October 2003 Newsletter
Australia Division
Welcome to
new pilots Adrian Hoogenbosch and Chris Blake.
This news
item from Capt. Rob Finn bgad003
Australia is now the proud owner of a flyable Catalina. The aircraft ferried through my home town of Cairns during the week to its new home at Woollongong, about 50 miles south of Sydney. I was fortunate enough to have a close up look at her and also watch the take-off.
The Cat is owned by HARS ( Historical
Aircraft Restoration Society). I I know anything yet of serial numbers etc, but
was told the Cat was ferried from France where she was once used as a fire
bomber. The Cat will be re-painted in RAAF WW2 colours and then join the
airshow circuit along side the other HARS aircraft.
Capt. Rob
is busy preparing the Great Aussie Air
Race of 2004 which will probably be held in February.
Feature of the Month
DC-3 World
Rally
Fifteen Flights; Friday, 10 October
through Sunday 26 October, 2003
DC-3
Airways is hosting a World Rally.
Their
pilots are always glad to fly in our major events. I would ask you to consider flying in their event.
http://www.dc3airways.com/wr/wr_welcome.html
The website has all the details and an aircraft to download.
At last count there are 7 Bluegrass Pilots signed up. But, we are all DC-3 Airways pilots also, so that is how we appear on the roster. The fastest pilot doesn’t win, the winner is the pilot who performs closest to the average of all pilots. This ought to be a lot of fun.
Alaska Division a.k.a. Bluegrass Bush Pilots Division
We want to welcome Basilio Fernandes and Marc Delettrez to our division. They were also promoted to 1st Officer during the month of September.
ATP Captain Bill Odell has been hard at work on the “First Annual Bush Pilots Toughman Challenge” and it looks like it is going to be loads of fun. December is the perfect time to fly in Alaska and see how tough you really are. ATP Captain Bill Odell has cooked us up an adventure that will feed the stories at the lodge all winter long. More information will be coming shortly and we want to invite all to come join us in December.
We had six of our pilots participate in the National Air Tour and we all want to thank Capt. Bill Von Sennet on an outstanding job in not only putting this event together but administering the whole thing. For those of us that actually got to see the real NAT in person it was a real blast to also fly along with Bluegrass (and Isabel didn’t even ruffle my feathers). Thanks Again Boss Man for a Historical event.
From the C.E.O.
The National Air Tour is history.
We had 33 pilots participating and 27 pilots completed the nearly 4,000 mile journey 3 pilots flew the tour twice! (with two different types of aircraft)
Simultaneously with our event, the real “National Air Tour” was flown. Brent Brazeel was able to see them at Tulsa, OK Tom Smith saw them fly over Tyler, TX, and I was able to see them at Frederick MD and Pittsburgh PA. Two DC-3 Airways pilots were also able to see the tour. One at Bessemer, AL and the other at Greenville, SC
Our web-site had over 7,000 visitors in September, the most since March when we hosted the Great Aussie Air Race of 2003. Even though we only had 33 pilots submitting flight reports, I think we had many unregistered pilots flying as well.
|
|
Sep-03 |
|
Air Mail
Pilots |
88.88 |
|
Air Mail
Visitors |
173.39 |
|
Total Air
Mail Div. Flight Hours |
262.27 |
|
|
|
|
Alaska
Pilots |
559.49 |
|
Alaska
Visitors |
31.59 |
|
Total
Alaska Div Flight Hours |
585.98 |
|
|
|
|
Australian
Pilots |
320.29 |
|
Australian
Visitors |
19.20 |
|
Total
Australian Div Flight Hours |
339.49 |
|
|
|
|
Northern
Pilots |
74.76 |
|
Northern
Visitors |
1037.63 |
|
Total
Northern Div Flight Hours |
1112.39 |
|
|
|
|
Southern
Pilots |
295.99 |
|
Southern
Visitors |
105.20 |
|
Total
Southern Div Flight Hours |
401.19 |
|
|
|
|
Turbo
Visitors |
156.21 |
|
Total
Turbo Flight Hours |
156.21 |
Bluegrass Pilots flew 1334.31 hours in September.
Pilots not affiliated with Bluegrass flew 510.23 hours in The National Air Tour
National Air Tour flights flew within the Northern and Southern Divisions, and some of them
were also credited to the Air Mail Division if flown using an aircraft from the 1932 period.
