ZMP hosts D-Day Saturday, Feb 10th, 1800Z

[James McMannamy]

Come out with your bug smashers, business jets, heavy airliners, or anything in between and experience the challenge of cold weather flying up at Grand Forks (KGFK) and Fargo (KFAR) airports in the winter wonderland that is North Dakota. The event kicks off next Saturday, February 10th, at 1800z (noon local time).

 

 

Jim McMannamy

ZMP Events Director

Edited February 1, 2007 at 04:22 AM by Guest

[Craig Moulton]

Edited after original post was edited.

Edited February 1, 2007 at 05:19 AM by Guest

[James McMannamy]

Thanks Craig, you are right, I can't keep my days straight. Original post edited to reflect the correct information.

[Jack Colwill 815386]

I will never understand why FIR or ARTCC's never work together so we don't have 10 events happening the same day. We need to start getting more organized on these matters. We should not be competing fo traffic but rather helping each other.

[Craig Moulton]

We don't compete. The VATUSA policy is to not allow two events at the same time. Events may overlap, if it is approved by the ATM of both ARTCC's. That is the VATUSA policy. We can't limit the events to only one per day, as Saturday seems to be the preferred day for events, and that would mean that it would be almost 6 months between ARTCC sponsored events, if they were to be doled out equitably.

[Jack Colwill 815386]

So now there is basically 3 events this day. oakand, minneapolis and our whcih immensely involves seattle so it may as well be considered their event too. but whatever it is just frustrating. there needs to be HUGE policy changes in vatsim and this is only the tip of the iceberg. many people are getting frustrated that are trying verry hard to better this network and are only met with doors being slammed shut on them.

Edited February 2, 2007 at 08:39 PM by Guest

[Brandon Van Brunt 939678]

what i dont understand is i made VATUSA aware of the event in vancouver and seattle a month ago, why were these guys not made aware of these events when i made vatusa aware of them

[Craig Moulton]

This was my mistake. Chalk it up to a steeper learning curve than what I would have anticipated. I owe Brandon, Vancouver FIR, and ZSE an apology, as I did not handle this in a manner that, I recognize now, I should have. I am working to resolve this matter, and hope to have further news very soon.

[Carlos Perea 934840]

Well, if anything, give yourself a challenge and see if you can hit all three events while they're going on.

[Jack Colwill 815386]

Dont mean to come down on anyone Craig, sorry. It is just that we spent a heck of a lot of time on this. Solid now for one month. We have a guy programming a database in whoch it is going to keep track of points. He has been up to 6 am on many nights wokring on this. We have put together about 50 prizes now from all the major 3rd party software companies. Organizing with seattle and edmonton centre to get controllers. We have also had to recruit some controllers from outside the FIR to help us out. Just making the rules took 4 amendments and about 10 hours planning. We had to come up with over 300 aviation related questions to add to our database. This is 4 guys working every night doing this. The man hours that are going into this is mind boggling JUST to organize an event. We are doing this for all the VATSIM pilots nad we gain nothing. All prizes are for the participants. Over 1700 bucks worth of addons. And it just gets frustrating to see more flyins pop up on the same day. Sometimes it feels our efforts are for nothing. We could have some HUGE flyins that break records if we have FIR/ARTCC's working with each other.

[Craig Moulton]

Please remember Jack, that in the U.S. Alone there are 22 ARTCC's. How many FIR's in Canada? Europe, Japan, South America? If we only allowed ourselves a single event on any given day then only a small fraction of the VATSIM ARTCC's/FIR's/ACC's would ever be able to hold an event. Saturday seems to be the day of choice for events these days, and last I checked there are only 52 such days in the year. Every ATC organization looks to events for a variety of reason. Some here in the U.S. take advantage of them often in order to draw traffic to their airports, which remain eerily quiet all too often.

 

I consider it my job as Events Director, VATUSA to do all I can to help promote ALL 22 ARTCC's, and we do this by the use of scheduled events. Yielding to the rest of VATSIM and telling our pilots to go off and fly at East Overshoe defeats the sole purpose of my "office."

 

As I said, the error was mine, and I'm working to correct it. I think we can, and should put this behind us. We all recognize the immense amount of work that goes into these events, and we take our hats of to those who do them well. Let's not loose sight of the big picture here, which in my eyes (and the prism of my position) is to promote all 22 ARTCC's in order to build the traffic in all areas.

[Craig Moulton]

This issue has been resolved, thanks to the magnanimous folks at ZMP, who have offered to postpone this event for another day.

 

I will make the needed changes to the Event Calendar to include your event info. If someone would be kind enough to point me to the proper information (I'm sure I have it, but time is short and I'm off to work in just a minute, and will only be able to get to this on my break from work, where I will not have access to the info contained in my email.

 

Thanks for the patience and understanding of all parties.

[Jack Colwill 815386]

Thanks Craig and to the gentlemen at KZMP for understanding. Hopefully we will see you butt strapped to an AAL airplane Craig at the event!

[Timothy Boger 942264]

Deleted. I'm gonna try to keep my mouth shut on the forums.

Edited February 4, 2007 at 03:24 AM by Guest

[Brandon Van Brunt 939678]

I will make the needed changes to the Event Calendar to include your event info. If someone would be kind enough to point me to the proper information (I'm sure I have it, but time is short and I'm off to work in just a minute, and will only be able to get to this on my break from work, where I will not have access to the info contained in my email.

 

 

craig,

all the rules and information for the event can be found at

 

http://www.czvr.ca/_Pilot_Resources/_Events/_Mountain/index.php