Alan Denniston 1419378 Posted January 11, 2021 at 04:04 AM Posted January 11, 2021 at 04:04 AM (edited) I just wanted to thank the ATC that helped me today. I don't think I messed up too bad either. I've had a vatsim account for well over a year now and always got the jitters and never took the plunge. Despite the fact that I've been an avid flight simmer for years, watched several hours of vatsim tutorials and spent an almost equal amount of listening to ATC on the ground I just never made the leap. So I decided a few days ago that today would be the day I'd finally swallow whatever insecurities I have and give it a go. After all I told myself, I should know how to do all this stuff. I've spent a lot of trying learn the phraseology and ga aircraft are simple enough to fly. As I am kind of reflecting on the things that went well and the things I kind of fumbled on I have a few questions I'm hoping my fellow simmers can help me with. On my first flight from KSAN -> KSNA, I was pretty terrified. I used simbrief to make my flight plan with a C172 and I filed my first VFR flight plan. I sat there for a while listening and being worried that I some how didn't understand the top down ATC and would contact the wrong frequency for clearance. And suddenly on my first flight I get a PDC message that my flight plane needed to change Ah crap! I do know how to reprogram the gps although on MSFS some things are a bit more annoying than XPlane. I affirm the corrections but this leads me to my first question. Is it ok etiquette to use simbrief again to regenerate the flight plan and relogin to load it? Or is there a way in MSFS that you can load flight plans into the G1000 without going back to the main menu? I did it manually in the gps which took me a bit longer than I had hoped for probably due to nerves. On the way to KSNA ATC was very busy and I was almost instantly overwhelmed. Not because of the instructions given to me but I was positive I was going to fumble over my words and not spit out the right thing and the controller was obviously busy. Things went mostly fine but I had a bit of a misunderstanding coming in to land. I figured incorrectly that I needed to follow the waypoint I was assigned before entering the circuit. This led the tower to asking if I really saw the airport because I just passed it. So I apologized and asked to enter the right downwind instead which was approved but I am positive I did not handle comms like I should have because I was so panicked that I messed up and was busy trying to do some not great maneuvers on a short final. I think I came in over the apron at like 90knts with full flaps. It was a terrible landing and 100% should have been a go around. I have a few questions around this. Can ATC recognize this and tell me to not fly in an unsafe way? Did he just give me a pass maybe since I said "new pilot" in the flight filing? I know it's my responsibility to notify ATC of any issues and if necessary ask for instruction but I had a newbie moment... I filed a flight back from KSNA to KSAN a bit later and the same controller was still running the show. He was controlling a lot of airspace still and asked me to stand by on my request to taxi. I must have missed his instructions to taxi and squawk because after about 20 minutes he asked me if I needed anything or if I was ready to taxi. Is there any guidelines on how long I as a pilot should wait for instruction before pinging the controller my request again? As I mentioned he was very busy and there was a lot of blocking on the channel going on which may have led me to miss his communication to me. On the way back I had some difficulty with my autopilot. I am pretty sure this is some issue with MSFS as I didn't have these issues ever with XPlane. When I engaged the autopilot it wanted me to bank and pull up in a way that would have been disastrous had I not applied opposite force and disabled to autopilot. I did my best to both retrim the aircraft with an appropriate climb to my cruise altitude as I tried to work on trying to reengage my autopilot. Eventually after 5 or so minutes when I was close to my cruise altitude the controller informed me of the altimeter which was not different than I had set. Did he do this because of my irregular climb? Should I have informed him of my issue? Eventually after ascending to my cruise altitude and course manually I was able to get the autopilot to stop trying to kill me and the rest of the flight was smooth. I think the next time this happens I think I won't try getting the autopilot working while I am climbing. I did two more flights. One out of Grande Bahama Int. and it was a much less busy and now I also wasn't losing my mind. I got over the initial shock. I think everything went as expected here. The controller did give me a new route which I expected might happen so it was no big deal. And the last flight I took was out of KMIA and the game crashed 1/2 way through my flight and I did not return. What happens from a controllers perspective when a pilot crashes? Can I respawn approximately where I was, inform the controller and continue my flight or do I have to start over? If you made it this far, thanks and I appreciate any feedback. I think I am hooked. Edited January 11, 2021 at 04:28 AM by Alan Denniston 1419378 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joshua Jenkins Posted January 11, 2021 at 07:54 AM Posted January 11, 2021 at 07:54 AM Welcome to VATSIM Alan. The first flight is always the biggest hurdle to get over so give yourself a pat on the back. Sounds like you did just fine. 3 hours ago, Alan Denniston 1419378 said: Is it ok etiquette to use simbrief again to regenerate the flight plan and relogin to load it? Or is there a way in MSFS that you can load flight plans into the G1000 without going back to the main menu? I did it manually in the gps which took me a bit longer than I had hoped for probably due to nerves. Nothing wrong with disconnecting to reload your flightplan if you need to. As a controller I’d much rather have you do this then try and incorrectly mash your old and new plan together. That being said, learning to program and reprogram your GPS or FMS correctly on the fly (pun not intended) is a skill that will come in very handy if for whatever reason you need to change your routing in the air. As for the plugins I’m not sure of any off the top of my head. Maybe someone else can give you a more definitive answer but I always program my flight plans into the gps manually. 