[March 17 13z] Nepal - Alaska Groupflight Extremus

[Marin Yang]

This spring, fly from Nepal to Alaska and explore the last frontiers far beyond the world we are familiar with.

The Himalayas are known for the Earth's highest peaks, rocks and ice rising straight into the heaven above.

While the Alaskan Panhandle is famous for its stunning glaciers, treacherous terrain and misty fjords.

 

With event ATC coverage and challenging procedures on both ends, are you up to the ultimate test of your planning and piloting skills?

 

Visit our interactive event website now, and embark on this extreme journey...

https://eofirmament.com/Frontiers

Use a desktop browser to get the best immersive, 3-dimensional experience.

 

Where? Kathmandu VNKT - Juneau PAJN (Optional Anchorage PANC)

When? Sunday, MAR. 17 UTC 13z - 24z (provisional time)

Sign Up Now: https://goo.gl/forms/xhGonIEpMqGNpaay2 to get the latest updates and exclusive operational materials.

 

Airport scenery info is available in the forum post.

This route, and only this route will offer you a great view of multiple mountain peaks with elevations far exceeding 20,000' - including Mount Everest.

 

As a special event by Project Firmament, Operation Heavenly Frontiers also features multiple special perks:

• Special Procedures to help you safely traversing the highest wilderness on earth - Tibetan Plateau;
  
• Procedures to aid radio communication during the polar crossing segment of the flight;
  
• Special Procedures for enroute diversion and ETOPS;
  
• And, other useful information pertaining to flight planning, procedures, meteorology, & others.

 

Sign up for the flight before Mar. 13 (Wed) to get limited early access to a huge vault of charts and navdata, including those not openly published, as well as all 4 Volumes of Route Manual and Special Procedures. (Detailed description and previews are available in the forum post below)

 

All these above are produced in complete accordance to real-world publications, regulations, & practices, and are used to showcase possibilities of highly realistic flight simulation at Project Firmament. (They should not be used for real-world operation due to the illegality of doing so.)

Furthermore, we will also use this event to showcase a highly immersive & interactive online event preview experience (IEEE) - the first time such technology has been used in the field of flight simulation.

Link: https://eofirmament.com/Frontiers

Description of materials included in the event package

Charts include: airport charts, including adequate diversion airfields and procedures that are not openly published;

enroute charts of all (5) countries;

and VFR / terrain charts for orientation / emergency drif-down. Preview:

Navdata: includes data not openly published. Mandatory requirement for our flight plan route, and for diversions over the Tibetan Plateau.

 

Route Manual: includes 4 volumes, as outlined in the top section. Previews will be updated shortly.

 

Sceneries:

VNKT https://www.flightsim.com/vbfs/fslib.php?searchid=69624567 https://secure.simmarket.com/thai-creation-namaste-nepal-tribhuvan-intl-airport-fsx.phtml

PAJN https://www.flightsim.com/vbfs/fslib.php?searchid=69624623 https://orbxdirect.com/product/pajn

Enroute Adequate Airports: Multiple required enroute diversion airports do not exist in the default scenery. You can contact us to get them.

 

About us:

Project Firmament is an aviation technology and media society created by enthusiasts. We have been successfully organizing groupflight events on VATSIM for more than 2 years.

 

For more events in the future, follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/PrjFirmament. All questions and inquiries are welcomed - use the messaging function.

Edited March 15, 2019 at 01:28 AM by Guest

[Marin Yang]

To staff: only information in the first section is essential for the VATSIM website! That is, you do not have to post contents below the first image (event poster) onto the website.

Thank you.

Edited March 15, 2019 at 01:29 AM by Guest

[Aharon Dayan]

The link https://eofirmament.com/Frontiers is not working Please advise? It does not work on the website??

[Marin Yang]

The link https://eofirmament.com/Frontiers is not working Please advise? It does not work on the website??

Are you saying that the link does not work at all?

 

The website indeed is working. Please make sure that the link is entered as https://eofirmament.com/Frontiers , with the F capitalized due to technical limitations at this moment.

This website was just created a while ago, so maybe you can try to clear the browser cache. Also, please be sure to view it on a desktop browser.

 

Regards,

Marin

[Marin Yang]

The link https://eofirmament.com/Frontiers is not working Please advise? It does not work on the website??

The problems should be resolved now. You can try again. Sorry for the inconvenience.

[Aharon Dayan]

The problems should be resolved now. You can try again. Sorry for the inconvenience.

 

This time, it is WORKING and may I say this is very impressive and most advanced presentation. You might want to add sentence to this post "When you click on this link and scroll down to view, please allow time for map to load onto your screen"

 

Thanks for fixing the link and I must say this is very very impressive and most sophisticated event presentation.

 

Regards,

 

Aharon

[Marin Yang]

The problems should be resolved now. You can try again. Sorry for the inconvenience.

 

This time, it is WORKING and may I say this is very impressive and most advanced presentation. You might want to add sentence to this post "When you click on this link and scroll down to view, please allow time for map to load onto your screen"

 

Thanks for fixing the link and I must say this is very very impressive and most sophisticated event presentation.

