Centralised Overview of booked ATC sessions

[Reinhard Ziegler]

Hey there!

 

Some time ago I've read somewhere on the forums that a single booking platform is planned for all VACCs around the globe on VATSIM.

Is that project making progress and still a target?

For pilots flying around in EU and NA it's really exhausting to gather all the information if you want to support Trainees by flying to and from their airport.

You have got https://statsim.net/atc/ which provides a good overview of European, Russian and NZ airports, but no information about which session is a Training or Exam session.

What about Asia? Do asian VACCs have another different ATC booking system?

Where do South American and African divisions have their ATC bookings? Does Australian ATC even book their sessions?

The only way I know to get to know when and where ATC will be online in North America is to plow through various ARTCCs homepages and forums to seach them for relevant information.

 

In my opinion, a single and centralised booking system is much needed.

One bookmark to access all of VATSIMs booked ATC session in a single click.

It would make it easier to support ATC Trainees by flying at their tainings and exams if their bookings are marked somehow (e.g. coloured or bold) in this centralised platform to easily identify places where everyone can contribute to the community by spending time to help others.

Even if we stay in Europe, you need to search every divisions website individually to find out when there are Trainings and Exams taking place.
VATSIM Scandinavia, Poland and Austria are showing it on their homepage; in many other Divisions you need to search well hidden subforums for this.

 

Since online flying is a global hobby and VATSIM is a global community, I think it would connect much more people from all around the world if we used a single booking system, wouldn't it? 😉

[Mateusz Zymla]

VATSIM really needs a couple of things grabbed together:

• vAIP containing maps access, sceneries, website addresses,
• ATC Bookings (even non-event bookings),
• NOTAMs, airspace etc. structures

It's not difficult to do as long as participating vACCs would update it per country, and with some overview of countries where vACCs are idling. https://my.vatsim.net has this potential, but it's not there.

Edited January 29, 2022 at 10:36 AM by Mateusz Zymla

[Reinhard Ziegler]

51 minutes ago, Mateusz Zymla said:

NOTAMs, airspace etc. structures

That's a really good idea  @Mateusz Zymla!
Would be helpful to have a single site where you will be directed to, when clicking a booked session in a centralised booking overview.

Let's take a look at the todays ATC booking at statsim.net:
LSAS_B_CTR for example, is booked today from 18-20z. In Switzerland, I've got sceneries for Zürich and Samedan.

To get to know if LSAS_B_CTR covers Zürich and/or Samedan or none of those two airports, I have to google it and make my way through a lot of results, sometimes outdated ones.
If I there was a link behind "LSAS_B_CTR" that leads directly to a database page containing at least

- what Airports is this sector covering

- lateral and vertical sector boundaries

- Frequencies

- NOTAMS

- Callsigns

it would be much easier for pilots to plan their flights to get the best possible ATC coverage.

For ATC, this would result in higher traffic count and for pilots in less time on UNICOM and more human interaction in controlled airspace.

As you've already mentioned, it would not require any more work to keep data up to date once established, if this information is updated by the respective VACCs and ARTCCs.
Divisions are updating this information alread, but everyone on it's own on their very own homepage, making it not quite handy to access for a wide range of members.
A, in my opinion, better way would be to refer from division homepages to a central database, where all information about VATSIM is stored and updated in a single place.

[Mateusz Zymla]

1 minute ago, Reinhard Ziegler said:

That's a really good idea  @Mateusz Zymla!
Would be helpful to have a single site where you will be directed to, when clicking a booked session in a centralised booking overview.

Let's take a look at the todays ATC booking at statsim.net:
LSAS_B_CTR for example, is booked today from 18-20z. In Switzerland, I've got sceneries for Zürich and Samedan.

To get to know if LSAS_B_CTR covers Zürich and/or Samedan or none of those two airports, I have to google it and make my way through a lot of results, sometimes outdated ones.
If I there was a link behind "LSAS_B_CTR" that leads directly to a database page containing at least

- what Airports is this sector covering

- lateral and vertical sector boundaries

- Frequencies

- NOTAMS

- Callsigns

it would be much easier for pilots to plan their flights to get the best possible ATC coverage.