3 hours ago, Alan Denniston 1419378 said: I have a few questions around this. Can ATC recognize this and tell me to not fly in an unsafe way? Did he just give me a pass maybe since I said "new pilot" in the flight filing? I know it's my responsibility to notify ATC of any issues and if necessary ask for instruction but I had a newbie moment... Yes an no. ATC aren’t there to watch your every little move and tell you how to fly your plane. That’s the job of the pilot. Essentially ATC’s job boils down to just making sure the two dots don’t touch each other. So yeah a controller isn’t typically watching your speed and lineup with the center line the entire way down final, especially if they’re busy. That’s not to say they won’t ever help out with that though. One example that comes to mind is the other day I was controlling and it was a pretty slow evening as I only had two or three aircraft on frequency. I had given a TBM climb instructions and as he slowly climbed I watched his ground speed slowly start to decrease. Again I had time to pay attention to this cause I wasn’t busy and had nothing better to do anyways. As he got down to about 80 knots ground speed (continuously losing a few knots every 100 feet or so) and climbing through 12000 feet I radioed him and said “TBM (whatever his registration was) I don’t wanna tell you how to fly your plane but you might wanna take a look at your speed cause it looks like your plane might stop flying all together pretty soon.” To summarise that pilot came back a little flustered and admitted he wasn’t really paying attention to where he set his power and thanked me for reminding him. That being said, I wouldn’t rely on ATC to give you point outs like that all the time. Everyone makes mistakes (trust me I’ve had my fair share of rough landings and loss of separation while controlling), the important thing is to learn from them and have fun doing so. 3 hours ago, Alan Denniston 1419378 said: Is there any guidelines on how long I as a pilot should wait for instruction before pinging the controller my request again? As I mentioned he was very busy and there was a lot of blocking on the channel going on which may have led me to miss his communication to me. There isn’t any set rule for the time it takes to ask a controller something. If they say standby it’s on them to contact you back. That being said, we controllers aren’t perfect and we sometimes forget about people. If you notice a break in the frequency after 5-10 minutes and you still haven’t heard back from the controller, that would be a good time to ask them. Otherwise even a PM to the controller to ask how much longer it might be until you can get your clearance never hurt anyone. 3 hours ago, Alan Denniston 1419378 said: Did he do this because of my irregular climb? Should I have informed him of my issue? Depending on what your final cruise altitude was the controller might have been passing you enroute weather to help you maintain your assigned altitude. It’s also possible that he was seeing you levelled at an altitude lower or higher than assigned by a few hundred feet (I’ve seen this happen on Euroscope a couple times even though the pilot reports they have the right altimeter setting) so he just wanted you to check you had the right altimeter. I don’t think it was necessary to inform him of that issue, especially on a busy frequency. How I see it is I only bother passing along information that is pertinent to what the controller needs to know. So for example if the aircraft was having a hard time maintaining an altitude while both hand flying and on autopilot (let’s say due to icing or severe turbulence) that might be something I would pass onto ATC as it may affect not only my separation with other aircraft vertically, but it may also force me to alter my flight path. However if my aircraft was trying to climb too fast on autopilot for my liking there’s nothing ATC can do about that and it typically doesn’t bother them how fast one climbs or descends as long as people comply with instructions and charts. Remember, aviate, navigate, THEN communicate. 3 hours ago, Alan Denniston 1419378 said: What happens from a controllers perspective when a pilot crashes? Can I respawn approximately where I was, inform the controller and continue my flight or do I have to start over? Depends where the crash happened. If it was on short final, respawning and reconnecting probably isn’t a great idea. If you’re up in cruise it’s probably ok depending on how busy the airspace is. Use a tool like vatspy to ensure there won’t be anyone too close to where you respawn. From our perspective (or let’s say my perspective as I won’t speak for all VATSIM controllers) if its busy I’ll most likely get someone to jump up the queue to take your spot, but if it’s a slow night, sure go right ahead and jump back where you left off. 3 hours ago, Alan Denniston 1419378 said: I think I am hooked. From this point there’s no going back 😉 Anyways, hope that helps a little. Hopefully others can chime in and clarify anything I missed or correct me where needed. Look forward to seeing you around in the virtual skies soon! Cheers! Josh Jenkins CZVR I1 controller Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matthew Maclauchlan Posted January 16, 2021 at 01:39 PM Posted January 16, 2021 at 01:39 PM Congrats! Your first flight is typical of just about every first flight on VATSIM. You did great! Just keep at it, and you’ll grow in competence and confidence each and every flight. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charan Kumar Posted January 18, 2021 at 06:58 PM Posted January 18, 2021 at 06:58 PM First flight complete? Then you are definitely in trouble. Inform family and friends you will be missing for longer hours going forward as you dive off the deep end into flight simulation. They say it tends to get incrementally costly as months go by even though the network itself is absolutely free. 😀 Welcome to VATSIM. When is your next Flight||VATSIM HitSquad Member, ZOA/ZAK/GANDER/P1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jonas Helkey Posted January 18, 2021 at 07:38 PM Posted January 18, 2021 at 07:38 PM Oh yeah pal, you dun did it now. I thought I was "into flight simming" before joining VATSIM. I was laughably wrong. So welcome aboard! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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