To the newbie - First Time Jitters

[Tobias Dammers]

12 hours ago, Nathaniel Miller said:

I am a feeling a little discouraged to even attempt a flight without being kicked for absolutely no reason...

I'm pretty sure this wasn't meant to come across as hard as you took it. I can understand why accounts get deleted / suspended when they aren't used within a reasonable timespan after registering - a database full of phantom accounts that never connect doesn't help anyone. This is almost certainly not meant to be offensive in any way; the account just got deleted (or suspended) because you weren't using it. It is definitely not disciplinary action.

12 hours ago, Nathaniel Miller said:

I have pilot friends who don't like VATSIM and are REAL PILOTS and do this professionally and they say there is too much abuse, intimidation and just unpleasant people who are allowed to ATC or be supervisors... (Who take things WAY too far, and abuse their authority)

One way to find out, no? IME, VATSIM is one of the friendliest and cleanest communities I've witnessed first hand - there's the occasional drama when someone misunderstands what VATSIM is about, or plain out misbehaves, but overall, I've had overwhelmingly positive experiences.

Most of the perceived negativity of the past year or two seems to be down to the network effects of COVID-19 and the MSFS2020 release - the pandemic has produced a large demographic of people stuck at home with nothing to do, and many picked up flightsimming as a hobby; MSFS2020, marketed at gamers, opened up another new demographic to flightsimming. As a result, we've had a huge influx of new members, many of them new to flightsimming, some coming with wrong expectations, and in some cases, with some cultural friction (gamers vs. simmers, that kind of thing). But overall, I think the outcome is a net positive.

[Jens Baumeister]

15 hours ago, Nathaniel Miller said:

i don't think this is for me... still not sure... after 15 years I just now got back on and was "Allowed" to join up again.  Maybe I am having just a few jitters trying to get back into VATSIM...  I don't want to get kicked again for no reason...

I'm sorry if the process of account inactivation upset you, but it's really only meant to be a bit of a housekeeping formality to keep the databases on the network servers from filling up. If an account isn't actively used for a while, its status is set to "inactive". It's still kept safe in the main user database but you can't use it to log into the active network servers.

In order to do that,  you need to reactivate it. That takes a few mouse clicks and a bit of waiting until the data has propagated to the other servers in the network – that's all. Lots of users (myself included)  have done this before, and many more will do it in the future. Nobody's thinking any less of you for it (like you said, there can be countless reasons for not using VATSIM for a while, and none of them are anyone else's business), and to the best of my knowledge there are no short- or long-term consequences attached to it, either. (I.e., it's not any kind of "strike" against your account or anything like that.)

[Jim Rish]

On 10/17/2005 at 10:04 AM, Wycliffe Barrett said:

It's even worse when one of my cats gets in there and decides to take the shortcut to the windowsill across my keyboard, just as I'm on finals.

Good for you. My female cat will not tolerate anything less than complete attention. She doesn't walk across the keyboard. My fluff ball gets on the keyboard, opens up multiple windows, and refuses to move.  PC time over.

[Josh Glottmann]

3 hours ago, Jim Rish said:

Good for you. My female cat will not tolerate anything less than complete attention. She doesn't walk across the keyboard. My fluff ball gets on the keyboard, opens up multiple windows, and refuses to move.  PC time over.

Well this is quite the revival of a long-dead comment. 🙃

[Jim Rish]

2 hours ago, Josh Glottmann said:

Well this is quite the revival of a long-dead comment. 🙃

I'll make a new comment then. When I open flight simulator, my cat literally gets on the keyboard, and takes over the aircraft. And she has no "first time" jitters in the process either. She's quite good at it, actually.

[Jim Rish]

16 hours ago, Jens Baumeister said:

In order to do that,  you need to reactivate it. That takes a few mouse clicks and a bit of waiting until the data has propagated to the other servers in the network – that's all.

I just figured is you flew somewhere, VFR or IFR, at least once a year, that would keep the account active. I thought I read that somewhere in the VATSIM instructions anyways.

[Robert Shearman Jr]

5 hours ago, Josh Glottmann said:

Well this is quite the revival of a long-dead comment. 🙃

Almost sixteen years.  I shudder to think whether Wycliffe's cats are even still with us.

[Nathaniel Miller]

On 7/13/2021 at 11:27 PM, Jim Rish said:

I'll make a new comment then. When I open flight simulator, my cat literally gets on the keyboard, and takes over the aircraft. And she has no "first time" jitters in the process either. She's quite good at it, actually.

GASP! A "KITTY" Terrorist???  LOL 🤣

I can just see that too...

ACHMEOW: "Go get my food infidel Human Slave and give me a scritch on my ears! You will not fly now...!"