 

Regards,

 

Aharon

Thank you for your kind words! That certainly means a lot to us.

 

We can only hope that our service provider could upgrade their infrastructure to improve the experience when it comes to loading a 3D world...

 

And of course, we would love to see more pilots in the sky with us on Mar. 17!

 

Best,

Marin

[Andre Almeida]

Hello Muxi,

 

Event has been added to VATSIM event calendar: https://www.vatsim.net/events/nepal-alaska-groupflight-extremus .

[Marin Yang]

Thank you all for participating in this event!

 

In light of the development that the Nepali vACC staff has abruptly resigned (https://forums.vatsim.net/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=78169#p531327), We would like to empathize that this event is still a GO. The event schedule has NOT been cancelled or changed.

 

We will contact VATSIM West Asia and arrange ATC coverage for this event. ATC coverage in Alaska is unchanged. We will work hard to reduce the impact of this situation on our event. Thank you.

[Kenneth Haught]

Hi Muxi,

I find it a bit concerning that your post seems to allude that you have organized this event for the community, when the Alaksa ATC coverage is in fact due to an event sponsored and created by the Anchorage ARTCC to encourage flying from PANC-PAJN in a "crossfire" situation. While we're happy of course for any traffic that arises, it's a shame you seemed to think it was ok to misrepresent your role in organizing this event. In case anyone is interested in a shorter run, event details for the official Anchorage ARTCC event can be found at https://forums.vatusa.net/index.php?topic=8561.0.

[Marin Yang]

Hi Muxi,

I find it a bit concerning that your post seems to allude that you have organized this event for the community, when the Alaksa ATC coverage is in fact due to an event sponsored and created by the Anchorage ARTCC to encourage flying from PANC-PAJN in a "crossfire" situation. While we're happy of course for any traffic that arises, it's a shame you seemed to think it was ok to misrepresent your role in organizing this event. In case anyone is interested in a shorter run, event details for the official Anchorage ARTCC event can be found at https://forums.vatusa.net/index.php?topic=8561.0.

 

As the title states, this is a "Nepal - Alaska Groupflight" event. At no point did we suggest that we played a part in organizing the original event in Alaska. A Groupflight event is an event organized by pilots and VAs, and as long as the event is clearly described and promoted as a Groupflight event, obviously no one would entertain the idea that we somehow provides / organizes the ATC coverage in Alaska.

 

As this is a groupflight event that lasts more than 10 hours, I think we can rest [Mod - Happy Thoughts]ured that most pilots who intend to fly the short hop between Anchorage and Juneau won't be interested in an ultra long-haul groupflight. Here is the reality: long-haul events are kind of a rarity on today's VATSIM, and there won't be more than 10 pilots flying the whole route (or 5, most of the time). As one of the very few organizers who focus on long-haul, personally I think the incredible efforts it takes to organize such an event are oftentimes underappreciated. It is incredibly difficult to get the route, pilots, and ATC together just right, and that is the why we planned to fly into an existing event - to create no extra trouble and pressure for the control facility.

 

In the past, we have consistently linked to the information page of existing events at the groupflight's departure and arrival airport. This event has proved to be a whole lot more work and we missed that - I am sorry that people is upset by this. There is still plenty of time after our arrival - we will suggest participants to also fly the crossfire in Alaska.

 

Thank You,

Marin Yang

[Kenneth Haught]

As the title states, this is a "Nepal - Alaska Groupflight" event. At no point did we suggest that we played a part in organizing the original event in Alaska. A Groupflight event is an event organized by pilots and VAs, and as long as the event is clearly described and promoted as a Groupflight event, obviously no one would entertain the idea that we somehow provides / organizes the ATC coverage in Alaska.

 

As this is a groupflight event that lasts more than 10 hours, I think we can rest [Mod - Happy Thoughts]ured that most pilots who intend to fly the short hop between Anchorage and Juneau won't be interested in an ultra long-haul groupflight. Here is the reality: long-haul events are kind of a rarity on today's VATSIM, and there won't be more than 10 pilots flying the whole route (or 5, most of the time). As one of the very few organizers who focus on long-haul, personally I think the incredible efforts it takes to organize such an event are oftentimes underappreciated. It is incredibly difficult to get the route, pilots, and ATC together just right, and that is the why we planned to fly into an existing event - to create no extra trouble and pressure for the control facility.

 

In the past, we have consistently linked to the information page of existing events at the groupflight's departure and arrival airport. This event has proved to be a whole lot more work and we missed that - I am sorry that people is upset by this. There is still plenty of time after our arrival - we will suggest participants to also fly the crossfire in Alaska.

 

Thank You,

Marin Yang

 

I understand that this is a groupflight, however as I said I find it to be extremely rude that you decided apparently at random to choose this date/time to fly into PAJN, which just so happens to be during an advertised event for our ARTCC. When you say "A Groupflight event is an event organized by pilots and VAs, and as long as the event is clearly described and promoted as a Groupflight event, obviously no one would entertain the idea that we somehow provides / organizes the ATC coverage in Alaska. I would like to know how you can then claim in your original post that there will be "event" ATC?

