r/VATSIM

I mainly fly in germany etc. and there the main hours are mostly around 7-10pm local time. I would love to fly to the Uk more but I just find the atc staffing to be really inconsistent. Because of the time zone the busy after work hours should be later than in central europe, but when I look on vatsim radar at 8pm london time more often than not not even EGLL is really staffed. And on top of that there are rarely any events in the uk compared to the weekly EKCH, EDDM, LOWW etc events, which I just find confusing given the huge british sim community.

Any tips on when and how to catch the busy ATC hours in the uk are appreciated :)

Good afternoon virtual pilots. Of course when it comes to VATSIM realism is important. My question is would you .wallop a user who refuses/ignores your request for them to move gate when they spawn on top of you.

I had a situation this afternoon at Heathrow whilst it was uncontrolled where a user straight up ignored my polite request for them to disconnect and select another stand as I was in the middle of a turnaround. After 3 times of asking I got no response.

Whilst not a mega deal in the grand scheme of things it’s annoying and is a breach of the CoC. Is this enough for you to refer to a supervisor though?

I’ll hold off from saying what action I took so not to influence the debate.

Update: I took no action and just carried on with cockpit prep/boarding despite part of their nose cone being in my cockpit. They eventually returned and apologised stating they went AFK for food after connecting. Was polite enough about it and no harm done.

Thanks for the advice regarding .ignore though. That had totally slipped my mind as I’ve never used it.

Just had my first VATSIM flight to KBNA.

Ya know, I thought “I’ve got nothing to do and a VATSIM account I haven’t used yet. I know how to fly this 737…I think… I’ma run a flight on network!”

As ready as I was (Partially prepared my departure with fill ins for info, had my call sign in front of me, etc), that was… uh… certainly something.

Don’t get me wrong. I absolutely loved that, but my heart is still pounding.

Between absolutely botching my departure, to lining up for landing on the wrong runway (I did eventually land decently enough on the correct runway); yeah….

Buy yo, shout out to the several controllers who were patient and got me through it. Special shout-out to Memphis Center for your patience on that landing! Y’all are awesome!

As for the future, now that I’ve got a bit of a general idea, I’m going to practice more on BAT; iron out the rough (<- understatement) areas a bit before reconnecting.

Hey everyone! I’m trying to get better at communicating with ATC, including clearance delivery, ground, tower, approach, and center. If anyone has any tips, websites, videos, guides, or other resources that helped you learn proper ATC communication, I’d really appreciate it! I’m just looking to learn and improve, so any friendly advice is welcome. Thanks!

i already have the a320 and wanna know if its worth the extra 30 gbp to get the a319 and a321 are they really that different or are they just stretched and shrunk a320s

I've done many flights in the last few weeks around Europe. UNICOM is either "OOC xx minutes" spam or absolute silence. Zero communication, zero care, zero attention, constant conflicts on arrivals and departures. Where are the BASIC standards??? Downvote all you want, but it;s fact.

Hi. Just a short question. Would it be ok to fly together with a friend as formation? But in such a way that I'm the lead aircraft and doing the radio com with atc and he just follows me? Want to give him a look and feel into flying with VATSIM without him having to learn the lingo first. Shared cockpit is for me a too big of a hassle to setup. ;)

Rant/Slice of Life Post

My time on the VATSIM network has slowed drastically since my daughter was born but I still enjoy taking refuge in my office, opening the five or six applications needed to sim, and larping as a pilot for 1-2 hours at a time. I’m a norrowbody bro since life likes to intervene and I find that the shorter hops work with my schedule a lot better as I’m sure many of you do.

Since my time is limited-I ONLY seek out routes offering coverage on the network or at least at the destination as I find the arrival and approach is really where the money is made from an immersion perspective. I even had Claude vibe-code a web app that shows a US map with B, C, and D airports with a layer showing VATSIM coverage. This same web app uses a database (albeit, an outdated one) of IRL routes and their corresponding aircraft types so I can more accurately source a route and make sure it has ATC. But I digress…

I hopped into SFO last night for a boring cruise down to SNA in the B738 (my beloved-tray tables are for wussies /s). Immediately upon entering the fold-boy howdy was the dingus patrol out in full force. I’ll now provide a brief, hopefully numerous recap of the night’s events.

