To the newbie - First Time Jitters

[Matthew Iselin 1061577]

Martin: you should leave feedback for that controller.

 

There's no way a controller should be so rigid that a minor mistake (which, honestly, does not affect traffic flow, ground movement, or anything the controller should be worried about) gives him the right to ask you to leave.

 

Don't let one controller ruin VATSIM for you - there'll always be embarrasing moments. Believe me, controllers experience embarrasing moments as well (and pilots are usually quick to point them out on radio!) - take them in your stride, learn from the experience, and get back on the horse

[Joshua Yager 1171262]

I wish someone could post a simple ATC checklist here for the newbies to follow, when to do what.

 

Edit: Answered my own question

Found a good website:

http://www.altairva-fs.com/training/ava_training_ifr_vatsim_ifr.htm

[Darrol Larrok 1140797]

Note that the V isn't currently used.

[Wim Sjoholm 1133704]

I like VATSIM, its a great idea. Love flying too, at 39 hours as a student PPL, enjoying every moment of it.

 

I've tried a few different airports and ATC's over the past few years on Vatsim, but today was unfortunately my last.

I just wanted to say that I've had a rather unpleasant experience with an ATC (won't mention any names) while in LAX tonight practising for my r/t. I've decided to go back to the real world and practise there.

I was advised to leave by a controller this evening and told I should read the instructions. Pretty embarrasing to be honest.

 

My transgression? I hadn't checked the ATIS before calling and asked permission to start my engine.

 

I've had great experiences with controllers online on Vatsim, don't get me wrong - some of them are excellent. It's just that there are also the ones that dont want to put up with any students/newbies. Thankfully the real world is a bit more forgiving sometimes

 

Bye all.

Its very important to report this particular controller to his ARTCC so that he learns how to act in the future.

[Joshua Brady 1158151]

My first flight on Vatsim was a simple IFR circuit around London Stansted, I already knew all the ATC phraseology, but when the GND controller gave me my clearence my mind went blank, and i just replied "uhhhhhhhh squawk 1234, rwy04, urm thanks" =D And suddenly realised it helps to have pen and paper to hand to jot down instructions :L My biggest fear and still now, i get really nervous when flying into US airspace, the accents and slight different procedures are confusing!!

[Cristian Dejesus 1179509]

Hello to all,

After some reading and configuring I made my first flight today from kjfk to kcdw, and let me say

that I really enjoyed the experience. ATC control at Kennedy was handled professionally which made FSX appear lifelike, so thanks to all.

[Dan Nealy 1141690]

I like VATSIM, its a great idea. Love flying too, at 39 hours as a student PPL, enjoying every moment of it.

 

I've tried a few different airports and ATC's over the past few years on Vatsim, but today was unfortunately my last.

I just wanted to say that I've had a rather unpleasant experience with an ATC (won't mention any names) while in LAX tonight practising for my r/t. I've decided to go back to the real world and practise there.

I was advised to leave by a controller this evening and told I should read the instructions. Pretty embarrasing to be honest.

 

My transgression? I hadn't checked the ATIS before calling and asked permission to start my engine.

 

I've had great experiences with controllers online on Vatsim, don't get me wrong - some of them are excellent. It's just that there are also the ones that dont want to put up with any students/newbies. Thankfully the real world is a bit more forgiving sometimes

 

Bye all.

 

This is such a shame; lets hope this particular controller was just having a bad night or something.

 

I fly out of a towered (cl[Mod - Happy Thoughts] D) airport in real life, and have met several of the controllers there, and I can safely say that NONE of them would have acted like that, particularly if they know you're a student.

 

I wouldn't give up on VATSIM just yet, as almost all of the controllers I've interacted with have been very helpful and forgiving of mistakes (pretty much just like real world controllers). Just fly in a different area, and like the others suggested, leave feedback about the controller if you have a bad experience.

[Maxim Cormier 1181266]

Going for my first online flight pretty soon, any tips?

