Non-VSO low flying?

[Andrew Crowley]

8 hours ago, Sean Peterson said:

These "M" rating will be reserved for VSOA members only as well.

Could you share why this needs to be the case? What makes this rating different from the other pilot ratings, with respect to the rest of the network? 

[Ken Doyen]

Well, I see their point bout low altitude flying cuz that actually is a real world training exercise, even if we fly single file.  I find flying SIDS/STARS/Airways fun.  Events with ATC is where the action is.  It's the best way to get guaranteed ATC.  Sure I'm not doin spec ops, can't physically do em anyway.  That's why I fly the way I do.  I'm still in a fighter & it's a challenge, or mission if u wanna look at it that way, to learn to fly procedures properly & fit in with everyone else without disrupting traffic.  I know most will say that's boring, but, they do the same thing in other planes.  So, to me, the type of plane is irrelevant in the scenario I've described.  Fighter or tube it's still gonna be boring & ppl will spend 2-10 hours in a tube on AP flying my routes & say it's fun, but, the moment the plane is a fighter then it's not fun to them.  If you're interested, we can PM & try to do a group flight, single file, like I've proposed.  It's still fun.

[Andrew Crowley]

1 hour ago, Ken Doyen said:

Well, I see their point bout low altitude flying cuz that actually is a real world training exercise, even if we fly single file. 

Yes, but... from the perspective of everyone else on Vatsim, who cares?  Your activities on a low-level route - whether performed highly professionally, nailing your time to the second over each checkpoint while maintaining altitude exactly; or cratering incompetently into a cliff - don't affect anyone else on the network. Where you interface with the network is as you describe - using ATC services while flying in civilian airspace, presumably on your way to and from the airspace where you'll conduct the training activity. 

I just don't understand why we wouldn't all be interested in seeing these kinds of activities.  It would make the network a lot less sterile and therefore more realistic and interesting. 

[Ken Doyen]

On 10/20/2022 at 6:33 PM, Andrew Crowley said:

Where you interface with the network is as you describe - using ATC services while flying in civilian airspace, presumably on your way to and from the airspace where you'll conduct the training activity. 

No, I'm not flying to/from an airport for spec ops at an MOA.  I'm flying from one airport to another using published SIDS & STARS, VOR's or INS along published V, J, T, Q airways at altitudes & speeds any tubeliner can & does do.  I knew before I got Xplane this was the rule cuz I had talked to several C3 controllers on Twitch who told me what I want to do was ok.  I just wanna do what the average simmer does, especially during events cuz that's where the action & guaranteed ATC is.  I just wanna be clear that you & I are talkin bout two completely different things.  Now, if you wanna say I'm interfering then I'm going to assume you've never tried what I do cuz we can do what I do & not interfere with traffic.  That's what I've been trying to prove.  Believe you me it has not been easy.  Many controllers make assumptions about what I wanna do & what my plane requires and is capable of.  Again, let me assure you that everything I've done on the network was discussed with a C3 either on Twitch or in Discord before I did it. 

Edited October 28, 2022 at 02:35 AM by Ken Doyen

[Andrew Crowley]

18 hours ago, Ken Doyen said:

I'm flying from one airport to another using published SIDS & STARS, VOR's or INS along published V, J, T, Q airways at altitudes & speeds any tubeliner can & does do.  I knew before I got Xplane this was the rule cuz I had talked to several C3 controllers on Twitch who told me what I want to do was ok.  I just wanna do what the average simmer does, especially during events cuz that's where the action & guaranteed ATC is.  I just wanna be clear that you & I are talkin bout two completely different things. 

The way I see it, we're talking about the same thing. What's the difference between flight in the civilian portions of the NAS while adhering to all applicable regulations and ATC clearances while traveling from airport to airport, vs airport to waypoint? Isn't a clearance limit a clearance limit? 

[Ken Doyen]

10 minutes ago, Andrew Crowley said:

The way I see it, we're talking about the same thing. What's the difference between flight in the civilian portions of the NAS while adhering to all applicable regulations and ATC clearances while traveling from airport to airport, vs airport to waypoint? Isn't a clearance limit a clearance limit? 

If you're just flying point A to B like everyone else then you're completely within the rules.  I thought you were talking about low level flying.  We had a very long conversation in another thread establishing the rules more clearly for flying military aircraft on Vatsim.  I don't remember if you were in that thread.

