As a Vatsim Pilot...

[Owen Bliss]

Have you ever thought of a new type of event that you have never seen done before? Have you wanted to get away from the typical "fly in-out" style of events? As a pilot, what do you like to see when it comes to a new initiative event. Do you like lots of information in the form of a pilot briefing? What do you not like about Vatsim events?

[Alexander Cohrs]

Interesting question! I like events that...

 

• ... have a connection to a real world event (e.g. summer olympics)
  ... offer procedures that are not used in daily VATSIM operations (e.g. the SRA approach event we once ran at Mogadishu)
  ... are not unrealistically overcrowded (like CTP is, although I know how the members love it - it's just not my kind of event)
  ... staff the most experience controllers on Delivery and Ground to avoid chaos and long delays on departure
  ... offer CPDLC communications both for Clearance and en-route
  ... feature airports that are not in the focus of the daily routine ops
  ... allow participation with 1-2 hour flights
  ... don't require pilots to pre-book
  ... offer a good overview about procedures, charts, available sceneries etc.

 

Do these points help you for your question?

 

Alex

[Tobias Dammers]

I'm pretty happy with the way things are in general, but I can think of a few things:

 

1. More VFR/GA events, possibly in an interesting / challenging environment. Island hopping, mountain flying, STOL ops, that kind of thing.

2. Events with "debriefings", or some kind of "lounge" for an informal chat after your flight. Could be a proper feedback session on your flying and communication (and controlling...), or just socializing.

 

Other than that, my own selfish concerns are:

 

- Good freely accessible charts available

- Suitable for my favorite aircraft types (DHC6, CRJ900)

- Possible to do in under 2 hours

[Nick Warren]

As a GA pilot on the network, my suggestions always lean towards GA.

 

1. I think it should be a cursory requirement to staff at minimum a local (tower) controller at a secondary field during events (FNO, etc.) The emphasis on Cl[Mod - Happy Thoughts] B primary fields has become very commonplace and not welcoming for GA pilots. I understand the reasonings behind it, but I think it would go a long way to staff an adjacent Cl[Mod - Happy Thoughts] D field.

 

2. More events catered to GA. A poker run between 5 or 6 fields is a great event and has been done. Or just do an event staffing Delta's and Charlie's.

 

3. As suggested above, center events around real world happenings. Some larger ideas are Oshkosh and Sun-n-Fun. They can be smaller events though too such as following major sporting events or social gatherings.

 

4. With voice unicom now in place, incorporate an uncontrolled field and staff services over the top of it. Great practice for the GA types.

 

Some or all of these ideas have been incorporated by various ARTCC's on occasion. Let's keep it up and even expand on them.

[Owen Bliss]

Interesting question! I like events that...

 

• ... have a connection to a real world event (e.g. summer olympics)
  ... offer procedures that are not used in daily VATSIM operations (e.g. the SRA approach event we once ran at Mogadishu)
  ... are not unrealistically overcrowded (like CTP is, although I know how the members love it - it's just not my kind of event)
  ... staff the most experience controllers on Delivery and Ground to avoid chaos and long delays on departure
  ... offer CPDLC communications both for Clearance and en-route
  ... feature airports that are not in the focus of the daily routine ops
  ... allow participation with 1-2 hour flights
  ... don't require pilots to pre-book
  ... offer a good overview about procedures, charts, available sceneries etc.

 

Do these points help you for your question?

 

Alex

 

Alex,

 

Thanks for your reply. Great idea with the events based on interesting procedures. I don't think I've really seen an event on VATSIM that has done something like this before. Pilots always enjoy shorter flights with lots of ATC. I don't blame you!

[Owen Bliss]

I'm pretty happy with the way things are in general, but I can think of a few things:

 

1. More VFR/GA events, possibly in an interesting / challenging environment. Island hopping, mountain flying, STOL ops, that kind of thing.

2. Events with "debriefings", or some kind of "lounge" for an informal chat after your flight. Could be a proper feedback session on your flying and communication (and controlling...), or just socializing.

 

Other than that, my own selfish concerns are:

 

- Good freely accessible charts available

- Suitable for my favorite aircraft types (DHC6, CRJ900)

- Possible to do in under 2 hours

 

Tobias,

 

Thanks for your ideas! As a Vatsim pilot myself, I too enjoy goal oriented events. Events where I need to visit x amount of airports to be eligible to win a prize (ect) stuff like that. I have never really seen a Vatsim pilot propose the idea of a debriefing/lounge for pilots. This is a very interesting idea and I'm curious to see how this could play out. I'll personally look into what I could come up with. But I think this idea is very interesting.

 

As far as freely accessible charts go, if you are talking about free charts in general I would recommend airnav.com. If you are talking about having access to charts tailored towards certain approaches/procedures during an event I try to make them available in a pilot briefing docomeent.

[Owen Bliss]

As a GA pilot on the network, my suggestions always lean towards GA.

 

1. I think it should be a cursory requirement to staff at minimum a local (tower) controller at a secondary field during events (FNO, etc.) The emphasis on Cl[Mod - Happy Thoughts] B primary fields has become very commonplace and not welcoming for GA pilots. I understand the reasonings behind it, but I think it would go a long way to staff an adjacent Cl[Mod - Happy Thoughts] D field.

 

2. More events catered to GA. A poker run between 5 or 6 fields is a great event and has been done. Or just do an event staffing Delta's and Charlie's.