[Charan Kumar]

Going for my first online flight pretty soon, any tips?

Just a couple...http://www.vatsim.net/prc, give it a read, and number two, have fun!!

[Johan Grauers]

If in doubt, ask. I'd much rather sit explaining to a new pilot over PM then clear you for a SID and then have you fly runway heading when you should be following the SID.

 

The only bad question is one that is not asked!

 

 

And also, I second Charan, have fun!

[Maxim Cormier 1181266]

Thanks guys, Ill get reading

[Tim Murphy]

Hi Martin. Do not let this experience ruin it for you. I will personally tell you that I am sure the folks in LAX are GREAT, however I too had a horrible experience when I was kind of new to VATSIM. I will never fly in, out, or through LAX because of that night. I still fly on VATSIM though - and although you will run into others who are not generally as pleasant as others, you meet some great pilots and controllers who will inspire you to keep flying.

 

If you have read ANY of the other posts in this thread you will see everyone has a story - bad or good - but I bet the overall feeling is how helpful, and nice people can be towards a new pilot or even to a experienced pilot having a moment .

 

I hope to see you flying!

 

All the best,

Tim

 

I like VATSIM, its a great idea. Love flying too, at 39 hours as a student PPL, enjoying every moment of it.

 

I've tried a few different airports and ATC's over the past few years on Vatsim, but today was unfortunately my last.

I just wanted to say that I've had a rather unpleasant experience with an ATC (won't mention any names) while in LAX tonight practising for my r/t. I've decided to go back to the real world and practise there.

I was advised to leave by a controller this evening and told I should read the instructions. Pretty embarrasing to be honest.

 

My transgression? I hadn't checked the ATIS before calling and asked permission to start my engine.

 

I've had great experiences with controllers online on Vatsim, don't get me wrong - some of them are excellent. It's just that there are also the ones that dont want to put up with any students/newbies. Thankfully the real world is a bit more forgiving sometimes

 

Bye all.

[Brian Cheung 1181193]

I had my first flight last night, a quick hop from KJYO-KFDK in a Piper Malibu. On my Asus EEE PC running X-Plane 9.67

 

DC_CTR signed on as I was doing my pre-flight checklist (thanks Mani!) and helped me realize that a cruising altitude of FL120 wouldn't be reasonable for a 40-minute hop. Quickly revised that to FL020!

 

Departed at around 00:10Z into some good winds and was cleared direct to FDK on a 020 heading. Everything was going pretty well - I had the FDK VOR tuned in on my NAV1 and GPS (redundancy!).

 

Honestly, I was palms-sweaty nervous the whole time. Mostly because I was doing this on an EEE PC.

 

At about 12 miles out from FDK, Center notifies me that the airport is at my 12 o'clock and to advise when I have visual contact. I could make out the blue and white lights of safety and told Center I had the field in sight. RNAV approach to Runway 5 was approved, and as I descended to about 2300 feet I said goodbye to Center and was on. my. own.

 

Landing was a bit rough due to the wind but we made it. It was an excellent first flight, and convinced me to get a desktop more suited to the hobby.

 

So this morning, I did! Spec'd out an AMD Phenom II X4 at 2.8GHz mated to an ATI Radeon HD 5570 (1GB RAM). A good starter desktop that I can hopefully build on in the future.

[Wade Williams 877539]

I will never fly in, out, or through LAX because of that night. I still fly on VATSIM though - and although you will run into others who are not generally as pleasant as others, you meet some great pilots and controllers who will inspire you to keep flying.

 

Tim,

 

Pardon me for saying so, but that is an unfortunate view. By avoiding LAX, you're missing out on some of the most fun on the network - high traffic controlled by some great controllers.

 

If you decided to avoid an ARTCC every time you had a negative experience, you'd likely eventually end up with nowhere to fly. Every ARTCC has the occasional overworked or over-exhuberant controller. No ARTCC wants that and they all take pains to avoid it, but eventually they're going to have a controller act badly or just rub someone the wrong way.