 

[Andrew Crowley]

Well I am talking about low flying in a way, in the context that it's silly to require someone to be part of a VSO to do it on the network.  Because there are two parts to a flight that, for instance, includes a low-level route:

1.  The flight from an airport to the beginning of the route, and then the flight from the end of the route back to an airport; and

2.  The low-levelv route itself (or carrier qual, or ACM, or other training exercise. )

Now for the portions of the flight that fall under part 1, you're just a jet flying from A to B.  No special knowledge or training required. 

For the training exercise itself, you're not interacting with the rest of the Vatsim network; thus, no one knows or cares if you conduct yourself with the utmost professionalism or crash within 10 seconds. It simply doesn't affect the rest of the network, so... no special knowledge or training required. 

So, yes, I'm saying it doesn't make sense to only allow these sorts of training activities on the network if a person is part of a VSO.  Their membership or lack thereof in a random organization doesn't affect anyone else on the network in any way. 

[Ken Doyen]

5 hours ago, Andrew Crowley said:

Well I am talking about low flying in a way, in the context that it's silly to require someone to be part of a VSO to do it on the network.  Because there are two parts to a flight that, for instance, includes a low-level route:

1.  The flight from an airport to the beginning of the route, and then the flight from the end of the route back to an airport; and

2.  The low-levelv route itself (or carrier qual, or ACM, or other training exercise. )

Now for the portions of the flight that fall under part 1, you're just a jet flying from A to B.  No special knowledge or training required. 

For the training exercise itself, you're not interacting with the rest of the Vatsim network; thus, no one knows or cares if you conduct yourself with the utmost professionalism or crash within 10 seconds. It simply doesn't affect the rest of the network, so... no special knowledge or training required. 

So, yes, I'm saying it doesn't make sense to only allow these sorts of training activities on the network if a person is part of a VSO.  Their membership or lack thereof in a random organization doesn't affect anyone else on the network in any way. 

Ya, I see what you're saying but I also see what Vatsim is saying.  They've said it's long held policy that they're not goin to change.  We can still have fun within the rules.  That's what we should focus on; bring awareness to what we can do & show people we can still have fun on a platform that isn't DCS or the MSFS Network.  The recent clarification of the CoC supports what some of us are doing outside of VSO's.  Lets get out there & show em.

[Luke Kolin]

6 hours ago, Ken Doyen said:

Ya, I see what you're saying but I also see what Vatsim is saying.  They've said it's long held policy that they're not goin to change.

Usually when someone says that, it means they're trying to defend the indefensible. And VATSIM has used that term plenty of times, until they changed. 🙂

TBH I am very surprised that @Sean Peterson stated that the military ratings will be limited to VSOA members only. It seems completely at odds with why these activities were limited to VSOA members in the first place.

Originally, VATSIM didn't want to have goofballs doing unwanted intercepts or buzzing the tower in F-15s, so they wanted to restrict the activities to people who actually were qualified. Those did exist, but VATSIM had no ability to do pilot ratings of any sort, so they punted it to the VSOAs. The groups would train and manage their own users, and VATSIM held the threat of collective punishment over their heads - if the members misbehaved, the entire group would lose its certification. (If you think about it, it was a model for decentralized ATOs over a decade ahead of its time.) VATSIM has, by the way, liberalized the rules around VSOAs since then. Originally there was an arbitrary restriction of one VSOA per real-world organization that was dropped a while back - that just seemed to provide an arbitrary monopoly to various organizations. That's been gone for a while now - I wonder if the discussions are still searchable in these forums.

However, now that we have the concept of Pilot Ratings, I'm not sure what the purpose of VSOA membership would be. If VATSIM wants trained, responsible individuals engaging in special operations, then they should require the M ratings - with or without VSOA membership. A person doesn't magically lose the rating once they leave a VSOA, and I don't see why a VSOA member without the ratings should be authorized to engage in special ops.

Cheers!

[Andrew Crowley]

^^^ Absolutely, that's another thing I wondered.  If Vatsim requires training for a particular operation, why would they punt that responsibility to a random group of casual hobbyists? These VSOs aren't exactly regulatory agencies or SMEs... they're just people having fun, like everyone else on Vatsim.  So if Vatsim requires a verification of knowledge, why wouldn't they just have their own test?  What would membership in someone else's club tell Vatsim about a person's abilities on the network? 

I still don't see how it matters though, because how a pilot conducts the operations covered by a VSO has no effect on the network.  All these VSO members do while interacting with the network is fly from point A to point B... something no one is required to have any training or organizational membership to do on Vatsim.  🤷

[Sean Peterson]

19 hours ago, Luke Kolin said:

Usually when someone says that, it means they're trying to defend the indefensible. And VATSIM has used that term plenty of times, until they changed. 🙂

TBH I am very surprised that @Sean Peterson stated that the military ratings will be limited to VSOA members only. It seems completely at odds with why these activities were limited to VSOA members in the first place.

