Overview.
Noble Air Manchester operates UK & European destinations from airports throughout Northern England, although currently only Manchester is used. In due course further airports will be utilized, and Trans Atlantic and Middle East / Far East / Australasian flights undertaken.
The virtual airline concept is based around the operations of real world airlines. Pilots who join a virtual airline (VA) will fly in aircraft, on routes and to timetables based upon their real world counterparts in a PC based flight simulation program. There are many PC based Flight Simulations which make this possible, with the most common being Microsoft Flight Simulator, Fly and Flight Unlimited. You may fly with as much, or as little, real world accuracy as you are comfortable with. Membership of Noble Air is totally free aside from any costs that you will incur from access to the Internet.
Operations.
Initial operations are based out of Manchester Airport. From this Hub (location) we service a wide range of UK, European and Charter destinations.
The Hub is controlled by a Hub Captain, who is responsible for the running of the Hub. His duties include flight assignment and the recording of your flying hours. The fleet of Noble Air consist of a variety of aircraft from small turboprops up to ultra modern jets such as the Airbus A320-200. The Main Noble website contains more details on our current fleet at www.nobleair.org. At the core of your duties as a pilot for Noble Air Manchester will be the flights you undertake. Flights will be assigned to you according to preferences for the type of flight you log with us. Flight Preferences work by destination type and are available in two categories, UK and European. You may select as many flights in each category as you wish. Obviously you must ensure you have enough time to complete your flights within the operating period (currently these are split into 2 week slots).
An example of Flight Preferences might be;
1 UK Flight and 2 European Flights.
This would mean you would be assigned flights to one UK destination and two European destinations over a single update period which is usually two weeks. UK and European flights will be assigned from our Scheduled Timetable by your Hub Captain . All of your flight assignments will appear on the assignments page of Noble Air MAN. The majority of our flights consist of two sectors, outbound and inbound. This means you will fly from your base airport to the destination and back again, although the Flight Assignment will only show the outbound flight number.
An update period is the time in between updates to the MAN website. The website will be updated every two weeks on a Friday evening/Saturday morning. A regular update will contain your new flight assignments, news, details of any special events that we will be hosting and pilot reports (PIREPS) for flights recently completed. Your new flight assignments when published on the website will simply display your name and a flight number. You must then look this flight number up in our timetable to discover where your new flights will take you, in which aircraft and at what times. The aircraft listed in our timetable is the recommended aircraft for that route and is available for download from one of Noble Air websites. If you have a preference for a particular type of aircraft then you are permitted to use that aircraft, however it must be of a similar type. We wouldn't condone substituting a DC3 for a B737, that would be stretching "poetic licence" a little too far!
Planning your flight can be as enjoyable a task as actually flying the route. An excellent flight planning tool is FSNAV3.0 which is a freeware utility and is available for download at www.flightsim.com There is a huge range of FMC's and GPS's available for use in flight simulation. The more popular include ACS-GPS, EFIS and NAVDASH. Your PIREPS for completed flights should be emailed or sent by way of the flight report form. You may also use the flight bid form to bid for flights. PIREPS must be forwarded to the Hub Captain by 1800 on the Friday immediately preceding an update.
The following format MUST be used for you PIREPS;
Line No. Flight Number Dep Time From - To Arr Time Flight Time
1. MAN3028 1045 EGCC - EHAM 1152 01:07
2. MAN3029 1225 EHAM - EGCC 1338 01:13
Total time for the period: 02:20
Cumulative Time: ((Time on last PIREP) + This PIREP)
Aircraft Used F50
Comments: (If more than one return flight is being reported and the second return flight used a different aircraft, this fact should be noted here),
Timings on the reports should be taken (as in real life) from start of taxi, to engine shut down - not from take off to landing. You are requested to use GMT times as this will minimise timing errors. If you use accelerated time this must be mentioned in your flight report together with the ACTUAL time an assignment has taken. Pilots will only be credited with the real time hours flown. The flight hours you record will be logged in our database, and go towards your next promotion.
