities Change Log

What is DC-3 Airways Although we are called DC-3 Airways and fly all derivatives of the Douglas DC-3, we have now adopted the Douglas DC-2 and the Douglas DC-4 and its derivatives, for which there is an ever growing number of suitable flights becoming available. The DC-3 Airways home base is located at Logan Airport (KBOS) in Boston, MA, but serves customers worldwide with regularly-scheduled flights, charter flights, and pilot-created flights Back to Top System Requirements To participate in this VA, virtual pilots must have Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004 (FS9) or later, Lockheed-Martin Prepar3d v2 or later, or X-Plane 10 or later installed. See your perticular choice of software's specific system requirements, as they differ from one platform to another. Back to Top Membership DC-3 Airways is open to any who wish to join and participate. To become a DC-3 Airways pilot, go to the Join Page, and enter and submit the requested information. When membership is confirmed, the pilot's name will be listed on the DC-3 Airways Roster page. DC-3 Airways will assign a pilot number to each pilot upon joining the VA. The pilot should provide their pilot number whenever reporting flights, PIREPs, or in any other correspondence. Back to Top Membership Status A DC-3 Airways pilot remains on the active roster as long as they complete the required training flights in the allotted amount of time, and then at least one flight per six-month period. The data is accumulated based on PIREPs that pilots submit via our PIREP system. If an event or events prevent a pilot from meeting the minimum flight hours, please notify management to prevent any misunderstandings. If a DC-3 Airways pilot fails to meet the flight-time requirement for their current rank, he or she listed as "Inactive" on the roster. However, a pilot who has been listed as inactive due to inactivity will be reactivated simply by submitting a PIREP. They will retain their pilot number and credit for all previous flight hours on reinstatement. An exception to this is when a pilot has been removed from the roster for inactivity, and having recorded a total of less than ten hours or has been inactive for more than one year. In this case a pilot wishing to reactivate his account will be treated as a “New Join” and must begin again with a new pilot number and with zero hours. Back to Top Membership Dismissal DC-3 Airways was established for the enjoyment of the flight-sim community. If a member becomes disruptive, abusive or attempts to bring this Virtual Airline down as determined by a staff member, he or she will be dismissed. It is hoped that dismissal procedures will never become necessary, however, this is an open site and people of all types populate the Internet, so, regrettably, one must be prepared. A full back-up of this VA's software is maintained at an off-site location as protection against mischief. Back to Top Non Commercial Nature of DC-3 Airways. Pilot's names, addresses, or e-mail addresses will never be given out, sold, or rented to any commercial organization. If DC-3 Airways becomes aware of a particularly useful product or software utility, pertinent information may be passed on to the members. This is not spam in disguise as too often happens on the Internet. Be assured that a product or software utility will not be promoted for any personal financial gain of the VA or any VA management, including accepting free copies of those products. Back to Top Pilot Instruction DC-3 Airways expects pilots applying for membership to be familiar and experienced to some degree with their preferred flight simulation software. One needn't be an expert. However, the pilot should have at least a few hours of experience with flight simulation and be able to perform basic maneuvers, navigate properly, and be familiar with simulator function. Our Forum is an excellent place where questions will almost always receive sensible and helpful replies. This website contains a major instructional section pertaining specifically to the DC-3. All pilots will benefit by reading through that section. All new pilots must complete the six Type-Rating flights before flying any other flights. In total, this is less than 3½ hours of flight time. These flights will familiarize new pilots with the flight characteristics of the DC-3 and exposesthem to the ILS, VOR and NDB IFR approaches. Ten Bonus hours are credited on completion of these flights. All will be better DC-3 pilots after completing these flights. These flights are for experience only; there are no tests associated with them. Back to Top Navigation Tutorial A separate and comprehensive tutorial is available for pilots to learn all aspects of Navigation. The Tutorial can be viewed here… http://www.navfltsm.addr.com  One can fly most of that tutorial's practice flights with any publicly or commercially available DC-3. DC-3 Airways members will be granted PIREP credit for any of those flights that are flown with a DC-3. Consider this a "Sanctioned Event." Back to Top Promotions Promotions are granted based on hours flown. No other factor enfluences promotions. The ranks and required hours flown are listed in the table below. FlightEngineer On Joining Second Officer 10 Hours First Officer 20 Hours Captain 40 Hours Sr. Captain 80 Hours ATP Captain 140 