For ATC, this would result in higher traffic count and for pilots in less time on UNICOM and more human interaction in controlled airspace.

As you've already mentioned, it would not require any more work to keep data up to date once established, if this information is updated by the respective VACCs and ARTCCs.
Divisions are updating this information alread, but everyone on it's own on their very own homepage, making it not quite handy to access for a wide range of members.
A, in my opinion, better way would be to refer from division homepages to a central database, where all information about VATSIM is stored and updated in a single place.

That basically sums up concerns written here as well:

 

[Andreas Fuchs]

Try Qutescoop. You can download and display global ATC bookings both in tabular and also in graphical form. Don't forget that you'll need this proxy tool (tiny program, easy to install and run), otherwise Qutescoop cannot interpret the current format of VATSIM data.

Should you have any issues with the versions of Qutescoop from Github, try this slightly older version (for Windows), it will definitely work: LINK to my GoogleDrive

 

Alternatively, https://vroute.net/ will also show you all those bookings. In fact, all ATC bookings are hosted on the server of vroute, thanks to its author, Michal Rok.

[Reinhard Ziegler]

Thanks a lot Andreas!

 

I've been using Qutescoop and vRoute in the past but somehow didn't notice Qutescoop had an option to show airspace and airport data.

I like the fact that Qutescoop is showing information about if a booking is for training/exam purposes or not.

It appears that bookings for North America are neither shown in vRoute, nor in Qutescoop?
Am I doing something wrong here or is this on purpose?

 

Over at https://forum.bvartcc.com/home, there are plenty of ATC bookings, however none of them are listed in vRoute?

[Andreas Fuchs]

29 minutes ago, Reinhard Ziegler said:

It appears that bookings for North America are neither shown in vRoute, nor in Qutescoop?
Am I doing something wrong here or is this on purpose?

This is due to the fact that most or all North American ATCOs do use their local system to book, if they book at all. The rest of the world does use VATBOOK.

[Martijn Rammeloo]

23 minutes ago, Andreas Fuchs said:

This is due to the fact that most or all North American ATCOs do use their local system to book, if they book at all. The rest of the world does use VATBOOK.

It takes only a few lines of code to sync your 'home' bookings into vatbook.

IMO, a centralized booking system is low hanging fruit for VATSIM.

Martijn

 

[Ross Carlson]

17 minutes ago, Martijn Rammeloo said:

It takes only a few lines of code to sync your 'home' bookings into vatbook.

IMO, a centralized booking system is low hanging fruit for VATSIM.

That sounds like an offer to take on the project! 😂

Seriously though, someone just needs to take the initiative to develop a centralized solution that can be "owned" by VATSIM, thus making it official, with an open API for vACCs to submit their data, and for sites and mapping tools to pull the data. Perhaps VATBook can be the starting point.

[Martijn Rammeloo]

... to be followed by a route planning tool 🙂

[Karl Mathias Moberg]

7 hours ago, Mateusz Zymla said:

• vAIP containing maps access, sceneries, website addresses,
•  

VATSIM already has this, it just needs to be expanded slightly. 

https://my.vatsim.net/pilots/aip/KJFK

Edited January 29, 2022 at 06:30 PM by Karl Mathias Moberg

[Mateusz Zymla]

37 minutes ago, Karl Mathias Moberg said:

VATSIM already has this, it just needs to be expanded slightly. 

https://my.vatsim.net/pilots/aip/KJFK

It's not controlled by vACCs and lacks of few needed functions 🙂

[Reinhard Ziegler]

1 hour ago, Karl Mathias Moberg said:

VATSIM already has this, it just needs to be expanded slightly. 

https://my.vatsim.net/pilots/aip/KJFK

Wow, this is aweseome!

Why on earth did I not know this page existed? It only needed to expanded with callsigns.

I've searched for TLPL St. Lucia Airport and it says Martinique Approach is also responsible for this airport.

Would be nice to have the station logon name alongside "Martinique Approach".

Is it TFFF_APP or something else? And what's the logon for Piarco Radar?

