Hey!

Let me help you get to know the forum members more. Maybe it will help you understand how best to fit in.

The forum was started in 2000, by three people -- Peter, E-Jhay and Jeffrey. Peter was in Manila, E-Jhay in Vancouver, and Jeffrey in Zurich. They are still all there, except that E-Jhay has moved to Alberta. Jeffrey is less active now, but still prowls around the forum from time to time.

At that time they were only 14 or 15 years old. That was 7 years ago.

Within a week of the forum starting, Windwalker, Kevin and I joined, along with Rodion, Mike, Jaime, and a few others you probably have not seen post yet.

We have been together for 7 years! And now the forum has grown to several hundred members.

We get together very often, those of us who are in Manila, and have Christmas parties every year without fail, which become really big affairs with scores of PFSG members coming from all over Luzon.

The folks in Cebu hold their own get togethers and Christmas parties there. They are hosted by Jack the Wack, who is a city Counselor in Cebu.

Windwalker was a jobless pilot when the forum started. He had been working with Soriano Aviation before that. After he joined the forum, he joined Cebu Pacific as a DC-9 First Officer, and quickly became a DC-9 Captain. He has won the Cebu Pacific Safety Pilot of the Year an unprecedented 2 times in a row. If there was ever a man born to fly, Windwalker is that man. He eats, breathes, lives for flying.

Kevin is from Cebu, and he manages his own business. He owns two airplanes, a Cessna 182 and a Cessna 206.

Mike is the son of a B747 Captain in PAL. Pete has an uncle who is an A330 Captain in PAL.

Sanamagan is a B737 First Officer with Air Philippines. He used to fly for Asian Spirit and learned his IFR with Meynard, then earned his rating flying a Beech 18.

Mark is a nurse at the Tondo General Hospital, and is one of the most avid flightsimmers in the forum.

Iyoy only joined the forum last year. He has been a PPL and CPL, and aircraft owner, for 10 years. He is instrument rated and has completed the Basic Aerobatics course of Meynard Halili. He, and Kevin took the Basic Instrument Course with Meynard together, which is why they call each other klasmeyt .

I took the same Basic Instrument Course a year before them. I only got my PPL in 2003, at Omni. I own a Cessna 152 based at Air Ads, in Manila.

A lot of us are graduates of Omni Aviation. My son Carlo. Vinciboy. Rajiv. TxGR. A lot of Omni instructors are also on the forum. Kel M is one of them.

Capt. Ben Hur Gomez, the President of Omni Aviation, is a 40-year veteran of PAL and was Windwalker's boss at Soriano Aviation.

E-Jhay and Peter are the site administrators. Kenneth, who is an IT professional, helps them. Other IT professionals on the forum at McTan, who just moved to the US last year, RJ, etc.

Iyoy was invited by Windwalker to apply for a job at Cebu Pacific. Iyoy's family owns sugar plantations in Bacolod. His family also owns Negros Navigation. But Iyoy loves flying, so he went for an interview. He was accepted last November and has since completed his jet transition, OBS, simulator training, IOE, and is now a new First Officer at Cebu Pacific.

All of us are avid flightsimmers. Kevin and I actually started flight simming in 1983, when of course we did not know each other yet. That was the SubLogic version of Flight Simulator, before Microsoft bought the rights to the software. Since then, Kevin and I have seen version 2, version 3.0, version 3.1, version 4, version 5.0, version 5.1, version 5.1a, FS98, FS2000, FS2002, and FS9 or FS2004. Neither of us own FSX yet, the latest version.

Twenty-four years of Flight Simulator. Kevin and I have seen them all.

I am 50 years old. Kevin is much younger.

GVC is a formet cadet at the PAF Flying School at Lipa. He is my godson by marriage. Rich is a former British Army trooper from Wales who came here to retire and marry a Filipina. He is also my godson by marriage. Komics is a former cadet at the PMA, as was Sanamagan. Komics fought alongside the RAM during the 1980s coups. He is now enjoying retirement, and spends his time on golf and repainting PAF aircraft for Flight Sim. His father was a decorated pilot in the PAF.

Tiger_57 is an writer and businessman in Seattle. He also had a father who was a decorated pilot in the PAF. His father actually wrote a book of poems about flight, which was published in the Philippines.

Ver is an architect and is the author of PUTANGINA, the spectacular AI package that puts every Philippine carrier (PAL, Cebu Pacific, Air Philippines, SEAir, Asian Spirit, etc) aircraft on FS9 AI. Every aircraft, unique by registration number, takes off and flies a correct domestic or international route, departing according to the actual flight schedule of each airline. It was an awesome job.

Ver also designed dozens of our sceneries. His work is showcased on a sticky post about PFSG Philippine sceneries, easy to find at the top of the forum.

Rodion, an IT professional, designed many of our Philippine sceneries too. Manny2, an advertising executive in Riyadh, is also a scenery designer, as is Manny3, who is a furniture plant manager in Surabaya, and a former air traffic controller in Cebu.

Windwalker is also a Manny, and he is the son of a former AFP Chief of Staff. He doesn't like to talk about it, but his Dad was a decorated hero from the PAF.

Mathias is an engineer whose parents used to be missionaries in Mindoro. He has been on the forum for years.

I could go on and on, but those are the "old" personalities at the forum. I though you might want to know who you were telling to go fly a kite.




It's okay to have an opinion. Your thoughts on the ATC thread were perfectly valid, as thoughts. If you post an opinion on the forum, you need to be able to deal with contention and pushback. That's what makes the forum vibrant. There was no need for you to get upset.

Those comments about Ass U Me, and such, are really old hat. In my 26 years of work as a senior executive, I've heard that so many times. There was no need for that. There was no need for the acrimony.

You walked in to a non-stop, ongoing party of old friends, and you are totally welcome here. A lot of new people who have joined us have really blended in very well. I think that it helps if you realize that a lot of the members here are real pilots, airline Captains and aviation professionals, and others are senior executives or successful businessmen. A lot of the others are also IT or medical professionals. Jaime is a professional fashion photographer.

And finally a great number are students and young professionals.

The key is to show respect, understand that you are new, and that nearly every subject has already been discussed here before. There are very few groundbreaking posts, and the best way for you to contribute is to share your personal experiences and your success stories in a personal, sincere way.

E-Jhay was being extremely polite to you. He does have a monster database of aircraft, by type and registration number of many major airlines in the world. He is famous on the web for that database. So there.

Cheers!
Tonet