 

With event ATC coverage and challenging procedures on both ends, are you up to the ultimate test of your planning and piloting skills?

 

As I said, obviously we welcome any traffic, but just so that the rest of the community is aware of your questionable practices, have you contacted Nepal FIR to arrange for ANY ATC as you alluded to, or do theyjust happen to have an event scheduled near your departure time as well? I know that Anchorage ARTCC never received any information about your "groupflight", and I'm willing to bet neither has Nepal. That's a complete [Mod - Happy Thoughts]umption on my part of course, but given the gist of what I've seen I'd wager it's not far off.

[Marin Yang]

 

I understand that this is a groupflight, however as I said I find it to be extremely rude that you decided apparently at random to choose this date/time to fly into PAJN, which just so happens to be during an advertised event for our ARTCC. When you say "A Groupflight event is an event organized by pilots and VAs, and as long as the event is clearly described and promoted as a Groupflight event, obviously no one would entertain the idea that we somehow provides / organizes the ATC coverage in Alaska. I would like to know how you can then claim in your original post that there will be "event" ATC?

 

With event ATC coverage and challenging procedures on both ends, are you up to the ultimate test of your planning and piloting skills?

 

As I said, obviously we welcome any traffic, but just so that the rest of the community is aware of your questionable practices, have you contacted Nepal FIR to arrange for ANY ATC as you alluded to, or do theyjust happen to have an event scheduled near your departure time as well? I know that Anchorage ARTCC never received any information about your "groupflight", and I'm willing to bet neither has Nepal. That's a complete [Mod - Happy Thoughts]umption on my part of course, but given the gist of what I've seen I'd wager it's not far off.

 

I feel that I have to contend your characterization of our intention. The airports does feature event ATC, and therefore this is a factual statement. How should I have phrased it otherwise? Do I have to state, "the airport features ATC from a separate, official event from a division", or otherwise people will believe that a groupflight organizer is also an ATC facility?

 

With all due respect, I just want you to please understand that half a dozen pilots does not want to, and cannot possibly "freeload" or "steal" an event.

Official events on VATSIM constantly get hundreds of participants, and we cannot even come up with 10. Maybe you don't have to feel sad about that after all?

I have already said clearly that the reason we planned to fly into an existing event is to create no extra trouble and pressure for the control facility. This is not something that "just happened". The reason that I did not contact you beforehand is that there are only a few pilots who will reach the destination, and they will just fly in like any other pilots on VATSIM. If I have to contact you to take your time and arrange ATC coverage and only a few pilots show up, how would you feel about that?

 

This is how VATSIM is supposed to operate, control facilities create event, pilots fly from and to the events. And when the situation is right, multiple pilots come together to create a groupflight, and decide to post the groupflight publicly, along with all the perks of it, so that more pilots can have an opportunity. How exactly is this branded "problematic"?

 

We have contacted VATWA and I would like to thank their staff for their kind help. We acted on the presumption that all control facilities love diverse traffic from all around the world when we organized these flights. In fact, we had seen this great event from ZAN in early February and decided to come up with a route to not waste this great opportunity. When I first started with flight simulation, the fjords of the Alaskan Panhandle is where I love to fly, and I have developed an emotional connection to it. Otherwise why would I spend so much time on an event?

So why can't we understand each other? When I replied to your concerns, I wasn't trying to tear someone down. I say, may be we should just [Mod - Happy Thoughts]ume good faith so that people can still have fun on VATSIM?

[Kenneth Haught]

I never once said you were "freeloading" or "stealing" the event. I completely agree with you that it's what VATSIM is supposed to be about...ATC controls and Pilots fly. My concern was primarily in your wording, which does make it seem, apparently incorrectly, that you were taking credit for organizing the event. I've routinely seen a group flight of 5-10 pilots organize and contact ATC facilities to request ATC staffing, and at least at Anchorage we're more than happy to accommodate that with a bit of notice, typically for that size group we'll try to ensure at least CTR and APP is staffed, whether there is an event scheduled or not.

 

As I said over and over, this wasn't an attack on you personally, or the general concept of what you were doing...but rather an issue with your claim that there was "event staffing" when you really had nothing to do with that staffing (again in my opinion your wording lends itself to have others think you requested it). I would have suggested instead of saying what you did, perhaps something along the lines of "Join us in supporting TWO facilities during their events as we fly between xxx and xxx." That clearly lets people know that staffing and traffic levels are expected to meet event criteria, and that your flight is not "alone" in using the airspace at that time.

 

All of that aside, I do look forward to your group coming through, and hope we can show you a great time in Alaska. It will actually give some traffic to a sector that otherwise was going to be handling mostly overflow and non-event traffic. We may even be able to arrange to have Anchorage Radio online for you, [Mod - Happy Thoughts]uming you are flying through that airspace...but as we did not have advanced notice of your flight that may not be possible at this time.