Good day fellow fliers
This is a challenge to you all to join either of the supported ATC communities and fly your flights online rather than offline.
It gives a much greater enjoyment factor and allows for your realism to be increased tenfold.
Think of it.. Do it...
Would be great to see you guys on board.
GB
I agree Graham. I'm a regular on vatsim.
Does add that real life touch to simulation.
I completed my first flight on VATSIM tonight and it was (mostly) successful! flight log here: http://viaintercity.com/pirep.php?pirepid=5018 (http://viaintercity.com/pirep.php?pirepid=5018)
Climbing out of London City was good fun and went well but as soon as I tuned to LON CTL everything stepped up a notch :o . It was really busy and it took me a minute to find a break in the comms to talk to the controller and get clearance to climb. Once he was aware of me though, everything went smoothly until I was about 40nm from Manchester and didn't know whether to just switch to EGCC radar or wait until LON CTL told me to switch? :-\ . In the end I requested descent and the controller promptly switched me to EGCC radar. Unfortunately EGCC radar disconnected 30 seconds after I switched channel so I was a bit stuck! I hastily entered a HOLD MNVR into the Q400 FMS at DAYNE to give me some time to think. I contacted EGCC TWR - told them who I was and where I was holding - and they responded that 23R was in use and for me to report established. I was still at FL12 at this point and holding so I was a bit confused who was supposed to clear me inbound to the ILS approach. I asked the tower for vectors to final but he politely reminded me that TWR doesn't do that kind of thing ;). So I made my own way down with HDG mode and VS descent which felt a bit strange. Anyway, I intercepted the ILS 14nm out, reported established and finally got clearance to land as I was 300ft above due to another aircraft infront not reporting vacated (!). Landing and exit was smooth but after being given taxi to stand clearance I got hopelessly lost and ended up shutting down at the wrong stand ::) . In fairness, it was dark and I'm using the EGCC scenery that came with ORBX ENG which leaves a bit to be desired. All in all though, a good flight and very enjoyable (but a bit stressful too!).
TL;DR: Successful first ever VATSIM flight with a few beginner errors but nothing major :).
Arron.
VATSIM controllers work on a "top down" basis; they will cover positions under them but nothing above. If TWR is present but there's no APP or CTR covering you, it's considered to be uncontrolled airspace (so you announce intentions on text unicom 122.800) and you self-manoeuvre until such time as you're back on someone's radar (literally); in the case of TWR this would probably be about 6 miles out to ensure you don't scatter traffic in the circuit.
Hope this helps. Congrats on your first successful VATSIM flight!
Agree with Graham, and well done Arron :D
Remember the ANC of aviation.
Aviate
Navigate
Communicate.
A favourite is for an approach controller to come online just as you have disconnected autopilot on finals!
My first flight on VATSIM in many years. EGPH to ENGM. Very enjoyable with multiple controllers on.
Thanks!
Had another VATSIM session on Sunday AM - this time flew into EKCH for the 'Welcome to Copenhagen' event. ATC online in every position and LOTS of traffic which was really enjoyable. Flew from ENBR as a SAS flight as no Intercity DH8D schedules were available on Sunday AM.
Thoroughly enjoyable and the controllers put up with my ineptitude gracefully although tbf overhearing the chatter I certainly wasn't the least capable pilot online, depsite mis-hearing Ground's stand instructions and taxiiing to the wrong spot :-[ . I read-back the stand to the controller and he didn't pick it up though, so I'm not 100% to blame :D.
I think I need to get some hours in at a quiet spot somewhere with minimal traffic, just to practice.
Arron.
This is what I like to use when on VATSIM: http://www.vattastic.com (http://www.vattastic.com)
In fact, it's the only thing I use. Just double click on any one of the planes you see flying and the full info will show up. It make take a couple of times as the page might zoom in while you're clicking on the plane. All info is displayed, ground speed, route, altitude, etc. Whoever is online, this shows everybody. It doesn't get in the way of anything, and, as far as I can tell, if no ATC is online in the area, it shows your altimeter setting where I have to go from 29.92 to 30.28 or .48 such as when you are in Florida or in the swamp area where you need to raise it. Nothing to download and you can see everything.
regards; Jim.
Quote from: James Rish on Apr 20, 2017 23:37
This is what I like to use when on VATSIM: http://www.vattastic.com (http://www.vattastic.com)
In fact, it's the only thing I use. Just double click on any one of the planes you see flying and the full info will show up. It make take a couple of times as the page might zoom in while you're clicking on the plane. All info is displayed, ground speed, route, altitude, etc. Whoever is online, this shows everybody. It doesn't get in the way of anything, and, as far as I can tell, if no ATC is online in the area, it shows your altimeter setting where I have to go from 29.92 to 30.28 or .48 such as when you are in Florida or in the swamp area where you need to raise it. Nothing to download and you can see everything.
regards; Jim.
I wasn't aware of that site, so thanks for the link Jim :D
I've done a couple of vatsim flights, but my stats chart shows zero. I fly using my callsign of ICX1443 and vPilot. Should I be doing something different?
Where are you viewing your stats? Third party VATSIM stats are notoriously unreliable as they're sometimes offline (and thus not monitoring) for weeks at a time!
The official records are http://stats.vatsim.net (http://stats.vatsim.net) which shows you with 8.5 hrs as ICX1443, Gerald.
I was looking at the "My Awards" page in acars.
You need to indicate on your flight reports which network you flew on (there's an drop down "network" box that displays in ACARS as the end of your flight) otherwise the system won't check the log against VATSIM and it'll record it as offline flying.
(http://www.viaintercity.com/images/acars/acars15.jpg)
oops, I'll make sure of that on the next flight. Not used to on-line flying as you can guess.
No worries Gerald, it's quite small so it's easy to missed.
Also you don't have to use your Intercity CrewID as your callsign, you can use the flight number just like reality and our systems will still detect it :)
Thanks for the info Chris. On line now as ICX802 EDDL-EPWA. Fiinally getting some use out of the scenery.
I was really struggling with running in windowed mode with FSX and vPilot so that I could get vatsim comms done. I went to the vPilot website and read the documentation ( I know who does that??) and found out how to run it with wide fs. Now I can take care of all the vatsim comms on my laptop, voice comms with the fsx computer, and not have to struggle with windowed mode, Now I'm a happy camper! ;D ;D ;D
Quote from: Sean Donno on Apr 21, 2017 08:52
I wasn't aware of that site, so thanks for the link Jim :D
Sure thing, Sean. ;) Sometimes I just go to the site to see what's going on when I'm not doing anything at all for that matter.