To the newbie - First Time Jitters

[Wycliffe Barrett]

Different sense of humour indeed is what we have ( sounds like Yoda) but we do have Monty Python, The Life of Brian, Tommy Cooper (deceased) Ronnie Barker.

 

etc etc etc etc

 

oh almost forgot Rigsby in Rising Damp. sheer comedic cl[Mod - Happy Thoughts].

[Edward Mosier 902482]

As a Canadian, British humor is not for everyone over here.... monty python, benny hill, etal, simply halarious to me . Rented a monty pyhton movie some time ago, me and my step son rotflobo, while my wife just could not understand the humor...

sad really...

[Wycliffe Barrett]

Very sad, you never know she might get it one day.

 

You should show her the Lumberjack Song, I smile just thinking of that.

[Matt Chase 974571]

Yeah well in Oz no-one gets our humour.

[Edward Mosier 902482]

Wycliffe, ah yes the "Lumberjack song" definatly a cl[Mod - Happy Thoughts]ic in my book.... Talent and witt never to be topped...

[Jeff Greth 896502]

I just figured I'd post my first experience on VATSIM ( 2 really, first doesn't count ). This was early in 2004.

 

I joined Virtual FedEx ( I live in Memphis and used to work at the airport so it had some appeal ) and read the initial docomeention. They flew using this network called VATSIM. I loaded SB2 and all the necessary software. I read all the SB2 docomeentation and clicked connect. I didn't see anyone or anything so I thought, whatever I'll do my flight. I am in a Cessna Grand Caravan doing a run from Memphis to Nashville. Suddenly I get a message from someone saying they had a visual on me and that they would keep visual separation from me. I didn't see them though!! I was so let down that I couldn't see any other traffic. Later on I found out that there was a setting wrong in the multiplayer settings ( was a difference between FS2002 and FS2004 that caused it ). The docomeentation for SB2 was written for FS2002 and not FS2004. Anyhow... moving on to my REAL first experience on VATSIM.

 

I find out about ServInfo so I load it up and see that there is TONS of traffic at KLAX ( sounds familiar eh? ). I load up there at the gate. I connect ( still can't see any traffic) so I complain on "chat" ( UNICOM, didn't know it at the time ). I get a private message saying how to fix it as they've experienced it as well. I disconnect and fix the issue and load up. Suddenly I see at least 50 planes in the KLAX area ( must have been a fly-in now that i think about it ). I'm blown away!!! After reading all of the very busy chatter on the channel ( didn't have voice at the time ). I work up enough courage to say something along the lines of "LAX Tower, can I do a pattern on X runway?" Of course I get denied, WAY too busy. So I figure I'll do a flight somewhere close just to get in the action.

 

I load back up in a Learjet ( default of course, I had 0 addons at this time ) and request permission to fly to Las Vegas. I am told to file a flight plan ( doh! ). I file a flight plan ( rofl, you guessed it, "GPS DIRECT" ). They deny my flight plan and offer to give me a new flight plan. I say sure. He gives me a real flight plan, which includes airways and all.... Now, to take a step back here, this was all new to me. My ATC phraseology was about as extensive as FS9 ATC and I had no idea what SIDs/STARs/airways were. A fellow pilot ( I forget his name, but I have emailed him thanking him for taking the time to help me) gave me a private message with a URL giving me some good reading material including how to use altitudes going certain directions.

 

I finally plot my flightplan on using FS9's flight planning UI ( ugh!!, manually finding the NAVAIDs and dragging the line there sucked ). I am SO nervous now while cleared to taxi to the runway. I manage to almost crash into 2 people while taxiing ( oops! ). I'm holding short and I get clearance to take off. I never thought a game ( well, simulation but yeah you know what I mean ) would make me so nervous! I grip my joystick and manage to take off with little problems. I follow the STAR ( Lord knows how I managed that one at the time ) and head to Las Vegas.

 

There's 5 people in line to land at KLAS when I get there. I'm #3 ( GREAT!! ). There's a 14kt crosswind on top of all the other problems. The approach controller tells me to keep visual separation from the #2 aircraft. Wow this is so much for a newbie!! I'll never forget being on a downwind and looking over ( in spot view ) seeing the #1 touch down ( as choppy as SB2 was ). I was SO excited but nervous doesn't even begin to explain how I felt. I see the #2 making his final turn. I'll never forget making my approach ( in spot view lol ) thinking 'Oh my god, there's people WATCHING ME!!!' Anyhow, I land the bird ( I was SO happy when I made it down! ) and taxi.

