2. Operations Manual V3.1

Pacific Airways Operations Manual - Revised January 2024

About the Airline

Pacific Airways Was established in 1997. We are one of the oldest Virtual Airlines in the world. We operate primarily in the United States, with services to Europe and the Pacific Rim to include major Hubs in Seattle, WA(SEA), Miami, FL (MIA), Denver, CO (DEN), Chicago, IL (ORD), Los Angeles, CA (LAX), New York, NY (JFK, KEWR, KLGA), with the Pacific Europe Division, connecting with several locations in the European area.

 

Pacific offers pilots a “Freedom of Flight” that you will not find with most other VAs. After a minimal number of hours, pilots can work up to being able to fly any aircraft in your sim, anywhere in the world.

 

Pacific Airways headquarters is in Seattle, Washington, with offices at the Seattle/Tacoma International Airport.

Membership Requirements

Anyone over 13 can become a member of Pacific Airways; the best part is that it is entirely FREE. You should also have basic piloting skills (i.e., take-off,landing, etc.). To join the airline, click “Join,” fill out the new pilot application form, follow the screens, select a Hub of your choice, and visit the homepage. It is that easy. Flight Simulators like FSX, FS2020, or XPlane are required to become a pilot for Pacific Airways.

Pilot Status & Flight Requirements

Pacific Airways pilots maintains a status based on their flight activity or status.

Status Description
Active At least one (1) completed flight/PIREP in a rolling thirty (30) day period.
On Leave No completed flights/PIREPS in the past thirty (30) days or requested leave.
On Leave (long term) Request leave for a specific time period.
Retired / Removed No completed flights after ninety (90) days.

Any pilot within our airline can file a manual PIREP and or use our ACARS suite, once a pilot completed a flight via either of our services the data will be processed automatically, at which time the report will be added to their Logbook.

A pilot will be place On Leave if they do not complete at least one (1) flight every thirty (30) days.

A pilot will be Retired if they do not completed at least one (1) flight every ninety (90) days.

If a pilot has been Retired their account will be removed from the airline, in which time if a pilot wishes to return they will need to Re-Join the airline.

Supported Sims

Pacific Airways supports FSX - FS2020 - XPlane 11-12. We no longer help FS9. However, because we are a 20+ year old airline, there are many FS9 planes and liveries available for download. FS9 pilots are welcome to use these older liveries, but we will not add anything new for FS9 or earlier sims.

Pausing Simulator

Unfortunately due to the nature of the vaBase ACARS system, pilots cannot pause their simulator at anytime during their flight or incorrect data will be sent to the database.

This will mean that the PIREP will be declined.

Pacific Airways staff reserve the right to decline any flight reports (PIREPS) that may have been paused or altered.

vaBase

Pacific Airways is a member of a VA management software called vaBase. We pay a monthly fee for membership along with many other VA’s. vaBase ranks the airlines monthly by how many pilots you have, flight hours logged and percentage of pilots who use ACARS to log their flights.

You can view the status of Pacific along with all the other VA’s here:

Airline Activity - vaBase.com .

along with the live map of all airlines online with vaBase:

 Live Map - vaBase.com .

Downloading Aircraft

Pacific Airways has a variety of aircraft ranging from smaller turboprop aircraft for regional flights to a Boeing 747-400 or Airbus A380 for long hauls. Our fleets are mostly liveries only for default and payware aircraft. Only a select few freeware are entire planes..

To download aircraft: On your dashboard, choose "Fleet" to view statistics and browse liveries to download the livery and sim you need. For other downloads other than the main fleet, from the dashboard, click on Download Center to download other aircraft and files other than the main Pacific fleet. 

Flight Lines

Flight Lines: A flight line is a destination with a completed return.
Every flight you log must connect back to the original starting point to end the flight line.

Examples:  If your Hub is Seattle (KSEA), you will fly from Seattle to Denver (KDEN), then either return to Seattle to complete a flight line or fly from Denver to Los Angeles, from Los Angeles back to Seattle (your starting point) completing your flight line. There are no limits on stops you make if they are a designated PAY flight. You will, be required to end up back at your Hub or starting point to complete the line.

General Aviation Aircraft

All pilots, regardless of rank or hours, are approved to fly GA aircraft and log their flights. The simulation is that you own or rent the GA aircraft for personal use. There is no restriction on what or where you fly a GA. There are no routes designated for GA. Use your Pilot Identification number as the flight number when logging your GA flight. Use any plane in your sim, any livery. GA aircraft recognized have ten seats or less. This is a perk that Pacific Airways offers that you will not find with most VAs.

Flights

The flights are broken up into code A and Code B flights. Code A flights are to a destination, and the code B flights are return flights from Code A. You will find that code A and B flights have the same flight number, just different codes. Mix and match the A and B flights to make your flight line with 3500+ flights available. You must complete the flight line by ending up at the same airport (unlimited stops) where you started. Then you can start a new flight line.

