About

I'm AWEviation, a VATSIM A320 pilot from Boston, Massachusetts

Story

I originally had a low-end iMac, then an actually pretty decent Mac Mini, and I was an avid Roblox player. This combined with my aviation passion led to my frequenting of Roblox flight simulators such as Flightline, Aeronautica, or Pilot Training Flight Simulator, all of which have a well organized realistic roleplay community for "professional" flying with others within Roblox's game engine, which is much less demanding of hardware than regular flight simulators. I began my interaction with Flightline's virtual air traffic simulation community towards the end of the summer of 2020 where it kicked off my potential for real aviation knowledge: learning how to read and use charts, communicate correctly and effectively, and operate an aircraft (within the quite limited simulator) safely.

Even before this, I had Infinite Flight, the highest quality and most active mobile flight simulator with a large community for its time. This was probably 2017–2018-ish. That was my frequent flight simulator where I got most of my understanding of flight planning and radio communication.

Then I took a long break from aviation, discovering a touge racing game with Japanese sport cars, introducing a whole new chapter of my life and my hobbies. This ended up lasting for around 2–3 years until September 2023 when I recovered the flight simulator X-Plane 11 that I had on Steam. Reminiscing my old flight simulator passion, I began with quick flights across New England with the default Laminar Research Boeing 737-800, enjoying being back in the sky and working back up my old skills. Soon I decided to take it a step further. I had always wanted to experience the Airbus A320-200, so I settled with the Flight Factor A320 Ultimate. Just before rediscovering X-Plane 11, I had made a virtual airline in Roblox's Aeronautica flight simcade named "Aeronautica US Airways." This was intended for ingame pilots wishing to be involved with an airline non comittaly, allowing free time for others, especially including myself who needs it. Just a month after this was when I made the switch to X-Plane 11, but I still casually run the airline.

Even since the beginning when I only had Roblox and Infinite Flight, I always dreamed of one day getting to be a part of VATSIM, the number one international online aviation network. That got put on the backburner once I found a love for automobiles, but it never became irrelevant. As stated previously, once I picked up X-Plane 11, I began taking flights around New England, and after getting the A320, around the United States. Having sufficiently learned the A320, I decided I had the potential to fly in the VATSIM network. So starting around November 2023, for the next few months I started to learn flying the Flight Factor Airbus A320-200 Ultimate, understanding charts, planning, and procedures with Simbrief, and connecting to VATSIM in observer mode to become familiar with traffic and communication.

Mid-December is when I got Volanta, and began to make it the place where I store my flight logs and a home base for all my flight-related needs. I began with uploading all the A320 liveries and registrations I have to my fleet and flying them into my home base, General Edward Logan International (KBOS), from the Airbus manufacturing facility in Mobile, Alabama. In late January 2024, I finally made my first flight on VATSIM, US Airways flight 617 from Boston (Logan/KBOS) to Newark (Liberty/KEWR).

I now write this paragraph over a year after writing the rest of this about page as I make my switch from Mac to PC. The support and compatibility that PCs have over many Macs have incentivized this, as well as the access to Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024. While X-Plane 11 and the old Mac had a respectable performance, I look forward to the future of flight simulation with a PC. Using the Fenix A320, I plan to continue flying cross country.

Thus, I finally arrive to where I am now: a casual VATSIMmer enjoying his hobby. While I do not think I will be anything more than a simmer (as real world aviation is quite expensive), I am happy to have made it this far. I plan to enjoy it to the fullest as 50 flight hours becomes 100, as 100 hours becomes 500, as 500 becomes 1000, and so on. I may not ever be a real pilot (for personal reasons), but I will make the absolute best of my virtual presence on VATSIM and the flight simulator community.

Flight Simulation

I use both X-Plane 11, version 11.55, by Laminar Research, and Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 following a switch from Mac to PC. While I will be primarily using FS2024, X-Plane 11 is prized in being easily modded, and the graphics are acceptable, and much better than FSX, which was the current Microsoft product at the time I got X-Plane. X-Plane 11's extensive modding community allows for upgrades, such as high quality freeware, that make keeping X-Plane 11 still worth it.

Activity

School demands so much time from me, so I barely have the time to fly. When I do, its usually a long break or a weekend with little homework. I could be as active as flying daily or once a month. I want to get my hours up, but I have to balance my time and maintain a healthy lifestyle while also keeping some free time for friends or other recreation. This may the excuse you are looking for when you wonder why flight logs have some flights hours apart and others weeks or months.