Lack of ATC Volunteers for CTP?

[David Cross]

Watching today's CTP East Bound on various Vatsim maps, Live streams etc.., I had noticed Moncton, Gander Domestic, and Gander Oceanic was not online much. In fact Gander Oceanic never displayed as being positioned. Is it that difficult to man these positions for the entire event time line? I get it, when the majority of the AC are nearing the end of their journey, like when most would be in the Shanwick area of responsibility and East of there. But Mid event half the Oceanic control is not showing as online? Now I could be wrong, maybe there was someone online but I didn't see any freqs assigned to this area for the entire event starting around 1700 z. Is it because position reports are no longer needed?

I did notice that everyone would of had radar on departures and arrivals and it was swamped. So good job to all who provided services for this event. : )

Dave.

[Kirk Christie]

9 hours ago, David Cross said:

In fact Gander Oceanic never displayed as being positioned.

They were defently online, what software are you using to view this?  I would suggest that it is out of date.

 

[Andreas Fuchs]

15 hours ago, David Cross said:

Watching today's CTP East Bound on various Vatsim maps, Live streams etc.., I had noticed Moncton, Gander Domestic, and Gander Oceanic was not online much. In fact Gander Oceanic never displayed as being positioned. Is it that difficult to man these positions for the entire event time line? I get it, when the majority of the AC are nearing the end of their journey, like when most would be in the Shanwick area of responsibility and East of there. But Mid event half the Oceanic control is not showing as online? Now I could be wrong, maybe there was someone online but I didn't see any freqs assigned to this area for the entire event starting around 1700 z. Is it because position reports are no longer needed?

I did notice that everyone would of had radar on departures and arrivals and it was swamped. So good job to all who provided services for this event. : )

Dave.

Possibly, the database containing airspace data were out of date in the applications that you were using.

[David Cross]

@Andreas Fuchs

@Kirk Christie

Ah ok. Cool. I'm going to use a different map tool from now on. Looks like the program I've been using  ( vattastic ) is out dated. Thanks for clearing that up. : )

Dave.

[Andreas Fuchs]

Give this one a try: https://vatprism.org/

It will always download and use the latest version of the VATspy-database: https://github.com/vatsimnetwork/vatspy-data-project

[David Cross]

5 minutes ago, Andreas Fuchs said:

Give this one a try: https://vatprism.org/

It will always download and use the latest version of the VATspy-database: https://github.com/vatsimnetwork/vatspy-data-project

Thank you : )

Dave

[Tobias Dammers]

Two other factors may have contributed:

1. At some point during the event, servers were overloaded, which caused all sorts of communication problems; the situation was resolved in due time, but in the meantime, many controllers had little or no connectivity.
2. The number of connections during the event was extreme, and it's possible that whatever viewer you used simply couldn't cope with the sheer number. I was watching SimAware while flying, and my own flight disappeared on several occasions, despite everything looking normal in my pilot client, and I saw other flights drop out and come back too, in a more or less random fashion.

So basically, I don't think you can draw any conclusions from this. From what I saw, all stations were adequately staffed, I had full ATC throughout as promised, and so did everyone else I talked to.

[David Cross]

10 hours ago, Tobias Dammers said:

I don't think you can draw any conclusions from this. From what I saw, all stations were adequately staffed, I had full ATC throughout as promised, and so did everyone else I talked to.

Makes perfect sense. The main objective is to have a fluid ATC experience, which it sounds like you all had. I totally get the time outs with this kind of event. Thanks for the feedback.

Dave.

[1341101]

I was the oceanic coordinator for Gander and Shanwick and I can tell you for a fact - staffing during CTP has always been an issue and 21E is no exception and we always try to find more controllers to join us. We acknowledge that it's an issue and we always look for ways and methods to circumvent this and to optimise and be as efficient as possible with our staffing and what positions/sectors they cover. Compromises have to be made and I'm very glad that this time, we were able to succeed without most controllers being crazily overwhelmed, sectors being unstaffed, or any other hiccups and am glad it all went smoothly.