CZUL Easter ETA Contest

[Jean-Francois Desrosiers]

It had been a while that Montreal is sleeping but me and some controllers from CZUL had the idea to prepae an event called "CZUL Easter ETA Contest".

 

Where ? Who ? When ? What ? How ?

 

Where ? -> Departing from/to Montreal TCA (CYUL, CYHU, CYMX, CYJN airports) with flights within the CZUL FIR.

 

Who ? -> ALL pilots that wants to participate are welcome

 

When ? -> Easter Eve, April 3rd from 1400z until the traffic is out !

 

What ? ->

 

We are looking for the BEST estimator. We will give prizes to the first and second of each categories. Pilots who will be participating will have to estimate their arrival time and be the most acurate as possible !

 

How ? -> Here are the contest regulations :

 

1. Participating pilots will send an IFR flight plan as usual on the VATSIM Network but will need to write in remarks the estimated departure time (ETD) as well as their estimated enroute time (EET)... Only IFR flight plans departing/arriving to CYUL, CYHU, CYMX or CYJN will be admitted.

 

2. All pilots will need to open their flight plan with Quebec Radio (CZUL_FSS on 126.7), the event supervisor, BEFORE departure to participate. ETDs and EETs will be recorded when the pilot opens his flight plan. We calculate the Estimated Arrival Time (ETA) by adding the EET to the ETD, and that is the information that will be compared with the Actual Time Arrival (ATA).

 

3. During the flight...

Here what is forbidden:

- Modify the ETA provided before departure.

- Simulation Rate. In case of doubt, you will be disqualified .

- Simulator Pause. Automatically disqualified . Make sure that the "pause on task switch" is not activated !

 

Here what is permitted:

- Reduce or increase indicated airspeed (You can adjust it during your flight at your discretion);

- Request a direct fix (The ATC will try to accommodate you as usual);

- Holding Patterns (IF you are really ahead of your ETA, you can make holding patterns to delay your arrival time).

 

4. The Actual Time Arrival (ATA) is the time where the pilot lands on a runway at the destination airport. To be more specific, it's the moment where the ground speed reaches less than 50 knots. This information will be transmitted to the event supervisor (Quebec Radio CZUL_FSS on 126.7) by the ATC. Quebec RDO will validate each ATA transmitted prior onto record it to the table.

 

5.The category to which the pilot is [Mod - Happy Thoughts]ociated is determined by the distance between the departure point and the destination :

- Category A => 200NM or less (0 à 199);

- Category B => Between 200NM and 999NM;

- Category C => 1000NM or more;

 

6.The difference in minutes between the ETA and the ATA becomes the score of the pilot. Lower score the better. CZUL_FSS will be able to transmit the scores to the pilots who wishes to know. Make the demand after your arrival on frequency 126.7!

 

7.Each pilot may participate up to 3 times to the contest, but may only win once.

 

8.In the event of a draw (we do not consider the seconds), the longest route wins. The score table will be made public on Monday the 5th of April after lunch on the CZUL.org forum!

 

Come give a workout to our controllers and take part in the race against the watch on Easter Saturday in the afternoon.

 

Montreal airport CYUL will be fully staffed and CYHU and CYJN may be staffed by towers depending of the amount of traffic and available controllers.

 

Prizes to win will be annouced in a near future!

 

Do not hesitate to leave your comments!

 

_________________

Jean-Francois Desrosiers

Acting VATCAN Events Director

www.vatcan.org

[Jean-Francois Desrosiers]

Here is the moment where I officially announce the prizes.

 

Unfortunataly, due to the amout of prizes we have, the winner (1st place) of each category will win a prize.

 

The prizes will be to the pilot discretion and the order to select their prizes will be as following :

 

The winner of the CAT. A chooses first. The second to choose will be the winner of CAT B and the third to choose will be the winner of CAT C.

 

The prizes are : 3 payware models of RealAir Simulations - http://realairsimulations.com/list_box.php?page=products

 

2 payware models of the Air Simmer A320 Basic Edition - http://www.airsimmer.com/products.htm

 

 

As you have understand, there will be 2 prizes left and the hazard will select 2 lucky pilots who will win the 2 other plane licenses !

 

 

Special thanks to RealAir Simulations and Air Simmer for these prizes

 

 

 

 

 

Good luck to everyone and happy Easter everybody !