Berlin opens its new airport, here's what will change on VATSIM (EDDT, EDDI)

[Pascal Seeler]

Dear VATSIM- community,

 

after only 14 years of construction, the BER, Berlin's new major airport, is now being opened almost on schedule and only slightly over budget. 😉 This also brings major changes for VATSIM Germany. Controller training has already taken place for the BER, and as of today (29.10.), 41 controllers have already been cleared to occupy this new major airport. If you are only a pilot on VATSIM, we can announce that there will be a pilot briefing on time for the BER inauguration event on November 7th, explaining the most important procedures on the ground and in the air.

The question has already arisen as to how we will deal with Tegel EDDT in the future, as this airport is to be closed for real and will only be activated by NOTAM from November 9th. We have given some thought to this and now want to announce the decision of the RG-Staff (as a cooperation of RG management, NAV, mentors and event organisers) here.

 

EDDT

The Berlin-Tegel airport will remain in regular operation on VATSIM, as in reality, until November 8th. In the period between the opening of BER with the introduction of the new procedures and the closure of EDDT, both airports can be flowin into using the published procedures (see timetable below). Starting on November 9th, EDDT will be closed on VATSIM. This means that we cannot allow IFR arrivals or departures in EDDT. If you still want to fly to Tegel, you can only do so after an IFR cancellation, below airspace Charlie and on Unicom. Even if you have approach procedures for EDDT (STARs, transitions), we will not clear you for them, as they are no longer free of conflicts with the new BER procedures. Instead, we will try to get you into uncontrolled airspace as early as possible to keep our approach sector clear.

 

EDDI

Tempelhof airport has actually been closed for about a decade now, but we still see pilots who want to fly there from time to time. We regularly had to refuse them because the former EDDI airport was located inside the control zone of Schönefeld Airport. This is no longer the case - Tempelhof is now outside the new BER control zone in uncontrolled airspace, so the same rules apply as for EDDT.

 

In summary: It is theoretically possible to fly to the two former capital airports EDDT and EDDI from November 9th onwards, provided the above conditions are met. However, we would highly request you to fly only to the new EDDB airport from November 9th. You still have time to fly to Tegel until November 8th - we would like to draw your attention to our farewell event on the 31st of October (link below), where Tegel will be given a proper farewell and where we will certainly see a crowded airport for one last time. Of course, we are already thinking about organising a "revival event" in EDDT in the future, just like it has already been done in Tempelhof, so stay tuned!

 

The schedule for the change EDDT --> EDDB:

• 31.10.2020: farewell event EDDT on VATSIM, opening BER in real life (but still with old SXF procedures)
• 31.10. - 03.11.: parallel operation EDDT+EDDB with old procedures
• 04.11.2020: new AIRAC 2011, the BER procedures are introduced
• 04.11. - 08.11.: parallel operation EDDB+EDDT with old Tegel and new BER procedures
• 07.11.2020: opening event BER on VATSIM
• 08.11.2020: closure EDDT on VATSIM and in real life
• from 09.11.2020: no more ATC service for EDDT

We hope to be able to give a fitting farewell to our dearly beloved capital airport Tegel and are looking forward to welcoming you at our new location, the Berlin Brandenburg airport "Willy Brandt"!

 

Goodbye Tegel Event: https://forums.vatsim.net/topic/29492-31-oct-2020-13-23z-goodbye-tegel-overload/

BER Opening Event: https://forums.vatsim.net/topic/29655-07-nov-2020-1700-2200z-eddb-ber-opening/

 

 

~PS

 

Edited October 30, 2020 at 06:57 AM by Pascal Seeler

[Tim Wong]

Welcome to the club of closed airports. Tell Navigraph not to delete the existing procedures like we do in Hong Kong Kai-Tak (VHHX). Also store the charts you have on your vACC website. That's the only way to keep it alive 

[Andreas Fuchs]

At least in HKG you are still providing full ATC services for Kai Tak.