Most of the hours were credited to the Northern Div. if the Tour flight was posted as one
entry since the tour originated in Michigan.
Visiting pilots and their hours included:
|
Colin
Gaitskill |
nat005 |
National
Air Tour |
35.55 |
|
Ken
Malczynski |
nat006 |
National
Air Tour |
40.20 |
|
Ron
Bushell |
nat007 |
National
Air Tour |
25.93 |
|
Pär
Bensered |
nat009 |
National
Air Tour |
28.28 |
|
Gary
Irvine |
nat011 |
National
Air Tour |
25.15 |
|
David
Wood |
nat015 |
National
Air Tour |
25.87 |
|
Charles
Wood |
nat016 |
National Air
Tour |
25.52 |
|
Gavin Mills |
nat017 |
National
Air Tour |
8.20 |
|
Bob Betts |
nat019 |
National
Air Tour |
26.67 |
|
Donald
McCormick |
nat020 |
National
Air Tour |
27.52 |
|
Detlef
Kruger |
nat023 |
National
Air Tour |
31.13 |
|
Paul
Nelson |
nat027 |
National
Air Tour |
31.73 |
|
Tim Cook |
nat029 |
National
Air Tour |
1.98 |
|
Alexander
Lowson |
nat039 |
National
Air Tour |
34.95 |
|
Frank
Seigler |
nat040 |
National
Air Tour |
18.70 |
|
Dempsey
Querry |
nat042 |
National
Air Tour |
27.37 |
|
Kerry LeBlanc |
nat044 |
National
Air Tour |
19.47 |
|
Dave
Arnold |
nat046 |
National
Air Tour |
26.48 |
|
Luc
Vanasse |
nat047 |
National
Air Tour |
25.03 |
|
Eric van
Hoof |
nat048 |
National
Air Tour |
24.50 |
|
|
|
|
|
Most are DC-3 Airways Pilots. My thanks to DC-3 Airways for supporting our event.
The NAT screenshot page has a large selection of pictures of the real National Air Tour taken at Bessemer, AL, Frederick MD and Pittsburgh PA.
http://www.bluegrassairlines.com/nat/screenshots
There are two "Quick Time" movies that can be
downloaded. They are about 4 megabytes each.
81.mov is of the S-39 amphibian departing, and 84.mov is of the DC-3 taking
off.
http://www.bluegrassairlines.com/81.zip
http://www.bluegrassairlines.com/84.zip
You can download a free quicktime program to watch them (and listen!)
http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/
Comment
“I’ll vote with my feet”, was often a way of saying that if I don’t like something (such as a restaurant) I won’t complain to the waitress/waiter but I won’t be back. Well looking over the statistics for the past year, its clear that we are doing something right. Attempts to generate interest in Multi-Player flying have failed, and the “Features of the Month” don’t seem to get much attention in the month they are released. But they are flown by some pilots months later, even a year later. For example one pilot just completed Bill Odell’s flight 999 “Around the world in a DC-3” and one day not long ago I noticed several pireps from two pilots who where flying the “Catalina Jaunt”.
Over the last 12 months BGA pilots have flown 12,419.51 hours. In the first nine months of 2003 you have averaged over 1200 hours per month. If you see an area that could use improvement, your suggestions are always welcome. Your help is also welcome. I am going to sit back and relax for awhile. I now have only FS2004 and will not be working on scenery, since I notice that our roster now contains several pilots who are much more skillful at scenery than I am.
My time will be used working on the web-site, pireps, and modifying panels. One project for those of you with gmax skills would be a Bluegrass repaint for the FS9 default DC-3. Several talented people are working at perfecting the flight dynamics, and Trev Morson has an excellent panel and sound package on his www.douglasdc3.com web-site. My latest panel modification uses Trev’s panel and gauges, plus some gauges from the DC-3 Airways World Rally panel.
It should be mentioned that Bluegrass Airlines has had some exceptional help from others in the FlightSim world.
Without friends like Tom Gibson, Tony Smith, avsim.com, flightsim.com and DC-3 Airways we would be an obscure virtual airline. But as a result of those friends and others, we get great publicity for our airline. Of course, the aircraft, panel, scenery and flight dynamics designers have all been very gracious in allowing us to freely use their intellectual property.
