Delta Virtual Airlines Water Cooler

Delta Virtual Airlines Water Cooler | Airline Operations | Flight Assigments

DVA8757
Captain, MD-11
OLP

Joined on June 20 2010
50 State Club
Century Club

"It isn't what you do, but how you do it."
Southaven, MS USA

160 legs, 251.3 hours
77 legs, 116.9 hours online
160 legs, 251.3 hours ACARS

Posted onPost created on August 06 2010 12:23 ET by Don Abernathy

Can someone explain to me how the Flight Assignments work? What information do you input into the system and where? How long before you usually get the assignments? I didn't want to try it without knowing this is something I want to commit to. Do you have a timeframe in which they have to be completed once they have been assigned?

...we do have 'Flight Assigments': routes of 2 to 6 flight legs created by our staff as suggested routes to fly, or you can have our automated system randomly select flights for you to fly.

From the description above, it seems to suggest that you will be assigned a route from a home base location that will take you up to six legs to complete. When you go into the assignments page, all I can find is a link back to the "Find a Flight" link.

Your assistance is appreciated.

Don

Don Abernathy (DVA8757)

DVA5929
Senior Captain, B747-400
OLP

Joined on May 10 2008
Million Mile Club
Online Quadruple Century Club
Everett 500 Club
Globetrotter
Six Century Club
50 State Club
DVA Ten-Year Anniversary

"It's buried under a big W!"
TX USA

651 legs, 3,806.1 hours
472 legs, 2,922.9 hours online
565 legs, 3,319.5 hours ACARS
8 legs, 18.9 hours event

Posted onPost created on August 06 2010 13:43 ET by Nicholas Carpenter

The flight assigments main purpose is to (I believe) to let you save a route that does not occur seven days a week and allows you to fly it whenever you have the oppurtunity. E.X., You want to fly to airport X but it is only available as a route on Mon., Wed. and Fri. You save it as an assignment on Monday and now you can fly it on Tues., Thurs., Saturday., or Sunday., if you so choose. You can also have the randomly selected routes assigned to simulate more of a rw schedule, or you can just set up a plan your self and save it so that you can have a set assignment of what you legs you are going to fly.

Does this help at all?

Nicholas

Nicholas Carpenter

Senior Captain, B747-400

Posted onPost created on August 06 2010 14:19 ET by Don Abernathy

Nicholas Carpenter wrote:

Does this help at all?
Nicholas

Kind of, but that doesn't seem to be what is stated on the site itself. So many of the links on this website have very few, if any, instructions on how the specific page works. Most everything here you have to try it first to see what you need to do it and what the purpose of the page is for. This is common for the Academy, Testing Center, etc.

The instructions say "we do have 'Flight Assigments': routes of 2 to 6 flight legs created by our staff as suggested routes to fly". This seems to suggest the system or someone says "OK you have been assigned these flights" and you either accept or reject them. What you have stated seems to be something I decide to do if I need to.

Don

Don Abernathy (DVA8757)

DVA8562
Captain, B747-400

Joined on April 30 2010
50 State Club
Double Century Club

"...and I was gonna learn to fly. HC"
Prescott Valley, AZ

230 legs, 449.5 hours
229 legs, 448.1 hours ACARS

Posted onPost created on August 06 2010 17:11 ET by Robert Delorenzo

Don Abernathy wrote:

Nicholas Carpenter wrote:

Does this help at all?
Nicholas

Kind of, but that doesn't seem to be what is stated on the site itself. So many of the links on this website have very few, if any, instructions on how the specific page works. Most everything here you have to try it first to see what you need to do it and what the purpose of the page is for. This is common for the Academy, Testing Center, etc.

The instructions say "we do have 'Flight Assigments': routes of 2 to 6 flight legs created by our staff as suggested routes to fly". This seems to suggest the system or someone says "OK you have been assigned these flights" and you either accept or reject them. What you have stated seems to be something I decide to do if I need to.

Don

Except for checkflights...no one will assign you any flights at DVA...it's up to you to decide where and how you want to fly...

You can use the "build a flight assignment" feature and make up your own flight schedual (assignment)...also, when searching for flights...you will see a column labeled "routes" if you see a 1 (or more) then these are part of an assignment created by the staff for pilots to use...most are only 2 legs long...however...some of the historic flight are up to 6 legs in length...

Here is a similar thread with some useful info... http://www.deltava.org/thread.do?id=0x16c9e cool

Robert Delorenzo

Captain, B747-400

Posted onPost created on August 09 2010 09:23 ET by Don Abernathy

Robert Delorenzo wrote:

Except for checkflights...no one will assign you any flights at DVA...

OK thanks, but it seems odd that the instructions for this page state...

flight legs created by our staff as suggested routes to fly

Odd,
Don

Don Abernathy (DVA8757)

DVA7885
Captain, A330-300

Joined on October 23 2009
Triple Century Club
Online Triple Century Club

"That's what she said..."
Midwestern United States

328 legs, 597.5 hours
319 legs, 570.4 hours online
323 legs, 587.8 hours ACARS
448 legs, 794.0 hours total

Posted onPost created on August 09 2010 09:29 ET by Antonio King

I wish we were assigned flights. frown

At leas as an option.

