Pilot training
General
IVAO is an open community based on the principle of "accept the IVAO rules as they are and be welcome". One of the basic rules is to participate and have fun together without disturbing each other.
Mind hereby that everyone has his own idea of flying and controlling on-line. Some would just like to have the simple fun, others would like to advance and learn more and more and ..... more.
In any case, for yourself, know at least the minimums and you will have a great time here.
Pilot or ATC, in whatever way you would like to enjoy this free IVAO Network, there is a lot of training material and instruction documentation made available for your benefit. Even in the end, if you like, you could do exams to obtain a rating as a virtual ATC or a rank as a virtual pilot.
To inform yourself in general or to prepare properly for such exams, you will find a number of informative training pages here. Note that many of them refer to the general situation in IVAO, others are written specifically for the BE Division situation.
We have made different pages for pilots and for ATC.
More general information material is available in the IvAo Academy
Pilot Training
This pilot section is divided in general information with a number of links to more documentation and a more in depth description of the different levels and exams that are offered to climb the pilot career ladder.
Newbies
Those who have just started or the ones that would like to have a deeper look at the basics of flying.
In the BE division we have made an interesting document that says it all: From the first day on-line via the first hours in the air towards the very first safe landing. Take some time and look through this complete document. You will find it here
Pilot Flight Training
Like in real life we advise you to start at the beginning. That is to learn “how to fly an aircraft”.
For that you need a small type, like a C172, standard available in MS Flight Simulator. You will start to navigate based on what your eyes see from you cockpit window. We call this Visual Flight Rules or VFR.
The BE Division training staff regularly organises group training sessions to learn how to fly VFR: What is a visual circuit, how to join and leave it, how to navigate while flying over the Belgium country side.
In addition, more individual training sessions can be requested, whereby a staff member will help you on-line with solving your problems of flying the aircraft. Main fact is and remains that reading the different documents is a must to get the notice of what the flying basics are. Like in real life this is valid on IVAO as well, it is a mix of theory and practise.
Specific information on VFR flying can be found here
More general info can be found in the IVAO Academy or down here on our own BE division web pages.
Next are the bigger aircraft whereby navigation is based on the use of sophisticated navigational instruments. This we call Instrument Flight Rules (IFR). Apart of the traditional VOR and NDB (still used!!), there are the GPS and the computerised cockpit systems like a Flight Management Computer (FMC).
Still, as real as it gets, we advise you to go step by step. That is, after you have learned “how to fly a light aircraft”, take a small twin engine aircraft to learn how to use the different navigation instruments. It has a slower speed and therefore is much easier to understand and to learn. Commonly used here is the standard Beech Baron (BE20).
Finally, to fly around hundreds of passengers or tons of cargo, there are the big birds waiting. Here as well our advise is to keep it simple in the beginning and start with B737 or A320 before jumping onto the wide bodies.
We don’t offer that much the real flying lessons since they are greatly available in the MS Flight Simulator itself. We do however assist you through VOR, NDB, holding and SRA group training sessions. Together with the here presented instructions documents an ideal combination. Have a look at Approach procedures here
Pilot Exams
For pilots there are basically 3 different pilot ranks available: Private Pilot (VFR); Senior Private Pilot (basic IFR) and Commercial Pilot IFR (all-round IFR).
Those three levels presume three different categories of aircraft in line with the exam requirements. For VFR you will use a light propeller aircraft, for basic IFR a twin engine (turbo) prop aircraft and only for Commercial Pilot IFR you will enjoy the jet engine aircraft. Step by step as already indicate here above.
For more detailed and the latest up-to-date information please have a look at here
Update: 30/12/10