Originally, VATSIM didn't want to have goofballs doing unwanted intercepts or buzzing the tower in F-15s, so they wanted to restrict the activities to people who actually were qualified. Those did exist, but VATSIM had no ability to do pilot ratings of any sort, so they punted it to the VSOAs. The groups would train and manage their own users, and VATSIM held the threat of collective punishment over their heads - if the members misbehaved, the entire group would lose its certification. (If you think about it, it was a model for decentralized ATOs over a decade ahead of its time.) VATSIM has, by the way, liberalized the rules around VSOAs since then. Originally there was an arbitrary restriction of one VSOA per real-world organization that was dropped a while back - that just seemed to provide an arbitrary monopoly to various organizations. That's been gone for a while now - I wonder if the discussions are still searchable in these forums.

However, now that we have the concept of Pilot Ratings, I'm not sure what the purpose of VSOA membership would be. If VATSIM wants trained, responsible individuals engaging in special operations, then they should require the M ratings - with or without VSOA membership. A person doesn't magically lose the rating once they leave a VSOA, and I don't see why a VSOA member without the ratings should be authorized to engage in special ops.

Cheers!

Luke,

If any pilot wishes to get one of the 4 "P" ratings they are able to do so through any ATO. When it comes to the "M" ratings, those are only issued through an approved VSOA ATO's. Even after a pilot receives all the "M" ratings they still must be part of a VSOA to do any of the listed VSOA type activities on the Vatsim network. All VSOA members are required to go through a minimum training syllabus before they are allowed to conduct any activities on the network. The "M" ratings are an optional rating just like the "P" ratings are so VSOA members aren't required to get them but can choose to do so. Just to clarify I didn't make the decision to limit the "M" ratings to VSOA's only that was done by the BoG in conjunction with the Training Department so don't shoot the messenger.

I've been in the VSOA community for close to 15 years and the restriction of only having one type of VSOA per real-world organization must have been before that time. I know there were certain VSOA's that would limit their members to joining only one VSOA which some still do today.

Policies are continuing to be updated to more clearly define what's allowed by the normal Vatsim pilot and what is deemed VSOA only. This will continue as there need to be a clear an concise separation between the two and what they are permitted to do. Don't be surprised if you see further restrictions on VSOA activities and airframe types down the road.

 

Edited October 31, 2022 at 04:55 PM by Sean Peterson

[Sean Peterson]

9 hours ago, Andrew Crowley said:

^^^ Absolutely, that's another thing I wondered.  If Vatsim requires training for a particular operation, why would they punt that responsibility to a random group of casual hobbyists? These VSOs aren't exactly regulatory agencies or SMEs... they're just people having fun, like everyone else on Vatsim.  So if Vatsim requires a verification of knowledge, why wouldn't they just have their own test?  What would membership in someone else's club tell Vatsim about a person's abilities on the network? 

I still don't see how it matters though, because how a pilot conducts the operations covered by a VSO has no effect on the network.  All these VSO members do while interacting with the network is fly from point A to point B... something no one is required to have any training or organizational membership to do on Vatsim.  🤷

When an organization applies to be a VSOA their training curriculum is reviewed and approved during their initial audit. Each VSOA may have a different way in which they train their pilot's but it must meet the minimums set forth in the VSOA's Policies & Procedures Manual. VSOA's are required to keep track of each pilot's training and have it available for review if asked to do so to ensure the pilot's are meeting or exceeding the set standards.. 

VSOA organizations do a lot more than fly point A to point B flights so I'm not quite sure what your point was there. 

[Ken Doyen]

@Andrew Crowley @Luke Kolin The 3 of us seem to have the same desire to fly fighters on Vatsim without being in a VSO.  Would the 2 of you like to join me in some group flights?  We can link up in Discord, plan some non event & event flights & get acquainted.  I've said I'd love to get some fighter group flights.  We can show people how to play by the rules & have fun without doin spec ops.

[Andrew Crowley]

8 hours ago, Sean Peterson said:

VSOA organizations do a lot more than fly point A to point B flights so I'm not quite sure what your point was there. 

You missed the most important part of my statement: "... while interacting with the network."

Sure, the VSO guys might do some ACM or low-level or carrier qual... but who cares how skilfully (or not) it's performed? They're doing that away from civilian traffic on the network, so why does it matter to vatsim whether they're trained or not?  They could crater into a mountain in the first ten seconds in their box and it wouldn't matter to anyone. 

The only thing they do while actually being a part of the vatsim network - under ATC, mixing with other pilots - is fly a jet from A to B.  Which can already be done with no training on Vatsim.