 

From that moment on, I was hooked. I learned SO much in that single night. I'm very greatful that the one pilot took time out to explain everything to me.

 

( and for a later story, my first experience using the voice software )

 

Everything is second nature now but I can definately empathize with newcomers being nervous.

 

To all the new folks, or folks that WANT to try it but can't build up the courage.... give it a shot!! Once you make ONE flight, you'll never go back to flying alone again!

[Trevor Majors 928819]

Gotta join in the fun and tell my experiences with Vatsim. I can't remember which my first flight was or anything cause it was a year or so ago. I ended up not being able to fly on Vatsim because my wife had an uncanny habit of invoking immediate honeydo while I was turning final...ARG 4 hour flight of nothing and the last five and most important minutes were where she called quit...anyways....

 

Like I said I can't remember which my first flight was so I'll just mention a few humorous ones to describe things that happened to me.

 

In no real order by the way, just by how I am describing them. I didn't have a mic by the way so everything from me was text based, not because I didn't want to or was gun shy, just didn't have a mic at all, I could hear ATC just fine though.

 

Flight 1 - Load up my plane at KSLC.

File a flight plan. Flight plan approved with no problems. Get taxi and hold short instructions. No problem. I push back and start taxi. About half way to the runway I notice that my plane is going faster and faster but I barely have any juice on the trottle. I hit the brakes, pull back on the trottle to zero thrust. Plane stops. I turn off the brakes and plane bolts to full throttle on the taxi way again. Arg stupid old X36 is acting up or something. I whack it a few times and nothing happens. So I pull off the taxi way and call KSLC and tell them I'm having technical difficulties and will have to reboot/fix my system and refile my plan later.

 

Flight 2 - KLAX FUN!.

I've flown out of KLAX several times offline, had all the charts, knew the airport fairly well. Flying a King Air 350. Same thing as above. File flight plan with no problem, taxi, takeoff, blah blah blah. Uneventful. I'm supposed to be heading East towards Flagstaff by the way. ATC had me departing west, turn left towards San Diego, then loop back around to Flagstaff. I make the first left putting me about a South West course. All goes well for a while, I'm just flying along waiting for handoff from departure to center for further directions or own navigation. Waiting...waiting...waiting. All the city lights are gone and I know I'm still heading west...okay I had to have missed my call or something...pulling up the GPS system (which I try not to use for navigation practice) I see I am about 1/2 way between Santa Catalina and San Clamente (Islands in the Pacific off the coast of Cali).

 

KLAX Departure this is XXXX, feet wet, could I get vectors to [next waypoint to KFLG].

 

Text reply comes back: Sorry XXXX I forgot you were on text when I gave you the hand off verbally. (Yea I could hear him, I just missed it but I wasn't gonna take the blame when he already did )

 

Flight 3 - KSLC to KLAS.

Flying my King Air again. Flight is completely uneventful other then KLAS went Unicomm while I was en route. Airspace was still busy as well. There were two flights in front of me and one behind me. Yay first time I get to show off my poor landing skills with an audience. What I didn't notice was that my decent was going much more rapidly then it should because I was at full throttle. I checked my throttle and it was physically at about 50%, but the game had it at full. Ran the throttle up and down the track and completely non-responsive. ARG! That X36 was being stupid again. So here I am at full throttle coming up on approach very rapidly, with witnesses!

 

Now in real life this is when you declare and emergency. On Vatsim emergencies are a no-no, but thinking back now I probably could have and not gotten in trouble. I wasn't gonna disco right then as I feared the guy behind me would plow into my stationary non-moving plane and really wreck his day if he forgot to turn collisions off.

 

I decide I'm gonna land and pretend nothing is wrong. I cut my engines and start climbing slowly to bleed off some speed. To much bled off, now I'm going WAY to slow with no engines. Not gonna make it. Turn my engines back on, plane leaps to full throttle, but gets too fast too quickly. I cut the engines again this time just let the speed bleed normally without gaining altitude. Still too slow, not gonna make it. Kick back on the engines again. Too fast to land. I figure out that I can keep this turn-off turn-on cycle going for quite a while.

 

Call unicomm and declare a straight in approach. I'm not gonna do the downwind, base, final thing while fiddling with my engines at the same time. Line up the plane, get everthing set fully expecting bad things to happen soon as I get over the tarmac. The two planes in front of me did fine and have pulling off the runway.

 

300 ft, 200 ft, 100 ft, 50, 10, touchdown.

 

BEST LANDING I HAVE EVER DONE!!!

