Amsterdam fly-in: another wonderful learning experience!

[Can Agbaba 950792]

Hello to all and especially to members of DUTCH-VACC!

 

I completed my inbound flight about an hour ago at the Amsterdam Schipol (EHAM) fly-in and loved it! I already sent a thank-you letter to the events organizer ([email protected]) and wanted to post a general thank-you in this forum so members can hopefully share in my appreciation of such a well-done event, organized by unpaid volunteers but worth a MILLION TIMES their body weights in gold! (even if they're on a diet! )

 

I have learned much from this fly in and even though this was not my first fly-in to Amsterdam online nor offline, it was my first "officially registered" fly-in on VATSIM.

 

The two little mistakes I made were accidentally pressing the LNAV on final approach after intercepting the localizer AND after pressing the LOC button - for some reason, I thought this was to be pressed - I still have some confusion from time to time about the LNAV/VNAV and have to clarify some of these by doing some more reading. By the way, I was using the PMDG 737-700NG in Lufthansa colours - callsign was DLH4MM. I hope I didn't "annoy" any pilots or ATC out there when I zig-zagged a bit after capturing the LOC then losing it and re-capturing it... *sigh*... The other mistake was forgetting to go to SQUAWK C after getting on the take-off runway at Munich (my flight was EDDM-EHAM).

 

I hope all pilots, experienced or not, have learned from this event and can improve even further for the next Amsterdam inbound flight they will do on VATSIM. Also, the staff at Schipol and in fact in Munich and Langen radar (Frankfurt area radar) were all wonderful and very professional. For people who volunteer their time for free all for the love of a very "unique" and in fact rather difficult hobby as Flight Simulation is a wonderful thing for me to see and be a part of!

 

Those of you who have not flown online to Schipol airport yet beware ! - read the charts and do a practice flight or two... because it is a complex airport with procedures very different than any US or German airport. For one thing, there is VECTORING by ATC after certain points - NO RNAV or following your LNAV/VNAV on your FMC. RNAV is only for night flights inbound after 22:00 or 21:00 UTC. Again, study the charts and ask questions. The procedures are now quite clear to me after 2-3 flights into EHAM on VATSIM.

 

Take care everyone at DUTCC-VACC and I hope to fly into Amsterdam again soon!

 

Can (John) Agbaba