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Almost exactly one month after I published the first edition of Inside the VA, the second edition is here, right before the new year! The second VA I have taken a deeper look into is Aeroméxico Virtual, which I’ll refer to as AMVA from now on. In keeping with my motivation for interviewing EZYVA, I chose AMVA because 1. I knew almost nothing about the VA 2. AMVA has been operating continuously for over a year and 3. AMVA doesn’t have a large profile in the community, just like EZYVA. None of these are detriments, just characteristics of the VA that made it a good candidate for me to highlight to the community!
One of my goals for these pieces is to find one aspect of each VA I interview that sets it apart from any other VA I’ve seen before. I’ve been a part of the VA community for over two years now, which I’d say is a moderate to long amount of time compared to others in general. I also review new VA applications as an IFVARB board member. There’s not a lot that surprises me anymore. So, when I find something in a VA that’s unique or very interesting, I always endeavor to find out how it came to be. This was exactly the case with AMVA.
AMVA has been around since January 2019 and will soon have their second anniversary. They have around 50 active pilots, over 20,000 logged hours, and 340 routes to 85 destinations. The current CEO is Enrique Fernández. Enrique has been part of the community since 2017 and has been IFATC for quite a while now. He always wanted to join a Mexican VA, but found that none were present at the time. So, he started work on AMVA. It took 6 months, but he and his COO got the project to the finish line. For those who remember, the old IFVARB approval process was lengthy and harder than it is now, so becoming approved was quite the accomplishment. I asked Enrique some questions about AMVA.
What do you enjoy most about running the VA?
I enjoy our events a lot and our small community and I love the diversity of our destinations. Iin Mexico we can fly to beautiful beaches, cities in the desert or in the middle of the mountains. We also bring our heavies to Europe, Asia, North and South America.
What do you feel makes AMVA unique?
A lot of things, but especially the way we fly is unique as we practice a lot of VOR/DME procedures. Most of the Mexican airports have these approach procedures. I’m impressed how pilots fly arcs or teardrops perfectly, I must say that we use the VOR not the GPS. Additionally we fly only with real flight plans, we teach our pilots how to do them with different resources like flightaware, skyvector and simbrief.
Can you tell me more about the VOR/DME procedures and how they play a large role in AMVA?
Sure, in México most of the airports have VOR/DME procedures, like teardrops or arcs, only a few airports have RNAV procedures. We try to fly to new airports on every event, not always the big ones like MMMY. MMGL or MMUN, that's why we practice these procedures a lot. We teach our pilots how to use the VOR and how to read the charts, so they can fly with the correct radials, distances and speeds. Of course this requires practice, is not easy the first time, but pilots master these procedures after some events or group flights.
Once Enrique first mentioned the common use of VOR/DME procedures in Mexico, I was immediately intrigued. I had no idea that they were the most common type of approach in Mexico in real life. VOR procedures have always been interesting to me in and outside of Infinite Flight. I’ve tried flying a few arcs for fun in IF in the past for kicks and to see how my track looked on LiveFlight, but I’ve never actually tried to learn how to properly perform an instrument procedure using a VOR, much less completed one successfully. I’ve only heard the words “teardrop procedure turn” before and nothing more. So, when Enrique brought up the fact that these procedures were normal and regularly taught to AMVA pilots and used in events and group flights, I knew this was what I wanted to focus on. I’ve never seen this before at any VA, and I think it’s really cool.
Enrique also provided an example picture of a VOR approach used by pilots during an event.
I then talked to Anthony Gomez, a recruiter for AMVA. He enjoys working with his staff team and learning from the VA members. When I asked him about VOR procedures, he had an immediately excited reaction. He told me that he thinks Mexico’s approach and departure procedures really set it apart from other countries, and I couldn’t agree more after my interview with him. Anthony’s also a pilot in real life, and therefore has a direct connection to these procedures. He even showed me a ForeFlight track of one of his real life flights, and showed the chart to compare it to, which I really enjoyed. They’re pictured below.
You can see here the charted procedure and Anthony’s ForeFlight track in real life!
I asked Anthony if being able to replicate his real-life Mexican flying experiences in IF was special and he told me that it wasn’t just special- it was amazing.
I also talked to Miguel, an AMVA pilot and asked him some questions. Miguel had a different perspective on VOR procedures than the others and it was refreshing to hear.
What makes AMVA unique to you?
AMVA’s uniqueness is based on the pilots’ behavior, as many people know Mexicans are super funny and are always making jokes and that’s something only AMVA has, people is always talking, taking care of each other and many more awesome things. The camaraderie between pilots is something I’ve never seen at any other VA, for example, Alessandro is now one of my very best friends, we decided to leave our positions at AMVA and opened on June AZVA.
Miguel also has a pretty cool direct connection to Aeromexico in real life.
I do have a personal connection to Aeromexico in real life, my best friend’s dad is captain and flies a 787. When we became best friends was my first approach to Aeromexico and I felt in love with the airline. After some years I started to get into aviation and I was overwhelmed by the incredible things it has to offer, I really really loved Aeromexico with all my heart, now, it’s my time to create history at Aeromexico and I’ll be joining their school in March.
What's up with all the VOR procedures in Mexico?
I think most of the VOR procedures in Mexico are designed for old routes and al low traffic airport with small aircrafts. Also the airport location it’s not helpful for any procedures because of all the mountains in the area. VOR procedures at Mexico are unnecessary complicated in some airports such as MMPR, MMMX, and MMTJ, VOR are supposed to help pilots with the flying and orientation, not to make everything more complicated.
So you're looking forward to more modern procedures?
Totally, to a more simplified version of the VOR to make traffic patterns way too easier for pilots.
It was definitely refreshing to see that while valued, some want the VOR procedures to be replaced by modern and simplified counterparts.
While I’m sure other VAs allow their members to have such deep connections to their real-life experiences, I think that AMVA’s ability to do this so meaningfully through uniquely Mexican instrument procedures is something that only they can boast. I honestly didn’t know if I’d find anything unique that I’d never seen before when I decided to look deeper into AMVA, but I’m glad that I did.
- Sam (Yacht)
Thank you to Enrique, Anthony and Miguel for your responses!
You can visit AMVA’s IFC thread here.