 

Pull off the runway to the first taxiway and play the engine on/off game all the way to the gates. Shutdown, turn off my computer, unplug my old beat up X36, throw it in the garbage and drive down to CompUSA and buy a new joystick.

[Peter Larsen 885332]

Different sense of humour indeed is what we have ( sounds like Yoda) but we do have Monty Python, The Life of Brian, Tommy Cooper (deceased) Ronnie Barker.

 

etc etc etc etc

 

oh almost forgot Rigsby in Rising Damp. sheer comedic cl[Mod - Happy Thoughts].

 

I have "The Life Of Brian" on DVD, it's hilarious .

Well I use to have then I lend it to someone and now I don't know where the DVD is.

John cleese is awesome.

[Peter Harrison 1005416]

On my second flight i managed to flip my Cessna 172 onto its nose while taxiing with overenthusiastic rudder and differential braking

[Scott Main]

Hehe, "the thread that will not die..........."

 

Still no sign of a sticky yet though.....shame. I still maintain this is a great read for all new pilots, to let them see we all dropped the ball one time or other!

 

Cheers,

Scott

[Oliver Smith]

[removed]

Edited July 30, 2022 at 03:14 PM by Oliver Smith

[Blake Gray 841141]

I had been on Vatsim a year or 2 back in the late 90's; I was on 56K modem; an okay connection back then.

 

Everything was fine; followed STAR into Atlanta; had a F-27 I think. Lost contact with approach several times; aboarted twice I think; bad weather and loss of ILS.

 

Then I started getting contacted by Vatsim asking to please respond to approach several times when in fact I did and never got responses from them.

 

Just before I crash landed west of Atlanta I was abruptly disconnected by Vatsim; 'KICKED" if you will; it was not a happy experience and I was not a happy camper; I think I had 50 hours or so.

 

The problems had to have been with my online connection; I lagged horribly coming into the strip; that along with bad weather and a busy airport at night added to complications; also I had to type and change to tower and fly all with typing keys.

 

Well I have improved my flight training since then, and have DSL; a major improvement.

 

We have SB3 now and AVRC (or is it ARVC?); either way many things have improved and there have been many dedicated people here; much like I have seen on Seawolves.org; another group which I have been involved with.

 

There still seem to be those select few who have 100's of posts under their wings and seem to hover over the forums like a helo in heat.

 

I didnt fly here after that for quite awhile; flew my VA a few years back all alone as usual, not knowing it was not Spec Ops material (LOL); in fact I flew it like that for almost 10 years! It was only this year that I have had a few things explained to me in no uncertain terms (unfortunately); I have been made to feel low again as seems to be par for my life the last 5 years or so; what else is new for me?

 

Well thankfully I have a few other good things going for me; I may not remember or retain like I used to, but I can continue to learn, and unlike some, do not ridicule people. I am seeing it in these forums and it bothers me; people seem to think that when they come here they are supposed to know everything before they say anything; why cant people be more civilized and nicer to people who make mistakes?

 

If I slapped my horse everytime he nipped me he would think it is a game; I simply prevent it from happening by giving us the space when we need it; an informed pilot is a safe pilot (that applies to internet forums too !!! )

 

And thus is the life of a 200+ hour Vatsim PRC-Qualified pilot

 

Mr Gray, CEO-WAE, CEO-vpara (yet to be disclosed!)

[Thomas Parker]

Wow! I'm speechless at the moment. Almost 19 months later, this becomes a sticky.

[paul westcott]

Well thankfully I have a few other good things going for me; I may not remember or retain like I used to, but I can continue to learn, and unlike some, do not ridicule people. I am seeing it in these forums and it bothers me; people seem to think that when they come here they are supposed to know everything before they say anything; why cant people be more civilized and nicer to people who make mistakes?

 

 

ill second that!

especially when most problems you have are made out to be your own doing when in fact there may be server issues!

 

 

paul

will be a newbie for many years im sure!!

[Peter Larsen 885332]

 

We have SB3 now and AVRC (or is it ARVC?); either way many things have improved and there have been many dedicated people here; much like I have seen on Seawolves.org; another group which I have been involved with.

 

You mean the Controller Client VRC?.

[Wycliffe Barrett]

Thomas

 

If any one link deserved to become a sticky it sure as heck was this one. Well done and Congratulations

[Thomas Parker]

Thomas

 

If any one link deserved to become a sticky it sure as heck was this one. Well done and Congratulations

 

Thanks Wycliffe.