Apart from that little suggestion, this AIP page is already satisfying my needs of basic information about certain airports.

 

TFFF_APP is relatively easy to find out in this particular example, but some positions on VATSIM have logon callsigns you would never have guessed, if you haven't heard about them before like ESSEX_APP, US center positions (like SLC_CTR instead of KZLC_CTR, which I thought was correct for a very long time tbh 😄) or the very confusing Australian ATC logons like BN-KEN_CTR. Took me half an hour of research to discover Aussies are not using KEN_CTR to logon as this page https://vatpac.org/controllers/airspace/ makes you think so, but rather use BN-KEN_CTR instead 😄

Or take SY_APP instead of YSSY_APP.

 

VATSIM Germany is using an excellent system for this matter: https://vatsim-germany.org/pilots/aerodrome/EDAH

You can easily spot which stations you have to contact in the right order if you plan to depart EDAH and what their logon code is: EDAH_TWR, EDWW_M_CTR, EDWW_B_CTR, EDWW_CTR.

[Karl Mathias Moberg]

On 1/29/2022 at 8:07 PM, Mateusz Zymla said:

It's not controlled by vACCs and lacks of few needed functions 🙂

It is absolutely controlled by VACCs. NYARTCC spent a significant amount of time adding information to all our airports. The VACC/ARTCC director should have access, if not reach out to division staff. The director can then delegate and give access to someone else, again, using ZNY as an example, we had a team of 3 people do the work. All editing is done through my.vatsim.net.

[Mateusz Zymla]

8 hours ago, Karl Mathias Moberg said:

It is absolutely controlled by VACCs. NYARTCC spent a significant amount of time adding information to all our airports. The VACC/ARTCC director should have access, if not reach out to division staff. The director can then delegate and give access to someone else, again, using ZNY as an example, we had a team of 3 people do the work. All editing is done through my.vatsim.net.

Nice, cuz European vaccs didn't get it any info regarding this.

[Torben Andersen]

On 1/29/2022 at 6:51 PM, Martijn Rammeloo said:

... to be followed by a route planning tool 🙂

What's wrong with Simbrief now? IMHO I don't think it's VATSIM job to develop each and every tool used in flightsimming.

[Martijn Rammeloo]

27 minutes ago, Torben Andersen said:

What's wrong with Simbrief now? IMHO I don't think it's VATSIM job to develop each and every tool used in flightsimming.

Simbrief is great, but it still has the garbage-in-garbage-out principle. Many of the suggested routes are outdated, or simply wrong. But because many pilots use them 'because Simbrief', they keep appearing at the top of the list. Thus, even more pilots use them...

I think it would be wise for VATSIM to at least investigate if improvements can be made. Obviously, this fruit doesn't hang as low as a centralised ATC booking system...

Martijn

PS: see this topic

 

 

 

Edited January 31, 2022 at 09:43 AM by Martijn Rammeloo

[Reinhard Ziegler]

People flying online should never use Simbriefs suggested routes.

Always do it like this:

• Search a route via https://www.eurofpl.eu/finder#
• Click "view NM proposed routes"
• Validate a FPL via https://www.public.nm.eurocontrol.int/PUBPORTAL/gateway/spec/ -> Free Text Editor (on the far right hand side)

[Torben Andersen]

I think it is more prudent to talk to Navigraph about this policy. And to teach pilots to use the tool in a more professional manner than just choose the first the best FP, which is presented to them. 

 

[Torben Andersen]

I don't mind Simbrief show suggested route as such. I use PFPX as planning tool, but in the end it's the same thing: When you push the button, the planner comes up with a route suggestion - and if you blindly accept the suggestion it is still garbage in garbage out. At the end of the day it is the pilot, who's to blame for bad flightplanning/routing. He/She needs to take flightplanning more seriously. This is not a click and fly game. 

[Karl Mathias Moberg]

On 1/31/2022 at 10:52 AM, Torben Andersen said:

I don't mind Simbrief show suggested route as such. I use PFPX as planning tool, but in the end it's the same thing: When you push the button, the planner comes up with a route suggestion - and if you blindly accept the suggestion it is still garbage in garbage out. At the end of the day it is the pilot, who's to blame for bad flightplanning/routing. He/She needs to take flightplanning more seriously. This is not a click and fly game. 