1. I loaded into the Bravo gates and began my setup. ACARS tells me to call for push so I do but I’m told a Lufthansa A340 is about to push and to wait for him (?). Why he’s at the Bravo gates off of Yankee-the world will never know. He can’t get stuff to work, “there’s a bug!” he pleads. And I’m just sitting at my computer twiddling my thumbs wondering if I’ll get to fly. The baby monitor next to me shows my daughter slumbering away and I’m praying it stays that way for the next hour so I can get this done. Ultimately-he disconnects with his four hair dryer engines tucked between his legs.

2. Finally-I get to leave. Taxi is uneventful but people have forgotten how a simplex (duplex?) radio system works. The stepping-on is diabolical. I can hear the controller banging his head against his monitor as every other call requires a repeat since someone steps on someone else. Even better-someone joins the frequency and doesn’t wait a beat before asking for something causing a disorganized train of calls and responses to make sure everyone is attended to on both sides of the controller-pilot relationship. Finally-it’s my turn to go.

3. Airborne-I’m handed off to departure. I switch frequencies and begin to listen in on one of the most bizarre exchanges I’ve heard in recent memory. Nor Cal is telling an Air Canada flight to go direct DEDHD (?) and the gentlemen flying gives the read back as “direct Dead Hotel Delta”. The controller’s interest is piqued-“direct Dead Head-why are you saying it like that?” The pylote tells him, shakily, that “he doesn’t want to say that word” and repeats his nonstandard read back featuring NATO’s finest. I’m almost positive everyone listening to this had the same scrunched up look on their face that I did. The controller tells him to chill, that it’s a band local to the area and the kid says “ok haha” with a nervous trill.

Anyways-the rest of the flight was uneventful. Managed to plant it into SNA with one of my better landings and vacated promptly. Good times.

VATSIM never fails to disappoint. I’ve recently crossed 1000 hours on the network and feel like my knowledge and skills have grown quite a bit.

My FAA medical is going to be quite the uphill battle (ADHD diagnosis and such) so it’ll be the virtual skies for me for a while.

Keep the blue side up gang-smooth skies and tailwinds.

Tl;dr VATSIM is a wondrous place full of interesting characters.

Hello,

Spent a few hours on VATSIM, and I always fly helicopters. But there's one thing I'm still trying to find, is there a way to be shown with an heli icon instead of the standard plane everyone has on VATSIM RADAR ?

Setting a flight plan with the correct type code doesn't change a thing or is it just me?

Thanks

You may not hear this a lot but when Oakland center and LA center are up. I love it!! I can fly in areas I'm familiar with IRL and area I grew up in.

Norcal approach/Departure and Socal Approach/Depature. Thanks for great vectoring.

Sincerely, California native.

/end my blog

I wish we had more Oakland center more often

I'm sure I'm not the first person to ask this, and I'm sure I won't be the last.

Also, if you got a job in atc, do you think vatsim helped you with getting it/going through the training? Because in my eyes, it helps with developing good spacial awareness, and quick thinking.

I’ve noticed that some VATUSA ARTCCs don’t seem to have a concise pilot briefing available. I usually fly in Europe, where most vACCs provide a dedicated pilot briefing on their website, which is easy to find, and usually around ten pages, so it only takes a few minutes to understand the local procedures.

However, when I try to fly to the U.S, I often can’t find anything similar. Instead, the documents available are 200 pages SOPs. I completely understand the goal of realism, but those documents are far too difficult and complicated to understand for a visiting pilot from Europe like me. I can't remember everything and it makes me worried that I’ll miss something important or do something wrong, that's why I really want to do transatlantic flights but still afraid to do so.

Is there an easily accessible pilot briefing for VATUSA ARTCCs which is not too lengthy. I just hope all the important information can be kept together in one place, so I don’t have to look for each item separately. Any assistance is appreciated.

about to take the s1 exam, any tips for the exam and for the mentor training like what they will go over ect.