VATSIM Race FOR PRIZES!!!!

[Kris Greenough 974599]

Hello there, I am new to vatsim, but I was thinking the other night. I'm sure this has been done before, but would anyone be interested in putting on an event where we raced from destination to destination? Thats been done you say? Well has it been done for prizes????

 

Here is my suggestion, and it needs a lot of calrification and work but I think it could be a lot of fun. If people want to, this is how I envision this going down.

 

1) First race: We race from KJFK to KLAX in none other than the mooney bravo (default FS2K4).

 

2) Register online at a site I will make and pay a $2 entry fee (you'll see where I am going with this)

 

3) We all agree on the rules, which would be something like this.

A. All aircraft are racing the clock and each other. Note on your clock the time you take off and land for each leg of the flight. All time to be measured in ZULU. At the end of each day you'll log your time into a web site (that I will make).

 

B. ATC services: I'll try to organize to have at least CENTER SERVICES for the route. So for this intended destination we would need NY_CTR, some others, DENVER_CTR, LAX_CTR, etc. They would be watching for any cheating that may go on, IE time shifting, using the slew command, etc. They will also help out with any flight services.

 

C. Legs: The trips will be devided into legs and we will race 1 leg per day (honestly can you imagine yourself going for 3 days in a mooney accross the country, we do have real lives). So each morning @ a specified time we'll all get together and fly a leg, say KFJK -> KBNA. The waypoints will be set by myself , ATC, and you guys. Also each morning there will be a pilots meeting conducted by either ATC or myself or somebody more qualified and each day we will go over the rules, weather, obstructions etc.

 

D. As real as it gets: No benefits of flight sim here. Plan plan plan plan plan. Some routes will be able to be flown without refueling, some routes will require refueling, and some routes will be so DAM close you'll have to chance it.

 

E. Refueling and maintanence: This is where the challenge lies. In flight sim when you refuel it takes about 5 seconds, well not in this race. A 20min minimum of time will be added to your route if you land for fuel. You can use this 20 min to go get a taco or something. In real life it's going to take you about 20 min to fill a plane on a good day.

 

Maintanance (the other challenge): All pilots are required to have their failure settings set to random failures 2 failures in every 600 hours. So say, you were flying and your NAV2 DME goes out, do you land do you keep going? Well it's your call. But be warned, there is NO resetting the failures in mid-flight. IN order to reset/repair, you must land. If you do land to reset/repair 4 hours will be added to your total time. Lets just pretended that whatever airstrip you land at happens to have all the parts a mooney needs and can do a complete retrofit in 4 hours. You can however reset all the failures when you land at a waypoint for the evening, consider this your time to do your oil changes and what not, accept you keep your hands clean

 

F. Each leg each pilot will enter his information flight time, places they landed and comments about the flight in the competition logbook. You'll be able to see the winner just as soon as everyone enters their info.

 

G. All weather must be taken into account. If there are IFR restrictions you must file a flight plan and fly it. If an airport becomes closed due to fog or something, you better hope there is a nearby one, or you still have lots of fuel.

 

H. All pilots must successfully take off and land each leg or they're disqualified. Entering into airspace illegally will disquallify you. Consider the virtual FAA has revoked your license in such an event.

 

I. Communication: Communication will take place on the vatsim frequencies with the exception that our race will have our own UNICOMM frequency probably done with ventrillio, I doubt vatsim would give us a freq. This way you can talk with your competators about weather and other such things.

 

 

So thats it about the rules. It's a rough idea but there is something to work with there.

 

As I said at the top there will be a $2 entry fee per plane per race. What will this get you if you win? Prizes!!!!!! My idea for the first one will be a chart of the Southern California area, a commonly busy traffic area with lots to offer. The more people who enter the better the prizes. We can also give away things like best buy gift cards to all the controllers who participate and things like that. Finally, if this thing gets really big and lots of people pay & play, any leftover profit can go to VATSIM. These servers run 24/7 usually in colos, that can't be cheap. These races and be sort of a charity benefit for everybody!

 

Now I realize there are pitfalls with my logic at this point. Cheating can be done way too easy. But I suspect that most people on VATSIM are here for one reason, they want to fly and learn to fly and most people are very nice individuals and above all honest. If there are any ideas on how to keep cheating to a minimum either through a script that can interface with flight sim or something like that I'm very open to suggestions.

 

I think this could be a lot of fun and really help out our little community. Hope you guys like the idea and want to do it.

