Up to this point, my column has been directed mostly toward pilots and crew in the aviation field. Today, I’m talking to the people that are one of the key reasons aviation gaming enthusiasts chose flying in Second Life over one of the many more realistic flight simulation systems: you, the passenger.
As pilots, we know it is hardly arguable that we can get a more realistic flight experience on the flight deck of an FSX-Steam 737 or King Air 90 than a D-737 or a DSA King Air 90. So what is it that brings pilots that want to fly passenger planes to SL rather than FSX? For most pilots I know, it is the passenger interaction. With that missing, most SL pilots start wandering back to FSX and X-Plane because if they are going to fly an empty plane, it might as well be one in a more real feel environment than SL can offer.
So with this introduction, I’m opening the door to you, the potential passenger. What is it that you want? What excites you or would excite you about hopping on to the next announced flight in Passengers Of SL?
It stands to reason that after a while, just hopping a plane and sitting from point a to point b can lose its allure after a few times. Some pilots have taken to offering better information about specific destinations or connections to other services.
In my own flights I have experienced two in-flight emergencies which my passengers seemed to be thrilled with. They were not made up. One was due to a real loss of aircraft control due to a scripting bug and the other was a sim crossing where I lost the plane and one of my passengers TP’ed me back to the plane after it crashed on someone’s house. In both cases, emergency calls were sent to various coast guard organizations which resulted in emergency responses either at the airport, or an actual aerial rescue of stranded passengers.
This article is meant to generate discussion so the meat of the article is short. This is your chance to tell the pilots and airlines in SL what YOU want. Please feel free to comment below! Pilots and crew, please feel free to chime in with ideas and constructive responses.
As a final note to passengers, have you considered joining an airline? Most airlines would welcome new members. You do not have to be a pilot. Flight and ground crews are in short supply on almost all of the airlines. Don’t be afraid to ask your pilot or crew member about that if the interest is there.
Blue Skies as always
Starbuckk.
Starbuckk Serapis 
Starbuckk, thanks for this post. I flew briefly for a couple of SL airlines, and from time to time I think I should get back into one, but my experience with the airlines in SL is that somehow we are not quite hitting the mark with potential passengers. So many times flights take off with one or maybe two passengers. Very often no passengers show up at all. And I see the clever and creative marketing efforts that my colleagues in SL aviation are making to create interesting experiences for passengers. I wondered myself if putting together a packaged guided tour of interesting sims from the air might get some traction, and in my early experiments this was well received by passengers – but it never seemed to lead to increased traffic. So, asking passengers is probably a good idea. I hope you will publish what answers you receive.
CharleyJohnson.
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I love to fly and hop on the many flights that pop up in the passenger groups in sl, and I agree with Charley in saying that maybe some tour offerings would be great or at least a flight into an airport near some points of interest and maybe a NC with instructions on where to go perhaps…i know that would take a lot of organizing and such but travel agencies are becoming extinct, and I love to RP vacations so this would be awesome. Also those who tend to favor the seas, it would be a great addition to offer mini cruises there as well.
I always ran into the problem of taking a flight for a vacation only to have to fake going to the resort and ultimately TPing in because they are usually located on private sims, so I decided to start on a hotel on mainland that people will actually be able to catch a helicopter ride in for a full RP experience. If even one or two airlines and/or boating organizations would offer drop offs and info of the great places to see on mainland it would be great to be able to point people in that direction but more often than not, I have found that the companies offering those things are closing.
Another thought…we all know that many folks are on fb, twitter, and other types of social media in groups related to sl. I’ve met many people from different sides of the grid (urban, RP, etc) don’t even know about the airlines in sl (or are too lazy to search for an airport or passenger group) but they check their timelines religiously. Also, family RP groups on fb and inworld, and community RP sims are people magnets so finding a way to post in groups of that nature too so those might be some things to think about if its not already being done.
Sorry, I know that was an eye full lol I would love to see what else people can come up with also any questions or comments are welcome!
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For taking a flight to private resorts, Vulture Air and White Star Airfield have a partial solution for the teleporting character break. When landing at White Star, there is a bus terminal below the airport with resort buses to a few different resort and RP locations. You still have to teleport but it is facilitated by collecting a boarding pass from the ticket kiosk (required for the teleport to work) and boarding a bus. Boarding the bus initiates the teleport. This reduces the break in character from having to teleport on your own.
The cruise idea is interesting. I have not heard of any SL cruise lines in operation. There would likely be more of a time commitment to that so probably some L$ cost expected. But its an interesting concept to look into.
Most Vulture flights now advertise this bus connection in flight announcements.
http://vultureair.homestead.com/Adventures.html
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Irelandia Airlines is returning to SL after a 3 year hiatus (RL job overseas). We offered tours of great locations around the Blake Sea area, and we’re still the official airline to offer service to the SS Galaxy from Hollywood International. We’ll also offer our original and famous “After Dark” service for the Adult members. We started the Midnight Hot-Air Balloon Champagne Cruise to great locations and clubs in the area, and we’ll return with those too.
I have always thought that the residents who enjoy RP tours needed something more than just a one-way or round-trip tour of various airports.
I hope to be able to provide some enjoyable times for the Passengers of SL.
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I’ve flown as a passenger in heavy iron ONCE. Wound up having an out-of-fuselage experience over a sim crossing (I assume, anyway) but the friend who brought me along as a chaperone was able to TP me back in (able and highly motivated, perhaps, though the pilot couldn’t have been more of a gentleman without an actual peerage).
What I’d like if I were daft enough to get in an aircraft someone else was piloting would be some fix for that “out of fuselage experience”. I realize this could be like asking SL to round pi down to three (rewriting the law of gravity is already a “thing” in SL, and might be in RL before long).
Perhaps some sort of RLV-based gadget that let the pilot set a manifest of passengers’ usernames, so if any passenger(s) are unaccountably no longer on the aircraft, they automatically get TPed back on? My GF and I collar each other specifically to be able to do that for each other, Paired Hearts collars having a remote TP function.
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