 

Nobody is going to force you to fly anywhere and you're certainly free to make your own decisions, but I'd encourage anyone to not hold grudges against an ARTCC because of a bad experience. You never know - the site of a bad experience may become one of your favorite places to fly.

[Wally Forbush 1191590]

well guys and gals. i was very exciteg about joining but after reading for hours and days unfortunatly i find my self very discouraged and dissapointed. no offense to anyone but my god - theres so much to read and so much to learn it it way overwelming. i havent flown for three days just trying to retain around 10 - 20% of what ive read theres soooo many abreiviations its not funny.ive been flying my 737-800 for around 2 months i have a hard time with visuals most of the time i think im lined up - by the time i get to the runway im too far off to land so i only fly ifr, but all the weather info,abreiviations,vfr regulations,procedures so-on & on & on & on. i cant see how some of you felt comfortable enough to even log on. oh well some day i might come back and try it i just cant get myself to do it. 1 frustrating and embarrasing night would probably ruin the whole thing for me. i didnt notice but is there a way to download and/or print the 5,000 pages of info without having to print each page seperatly and take up another hour, so i can liesurly read it over and over again until i can feel comfortable enough and have a fun experience when i do log in

 

thanks

[Wycliffe Barrett]

Wally

 

The whole point of this thread is to show that we all had jitters when we first started.

 

I was like you, being the sort that likes to read and getthings right but I found thatthe best way of doing this whole vatsim thingwas to just load up at an airport and listen in. Look if you can fly your aircraft your 90% of the way there. ATC don't bite we all started atthe begining although some controllers forget that at times.

 

There are lots of resources outthere to help you and the biggest and best resource is the network itself. I klnow you live in teh states and it's a big old place but find a nice friendly controller who might hold your hand a little and you'll be fine, please don't be discouraged by all the reading material don't forget it take 10's of thousands of dollars to train a real airline pilot and they don't jump staright into a 747 first week of the job.

 

Take your time you will find this a pleasurbale and rewarding hobby.

 

Wycliffe Barrett

[bernard tremblay]

Wally I'm not going to write a whole bunch, but only echo what Wycliffe wrote and suggest you just keep taking it step by step. Pretty hard to swallow it all at once, and no need to!

 

have fun

[Randy Tyndall 1087023]

Wally,

 

I have to agree with Wycliffe and Bernard. It seems daunting and overwhelming, but once you have taken the plunge you will never want to fly without being online again. If you are like me, you've had a "favorite" local airport you used to "fly" at offline. Do some small plane/local stuff near or at that airport online. If ATC is there a plus, then slowly as you gain confidence move to bigger aircraft and larger airports. It won't be long and you will be "hooked".

 

Welcome to the Wonderful World of VATSIM my friend. By the way, and forgive me Wycliffe if I presume too much here, but Wycliffe is a controller at Cardiff in Wales EGFF (United Kingdom) I believe. I'd wager he would be more than happy to give you some pointers if you should pop up at his field.

 

Again, welcome, Wally...Enjoy

[Wally Forbush 1191590]

thanks for the encouragement but for now im going to start printing off every page of the prc i can and do some more reading and some vfr flights and such offline for a little while longer. you guys all sound great to be around and helpful. i think i will pop in and stay parked and listen or wach or whatever you do to see what this is all about. i have no problem handeling my 738 i just dont know Jack #$@% about navigation. i know how to take directions from atc using auto pilot. but i dont know what to do or when to do it with out there direction, except to follow the pink line to my destination

[Andrew Quirion 919643]

thanks for the encouragement but for now im going to start printing off every page of the prc i can and do some more reading and some vfr flights and such offline for a little while longer. you guys all sound great to be around and helpful. i think i will pop in and stay parked and listen or wach or whatever you do to see what this is all about. i have no problem handeling my 738 i just dont know Jack #$@% about navigation. i know how to take directions from atc using auto pilot. but i dont know what to do or when to do it with out there direction, except to follow the pink line to my destination

 

I, as a fellow pilot, can appreciate your willingness to learn.