Had a cat named Patches who was a purr-machine and would sleep on my lap as i flew...  big fat kitty too... my legs would fall asleep... 😉

I had to edit and add this... with appreciation to Jeff Dunham... "Silence: I scratch you!" 😉

FA/MM N.A Miller, USN Ret.

 

Edited July 15, 2021 at 05:51 PM by Nathaniel Miller
add to the post...

[Jens Baumeister]

On 7/14/2021 at 8:29 AM, Jim Rish said:

I just figured is you flew somewhere, VFR or IFR, at least once a year, that would keep the account active. I thought I read that somewhere in the VATSIM instructions anyways.

That‘s correct. An account will stay active as long as it is in regular use. I’m not sure how regular exactly, i.e how frequently you’d need to fly or control, but yes, as long you’re flying or controlling on the network every once in a while, your account won’t be inactive and thus won’t need reactivating. 
 

The reactivation procedure I mentioned above is only necessary if a user was inactive on the network for a comparatively long time. And if someone runs into it, it’s not meant to be a punishment or embarrassment of any sort but merely an easily reversible act of housekeeping.
 

From my understanding, its worst and primary consequence is a one-time wait of a few minutes until the login data has been re-synced to all servers in the system. After that, as far as VATSIM is concerned, a returning user should be able to pick up exactly where they left off. 

Edited July 15, 2021 at 09:04 AM by Jens Baumeister
Missing words

[Zeyuan Wang]

Yeah exactly the same for the first online flight with real vocal controller lol

[John Stockton]

Weaning into VATSIM ATC. You don't have to be on VATSIM to practice. Pretend you're on VATSIM and get comfortable pressing your PTT (Push To Talk) button while announcing your positions. Call out your pattern positions even though nobody is around to hear you. Once comfortable you'll have more confidence when you do jump in VATSIM. Some great YouTube, radio talk, videos are by Mr. Aviation 101. This guy is Spot-On very articulate and makes it all seem easy. Another good YouTube trainer is Airplane Academy. Both these guys are in Cessna's, low and slow.

[Wycliffe Barrett]

On 7/14/2021 at 10:25 AM, Robert Shearman Jr said:

Almost sixteen years.  I shudder to think whether Wycliffe's cats are even still with us.

Sadly all my cats are long gone. We now have a Labradoodle called Frank. he is the biggest friendliest labradoodle in the world. here is with my wife last weekend 

 

[rian joseph]

On 10/17/2005 at 1:29 AM, Alex Brault 931841 said:

yeah, same thing pretty much happened to me but I picked the worst airport to leave from for a first flight...KLAX

i was so nervous, misflew the SID, taxiied the wrong way twice, pretty much screwed all I could up. I feel bad now for the KLAX controller that night . But obviously now, I know much better.

bro i went on busy hour in mami and i got flamed so hard by controllers. 

[Dace Nicmane]

8 hours ago, rian joseph said:

bro i went on busy hour in mami and i got flamed so hard by controllers. 

Care to elaborate what exactly happened? Did you not know how to fly your airplane? Regardless, it's not allowed to be disrespectful to someone on the network.

[Tobias Dammers]

Maybe it was a respectful flaming 😁

[Robert Shearman Jr]

I mean, sometimes it's in the eye of the beholder.  If you taxi across an active runway without clearance, I'm going to inform you using as close to proper phraseology as I can, rather than "bewitch" you out on the frequency.  But I'm sure the tone in my voice, especially if you caused a disruption to a landing or departing flight, is gonna suggest I'm not happy it happened.  The person on the receiving end may call that being flamed, when recounting the story later.  So be it.

The key is, if you mess up and get called out for it, just apologize and try to to better from then on.  There's no "permanent record" it goes on.  By the next day or even the next hour, the controller's probably not gonna remember who you were.  Abandon your hope as a newbie that you're not gonna mess up ever.  Heck, I'm 2000+ hours in and I still mess up something pretty much every time up, LOL.  Just learn how to roll with it, and hopefully over time your mistakes get smaller and less noticable.

[Miroslav Staskovan]

Hello
I would like to make my first flight. I use MSFS2020, Navigraph, Simbrief, vpilot, map.vatsim.net, A32NX
I have studied most of the information here on the site. I joined the network several times as an observer. However, I do not understand one thing.
I plan a flight through the simbrief portal and follow ATIS on map.vatsim.net.
According to ATIS, it shows me the runway that is in use, but the simbrief automatically selects another runway. Should I manually select the runway according to ATIS in the flight planner and then send the flight plan? Or let the simbrief generate a plan to automatically send the flight plan via vpilot and possibly make changes after starting the simulator and connecting via the vpilot client?
Thanks for help

[Jim Aldridge]

As a newbie I would like to talk a little about my very first flight using Vatsim and spme of the mistakes I could have so easily avoided.

I chose a reasonably quiet airport,   Glasgow in the UK.  Intended to fly 1 circuit and land under vfr.