I don't think that this is the right way to go, to completely abandon Tegel, but if it's the way they want to do it, they will do it. Nobody wants to fly to boring Schönefeld airport, even in the real world I never liked it.

Edited October 29, 2020 at 11:07 PM by Andreas Fuchs

[Alex Ashley]

Seems a bit abrupt to close Tegel to IFR entirely on VATSIM, even due to conflicting procedures. If a pilot wants to fly to Tegel, it can't be that difficult to potentially make room in a sequence for them - or even vector them? 

The London TMA is full of conflicts between dozens of airports and that survives fine in real world and on VATSIM - I don't see why an airport should be closed for IFR entirely especially when it's most likely to be a handful of flights every year!

[Tobias Dammers]

7 hours ago, Alex Ashley said:

Seems a bit abrupt to close Tegel to IFR entirely on VATSIM, even due to conflicting procedures. If a pilot wants to fly to Tegel, it can't be that difficult to potentially make room in a sequence for them - or even vector them? 

The London TMA is full of conflicts between dozens of airports and that survives fine in real world and on VATSIM - I don't see why an airport should be closed for IFR entirely especially when it's most likely to be a handful of flights every year!

The reason it works in London airspace is because the real-world procedures are all designed to make it work. Berlin's new procedures however won't be, so just taking the updated procedures for EDDB and the old ones for EDDT won't work as well as using real-world procedures over London.

[Andreas Fuchs]

That's not true. Pilots who want to fly to Tegel could simply use STAR procedures for the old-new BER-airport and at some point down the route would receive radar vectors to intercept the ILS/RNP/VOR approach to land. That's not so hard for ATC. There simply needs to be the will to accommodate these movements. And on top of it: we are a virtual world with humans at the controls who are supposed to use their brains instead of blindly following procedures and rules.

[Alex Ashley]

On 11/6/2020 at 8:01 AM, Tobias Dammers said:

The reason it works in London airspace is because the real-world procedures are all designed to make it work. Berlin's new procedures however won't be, so just taking the updated procedures for EDDB and the old ones for EDDT won't work as well as using real-world procedures over London.

The real world procedures require a lot of intervention to make it work - an aircraft can end up on headings from Dublin down towards Koksy. Far more complex work than it takes to vector a plane off a conflicting procedure.

For the record - I've looked at the procedures, and yes there are indeed conflicts - not so much however to prevent our virtual world from continuing to enjoy Tegel.

[Jonas Helkey]

On 11/7/2020 at 11:38 PM, Alex Ashley said:

The real world procedures require a lot of intervention to make it work - an aircraft can end up on headings from Dublin down towards Koksy. Far more complex work than it takes to vector a plane off a conflicting procedure.

For the record - I've looked at the procedures, and yes there are indeed conflicts - not so much however to prevent our virtual world from continuing to enjoy Tegel.

While I'm also a little sad that EDDT is no more the destination it was a few weeks ago, a little disagreement here. Nobody's stopping you from continuing to enjoy Tegel - you just have to adjust your own procedures to get there now. Unlike reality, our virtual world is not in fact closing it down and ripping out the runways, it remains an active airfield if you want it so, it is just no longer a controlled one. Quite frankly I really like this compromise between reality and virtuality.

[Alex Ashley]

On 11/11/2020 at 10:24 PM, Jonas Helkey said:

While I'm also a little sad that EDDT is no more the destination it was a few weeks ago, a little disagreement here. Nobody's stopping you from continuing to enjoy Tegel - you just have to adjust your own procedures to get there now. Unlike reality, our virtual world is not in fact closing it down and ripping out the runways, it remains an active airfield if you want it so, it is just no longer a controlled one. Quite frankly I really like this compromise between reality and virtuality.

I can fly IFR out of Kai Tak (closed for over 20 years). I can't fly IFR out of Tegel.

Considering the only time I'm going to be flying to Tegel is when IFR from another European destination, it still confuses me why IFR is totally 'gone'. Furthermore, the original post takes the line of 'if you fly into Tegel after the 9th, you're getting in the way' - not the sort of environment I feel that VATSIM should be promoting.