With last months National Air Tour, we were given permission to use the map with logo of “The National Air Tour” and the Centennial of Flight Commission has permitted us to use their logo. It doesn’t get much better than this.
Thanks for being a part of Bluegrass Airlines. Its wouldn’t be any fun to give a party if no one showed up.
Bill
P.S. Don’t forget the forum and the screen shot pages.
08
October 2003
MEMORANDUM
From:
BGA Northern Division Director
To:
BGA Chief Executive Officer
Subj:
NORTHERN DIVISION STATUS REPORT - September 2003
1.
In accordance with operational requirements of Bluegrass Airlines Divisions,
the following is a summary of flight activity within the Northern Division
during the month of September 2003.
BGAN007
Brent Perry
2.40 hours
(career
total: 386.70 hours)
BGAN029
John Kolmos 12.20
hours
(career
total: 223.73 HOURS)
BGAN033
Don Hulick
32.15 hours
(career
total: 179.83 hours
TOTAL TIME BY DIVISION
PILOTS IN SEPTEMBER: 46.75 hours
VISITORS
BGAD011
Ed
Burke
25.33 hours
BGAD017
John Lawler 82.53
hours
BGAD022
Gayngel van den Ing 6.34 hours
BGAD026
Norm Holman 42.46
hours
BGAD027
Adrian Hoogenbosch 1.20 hours
BGAK001
Brent Brazeel 32.85 hours
BGAK004
Bill Odell
34.26 hours
BGAK011
Coleman Green 9.93 hours
BGAK029
Pat
Daley
6.87 hours
BGAK030
Ron Jorgensen 9.00 hours
BGAK031
Ralph Prisel 18.50 hours
BGAK033
Tom Burrill
2.60 hours
BGAK036
Paul van den Berg 3.27 hours
BGAM007
Allan Lowson 42.34 hours
BGAS001
Bill Von Sennet 42.94 hours
BGAS005
Kevin Johnson 18.46 hours
BGAS006
Bill
Agee
1.99 hours
BGAS031
Gary McCarty 18.52 hours
BGAS039
Charles Wert 2.30
hours
BGAS041
Jim Urquhart 11.20 hours
TOTAL TIME BY VISITING
PILOTS IN SEPTEMBER: 412.89 hours
TOTAL TIME WITHIN
THE NORTHERN DIVISION: 457.64 hours
2.
Sorry about being late but the past two weeks have been very hectic around
here, plus I am in the middle of my "change of season" cold, so my
attitude has not been too good for a few days ..... :o)
R/Sr. Capt. Bob Thompson
Southern Division
I was just looking over back issues of the newsletter and the last time I welcomed new pilots was in April.
So, welcome to Jason Krogmann, Peter Stojanovic, Tom McCart, Charles Wert, Brian Braden, Jim Urquhart, Andre Wag and Sandy Blaize.
Since I have become the C.E.O. of Bluegrass, the administration of the Southern Division has become a “back-burner” activity as I concentrate most of my efforts at administration of the airline as a whole. The Southern Division as well as the Australian Division would be well served if new division directors would take over the helms. If anyone want to give it a try, I will provide all the help you will need.
Flight Reports
There continue to be some problems with the flight reports, although overall the system is working well. To try to alleviate any confusion, the link to your flight report form is on your home division page.
So here is a mini-tutorial of how it should work. For this example, lets assume that you are an Alaskan Division Pilot.
You would go to the Alaskan Division home page www.bluegrassairlines.com/bgak
Click on the PIREP (flight reports) link. The form will load.
Notice the second line says: Do not use this form unless you are an Alaskan Division Pilot.
If you see anything else for the second line your isp has loaded an old form Click “refresh”
The third line says Flight Originated in the Alaska Division V < this down arrow is a look up button
If your flight originated in the Alaska Division you may accept the default and continue to fill out the form.
If your flight originated elsewhere, click the look up button and select the division that you took off from.
Then continue with the rest of the form.
Every division has their own form, so please make sure you are using the form for your division.
The page that used to have links to each divisions forms, has been changed. It still has information on the geographical boundries and links to each divisions home page, but no longer links to the forms as this may have caused confusion.
www.bluegrassairlines.com/geography101.html
Thanks,
Capt. Bill
To read back issues click this link to read September 2003. At the bottom of that one there are more links.