Deprived Of Rights By FTW Center

[Harold Rutila 974112]

I understood that there were multiple requests in the queue.

Nope, there's one. The average number of requests coming in is about 3 a week. We're perfectly capable of handling those and then some more.

 

The instructor had said I needed to 'practice' before moving up to DEN or ASE(the only two airports with traffic) and that was the issue I was referring to, since it's impossible to get practice, it was hard to see the point in putting forth the effort to get a Denver lesson, when I would probably told to get more practice at a traffic-free airport.

This goes for all students:

Practice includes but is not limited to staffing up a minor airport. You have to study your ARTCC's materials, VATUSA's materials, and the 7110.65, too. We as instructors don't enjoy instructing when there's no theoretical knowledge foundation in students. That's why we spend hours on end making things such as my S1 Knowledge Guide, Noah Bryant's compressed VATSIM-applicable-only versions of the 7110.65, training videos, and so forth. It's all in hopes that we can spend more time on the practical side of things rather than the theoretical.

 

We hardly have any traffic-free airports in ZDV. This is the most topographically challenging airspace in the US. The typical weekend scenario is that Denver Center is staffed up, and all it takes to get traffic into and out of one of the minor facilities is for someone to take the initiative to staff its tower. APA, EGE, and CYS would be the top picks for me. In 30 minutes, you'll have traffic. People who aren't controlling who hang around in Teamspeak on some nights will even hop in their sim and fly to give you traffic. That's the kind of teamwork we have going at ZDV.

 

Our dropout rate is extremely low (less than 10%) between the time a student starts S1 training up until they get their full Denver Tower certification, so obviously the system in place is not considered to be very difficult by a majority of our members.