VATSIM flightschool

[Guest]

You know, this is something I would like to see happen. I've wanted to run with VATSIM for quite some time, but the one thing is that I feel very apprehensive about flying online via VATSIM because of how they describe it and everything on the website.

I'd like to see a live flightschool on flying on VATSIM... any thoughts on this? Also how many here fly on VATSIM?

[Brandon Stoll]

Ditto here, I've wanted to try VATSIM, but I'm a bit intimidated cause if I make a mistake, it'd be like WTF!?

[Guest]

Ditto here, I've wanted to try VATSIM, but I'm a bit intimidated cause if I make a mistake, it'd be like WTF!?

Exactly!

[AS37 Norm Edwards]

Hi guys. Your opinions here are ones echoed by many out their in flightsim world. I used VATSIM quite some time ago but stopped for a number of reasons, one of them being the behaviour and poor attitudes of the controllers (a few of them anyhow!). With over 20 years flying experience I used get rather bemused by power weilding controllers in the real world, but what I was surprised was that with VATSIM controllers, they were doubly worse! I'm more than qualified in the precise procedural requirements of flying, but simply bad mannered rude vatsim controllers moved me to never return again! To be balanced however, there were some very very good ones who were also happy to accept advice from someone (albeit now retired!) who knows a bit about it all, but I really did find few and far between. What I would advise however is, give it a go, experience it for yourself, read up on their rules/regs, familiarise yourself with procedures and see how it goes.

[AS 506 Jay Kae]

I don't fly any other than VATSIM but I have to agree with you Norm here and there you run into them but generally they are pretty good though, it is bit of a tossup in Europe though, you find sometimes controllers getting frustrated if they cannot find the correct English word and they sometimes take it out on ya.

[kdwycha]

I gave up on flying in europe on vatsim. I cant understand them, they cant understand me. Most of the controllers in the US are not too rude. I would reccomend vatsim to everyone and there is nothing to worry about with it. If you get scared about something just disconnect I have been flying on vatsim for a few years now but when I was told to do some sorta right downwind upwind overwind crap I just disconnected and flew it in myself because I had no idea what he was talking about

[AS380 Mark Richards]

Well team, one could argue that I am biased because I have been around VATSIM (and SATCO) since the first few months of SATCO's inception in the mid-90s. I am one of the founders of SATPAC (which as since become VATPAC) (http://www.vatpac.org) which is the Oceania Division of VATSIM. I was Director of the Division for 8 years until it was time to step aside a year ago and let someone else take over. I'm still a VATSIM Supervisor, a position I have held for many years.

I fly online on VATSIM 99.99999% of the time and the only times I don't fly online is when my internet connection is down. This has been the case since the very beginning and I don't plan on changing that anytime soon.

I'm sadenned when I read stories like some of the experiences that you report here because it's really unfortunate how a few can spoil it for the rest.

I can vouch mainly for our division here in Oceania (primarily Australia and New Zealand but we do stretch throughout the Pacific) that we have a very relaxed attitude and we've prided ourself in not getting caught up in too much of the political clap trap that other divisions have (especially in the US and Europe) and have just got on and had fun. We're lucky to have the reputation throughout the VATPAC world as one of the friendliest divisions with some of the best Controllers. We've ended up with a number of people from the UK, Europe and the US transferring to our division because we're back doing what VATSIM was established for, to have fun with others sharing a common interest.

Notwithstanding all this, I too have had my moments with some controllers (and some pilots too for that matter) who have got a weenie bit too big for their boots or taken it all a little bit too seriously, especially when flying in areas that I was not as familiar with (I personally find it MUCH easier flying around places I have been to in real life and can build up a mental picture in my mind of the surrounds than some of the places I have not visited and can't picture) or with procedures that differed from what I grew up within New Zealand or what I have got used to since living in Australia (and there's even some differences between our two countries). An example of this has been in the US where often airports seen to use a runway that is not dependent on wind direction whereas I'm used to landing and departing into wind rather than with a 20+ knot tailwind component! I could never understand why I was being abused for using the wrong runway.

