Deepen Mehta has logged over 745 flying hours, all without ever leaving the ground. When we meet him, he is preparing for his flight from Vancouver to Brisbane via Fiji. No, Mehta hasn’t discovered teleportation; he fulfils all his aviation fantasies with Virtual Air Traffic Simulation network, a flight-simulation network that allows users to fly online as a pilot, or direct traffic as an air traffic controller (ATC). As administrator to the not-for-profit website, Mehta boasts of 600 users in India who balance being aviation enthusiasts with regular day jobs, some of whom have more than 2,000 virtual flying hours, enough to get them a job at any leading airline, except that it will have to be a virtual one.