VATSIM

nathanw

New Member
I don't know why I didn't think of this, but there is a way for anyone interested to learn some phraseology by actually controlling live traffic. There is a network called VATSIM (Virtual Air Traffic Simulation network) where people with MS flight simulator connect and talk to ATC over the internet. You can either fly a plane or be one of the controllers. It's divided up by country, and in the US, by ARTCC.

Each virtual ARTCC does all the center, approach and tower controlling. I signed up with Seattle ARTCC and am currently qualified to work up to advanced tower level, which means any tower in the seattle artcc area. There's a few programs to download to control (I never even bothered installing flight sim, I only did the controller side).

I would recommend signing up with LA Center, they have the most people online and the best training system.

Anyway, It's pretty realistic, IMHO. Except you don't have a tower to look out of, but there is a pretty easy way to couple the controlling software (called VRC) to flight sim and see actual traffic both on radar and through flight sim.

VATSIM

VATUSA (US Region of VATSIM)

LA virtual ARTCC
 
I think I saw it on this forum a while ago... someone said not to use that if you want to learn properly... then if you learn how it's done there, it'll be hard to unlearn it for the real job.
 
Possibly... but the stuff I learned was all out of the .65. Depends on where you learn I guess.
 
I don't really know... just saying what I saw someone else say a couple months ago. I always thought it looked pretty cool and it would be something to keep me occupied during these long periods of waiting, but I just haven't tried it because of that.
 
Yeah, I actually did this for a couple months. A couple years ago, they had an "academy" that you could do and enter as a student 3 (S3). I did that, decided to work at Seattle and was only able to do ground until I checked out on the other stuff. I got lazy and didn't want to do it anymore so I left.

Is Nathan Sleyster (sp) still doing the training?
 
Yeah, I actually did this for a couple months. A couple years ago, they had an "academy" that you could do and enter as a student 3 (S3). I did that, decided to work at Seattle and was only able to do ground until I checked out on the other stuff. I got lazy and didn't want to do it anymore so I left.

Is Nathan Sleyster (sp) still doing the training?
Newp, not sure where he took off to. Kid named Christian is doing it now. He's ok, a little cocky.
 
so you download the software and then what?
You have to register with vatsim, install VRC, join a virtual artcc, get some initial training, then you can control traffic.

Before then, you can register and install the program and watch/listen.
 
I just started messing around being a pilot on there. I'd just fly around and have some fun around other planes. A couple times I found military squadrons doing some flying and was doing aerobatics and stuff right with them. Apparently they reported it to VATSIM so I've got a couple of warnings and suspensions on my VATSIM ID......haha, oh well.:D
 
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