 

3. As suggested above, center events around real world happenings. Some larger ideas are Oshkosh and Sun-n-Fun. They can be smaller events though too such as following major sporting events or social gatherings.

 

4. With voice unicom now in place, incorporate an uncontrolled field and staff services over the top of it. Great practice for the GA types.

 

Some or all of these ideas have been incorporated by various ARTCC's on occasion. Let's keep it up and even expand on them.

 

Nick,

 

Great Ideas! I'm also a believer that there is more to Vatsim then just IFR Turbojet flights from point A to point B. Some of vZFW's most successful events were VFR focused/oriented events like the stated "I20 Corridor Poker Run". This event is still on of our most successful events within vZFW and my goal is to make this an annual event. There was a planned 2nd half of the event that was planned but never executed. More information on that to come.

 

In vZFW we always try to staff more then just the featured airport like you stated. So if we are hosting an FNO at KDFW, KDAL Tower and ground will most likely be online as well.

 

The idea of a unicom event is great. These unicom style events were pretty popular before AFV so I can only imagine now that we can actually use Voice Unicom frequencies how popular these events will be.

Edited February 13, 2020 at 01:42 AM by Guest

[Nick Warren]

In vZFW we always try to staff more then just the fetured airport like you stated. So if we are hosting an FNO at KDFW, KDAL Tower and ground will most likely be online as well.

 

Owen,

 

Thank you for your response. Just to one point as quoted above. This, while just an example, is still in the realm of what I'm talking about. When I say cursory requirement to staff a tower at a secondary field for GA, I'm looking in the Cl[Mod - Happy Thoughts] D or maybe Cl[Mod - Happy Thoughts] C environment. So in the case of ZFW, if you're staffing up an event focusing on DFW, then also staff a tower at ADS or AFW for example.

 

Also, one thing I can't believe I didn't add because it is a huge thing for me. More daytime events! FNO's are what they are. It's in the name. But weekends? Bring on the daylight events

 

Nick

[Daniel Mckee]

I am a bit surprised by these comments. In Australia on Vatpac we do these things at least three times per week all starting at 9.00am Z. All these flights are VFR/GA. Wednesday is World Discovery and can be anywhere globally except Australia and Friday and Sunday are in Australia and pacific regions near Australia. Recent events on Wednesday have included flights in Papua New Guinea and if you want difficult landing strips you can look no further. On Wednesday flights we also do "themed" flights like in Russia when we flew to all the soccer venues. Being "downunder" I understand that it is nigh on impossible for global support of these events but I am sure that they must be occurring elsewhere. I know that there are clubs in the UK that do similar so as well as commenting about what you would like to do, I suggest that you all give more support to your local flying groups and less time posting about what you want to see because what you want to see is probably already out there.

[Tobias Dammers]

I am a bit surprised by these comments. In Australia on Vatpac we do these things at least three times per week all starting at 9.00am Z. All these flights are VFR/GA. Wednesday is World Discovery and can be anywhere globally except Australia and Friday and Sunday are in Australia and pacific regions near Australia. Recent events on Wednesday have included flights in Papua New Guinea and if you want difficult landing strips you can look no further. On Wednesday flights we also do "themed" flights like in Russia when we flew to all the soccer venues. Being "downunder" I understand that it is nigh on impossible for global support of these events but I am sure that they must be occurring elsewhere. I know that there are clubs in the UK that do similar so as well as commenting about what you would like to do, I suggest that you all give more support to your local flying groups and less time posting about what you want to see because what you want to see is probably already out there.

 

Well, yes, they exist, that's why I said "more". If you look at https://www.vatsim.net/events right now, there is only one event there that is clearly not about flying IFR in an airliner - some events welcome VFR and GA flights, but they're all mainly focused on commercial jets, and realistically, 99% of those participating will be flying one of those.

[Daniel Mckee]

Hi Tobias, I agree Vatsim is definitely "Heavies" oriented but are there not region/country divisions of Vatsim like Vatpac, Vatnz and the like? If there are not then I share your frustration

[Robert Shearman Jr]

Owen & others -- not sure whether you'd seen or heard, but there is a group of US-based GA enthusiasts on a Discord who aspire to rejuvenate the GA community of VATSIM by planning General Aviation group flights on the network -- "Virtual USA Flying Club" -- discord.gg/hutMwWR

[Owen Bliss]

Robert, I wasn't aware but now I am. I'll make sure to check it out

[Deon Mathews]

when I was still involved with my local division we had a very active TeamSpeak community and countless VFR/GA flights happened at a moments notice and was thoroughly enjoyed by all! These included everything from group flights in single prop aircraft to big jets in controlled airspace anywhere and everywhere in the world.

 

Out of the ordinary events do pop up occasionally and one should just keep an eye on the #vatsimevents calendar https://www.vatsim.net/events.

 

Happy flying everyone!!

[Mike Lehkamp]

[quote name=

Alex' date='

 

Thanks for your reply. Great idea with the events based on interesting procedures. I don't think I've really seen an event on VATSIM that has done something like this before. Pilots always enjoy shorter flights with lots of ATC. I don't blame you![/quote]

 

I'd just like to see Fort Worth Center actually on LOL. Tonight did a flight from OKC and asked for a PDC and was rudely advised "Unable". I then requested a clearance by text was advised "Standby". After standing for over 10 minutes, the controller just shutdown and disappeared. Gone. Poof. Oh well.....

 

Michael