VATSIM

Rosstafari

Rosstafari

Likes tacos
Any of you on VATSIM? I started to think that maybe I'll sign up, see if it helps me get familiar with the airspace around my facility while waiting for my Academy date. I'm sure they have a few practices that I'll need to unlearn, but on the whole, they seem to go for as much realism as possible.

Anyway... I don't know a lot about them, so I'm interested in anything y'all have to say.
 
I'm on VATSIM as a pilot. I was a tower controller way back when. It's fun and great if you don't get in the seat often. However, as I know fly 7 days a week, I haven't been on in a long time. I still tell my students, both pilot and ATC to use it. It helped tremendously during my training.
 
ProudPilot said:
I'm on VATSIM as a pilot. I was a tower controller way back when. It's fun and great if you don't get in the seat often. However, as I now fly 7 days a week, I haven't been on in a long time. I still tell my students, both pilot and ATC to use it. It helped tremendously during my training.
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Whoops, meant now instead of know.
 
Been a member with VATSIM for, going on 11 years now. Back in the days with ProController and SATCO. Helped beta test ASRC, and have slowly drifted away from the network.

Still a wonderful training ground, so long as both pilot and controller take it professionally.
 
Cool, good to hear some positive feedback. Looking forward to seeing how it'll turn out, particularly when someone either pauses or compresses time in the air. "Uhh, Cessna niner seven delta, you're moving about Mach 2. Time compression clearance revoked."
 
surreal1221 said:
Been a member with VATSIM for, going on 11 years now. Back in the days with ProController and SATCO. Helped beta test ASRC, and have slowly drifted away from the network.

Still a wonderful training ground, so long as both pilot and controller take it professionally.
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I remember the ProController days when it was all "text based" and the network was a little buggy....it's a whole different animal these days.

ATC, for the most part, take it pretty seriously these days. They try to mirror real world ops and do an okay job at it. Just make sure to fly into major cities so you get some coverage and other traffic. It's a great tool to get comfortable using voice and practice some complex deps/arrivals.
 
I fly on VATSIM fairly often. I'll do it more often now that my girlfriend got me a nice computer headset. I've only flown on VATSIM but would love to get into ATC.
 
I've been doing VATSIM as a pilot for about 6 years now. ATC for about 5 years. Slowly been spending less time and less time each year.

It's a great resource and learning tool as long as you take it seriously. I would say that it seriously helped me with my flight training and getting as far as I am today. I would definitely recommend it to anyone getting into either the pilot or ATC fields as it helps you learn good radio skills and get that down before you start training. When I started my PPL, I had already been flying on the VATSIM network for 3+ years and my radio skills were rock solid. That was one less thing that I had to learn.

It also helps if you've been doing controlling on VATSIM for developing good situational awareness as a pilot in real life situations. It helps to know what the controllers are thinking and what they have to deal with on their end.
 
nothing like learning the wrong stuff only to have to unlearn it,yea that makes training easy,vatsim is a game its not airtraffic control no matter how real they try to make it ,and trying to learn it from a bunch of wannbees is just gonna make it harder in the long run. you learn airtraffic controll working live traffic being trained by real controllers.

last thing i want is some trainee that i need to unteach bad habbets thay learned on the internet.we got a CTI at C90 that told the training manager hat he didnt need to go to the radar lab because he said that he had prior atc experiance, when asked were he worked he told him that he was a supervisor on vatsim.boy did that spread through the tracon like a wild fire and that kid took a lot of crap for a long time.

you nubees need to stop worring about training, you have the ablity to do the job or you dont and it will show quick enought.
 
queeno said:
you nubees need to stop worring about training, you have the ablity to do the job or you dont and it will show quick enought.
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Whatever. I'm pretty sure most trainers -- I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess that you're not one -- would appreciate someone making an effort to get to know their airspace before they got there... one less thing to worry about. I know spending some time listening to LiveATC helped out with my radio work when I was getting my PPL; I'm sure this'll have some benefit as well. I'm not stupid, I know it's not actual traffic; I knew someone would make that comment sooner or later and point out the obvious. Nor do I plan to go in and tell my training manager "OMG I'm fully rated on VATSIM I don't need you," that's retarded. But if it didn't have any relation to actual procedures, MITRE wouldn't be teaming up with them from time to time. You know... the guys who help design training systems and airspace.

Also, what's a nubee?
 
Rosstafari said:
Whatever. I'm pretty sure most trainers -- I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess that you're not one -- would appreciate someone making an effort to get to know their airspace before they got there... one less thing to worry about. I know spending some time listening to LiveATC helped out with my radio work when I was getting my PPL; I'm sure this'll have some benefit as well. I'm not stupid, I know it's not actual traffic; I knew someone would make that comment sooner or later and point out the obvious. Nor do I plan to go in and tell my training manager "OMG I'm fully rated on VATSIM I don't need you," that's retarded. But if it didn't have any relation to actual procedures, MITRE wouldn't be teaming up with them from time to time. You know... the guys who help design training systems and airspace.