 

Actually, when I figured out how many months this thread's been running, it caused me to reflect on my VATSIM flights. After ~635 hours of actual flying and even more logged on, the jitters have definitely gone. I still think nervousness and mistakes are okay, but now I want to throw a qualifier on it. We should make every effort to make each flight our best performance yet. (How's that for a deeply thoughtful and profound statement? )

 

Tom

[Joshua Black]

HAHA! I remember my first time... come onto VATSIM in a Boeing 747 during a event with 20+ pilots on the ground itself. If I had stayed on any longer, I think the controller would have told me to get off.

[Andre Klass 1007802]

I am more nervous right now than the times I flew real Cessnas.

 

Obviously I am new here, so hello.

[Warsame Mohamed 1008272]

hey, I am new here too!

[Peter Larsen 885332]

Why is everytime I write into the forums I always get excellent replies and brilliant advice? Because we are all bitten by the bug, have a desire to be helpful and just love flying.

 

It's because we love you .

[Peter Larsen 885332]

hey, I am new here too!

Welcome, thursday night at EKCH are all staffed so come and fly in our airspace (Denmark) or just any other time, we'll give you a great experience and great service.

Newbies are most welcome .

[Esben Jensen 1010845]

This is a really great thread, I think it helped me take the plunge into trying. And I just finished my first flight.

 

I spent a couple of days listening to the radio using asrc as an observer, reading the various materials and creating flightplan after flightplan and then discarding them. I finally decided to go for it, made up a flightplan EGNM-EGBB, printed out some charts and logged on as OYJON in a Cessna. Checking with ServInfo it seemed there was not much traffic and no controllers online so I figured I would get a quiet flight, just having to state my intentions on unicom.

 

After filing my flightplan I spent quite a lot of time doing prechecks on the ground a bit intimidated of doing my first unicom broadcast. Finally I announced I was going to taxi to the runway, let go of my parking brakes and went off.

 

From that point on everything seemed rather smooth, I held short of the rwy, announced that I was going to take off, went into the air and turned towards my first waypoint when suddenly Manchester Center asked me to contact. I was getting a bit nervous now, didn't expect ATC coverage that soon, fortunately I had filed text-only so I didn't actually have to sound calm on the radio. I set the radio and called in, only to discover that I had set it to the wrong frequency, Man_Ctr asked me to report in again and I finally managed to do it. Then he asked me to confirm that I was flying IFR, which I did, at which point he asked me if I wanted to to fly at FL 080 or 090, I had originally filed FL085. So I instinctively knew at this point that my flight plan wasn't that good. Then he asked me to perform a STAR procedure which I rejected because I was nervous and didn't know what he was talking about. With afterthoughts I probably could have done it, I had the relevant cards and it was probably just a matter of looking up the procedure. After a bit of bartering we agreed on a flight plan, but at this point I was way past my first waypoint probably plunging right into the center of Manchester controlled airspace. I hope he didn't need to redirect too many flights because of that.

 

I quickly turned towards the agreed waypoint, punched in the autopilot and got some well deserved moments to relax a bit. Then I saw lots of controllers appearing in the list in squawkbox and I knew at this point that I was going to be busy in a short while. I was handed off to London Center who asked whether I wanted to do a visual approach or an ILS. I remember thinking it was a nice thing giving me the choice and I opted for the ILS. Then everything happened rather quickly, I was given vectors, and orders to descend and now I was busy changing headings, descending, converting QNF to HG, setting my altimeter and reading back instructions and I really forgot to be nervous trying to keep up. Trying to align with the glidescope, I was handed over to tower, got in a bit low but managed to touch down on the runway. Not my finest landing but I guess I survived.

 

I turned of the runway and contacted ground got my taxi instructions and headed off to GA parking. Ground asked me to squawk STDBY, yet another oops. Then I found what seemed like a quiet place to park, although I wasn't entirely sure where I was. I said thanks to ground, shut down my machine and logged off.

 

 

A big thanks to all the controllers involved, especially Man_Ctr for keeping up with me. They all seemed friendly and professional and got me through my first flight, I hope without too many incidents.

[Kevin Smith]

What is a PRC ?

Seriously though, it is great to see so many folks enamored with VATSIM now. I've been on a hiatus for a few years but am back for a spin. I'll have to wrack my old brain for some newbie stories. Is Group Flight still around ? Great thread and congrats on the sticky status

[Michael Degroat 1012187]

Thank you to everyone! I'm new to VATSIM, and am about ready to start ATC Training at CZYZ FIR. I'm still nervous, but all of your posts help me to know I'm not the only one! (P[Mod - Happy Thoughts]ed student exam on VATCAN, that was a confidence builder!) Anyway, look forward to flying/controlling with you!