So what is the purpose of VSO training, from the perspective of everyone else on Vatsim?

As far as VSO training... c'mon, this isn't the FAA or the military, it's a bunch of online hobbyists. You're telling me no one is going to pencil-whip their buddy's file and just say "follow me, no one will know?"  I'm willing to bet you know better than me how frequently that happens.  ;)

[Matt Mamuzich]

My name is Nathan.

[Sean Peterson]

16 hours ago, Andrew Crowley said:

You missed the most important part of my statement: "... while interacting with the network."

Sure, the VSO guys might do some ACM or low-level or carrier qual... but who cares how skilfully (or not) it's performed? They're doing that away from civilian traffic on the network, so why does it matter to vatsim whether they're trained or not?  They could crater into a mountain in the first ten seconds in their box and it wouldn't matter to anyone. 

The only thing they do while actually being a part of the vatsim network - under ATC, mixing with other pilots - is fly a jet from A to B.  Which can already be done with no training on Vatsim.

So what is the purpose of VSO training, from the perspective of everyone else on Vatsim?

As far as VSO training... c'mon, this isn't the FAA or the military, it's a bunch of online hobbyists. You're telling me no one is going to pencil-whip their buddy's file and just say "follow me, no one will know?"  I'm willing to bet you know better than me how frequently that happens.  😉

Simple answer to your question. You asked who cares, the Vatsim Board of Governors does that's why they have these and all the other rules in place. 

I have included a link to the new Code of Conduct Companion Document for those who haven't read it. This document will supplement the VATSIM Code of Conduct and help explain the rules in more detail and provide clarification on some of the wording in plain English. This way the VATSIM Code of Conduct will be easier to understand for everyone!

Section A13 pertains to how members are permitted to connect to the network. 

 

Edited November 1, 2022 at 02:16 PM by Sean Peterson

[Andrew Crowley]

10 hours ago, Sean Peterson said:

Simple answer to your question. You asked who cares, the Vatsim Board of Governors does that's why they have these and all the other rules in place. 

I think it's quite contextually obvious from my post that my "who cares?" question could be taken as "how does it matter?"  But if that's been missed, I'm happy to rephrase: "how does it matter?"

No one has ever contested what the BOD says on the matter so I'm not sure of the reason for posting the guidance.  What we're asking is the reason behind this guidance. If we didn't know what the guidance was in the first place, we probably wouldn't be able to ask "why?"  ;)

Sure, Vatsim is a private network that can be operated according to the whims of those who govern it. There's no doubt they have that right.  However, "because I said so" is a very poor answer, when asked to explain a rule or policy.  Remember what Feynman said: "if you cannot explain something in simple terms, you don't understand it yourself."  It's a poor leader who would expect this answer to be well received or accepted by those they were attempting to lead. 

So, sure, it is what it is. But let's be clear about the fact that no one seems able to articulate a rational reason for this. 

[Ken Doyen]

@Andrew Crowley My 2 cents here.  The clarification really helped people like me.  They basically said flying fighters like tubes & GA planes in group flights with military call signs without being in a VSO while playing by the rules is ok.  I say that cuz I've been in the middle of that misinterpretation.  I asked you & @Luke Kolin if you wanted to do a group flight in fighters.  I've been desperately trying for years to get fighter group flights without being in a VSO, like you want.  I've asked/offered to do flights.  Vatsim is not saying we cannot fly fighters online.  Vatsim is saying we can fly them as long as we play by the rules.  We seem to know the rules & know how to fly the planes.  That's a thing I've heard from controllers, "He actually knows how to fly a fighter."  I'm stunned when I hear that cuz I don't think it's THAT hard.  Lets get out there & show people how to do it.  We got what we wanted.

 

Edited November 2, 2022 at 01:57 AM by Ken Doyen

[Andrew Crowley]

I flew the Superbug on Vatsim years ago on FSX... I don't think there has ever been a prohibition on flying a jet - any jet - from A to B, has there? 

If the Superbug or an equivalent existed in MSFS I'd give it a shot. As it stands, I save my fighter flying for DCS less because of the booms (they're really just an excuse to go fly and get some tanking and a trap) and more for the flight model and systems depth.  The fighters so far in MSFS aren't anything I'm looking to spend my time in.  It would be great if VRS ever brings the Bug!

[Ken Doyen]

19 minutes ago, Andrew Crowley said:

I don't think there has ever been a prohibition on flying a jet - any jet - from A to B, has there? 

Nope, as long as we fly A to B & follow the same rules & procedures as everyone else we're ok.