Promotions occur as you attain the following recorded flight hours;
Flight Officer 10 hours or less
Captain 10 hours or more
Flight Captain 20 hours or more
Senior Captain 40 hours or more
Senior Flight Captain 80 hours or more
Commercial Captain 150 hours or more
Senior Commercial Captain 300 hours or more
ATP Captain 500 hours or more
Senior ATP Captain 750 hours or more
Master ATP Captain 1500 hours or more
Command ATP Captain 3500 hours or more
G Rating. This is attained by completing a Round The World Flight. Clearance should be obtained from your Hub Captain before this is commenced.
Certain extra conditions apply to RTW Flights.
Flight Schedules and Aircraft Types.
Requests for additional routes, and alternative aircraft may be made to the HC. These will be considered favorably, although we do not want to finish up with an unmanageably long schedule, so deletions will also be considered. Remember, the Hub belongs to all the pilots, and as such will, hopefully, evolve to reflect the needs and requirements of its pilots.
Pilot Policy.
Noble Air has a policy of a maximum of 50 pilots operating in any one hub. If your preferred hub is closed to new recruits you will be offered the chance to fly with another hub. New hubs will be created as necessary to allow for growth in pilot numbers. Noble Air has guidelines on the length of time a pilot may remain active without contacting the Hub Captain with either a report or an "I’m still around" message. The guidelines suggests that pilots who have been out of contact for 60 days may be placed on the inactive list, and those who have been out of touch for a further 30 days may be removed from the hub altogether. Please note that the continuing demand for places from new recruits means that I intend to operate a policy based on the above guidelines, not through any wish to be draconian but only in an attempt to ensure that would-be pilots are not excluded in favour of pilots who have disappeared and do not keep in touch. Therefore, the "pilot inactivity" policy will be as follows:-
1. Pilots from whom no report or message has been received for more than 60 days will be listed as inactive (effectively being removed from the Hub Newsletter and Crew Page on the Web site) and will be e-mailed and notified of their inactive status. They will still receive general e-mail messages that are sent to all pilots (mainly the crew address list which is circulated from time to time). Pilots need only contact the HC to be re-activated.
2. Pilots from whom no contact has been received for a further 30 days will receive an e-mail asking them of their intentions, and requesting a response by a certain date (date at the HC’s discretion). Failure to respond by that date will result in the pilot being removed from the Crew Roster, totally. At this point the pilot will no longer be a member of Noble Air. He/she can apply to re-join as per the application process outlined in this manual, but note that if the Hub is full, the pilot would need to seek an alternative hub with vacancies. The previous hours logged by the pilot would still stand.
3. For pilots removed from the crew list under Condition 2 above, the HC will maintain a record only of the pilot’s last total hours and rank (for reference purposes and in case the pilot wishes to re-apply). E-mail addresses will be removed from circulation lists and no further contact will be made with the pilot unless an application to re-join is made.
4. In addition to the above, new pilots who do not file any flight reports in the first 30 days after receiving their temporary pilot number will be dropped from the roster. In practice, you will never become subject to the above procedure providing you send a regular e-mail message every couple of months letting me know you’re still around and wish to fly in future.
Still Interested?
A. Read the Noble Air Operations Manual and this, Noble Air - Manchester Operations Manual, in their entirety.
B. Send an e-mail direct to the HC, subject "Join Noble Air MAN".
Please provide the following information:
1. First Name,
2. Surname,
3. E-mail Address,
4. Address,
5. Country,
6. Date Of Birth,
7. Main Sim Used,
8. How would you class your current Piloting skills? (Everyone is a novice at some time!)
9. Tell us a bit about yourself.
You will be asked to contact the HC or AHC Scheduling and advise him what type of routes you wish to fly. The chart below lists the type of available routes. He will advise you of your first route. Once you have completed that route, and filed your first report, then you will be issued with a unique Pilot ID number and will then be officially on the roster of Noble Air Manchester.
Domestic Flights Up to 2 hours
Short Haul Flights 1-3 hours
Medium Haul Flights 3-6 hours
Long Haul Flights 6+ hours
Any combination of these categories.
Note.