[Wally Forbush 1191590]

its just starting to get fun again now im starting to retain a portion of the PRC. i dont think ill get it all, but hell im going to stop worring about it and come online soon and fly respectfully and do as im told. and if i dont understand ill kindly ask for directions,if being a newbie and making honest mistakes upsets people, then this place isnt for me. although i dont feel thats going to be the case here. i just want to do it the right way,but to do it the right way you need to learn alot. like i told my son who's in little league baseball, the first 1 to 2 years arent that fun, there learning years. after that it starts getting fun cause now you can start playing the game and knowing what your doing. ive been reading up on some of the posts in here and i am a little concerned about hearing that more and more people are starting to do there own thing while flying and not listning to ATC,while im taking weeks off trying to school myself on this stuff and learning "sids and stars" and trying to practice them offline so i can stay in a controlled path. atleast thats what ive been learning.but its sounding like quite a few people arnt following suite for some reason, thats too bad !!!! same thing happend when i used to race nascar online, after awhile it started getting out of line and kind of ruined it for alot of people like myself. im 49 years old cant afford to race or fly for real so the next best thing is this. so i do take it seriously, yet have fun too. oh well enough of my blaabing. we'll see you guys and gals soon. have a good day/or evening

Wally

[Gordon Miller 1193756]

First VATSIM flights today from EGPH to EGCC. Made a couple of bad errors (like typing shift-P for pullback by mistake, when I thought I was typing in the FSInn chat window). And of course the obligatory taxiing the wrong way around the airport ...

 

Boy am I glad I have all the charts for the main UK airports, and the NATS standard route docomeent. Makes things a whole lot easier planning routes and generally knowing what is what, and where is who. It's early days, but I found FsBuild really useful, as I can save the routes in FSInn, FS2004 & A320 formats, the only gotcha was that I had to edit the FS2004 route file to place the plane at a gate, rather at the end of the active runway ...

 

Also having up-to-date AIRAC data is nice. I have 1104 for FsBuild, FeelThere and the West Europe bgl updates for FS2004. Which means everything is (more-or-less) in sync.

 

I didn't get nervous really, basically because if you are doing it right, there is no time for extravagances. And I found the controllers very helpful, despite our common dour Scots heritage.

[Sean Findlay 1165616]

Great stories!

[Wycliffe Barrett]

First VATSIM flights today from EGPH to EGCC. but I found FsBuild really useful, as I can save the routes in FSInn, FS2004 & A320 formats, the only gotcha was that I had to edit the FS2004 route file to place the plane at a gate, rather at the end of the active runway ...

 

 

 

Hi Gordon

 

Sounds like you have gotten past the first hurdle of connecting. I@m [Mod - Happy Thoughts]uming your using defalut aircraft because of your comment above about editing FS2004 route file. I am a little confused as tow hy you would do that when you can simply place the plane at any gate you so choose in the free flight menu. perhaps i am missing something here.

 

if you like Fsbuild (a rather clumsy an inelegant peice of software) may I suggest you have a look at www.aivlasoft.com

 

All the best and happy flying.

 

Wycliffe

[Scott Aulsebrook 1192891]

Had my first vatsim experience yesterday and man i have been having a nightmare, between not being able to understand controllers and constantly asking 'say again' to getting lost at airports and controllers asking me where i am going, and the most frustrating i have tried to line up a few ifr's im my 747 but i either keep getting airports that are too busy and dont seem to want to respond, to others that controllers that sound like there talking through pillows, aahhhhhhhhh

 

Pls tell me it gets easier.

 

On a positive all the controllers at the quieter airport are more than patient and helpful