UALR OpNote 013

Promotions – Please join me in congratulating Conner on passing his Captain’s checkride.
Dual Center – Pilots can expect to see New York Center active on a more regular basis.  This will allow for newer routes, longer and more realistic regional flights, and dispatch will begin to reflect that.  UALR flights within ZNY are authorized when coverage is available.  Remember all UALR flights should take place within an ARTCC controlled area.  When ZNY is online operations are authorized for KUNV, KCKY, KAVP, KBGM, KIPT, KEWR, KLGA, and of course KJFK.  Routes will be posted to the Route Finder and distributed shortly.

New Aircraft – With the addition of new routes, medium and long range aircraft are authorized for Captains. UALR is first and foremost a regional airline!  And while many pilots would be excited about new aircraft, there are bigger BVA oriented concerns that mandate we proceed slowly with use of these new aircraft.  For that reason, and for the moment, Captains only are authorized to fly United Regional paint on the Embraer 175/195, Boeing 737, MD11, and MD Super 80.  Pilots interested in operating these aircraft regularly should voice their interest in obtaining their Captain’s qualification.

Server Outage and Dispatch Recycle – As you know there was a server outage recently that affected last weeks Thursday night event.  That event will be recycled for the this week’s regional, and the dispatch ticket will be re-issued, and re-used.  For the following week of 8/12, squadron assignments will be tightened up, and squadron leaders will prepare dispatch for their own gang of jets.   

Aircraft Lighting Corrections  – Aircraft lighting has been a source of debate for some time now.  The debate stems around realworld vs. FSX operations.  Here is the last word on the matter.  We make several modifications to operations in BVA vs. real world in order to suit the needs of our community.  These modifications are not taken lightly since our goal is to simulate real world operations as closely as possible.  This being said, what follows is the official word on aircraft lighting at United Regional:

Navigation lights and logo lights ON when aircraft occupied
No Smoking ON at all times.  Seatbelt ON prior to engine start
Beacon ON prior to engine or APU start, and remain ON while engines are running
Taxi lights ON when moving the aircraft
Strobelights ON once clear of the ramp area, and OFF prior to entering the ramp area
Landing lights ON prior to entering runway
Above 10,000 landing lights OFF, seatbelt is at discretion of PIC
 
Departing Altitude at Pilots Discretion – When requested by ATC to “depart current altitude at pilot’s discretion” pilots should alert ATC when they actually begin the change of altitude unless they are doing so immediately after receiving said instruction.  
 
ATC Feedback form – During the Hawaii event two UALR pilots reported near misses with mountains due to controllers authorizing altitude changes earlier than was prudent for terrain. 

It became apparent that pilots needed a way to report incidents of this sort to ATC.  In discussion with BVA operations it was determined that the ATC Feedback Form available on the BVA website would be the best way to do so.  In the future UALR pilots should use this form if needed to report near misses, TCAS alerts, terrain avoidance, repeated inaccuracies from controllers, audio level problems, controller rudeness, UFO’s, and related incidents.  The form is self explanatory, and can be submitted on a confidential basis if you wish.