Pacific requires pilots to use the flight lines for up to 1000 service hours. Then, they become an Elite pilot. In vaBase, it is required that you depart from the last airport you landed at unless you take a Jumpseat flight  Jumpseat flights will cost money from your virtual bank account

Jump Seating

A jump seat, or a dead head, flight is when a pilot rides on a flight as a passenger. 

You may make a one-jump-seat flight from your Hub to another Airport to begin a new flight line. Once your flight line is complete, you may return to where you started to continue your original trip. (i.e., if your home hub was Seattle and you wanted to make a flight line in London, you could jump a seat from Seattle to London, make a complete flight line using London routes, then hop a chair back from London to Seattle. Jump seat flights differ from regular flights because they are not logged in your logbook, and you do not earn any hours or money for them.

 
On your dashboard, choose your profile then Jumpseat. It will cost money from your bank to make a jumpseat flight. New pilots must build up their bank in order to make a jumpseat.

Pacific Elite Pilot Status

Once a pilot has achieved 1000 hours you retain the rank of ATP Senior Commander but also achieve the additional status as a Pacific Elite Pilot. Elite pilot status adds certain privileges over and above normal flight restrictions.
 
An Elite Pilot can fly any aircraft in the Pacific fleet between any two airports worldwide. These flights can be flown entirely outside Pacific’s route system and do not require the airport(s) to be an airport in our system. However, it is required that the aircraft used is realistic for the route. You may fly as many of these flights consecutively as you desire. However, you are still bound by the flight line rules if you continue your regular flights. It would be best to begin your next routine flight from the last airport you were at before you started your special Elite Pilot flights. When logging Elite flights, use your 4-digit PID number, i.e., PAY****, as the flight number on your manual pireps and in ACARS

Finances, Experience Points, Ranks

FINANCES: All pilots flying on vaBase earn a flat fee of $1.00 a mile which goes into your virtual bank account. You can use these funds to make Jumpseat flights. We hope that in the future, you will be able to use the funds for other things like purchasing merchandise etc. With vaBase, we no longer simulate making money for the airline. Your entries of Passengers and Cargo weights are used only for monthly statistics. 

EXPERIENCE POINTS:   in vaBase, you earn experience points along with flight hours for your flights. Each rank now requires an amount of experience points along with flight hours to keep that rank. When you fly well, you earn more experience points towards your next rank. When you crash, have bad landings etc, you can lose experience points. If you fly bad enough and lose too many XP points, you can be demoted to the previous rank until you earn your points back. The XP point system prevents pilots from making a few long flights to advance in rank. XP points must be earned as well to promote.

ACARS

ACARS (Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System) is the preferred method of logging your flights at Pacific. In real aviation, the ACARS communicates by satellite or radio to relay location and maintenance information to the ground during a flight. In the VA world, ACARS does much more. Our ACARS is a stand-alone program that runs along with your sim and keeps track of everything you do during your flight, like a Black Box, and logs the flight in your logbook. Manual Pireps are also available but are primarily used as a backup to ACARS. 

How to use ACARS

You will be able to fly right away with vaBase. Here are some basic instructions on how to use ACARS and set up a scheduled flight from the database  and a Simbrief flight. You will be amazed how ridiculously simple it is to use compared to our earlier programs. Firstly, vaBase is an online airline management system. There are many other airlines using vaBase and when you sign in, you are one of the many pilots in their system. Another reason you may experience some delay from page to page or logging your pireps.

ACARS

ACARS is still the preferred way to log your flights. The new ACARS works with all sims the same. There is nothing specific you will need to do to your sim. It works directly from your FSUIPC or XUIPC in Xplane. There are no plug in’s, no API keys to worry about. You may need to install FSUIPC or XUIPC if you don’t have it. That would be all. This new ACARS doesn’t care what plane or sim you are using. It works exactly the same regardless.

1-      From your dashboard, click on your profile, then downloads. Here is where all the downloads for the airline will be. You can read about sim and windows versions on this page. Click the links if you need FSUIPC or XUIPC. – Download the file and unzip it to your desktop

2-      The ACARS has a simple SETUP.exe  file. Click on this and it will setup ACARS on your computer and put a shortcut on your desktop which you will need to start along with your sim. The new ACARS is from Microsoft.

Enter your PAY callsign, email address and password to log into ACARS. Check the “Save Login” box and it will remember your info for next time. Again, makes no difference which sim you are using. You can open ACARS before or after you have started your sim.

When ACARS opens, this is what it will look like. There are tabs at the top. Flight plan is the tab is where you put in your flight information. Flight Log is where you can monitor everything that has happened on your flight.

When you click on the RADAR tab, it shows you all the pilots that are using vaBase. There is a message feature (messenges tab) where you can message any vaBase pilot. The live flights on the website will just show Pacific Pilots who are flying both on offline.