First mistake, Thought I had taken a wrong turn on the taxiway.I hadnt as it turned out but that was just luck. Took off normally and as I reached 1000ft realised I had miss read or misunderstoof the atis as the visibility was poor. I made my turn for the downwind leg and got hoplessly dissorientated. Called tower for vectors and with his kind help I was able to make a poor approach and got down safely.

Given time to recognise some of my mistakes afterwards I also realised that as I normally fly in vr I had not  looked about sufficiently.It was only down to the superb atc given  that I didnt completely embarass myself.

I must try harder next time but more than anything wanted to endorse the fantastic job the atc guys do and thank them whole heartedly.

I'm looking forward to a better flight next time and forgive me if this is posted in the wrong place.

Jim

[Frederick Rivers]

Hi Tom, I haven't completed my first VATSIM flight, so, I can relate to your 'jitters'. I too am a FW pilot with less than 500 hrs, and realize that even though I am a real-world pilot, I must default to how I flew when I did fly in Washington state. After a few flights on the VATSIM network, I am sure you'll do fine. And you got half the battle done as you know that ATC and other pilots are here to help you integrate into this network. I wish you luck, and maybe we'll see each other on the network flying formation, or so.

Freddie

[Dace Nicmane]

Not sure who you're talking to. If it's the OP, he posted this thread in October 2005 and I'm not sure if he's still around. 😁  

Edited December 26, 2021 at 09:17 PM by Dace Nicmane

[John McMurdo]

One of many things I learned here is not to be disheartened by a  mistake on your first,  second,  or even third flight.  As others have said,  even experienced simmers make mistakes.  On my first flight I tuned my nav rad to the wrong frequency and ended up on approach to the wrong runway just as tower was about to give clearance to a departure.

 

Several months later, at EIDW  I was holding short of 28L on 16/34 and another flight with a VERY similar call sign was also holding just to the left of me at the end of 28L, although I had not seen them.  ATC sent a message on text "Line up and wait 28L" I mistook it to be for me and ended up jumping the queue,  the controller had to tell the other aircraft to hold while I carried on oblivious until ATC contacted me to confirm I was continuing to hold,  yes a pretty big fail  on awareness since if I had just taken a second to look left then things might have been different, but one moves on and learns from ones experiences.

[Paul Reid]

Hey everyone. I was thinking of learning how to do ATC in a quiet location but I know I will need training for that. My question is did anyone have any issues with confidence to apply as a student for ATC classes as I don't know anything about ATC but wanted to give it a try to see if I can learn and have a nice experience talking to pilots flying over my area.

Even while I still play Flight Simulator I sometimes have difficulty repeating exact messages back to ATC while trying to fly at the same time. I guess am just an average person walking into something brand new. Like they always say.... Practice makes Perfect. But I am looking for my confidence to give ATC a wee go and see what happens.

Hope to hear back on this forum and thank you.

[Dace Nicmane]

You sure need confidence to talk to the pilots and manage the frequency. If you have it, they'll teach you the rest, no previous knowledge is required.

[Paul Reid]

48 minutes ago, Dace Nicmane said:

You sure need confidence to talk to the pilots and manage the frequency. If you have it, they'll teach you the rest, no previous knowledge is required.

Thank you for your message. I will keep listening in as a pilot and keep taking notes. 1 step at a time. 🙂

[Sunil Hans]

Just joined VATSIM and looking forward to being part of this wonderful community. Many of you have been flying here for a while and it was interesting to read and relate to a lot of the stories. A quick intro - I am in the Chicago area and recently getting back to creating my sim setup. I have flown MS2004 (I think it was) and FSX and now on FS2020. I am having a terrible time with setting up my controller setup, bought it used (Saitek Cessna (not the pro) yoke, rudder pedals and TQ) but slowly getting there. Found a great video on calibration last night so that's next, see if that helps. Pleasure to meet you all.

Jitters - I had some last night when I joined the network for the first time at O'Hare. I found the last gate I could find to spawn, think it was G30, read some of the maps and the 28C looked so close to me and I was so tempted to request pushback, taxi on my way to Schaumburg airport where I took flight lessons 25 years ago. It's a straight shot, take off 28C and land 28 but I chickened out. It seemed quiet too but the guy sounded like a real controller and I got intimidated, lol. So, I did what I could muster - "O'Hare tower, Warrior (wrong plane, I was in a Cessna but old habits die hard), 4388C at G30, radio check". I got 5x5. I listened some more and hung up after a half hour or so. If I had confidence in my controls, I would have gone for it. Maybe next time when my craft is more airworthy!

I installed my dual touchscreens last night, knobster config is next, waiting for a monitor stand, config these controllers correctly and I should be ready to go (after a few more video watching of course).

Cheers!