Greetings William:>I did register in the VPC for purposes of the e-mail
>boards, but I thought I also saw something about
>registration that cost money. I confess to being unclear
>what that is about, although I have found my way to the
>"Pilot Shop."
Perhaps I can explain it better. We have two levels of membership here at the VPC:
1. Regular level (which you have already once you've registered through the message board)
2. Crew level (the one that costs money)
Please understand that most of the VPC's features such as the message board, ACARS, Flight Rooms, etc. can be accessed through a Regular membership for free. However, because the VPC does cost money to keep in operation, we have Crew level memberships that provide bonus features such as VPC WebMail, WAPmail, Crew icon, access to Crew-only areas, high-speed file access, access to Crew-only events, etc., etc., as a "thank you" for supporting the cause.
Of course the Crew level of membership is completely voluntary, and because of that it really warms my heart there have been so many that have "stepped up to the plate" and pitched in already this early in the game. (You can see all of the new gold bars out there!) In fact the sysops that dedicate their time here to help out around here have also paid their membership dues even though we don't require them to (we're overjoyed for their assistance alone as it is)! Thanks, guys for setting the example! I'm sure they do this because they understand our situation/"business model."
Some have compared the VPC to a club. The club members alone pay dues to maintain the club's expenses. While that's a pretty good analogy, I like to compare the VPC to the way a museum works--it's open to the public, but a core group of supporters keep the doors open. Unfortunately the reality may be that if we're unable to attract enough Crew members, that we may have to adopt the "club" model, where only members would be allowed in. I certainly hope that doesn't happen (one of my pet peeves about the aviation and flight simulation worlds is there tends to be a bit of "eliteness" that spoils things for folks), and only time will tell, but for now it's looking pretty good, but we still have a long way to go before we'll break even for the year (the length of a membership).
>>Actually you don't need to become a Virtual Pilot to be
>>allowed to access our flight plans or multiplayer flight
>>rooms. Nevertheless, we'll accept your ASEL rating as
>>covering most our of VPPL requirements. Details can be
>>found at:
>>http://www.flightadventures.com/faq/faq_vpc.htm#6
>
>
>Thanks. I found that FAQ as well. I wasn't sure what
>this is, although I don't mind helping support the
>operation.
Virtual Pilot designation, like all of our designations, are intended to symbolically represent the member's level of expertise (those who can "walk the talk" if you will). Designations are also totally voluntary, but since you already hold a pilot certificate, the conversion to VPPL would be much simpler than if you started from scratch. If you're still interested in pursuing this, please let me know and we can discuss specifics.
Hope this helps and we all appreciate your interest in contributing to what we're building here!
Ben
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