I always recommend to new pilots learning the VATSIM environment to put a note in their flightplan indicating that they are a newbie so that the Controller can make allowances. And also, I suggest that if they don't understand an instruction, they simply ask. One should NEVER forget that even ATC is not in charge of the aircraft, it is still the pilot's responsibility to aviate and navigate and they (even in the real world) have the right to question an ATC instruction, especially if it is going to have them flying into terrain!

I personally love my on-line flight simulation experience and at the end of the day, it is more often than not much more realistic than Micro$oft ATC and it's nicer to hear voices from other real life pilots than computer generated callsigns from airlines I've never heard of!

If anyone needs any assistance getting online with VATSIM, I'd be more than happy to assist.

Mark

[Guest]

Mark thanks for the informative reply. I have a feeling I"m going to setup Squawkbox for the upteenth time and this time I'm going to use it. I always load it, logon to VATSIM and listen to the conversations between the ATC's and the pilots, yet I always seem to get cold feet.

How leanient are the ATC's when it comes to using the standard terminology that is used between pilots and ATC's? I don't know how to use the terminology in the "real" world of VATSIM and I noticed that everyone I found online flying were very comfortable using the terminology.

An online training would be a great thing. Where a certain airport and airspace would be used to train in using the commands and undestanding the landing approach and whatnot. Maybe an ATC who would be willing to help explain and work on the terminology. You know what I mean?

Once again Mark thanks for the reply!

Jason
AS-041

[kdwycha]

There really isnt any "Standard Terminology" for pilots. Controllers must use a standard phrases but pilots can pretty much say what they want

[Guest]

Oh and one other question, I noticed that there is a new comms program out now. What do you guys recommend? Roger Wilco or AVC (Advanced Voice Client)? I've used RW but not AVC... any thoughts?

-Jason

[AS380 Mark Richards]

Oh and one other question, I noticed that there is a new comms program out now. What do you guys recommend? Roger Wilco or AVC (Advanced Voice Client)? I've used RW but not AVC... any thoughts?

-Jason

Jason, both approved clients for VATSIM (Squawkbox 3.0 and FSInn) now have their own built in voice client so there is no need for an extra one.

Links for you:
Squawkbox 3.0 - http://www.squawkbox.ca
FSInn 1.1 - http://www.mcdu.com/

I have my personal preference but both have advantages over the other. Let me know if you have any problems.

Mark

[Guest]

Jason, both approved clients for VATSIM (Squawkbox 3.0 and FSInn) now have their own built in voice client so there is no need for an extra one.

Links for you:
Squawkbox 3.0 - http://www.squawkbox.ca
FSInn 1.1 - http://www.mcdu.com/

I have my personal preference but both have advantages over the other. Let me know if you have any problems.

Mark

Thanks Mark, I downloaded SB3 but it's giving me initialization fits when I try to run FS9, so I've installed FSInn 1.1 and it's working fine out of the box. Although it really looks as though the documentation for this program is slim.

What is your preference. I'm open to hear your thoughts on the two seperate programs. Since your a veteran of VATSIM it would be interesting to hear.

I'm getting there tho.. I've got FSInn installed and have gone thru their flash tutorials on connecting to VATSIM. I've downloaded ServInfo to get an idea of who is flying right now in the US. Now it's time to remember how to get a bid flight here at AS.

Thanks again..

-Jason

[AS380 Mark Richards]

Well my personal prefernce is SB3 but only because I believe it intrgrates with FS better because it uses FSUIPC. The developers of FSInn decided not to use FSUIPC and it has caused a few problems for some people.

I was a beta tester for FSInn ver 1.0 and used it before the release of SB3.

FSInn has one distinct advantage over SB3 in that you can choose what flight model you see other a/c as whereas SB3 uses default models with differnet liveries to reduce bandwidth and CPU usage. If you have a good CPU, you can choose any model on your PC and it will dispaly that, including any payware a/c but remember if you have LOTS of traffic it will reduce framerates so be careful.

At present it is at about 70/30 (indicative only) SB3 users vs. FSInn users on VATSIM.

Mark