LOGBOOK

In vaBase, you will have a traditional logbook. This is viewed in ACARS on the logbook tab and also from the website when you click on your profile and choose logbook.

How to start a flight

First, there is only one setting in vaBase ACARS. Click the settings star at the top, enter your simbrief User name which will be your PAY callsign, see above. Click SAVE. That’s it, you are ready to go.

There are three ways to start a flight.

1-      You can manually type in the information and press the green “Start Flight” button. As you can see, it doesn’t care or ask what aircraft or sim you are using. 

2- On the flight plan tab, there are only two selections. Import your flight from Simbrief, or from Dispatch. For Simbrief, generate your simbrief flightplan as usual, once you generate your flight in Simbrief, all you have to do is click the load “From Simbrief Yellow button” and it brings in the last flight you generated. Add remarks if you want, then click “Start Flight”

3- Import your flight from Dispatch. In vaBase, you will use the book flight feature, but here they call it dispatch. From your Dashboard, click on Flight Schedule. Enter the departure, arrival information to search the database. When you find the flight you want to make, click on the flight number to view the flight. All flights in vaBase must be made from your last virtual location. The page will request you make a jumpseat if you are not starting from your last location. 

        From this page, you click on the green “Dispatch flight” button. Your flight is sent to vaBase and assigned to you. This might take a minute or two if vaBase is busy.  After you send your flight to Dispatch, there is a selection to visit the dispatch center. This is where you can cancel your flight or dispatch via simbrief. The dispatch via Simbrief just allows you to enter the remaining information for your flight so it will be complete when you import from Dispatch in ACARS.  Just click on the black Load from Dispatch button in ACARS. It will be filled with all the information it has on your flight. You may have to manually enter some info when you do it this way. You can search for any flight in the database from Schedule, but it will not let you send your flight to dispatch unless you are starting out from the same airport you left off at. If you want to start off somewhere else, you must jumpseat to the new airport from your Dashboard before you can start your flight.

When you are ready, click the green “Start Flight” button. vaBase uses the fuel weight that is in your aircraft for calculations during your flight. You will get a message asking if you have fueled your plane when you start ACARS. You must fuel before starting ACARS.  ACARS does not have an automatic Start and Stop function. Each flight must be started and stopped manually. It requires that you have fueled your aircraft before you are allowed to start your flight. So, there is more to remember like starting your ACARS after you fuel. When you finish your flight, go back to the Flight Plan tab, and choose to end your flight. When you finish a flight, it will automatically log the flight in your logbook. ACARS allows you to continue your flight from where you left off within 20 minutes. This is helpful if your sim crashes. It will not let you start once you have started flying, so it’s important you remember to start the flight after you have fueled your plane.

 In vaBase, you earn experience points as well as hours and money. Each rank now requires a specific level of XP (experience points) as well as hours to maintain your rank. When you crash, have hard landings or make errors, it will actually deduct your experience points. If you fly badly enough, it will demote you to the previous rank until you earn your experience points back.

There is still a manual pirep option. From your dashboard, go to your profile,, then Manual Pirep. ACARS is the preferred way to log your flights. Manual pirep is viewed as a backup to ACARS. 

Pilot Ranks

As a New Hire with Pacific Airways, your First Rank will be a First Officer. The ranking system is based on hours flown and Experience Points. For promotions, see the chart below:

 

Rank

Hours

First officer - GA Certified

0-19 No XP

Captain

20hrs + 50XP

ATP First Officer

40hrs + 150XP

ATP Captain

80hrs + 300XP

 

ATP Senior Captain

300hrs + 500XP

ATP Commander

600 hrs + 750XP

ATP Senior Commander - Elite Pilot

1000hrs + 1050XP

 

 

   Pacific Lifetime Member 

3000hrs + 3050XP

When you make your flights, you earn both flight hours and Experience points. Each flight has a maximum of 10 experience points available. Depending on how you fly, your experience points are deducted accordingly. A perfect performance score of 100% earns all 10 experience points. Flight errors, crashes etc decrease your performance score. 50% performance earns 5 XP etc.

Online / Offline Flying

 

Pacific Airways is a proud partner of Vatsim. We encourage all pilots to fly to a new level by flying online with Vatsim. Pacific does not require pilots to fly online, but it is highly recommended.

Millennium Club

 

In addition to our regular operation, Pacific Airways has a flying club called Millennium. There are a new group of planes, both antique and retired, that are approved to fly anywhere you wish and log your hours. When Pacific retires an aircraft, it goes into the MC club, so pilots never lose their favorite plane. The MC Club aircraft are available in the general download area. 

Lifetime Membership

 

At 3000 hours of service, pilots reach the rank of Lifetime Member. As a lifetime member, you are no longer required to fly once per month to stay active, no need to request an LOA if you will be out for a while. You stay on the roster unless you request otherwise. Lifetime members are entitled to all their hours should they leave and return. Lifetime members are still required to keep a good email address.