Disagree completely. Pilots are not dispatchers nor flightplanners. Not a single professional pilot I know do any flightplanning other than accepting a route their company has given to them, check that it looks "normal" and don't have any huge diversions or anything, then go on to read NOTAMs etc. They do check enroute charts, and the restrictions that are on those obviously, but we flightsimmers don't have access to those to the same degree, without going through individual country AIPs, which can be a nightmare in Europe. 

I'm sorry, but you can't force me to care about random airspace that may or may not be closed on an hourly basis around Europe, when I fly there once in a blue moon. I don't care about it. At all. There is so much airspace that has an insane amount of restrictions, that you can't just say: Go learn flightplanning. I trust in the controllers that they know their airspace, and if they spot any major issues with the route I file, then they will let me know and fix it. As a controller - that's what I do. I get tons of weird routings out of various New York airports, but I'm the expert there. I know my airspace, I don't expect the pilot to be. So I help them, reroute them to a more reasonable or mandatory routing, then connect them when I can, to their existing flightplan. 

I even have an example: Last night, I was controlling New York center, having two pilots going to Atlanta. The routing they both filed and got from Simbrief in good conscious was a SWAP (Severe Weather Avoidance) route, making them fly east for a significant amount of time before turning west towards Atlanta, adding multiple hundred miles to their total flightplan. I, the airspace expert in this case, caught it and rerouted them accordingly on the fly. Took 2-3 minutes to clear up, no big deal what so ever. But I don't expect the pilot, unless they have hundreds of hours studying the airspace here, to recognize those types of situations, because to most people, they aren't obvious - and should not be the responsibility of the pilot, but instead the dispatcher and airline.

Edited February 2, 2022 at 02:29 PM by Karl Mathias Moberg

[Karl Mathias Moberg]

On 1/31/2022 at 10:42 AM, Reinhard Ziegler said:

People flying online should never use Simbriefs suggested routes.

Always do it like this:

• Search a route via https://www.eurofpl.eu/finder#
• Click "view NM proposed routes"
• Validate a FPL via https://www.public.nm.eurocontrol.int/PUBPORTAL/gateway/spec/ -> Free Text Editor (on the far right hand side)

Which only works in Europe. What about the remaining 70% of the world? 

If this is such a problem - someone should contact Navigraph and tell them to implement the routes from Eurocontrol as standard routes, and stop blaming the pilots.

[Karl Mathias Moberg]

On 1/31/2022 at 8:27 AM, Mateusz Zymla said:

Nice, cuz European vaccs didn't get it any info regarding this.

It was launched a year ago or so, and information was given to VATSIM registered developers and region staff if I recall. Someone from the tech team need confirm this though, I was only involved in updating our data after we were told it was launching in a few weeks. 

[Torben Andersen]

31 minutes ago, Karl Mathias Moberg said:

 Pilots are not dispatchers nor flightplanners.

In the flightsim world they are, so I couldn't disagree more with you there. You don't have the backend service a real commercial pilot have, but even private pilots flying on a IFR flightplan needs to do his/her homework.

[Karl Mathias Moberg]

20 minutes ago, Torben Andersen said:

In the flightsim world they are, so I couldn't disagree more with you there. You don't have the backend service a real commercial pilot have, but even private pilots flying on a IFR flightplan needs to do his/her homework.

Sorry, we have completely different ideas here then. I cannot emphasize how much I disagree with this. Dispatchers have 2-3 years of training to learn the trade, and they do the same routes day in and day out. A lot of flightsimmers, try new routes regularly, and cannot be expected to know every detail of the world, or even Europe.

If you have such huge problems with the tools, then go talk to the manufacturers of the tools people use. It's clear that people prefer to use simbrief and their routes and clearly don't care about the output. Go talk to Simbrief/Navigraph about how we can improve the output from there, instead of trying to force pilots into doing something that frankly most pilots don't care, and don't want to learn about.