20 replies to this topic

[niteye]

I'm European so I fly in the evenings in Europe. When I'm online there's most traffic there. Yet there's still a few countries without ATC. On a typical route I fly in and out of controlled areas as the area a single controller occupies is quite small, so you need many to fill all the small European countries.

So now it's night, I decide to check out vatspy. As expected Europe is almost entirely asleep, but what gives? Half of the entire USA is there, I could be flying 2000nm trips entirely under Center control if I was American, or living during the night. It will probably get even better later.

I think during stale moments, controllers could be allowed to occupy more than a single FIR or something to increase controlled airspace when not many people are online and not much traffic is flying? Montreal Center is an area almost as large as Europe's landmass.

Edited by niteye, 02 January 2010 - 07:46 PM.

[clum]

Ye agreed. I think any of the european controllers who are trained to a center or even approach level should be allowed to jump on a eurocontrol position whenever it's not too busy.

[Grizzle]

clum, on Jan 2 2010, 07:55 PM, said:

Ye agreed. I think any of the european controllers who are trained to a center or even approach level should be allowed to jump on a eurocontrol position whenever it's not too busy.

First of all:

Eurocontrol is a stand-alone facility with a Chief and everything. Student 3s (Approach Controllers) aren't allowed to staff any CTR position without an Instructor present, let alone Eurocontrol. If they were to allow ANY center controller to staff the position, the quality of the ATC would severely suffer and the whole point would be defeated.

People complain about the ATC presence in Europe but the only countries I see with staffing issues are MAYBE France and Russia. Have you seen England on a Friday or Saturday night at 7 PM GMT? The country is nearly black on VATSPY due to the traffic density, and nearly every class C or D airport is fully staffed. Germany is probably the second most active country. Portugal is very busy and has won a few Iron Mics in the past few weeks. Austria, Switzerland, Turkey, Italy, and Greece are in pretty good shape as well.

It's also worth mentioning that Europe and the US are not the only places on the network where you can fly. We down here in the Caribbean are staffed VERY often (I controlled 200 hours last month, where the were you?) and Asia is getting their act together as well. Australia is also quite busy.

Don't wait for the ATC to come to you - go out and find it!

[niteye]

The thing is that I'm European so I live in European hours. The times that I can fly on VATSIM are in the evening (local time) and is when Europe is the busiest. When I'm online, Australian controllers are asleep and American ones are at work. I only see controllers in Australia etc. when I pop in on Vatspy during work or in the middle of the night.

I'm aware tower, app, etc. controllers can't staff centers. But perhaps centers could staff several centers at once. Eurocontrol areas are big enough I think, but centers aren't. But yes indeed UK and Germany are enourmously busy compared to the rest of Europe.

On a side note: in FSInn how do I set the voice capabilities (like in squawkbox there's voice, voice receive only and text only) and the 'heavy' toggle?

[Grizzle]

niteye, on Jan 10 2010, 07:17 AM, said:

The thing is that I'm European so I live in European hours. The times that I can fly on VATSIM are in the evening (local time) and is when Europe is the busiest. When I'm online, Australian controllers are asleep and American ones are at work. I only see controllers in Australia etc. when I pop in on Vatspy during work or in the middle of the night.

I'm aware tower, app, etc. controllers can't staff centers. But perhaps centers could staff several centers at once. Eurocontrol areas are big enough I think, but centers aren't. But yes indeed UK and Germany are enourmously busy compared to the rest of Europe.

On a side note: in FSInn how do I set the voice capabilities (like in squawkbox there's voice, voice receive only and text only) and the 'heavy' toggle?

I'm not sure how to enable voice in FSInn (there's no reason to use it now that SB is FSX compatible).

As far as 'heavy', we as controllers will know that you are a heavy based on your aircraft type. For example, if you Fly into my airspace as a B763/Q I will edit your Flightplan to show you as a H/B763/Q and an 'H' will show up in your data block.


Gray

[Mohammad]

I'm sorry you're jealous of the Americans.

[trisager]

Grizzle, on Jan 4 2010, 12:20 AM, said:

Don't wait for the ATC to come to you - go out and find it!

That's the key statement. Find out where the controllers are *before* you plan your flight.

If you want to fly somewhere that isn't staffed on VATSIM, IVAO is another option. The FSInn and IVAP clients will coexist on your computer with no problems (use one or the other, though, I'm not sure what happens if you try to connect to both networks at the same time  )

Tom

[niteye]

Is there a program I can use to see which areas are staffed on IVAO, like Vatspy for VATSIM?

I tried ServInfo but I can't get it to work with IVAO. VATSIM works fine, but when I try to load IVAO it says the data is nearly 800 hours outdated and doesn't show anything.

Edited by niteye, 12 January 2010 - 06:10 PM.

[roboa]

IVAO uses a program called IVAE (The eye). You can download from http://www.ivao.aero/softdev/.

[Nidhal]

Few days ago we had almost 1800 member online on IVAO and you could cross all the European continent under ATC!

[VFR_Pierre]

Nidhal, on Jan 17 2010, 01:41 PM, said:

Few days ago we had almost 1800 member online on IVAO and you could cross all the European continent under ATC!

That's an average day on VATSIM.

[roboa]

^Not the European continent bit unless Eurocontrol is on. Without Eurocontrol being online, I've never had full ATC across Europe.

[Nidhal]

roboa, on Jan 18 2010, 12:22 AM, said:

^Not the European continent bit unless Eurocontrol is on. Without Eurocontrol being online, I've never had full ATC across Europe.

It actually was IVAO crowded sky event!

[roboa]

Was answering in regards to Pierre's post mate so therefore Vatsim

[THBatMan8]

niteye, on Jan 10 2010, 07:17 AM, said:

The thing is that I'm European so I live in European hours. The times that I can fly on VATSIM are in the evening (local time) and is when Europe is the busiest. When I'm online, Australian controllers are asleep and American ones are at work. I only see controllers in Australia etc. when I pop in on Vatspy during work or in the middle of the night.

The same applies to me, so I improvise. You don't have to solely fly in Europe, as I don't solely fly in the US. Actually with my VA, I spend more time in the Middle East and Asia than any other part of the world.

[_NW_]

I think you need to go to the shrink..  most people hate Americans...

[niteye]

NWilkinson, on Jan 21 2010, 09:05 PM, said:

I think you need to go to the shrink..  most people hate Americans...

[VFR_Pierre]

roboa, on Jan 17 2010, 04:22 PM, said:

^Not the European continent bit unless Eurocontrol is on. Without Eurocontrol being online, I've never had full ATC across Europe.

Today, right now:

[roboa]

Fair do's but less than an hour later and its a lot less busy.

[VFR_Pierre]

roboa, on Jan 22 2010, 05:18 PM, said:

Fair do's but less than an hour later and its a lot less busy.

Holy crap, you're right.