 

- Kris

[Steve Ogrodowski 876322]

Races have been done, and prizes have been given before. However, you cannot charge any money or receive any money as it is against the VATSIM regulations.

 

Code of Regulations 1.01B:

 

B. Fees: VATSIM.net does not charge any fees to apply for or to retain membership in the organization. In addition, no member of VATSIM.net may request money or charge fees as a prerequisite to advancing an individual in rank and no member may offer to pay money or a fee to another in order to secure an advancement in rank. In addition, no individual or entity is permitted to resell or make any commercial or non-commercial use of the VATSIM.net network which involves the payment of money or goods to said individual or entity or such party’s designee without the prior written consent of the VATSIM.net Founders or their designated agent. The prohibitions set forth in this paragraph expressly include any and all sales and/or solicitations of money, goods and services no matter for what purpose, person, group or cause, without limitation. Individuals violating these rules, regardless of their rating, may be subject to immediate and summary permanent expulsion from VATSIM.net.

 

So whatever you do, cannot have a two dollar entry fee. You must have VATSIM approval first to award prizes. Prizes that have been given on behalf of ARTCCs in the past were donated by various Flight Sim websites and retailers.

 

Whatever else you do in relation, that's fine. A real cross-county race might be appealing to some....however I'm somewhat skeptical as to how much is really racing. Once you take off, and you are all in a default Mooney....there's not much more you can do to overtake a competitor.

 

You can most certainly use a private voice channel for your group. ATC and private flying groups do it all the time; all you have to do is use Squawkbox or AVC and connect to your fictional channel (you can name it whatever you like). What is often misunderstood is that the voice channels are not pre-defined. Whatever you enter as the channel when you press "connect" is created as a channel, and it exists so long as someone is connected to it.

[Kris Greenough 974599]

Well sounds like a bad idea. Cheerfully withdrown.

[Steven Rogers 901202]

Well sounds like a bad idea. Cheerfully withdrown.

 

It sounds like a good idea, just the logistics need to be worked out. Perhaps instead of prizes, a public announcement of the winner or something, similar to Iron Mic.

[Kevin Kan]

its a good idea, you could overtake if players had winds aloft downloaded and they pick the best altitude, of course FS is limited that way also unless you have activesky or something.

[Javier Larroulet]

plus, activesky *could* play against a pilot if it simulated headwind.... strategic choice to be made, which makes it more interesting.

 

Maybe instead of the prize money and signup fees, some software prizes could be arranged with sponsors... that would be more along the rules

[Kris Greenough 974599]

Well I am seeing some sort of interest here. Is anyone interested in doing a Mooney Flight from KJFK --> KLAX as in a race with the rules above? I think the mooney would be good because it won't take too long, but you definitly can't just 1 hop it. Refuel is needed planning to get over the rockies and such.

 

Post here if you guys are indeed interested.

 

- Kris

[Brian Beach 915973]

I am remotely interested, but you guys simply cannot have an entry fee! Ask various organizations (Flight1, PMDG, HiFi Simulations, Level D, etc...) to donate prizes to the winners. I am sure they will willingly donate!

[Kris Greenough 974599]

Oh yeah entry fee idea is long gone.

 

- Kris

[Kevin Kan]

maybe also a time frame to get from places to places. So people with different days off can fly too and we can pick the best day to fly ourselves by looking at weather forecasts

[Kris Greenough 974599]

Not a bad idea, but I was thinking it'd be fun to have all the planes at one place and end up @ one place

[William Fowler 917021]

A couple of ideas I had while reading this thread.....

 

1) As regards the possibility of cheating..... you can get around this by requiring the use of FSAcars as the log file it creates will indicate if time acceleration or slewing was used, and it keeps track of a bunch of other things too. You could require submission of the FSAcars log, and a reported leg would only be accepted as valid after validation of the FSAcars log.

 

2) This was used in the last Great Australian Air Rally I flew..... create a weather file and require participants to use it. I'm [Mod - Happy Thoughts]uming you would have run the entire route yourself using the weather file, so you'll know about how long it should take to get from point A to point B given that weather.... a deviation too large would indicate that something isn't quite right. For example, you fly a leg and it takes you 1:45. It's conceivable that someone got a little bit better performance from their aircraft, or selected a different altitude where the winds were more favorable, and was able to do it in 1:35 but if they claim 1:10 that would throw up a red flag.

 

It's impossible to make a contest 100% cheat-proof, however with a little thought you can anticipate what someone might do and put some sort of check in place that would close the loophole.

[Kris Greenough 974599]

That sounds like a good idea. Is anyone interested in such a race?