Also, what's a nubee?
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One...nubee is a new trainee

Two...watch what you say on JC people are reading and it doesn't make a good impression if ther are people on here from the facility you ae selected for. Don't your undies in a bunch over knowing the airspace BEFORE you get there....focus on the academy airspace, you need to ace that FIRST to get to the facility. Believe me even if you get to ZSE you will have loads of time to study while you are there. Lastly pray to god you don't get Area A...they will eat you for breakfast if you go into it with that kind of attitude.
 
rherrick said:
One...nubee is a new trainee

Two...watch what you say on JC people are reading and it doesn't make a good impression if ther are people on here from the facility you ae selected for. Don't your undies in a bunch over knowing the airspace BEFORE you get there....focus on the academy airspace, you need to ace that FIRST to get to the facility. Believe me even if you get to ZSE you will have loads of time to study while you are there. Lastly pray to god you don't get Area A...they will eat you for breakfast if you go into it with that kind of attitude.
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Agree. Worry about the near rocks, not the far rocks. See the same thing on the pilot side.
 
you nubees need to worry about step one before worring about steps 4,5 and 6, learning the airspace your gonna to before you pass OKC is a silly waste of time.dont clutter you mind with info you dont need, ther will be plenty of time to study, and who cares what MITER dose with vatsim seems to me thay are getting free work out of them.
 
queeno said:
you nubees need to worry about step one before worring about steps 4,5 and 6, learning the airspace your gonna to before you pass OKC is a silly waste of time.dont clutter you mind with info you dont need, ther will be plenty of time to study, and who cares what MITER dose with vatsim seems to me thay are getting free work out of them.
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Similar thing I was talking about with pilots. You get guys who are starting, for example, day 1 of USAF pilot training, and they're doing all this homework on the, say, the F-15 Eagle. Yet, they haven't even hit the flightline or passed one test at UPT yet. They don't realize that a) the road to get to that F-15 will have many forks, some you can control but many you can't; and b) they need to worry about being able to actually get to those forks in the first place to even make it that far, much less have a choice in the matter.
 
rherrick said:
One...nubee is a new trainee
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I think that's newbie. It was meant to be a subtle jab at his "creative" spelling.

Two...watch what you say on JC people are reading and it doesn't make a good impression if ther are people on here from the facility you ae selected for.
...
...if you go into it with that kind of attitude.
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Uh. What exactly was the offensive part of my attitude, being interested in knowing airspace better? Or that "didn't make a good impression"?

Look, I get it, there are a lot of applicants here and on SM that talk endlessly without having the job, and many don't have any idea what they're going on about. At the same time, there's also the occasional controller that will get on and think that he's hot (poop)* because he's got the job and that his words should be worth their weight in gold. They're not all like that, of course, and I'm not necessarily even pointing the finger at queeno... but I'm not going to fawn all over someone if he can't talk without being a tool. A jerk who's a controller is still a jerk, after all.

Know how you don't like it when your FLM is condescending? Yeah, neither do the rest of us, in any context. If my trainer wants to do it, they'll have that right, I suppose, but if I'm asking a honest question here on my leisure time and someone gives me a snotty answer "because I'm a controller and you're not"... yeah, not interested. I wouldn't presume to give a smartass answer if someone were to ask me a question about something I was knowledgeable about.

Now, when someone offers some useful advice in a respectful manner, that I appreciate. For example:

Don't your undies in a bunch over knowing the airspace BEFORE you get there....focus on the academy airspace, you need to ace that FIRST to get to the facility. Believe me even if you get to ZSE you will have loads of time to study while you are there.
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...is helpful. Thanks. Good to know. But when I get something back like "nubee its not real youll learn it wrong theyre wannabes", when it's pretty clear that the guy doesn't really know much about what's even involved on VATSIM's end... yeah, I don't respect that. No matter what your job title is.

Lastly... I don't ever post up anything that I wouldn't want my family, my employer, my coworkers or anyone else to see. If, for some reason, a future coworker or trainer was put off that I didn't grovel at the feet of some random guy on the internet, I'm really not too worried about that. I'm man enough to deal with a vindictive trainer, if that's their game. But I appreciate the reminder.

*Censored with love for MikeD. :D
 
queeno said:
nothing like learning the wrong stuff only to have to unlearn it,yea that makes training easy,vatsim is a game its not airtraffic control no matter how real they try to make it ,and trying to learn it from a bunch of wannbees is just gonna make it harder in the long run. you learn airtraffic controll working live traffic being trained by real controllers.

last thing i want is some trainee that i need to unteach bad habbets thay learned on the internet.we got a CTI at C90 that told the training manager hat he didnt need to go to the radar lab because he said that he had prior atc experiance, when asked were he worked he told him that he was a supervisor on vatsim.boy did that spread through the tracon like a wild fire and that kid took a lot of crap for a long time.

you nubees need to stop worring about training, you have the ablity to do the job or you dont and it will show quick enought.
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I bet I know who that was...
 
I would just hate to see guys get caught up in down-the-road stuff, that they trip-up on the here-and-now stuff they'll need to know. Not saying this would definitely happen, but just something to keep in the back of the mind for the new-hire types....and that would go for anyone...ATC, pilots, etc. Things like ATC school, some pilot/job chances, etc are one shot deals. Don't work too far ahead and potenitally detriment yourself.....things will come in their due time. Again, just something to file away and be aware of.
 
VATSIM is terrible if you are trying to learn your job. It is full of a ton of wrong procedures that will confuse you when you're going through your real training and the phraseology people use is HORRIBLE. A video game won't prepare you, your OJT training at your facility will. They will teach you things you need to know and give you the REAL material.
 
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