Bill Casey Posted February 4, 2007 at 05:17 PM Posted February 4, 2007 at 05:17 PM For [Mod - Happy Thoughts]orted reasons the VATSIM-UK February New Pilots Night has been moved from the 6th to Tuesday 13th and will take place at Southend (EGMC) at 1930z til c2130z. New Pilot's Nights are an opportunity for New Pilots (strange that!) to come along to an airfield, meet the pilot mentoring team, meet some ATC guys, ask shedloads of questions and do some flying in a totally non-pressurised environment where you can make all the mistakes you like with help available. As a follow up you can also opt for some one-to-one mentoring with one of the team - one flight or a whole series if you like - to get you going on Vatsim and doing what you want to do. VFR or IFR we usually have the right person to help you along in a hopefully friendly and unpressurised manner. MUST DO'S: Join the VATSIM-UK Teamspeak server in advance of the night You should get registered and setup with Vatsim-UK's Teamspeak server, please try and get set up on it before the night, it's virtually impossible to get registered on the night itself so it's imperative that you get set up in advance! We conduct all the training via Teamspeak so if you're not on it you will miss out on how completely and utterly brilliant we are. See this link which also appears as a link on the Home Page over at the Vatsim-uk website: http://www.vatsim-uk.org/index.php?page=teamspeak Once you have been set-up on that you will find a New Pilot's Night room on there plus a couple of mentroing rooms that we use. Get the Charts for Southend These as always come from the CAA's AIS website with which you need to register (it's free of course). This link will take you straight to the airfield charts page via the login/registration screen: http://www.ais.org.uk/aes/pubs/aip/html/aipad2.htm We tend to do some VFR circuits just to get going but if someone wants to try some IFR circuits or a short cross-country then we also have some approach cover arranged. There is no set plan for the night because it totally depends on who turns up, what their experience is and what they want to do - sometimes we get people who are struggling to even get connected to Vatsim (we can help with that as well) and sometimes we get people just wanting to make their first "live" flight, we've learned that there is no such thing as a "standard" New Pilot and therefore we have a flexible approach to what we get up to. Join up with Vatsim in the GA Parking area (or somewhere else suitable for your plane, NOT on a runway!) in an aeroplane you're comfortable with and know where the buttons are! Also can you please set your clock to daylight settings, I usually knock 12 hours off the actual time and set it to June 21st to ensure daylight. Note to existing and experienced pilots As much as we appreciate the desire of many of you to [Mod - Happy Thoughts]ist with these nights, we find that other traffic disrupts the mentoring because of additonal traffic on the R/T so could you please try and avoid EGMC unless specifically requested by one of the team? Thanks in advance for that, I know the temptation is huge! Bill Casey Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrew McCabe Posted February 5, 2007 at 11:30 PM Posted February 5, 2007 at 11:30 PM Its been moved from 6th to 13th, but also from EGPF to Southend. So whats the reason this time for EGPF being p[Mod - Happy Thoughts]ed over ? Same thing happened last year as I recall. I'm sure in RW aircraft can fly north of Watford, but maybe not in Vatsim Drew Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Casey Posted February 11, 2007 at 01:11 PM Author Posted February 11, 2007 at 01:11 PM Drew Quite simple. After each NPN we review what was good and what was bad about it and then change the bad. A consistent theme over most NPNs has been "too much other traffic" which seriously hampers getting the new guys going since they often can't get a word in edgeways (remember, they're new and nervous on the R/T). They also can't hear explanations, ask questions and get help over TS if there is constant R/T traffic. As a result we're putting together a very short list of small suitable airfields which have similar procedures and facilities as bigger airfields, Southend is one of them. We didn't publicise the change since it would only have lead to lengthy debates about a decision that is not going to be reversed. As it is you are the only person from SCONI who remembered it was meant to be there and that's another common theme - the rostered airports always forgot it was their turn! As a result the list of fields we use will be very short (probably ony two of them) so it's a fairly regular night. I'm sorry that Glasgow missed out but it's purely to make sure we can conduct the evenings efficiently for the benefit of the new guys. We felt that Glasgow would just attract too much other traffic with both TWR and APP online (by "too much" I mean only a couple of others can be a complete nuisance!). I hope the above helps explain it a bit? Bill Casey Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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