Antonio King (DVA7885)

Posted onPost created on August 09 2010 09:47 ET by Robert Delorenzo

Don Abernathy wrote:

Robert Delorenzo wrote:

Except for checkflights...no one will assign you any flights at DVA...

OK thanks, but it seems odd that the instructions for this page state...

flight legs created by our staff as suggested routes to fly

Odd,
Don

The key word in the sentence is "suggested"... wink

Robert Delorenzo

Captain, B747-400

Posted onPost created on August 09 2010 09:50 ET by Robert Delorenzo

Antonio King wrote:

I wish we were assigned flights. At leas as an option.

I agree...I fly with quite a few VA's and they all have different SOP's...Noble Air...for instance...will give you the option of being assigned flights... smile

Robert Delorenzo

Captain, B747-400

DVA7520
Captain, B737-800

Joined on July 10 2009
50 State Club
Six Century Club
Online Century Club
DVA Ten-Year Anniversary

Southeastern United States

703 legs, 784.3 hours
100 legs, 105.6 hours online
702 legs, 783.3 hours ACARS

Posted onPost created on August 09 2010 10:01 ET by Paul Faria

Hey Don,
Let me see if I can add to what Nicolas gave you. I agree that the wording is a little misleading but if you look at the process from the 5000 foot level it works pretty well. The staff that is referred to, I believe, is the search engine. You give a few parameters and it gives back possible assignments for you to choose ("Bid"). You then have to select the ones you want to "Build an Assignment" then save it to make it take affect.

Once saved they show up in your log book with green highlighting so you can tell them apart from flights you have already taken.

One item that is not obvious is that they will remain in your logbook for about 14 days. If at that time you have not flown the flight, it will be deleted automatically. Given that, I tend not to save more than a couple of weeks worth of flights.

If at any time you change your mind about a scheduled flight and want to drop it, you can go the the flight schedule section and select the flight, then "Release" it. I would suggest that when building a flight schedule, it is best to put individual legs as seperate assignments rather than making groups of segments. The reason for this is because if you decide to drop one segment of an assignment you have to drop the entire assignment Hope that makes sense.

So why all this work? There are a couple of advantages for preloading assignments. When I go to ACARS to start a flight I can select "Load Draft Flight Report" and it populates all the fields in ACARS for me. Add a saved flight plan and I am ready to go. For me, that saves a lot of time.

The second less obvious advantage is that if you are working on a particular goal, ie All 50 States, etc, you can make a plan and have it loaded and ready to go....two weeks at a time.

As a final note, you are under no obligation to finish any flight that you schedule. You can delete it at any time. Just think of it as a planning tool for your use.

I hope this helps. If you need anything further feel free to drop me an email. I will do my best to help

Paul Faria

Captain, B737-800

Posted onPost created on August 10 2010 18:29 ET by Don Abernathy

Thanks for the responses.

It just seems to me that there is some potential for a better use of this page--what, I'm not sure but it seems that there can be a system where you can earn a special status, accreditation or something if you fly a set of routes. Why not have some pre-determined routes suggested for you to fly that could be based around real routes DAL uses? The purpose we are here is to get as realistic an experience possible--wouldn't that add to it? Perhaps it's would be optional to accept it or not.

Don

Don Abernathy (DVA8757)

DVA6227
Captain, B737-800

Joined on July 28 2008

"The skys are my get away"
Western United States

82 legs, 129.7 hours
53 legs, 83.5 hours online
79 legs, 125.1 hours ACARS

Posted onPost created on August 11 2010 00:13 ET by Connor McLaughlin

I agree with Antonio, I think it would add quite a bit of realism to the VA if we had the option to be assigned fligts.

Connor McLaughlin

Captain, B737-800

DVA8657
Captain, B737-800
OLP

Joined on May 19 2010
50 State Club
Globetrotter
South American Samba Club
Million Mile Club
Events Millennium Club
Everett Millennium Club
Flying Colonel
Online Fifteen Century
DVA Fifteen-Year Anniversary

New Hyde Park, NY

1,824 legs, 3,974.8 hours
1,702 legs, 3,725.4 hours online
1,598 legs, 3,443.3 hours ACARS
1,397 legs, 3,095.8 hours event

Posted onPost created on August 31 2010 16:15 ET by Brian Kelly

I know what you mean. I'm new here too and the options for finding flights are extremrely similar. 1.)Find a flight-you can selvct many aspects of the flight and it searches for you. 2.)Browse Schedule-The only aspect you selct is the departure airport then search through the flights listed. 3.)Random Flight-Seems like it selects a flight and you can accept it if you wish. 4.)FLight Assingnment-THis more or less is a list so pilots can check up on their assignments. You have to select 'Avilable' in the status box to see flights that are avilable.

Hope I'm right and that this helps.

Brian Kelly

Captain, B737-800

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