News: Sky High Charters: "Surf's Up" released

PilotEdge has launched “Surf’s Up”, the fourth scenario for the Sky High Charters program. Launched in June of 2018, Sky High Charters is a simulated Part 135 operation providing one new assignment per month, including a dead head assignment to the starting point for the next month’s mission.

The latest assignment starts in San Luis Obispo, CA (KSBP), with prescribed routing which includes a SID to Marina, CA (KOAR) for the VOR/DME RWY 29 approach. The approach has a 30 degree dogleg at the final approach fix as well as an offset approach angle to the runway, both of which increase the workload over typical straight-in non-precision appraoches.

After canceling IFR with Norcal Approach, pilots reconfigure for a sunset or night departure and pick up IFR into nearby Palo Alto, CA, using the Obstacle Departure Procedure to safely depart Marina after obtaining an IFR release. Pilots can shoot the GPS or VOR/DME approach into Palo Alto to wrap up the scenario.

Each assignment generally consists of a textual briefing, a short video brief, a longer video briefing, a cockpit video of the entire flight and a textual.debriefing. Pilots can view as much or as little of the video material as they feel is necessary to prepare for the flight. It is anticipated that proficient IFR pilots will view less of the video material in advance while newer or less current pilots might take advantage of more or perhaps all of the video material before undertaking the flights.

Sky High Charters pilots must have completed the venerable I-Ratings program to be eligible to take part in the Sky High Charters program.