Currently, only Domestic and Short Haul Flights are operated by the Manchester Hub, however it is anticipated that extra Services will be added to the Flight Schedule, and these will encompass both Medium and Long Haul Flights.
Summary.
Read NBLOPS.ZIP first and then the Ops Manual of any hub in which you are interested.
E-mail the HC with the details as above.
The HC will reply, allocating you a temporary pilot ID number.
Choose your flight assignment preferences.
Fly your first flights, and then, after logging 10 hours, receive your pilot ID number.
Check in regularly at the Hub Homepages.
Fly your allocated assignments and e-mail your reports.
Watch your hours and your experience grow.
APPENDIX 1.
Flight Assignments.
Your Assigned Flight will be given to you as a Flight Number e.g. MAN2370. On checking the Route Schedule for this flight you will see that it comprises of a flight from Manchester to Stansted, departing Manchester at 06:50, scheduled to arrive at Stansted at 07:50, using a Dash 8-400. The return journey (MAN2371) has also to be flown, although to save space on the Assignment List the return leg is not mentioned. The Route Schedule also shows the days on which the flight operates. At present the day is ignored. Just stick roughly to the departure time, the arrival time will, obviously depend on your chosen route, altitude, cruising speed etc, but should be somewhere near the scheduled time! We don't expect you to actually fly at the correct time, or even on the correct day, but it helps if you set your simulator clock to the time corresponding to the flight.
Flight Reports.
These can be submitted at any time after a flight has been completed, although it would be a great help if only one was submitted at the end of the Flight Period. The form is designed so that a number of flights can be included on the one form. Due to the vagaries of HTML, and a glitch in the form design, please type a "-" on the first line, then hit ENTER (as it asks at the top of the form). This is just to get the alignment right. Put the first flight you are reporting on the next line, with the line number 1 followed by Flight Number etc, using the space bar to align the text. The second flight will be put on the next line (line number 2), and so on. The departure and arrival times are to be shown as GMT, and the Flight Time logged in Hours : Mins. The Flight Time is the time from engine start to engine shutdown (or start of taxi to parking brake on for those who never switch off engines) NOT take off to landing. Normal 1:1 time scale should be used, if accelerated time is used, this should be noted in the comments, and the ACTUAL time spent flying should be logged. All Flight Reports for a Flight Period must be submitted by 18:00 on the last Friday of the Flight Period for the hours to be included in that Periods update.
Flight Bids.
Pilots are requested to submit Flight Bids for the flights to which they want to be assigned in any Flight Period by 18:00 on the last Friday of the preceding Period. A maximum of 3 (return) Flights may be bid for in any flight Period. If you have assignments left over from a Period, these must be completed before any of the new Periods allocation may be flown. The Hub Captain reserves the right to assign alternative flights to the ones requested. If no Flight Bids are submitted - no flights will be assigned for that period. Flying hours for unassigned flights will NOT be credited.
APPENDIX 2.
New Pilots.
Two additions have been made with regard to New Pilots, these are :-
1). Aircraft Types.
Until promotion to Captain (after 10 Hrs plus Flight Check), all pilots will be limited to flying aircraft from the Turbo-Prop fleet. The Manchester Hub currently only uses two types, namely the F50 and the Dash 8-400.
2). Check Flights.
When a Flight Officer reaches approximately 9 Hrs flying time, i.e. before his promotion to Captain, he will be required to undergo a Check Flight to assess his degree of competence. This will entail making a video recording of the approach to Manchester, starting the recording at the Whitegate NDB to, and including, the landing on Runway 06, and turning off the runway onto the taxiway. The video should then be sent, by e-mail, to the Hub Captain, or any other person nominated by the Hub Captain. Only after successful completion of the Check Flight will the pilot be promoted to Captain. The object of this is to ensure that all our pilots have the satisfactory basic skills.
Check Flights may be voluntarily taken at any time by any pilot, in any aircraft in the Manchester Fleet.
"Copyright C2000.
This manual and all of its contents are provided to enhance the enjoyment of the simulated airline experience, and are the property of Noble Air. No portions of this manual may be copied, transmitted, republished or reproduced by any means without the express written consent of the Noble Air Board of Directors."