Hours Charter Captain 220 Hours Command Captain 350 Hours Line Captain 600 Hours *President's Pilot 1,000 Hours *Chief Pilot 2,000 Hours *Founder's Pilot 4,000 Hours *Sr. Founder's Pilot 10,000 Hours (* indicates a senior pilot rank) Back to Top Route Bidding Pilots need not bid routes on DC-3 Airways. Simply select a charter, route, or create your own flight. Once your flight is completed, simply file a PIREP for it. All new pilots must fly and report flights 1201 through 1206 included in the Type-Rating Schedule. You may not fly and report any other flight until these mandatory flights are completed and correctly reported. Back to Top Hub System The hub and spoke system of routes did not exist in the '40s and '50s era of this Virtual Airline. DC-3 Airways' routes directly connect many more cities than a hub system. The larger cities, of course, have more departures and arrivals, and thus may give the appearance of a hub. Back to Top Credit for Flight Time Towards the end of 2007 DC-3 Airways introduced the very popular concept of 'Free Flight'. This meant that as well as having the option of claiming flight hours for all the other forms of flight credit; you may now create and fly your own flight plan between any two airports in the world. To submit a PIREP after making a Free Flight, you must include the ICAO codes for the departure and arrival airports. If a flight is broken into legs, each leg of the flight must be submitted on a separate PIREP. An example of a Free Flight PIREP is shown below... Pilot #: 0393 Name: Robert Betts Flight Number: KVPZ-KIND Minutes Flown: 51 Comments: Valparaiso, IN to Indianapolis, IN FS9 ATC - IFR @ 5000 ft As with all other flights, they should normally be flown with Flight Simulator set at the default simulation rate of 1.0. On very long flights such as Trans Atlantic crossings it is permissible to increase the simulation rate. Honesty must prevail here and only the flight time as seen from the cockpit must be reported for credit. The fact that increased rate simulation has been used should then be stated in the Comments section to avoid confusion. For example, if your simulated flight time is eight hours, but you fly at 4x time and finish the flight in 2.5 hours, your PIREP should reflect an eight hour flight, but in your comments, indicate that you flew part of the flight at 4x rate. Back to Top On-Line Flying There are currently three available options for online flying; VATSIM IVAO DC-3 Airlines Multiplayer Servers Currently, DC-3 Airways has no official affiliation with either VATSIM or IVAO. However, both networks are available options for free-flight activities. There is no special PIREP procedures, and flights should be filed as free flights (FF). Formal MP Events flown on Saturdays, Sundays, and Tuesdays, or an otherwise designated special event (Operation Market Garden, Operation Varsity, etc), are eligible for flight credit. The Vice President - Flight Ops or his designee will assign the PIREP number for that event if it is not already a posted DCA flight. These flights should be reported as multiplayer (MP) flights using the flight information given in the description of the event. This information is usually posted on the forum several days in advence of the event. Back to Top Charter Flights DC-3 Airways welcomes and encourages the submission of Charter Flights designed by member pilots. For details see the menu - Flights/Charters/Info/Charter Submission. Back to Top Partner VAs DC-3 Airways may partner with another Virtual Airline or Airlines with route structures suitable for a DC-3. The DC-3, unless re-tanked for ferry flights, cannot fly non-stop across the US, or across the Atlantic or the Pacific. Thus there is no consideration of partnering with VAs with that sort of route structure. Back to Top Feedback DC-3 Airways encourages constructive feedback, whether positive or negative, from pilots or other visitors to this site. The VA can only improve with feedback. Quite simply, what should be changed, added, dumped, or whatever? DC-3 Airways pilots should always provide their membership number in any communication with the VA. Back to Top Management opportunities at DC-3 Airways Management opportunities are occasionally available at DC-3 Airways. If you are eager and enthusiastic, we welcome your help, even if only for a single task. Please offer your assistance if you see something that needs to be done or somewhere that you can help. You only need to email a staff member. The president can be reached at Andy Hatcher's Email, or you may choose to email our Vice President-Flight Ops, Glen Broome. Perhaps the best way to get a message to any staff member and other pilots is through the use of our forum. Remember, however, that you will not have access to our forum until after you have completed all six training flights, at which time you will be added to the forum and emailed your login information. Thank you. Charles Wood, Founder Back to Top     "Change Log Version 1.2 edited 21 April 2020 Corrceted VATSIM flight filing procedures Corrected VP-Flight Ops contact information Cleaned up promotions section Clarified policy on multistop flights and PIREPS Clarified policy on sim rates other than real time Version 1.1 edited 21 August 2017 corrected president's contact information overall update of operations manual