Evan Reiter

We haven't had much success trying international events. For example, we recently put our European Tour event on hold because pilots didn't seem interested and the amount of work that went into planning those events wasn't worth the turnout. Take a look at: viewtopic.php?f=10&t=2198 viewtopic.php?f=10&t=2479 viewtopic.php?f=10&t=2009 Do you think that these airports and this idea would be any different? I'm not trying to shut the idea down but just to give you an idea of the success we've had going abroad. If our objective is difficult crosswinds then maybe we could use one of our bad weather events (like a Pack the Pattern) and set a difficult crosswind for pilots to content with.

Hi Everyone, The upcoming U.S. Presidential Election in November promises to be another exciting yet divisive chapter in political history. With campaigns effectively underway -- and before anyone here begins a discussion -- I wanted to remind everyone on behalf of the A-Team that our community is not an appropriate venue for public political discussion. It is impossible to segregate people from politics. However, a political discussion is by nature divisive as the intent is to separate the winning ideas from the losing ones. We believe that political discussions, with their inherent divisiveness, are healthy for society. But moderating such discussions to keep them civil, mature, and within our shared expectations is a task that our administrators do not have the time or the desire to undertake. We also do not want to ask a member of the community to be in charge of making decisions on which subjects or posts are and aren’t appropriate. BVA is a community of aviation enthusiasts built around the interactions between pilots and controllers. Through these interactions we learn about, train for, and develop our shared passion and love of flight. Discussion that is not directly related to aviation tends to not to advance this interest. It is welcome because, as social creatures, we like to interact with each other on broader issues. However, the risk of dividing rather than uniting the community makes us believe that political discussion has no place here. Rather than advance our shared interest, making political statements in this community of widely varying ages, maturities, demographics, and nationalities would be unfair. First, not everyone has the tools to respond to such arguments. Second, some members might feel uncomfortable approaching administrators or even talking to controllers if political/ideological lines divide us. Not everyone lives in the United States…so let’s pick conversation topics accessible to everyone! I mean, I’d have made this same post about the Canadian election but outside of the polar bears nobody cares. We’re posting this message to the forums because we are more than happy to discuss whether this position makes sense. Until we agree otherwise, however, the A-Team would ask members to avoid political discussion to the extent possible, and expect posts that cross the line—regardless of their subject matter—to be removed.

The issue has been resolved.

I am aware of the "content encoding error" message on our website's DNN page. I have advised our ISP and am waiting to hear back from them for support as we have made no changes to this aspect of our site.

I am able to access the website, e-mail, and forums with no problems. Additionally, the site seems to be loading much more quickly than before. Please keep an eye out for any issues with missing links and let us know how the website performace is over the next few days.

In order to complete maintenance to resolve the ongoing performance issues we have seen, our ISP has scheduled maintenance estimated to last 12-24 hours beginning at 10pm ET on Saturday, 2/25/2012. FSX and FlightDesk will not be affected by the outage. However, the website and forums will be offline for the duration of maintenance. E-mails sent to BVA accounts will be held until the maintenance is completed so you will be unable to contact us during this time. The ISP will be posting a maintenance notice on the homepage of the website for us; we will have no access to the wording or location of the message. As the ISP posts updates we will continue to notify you via our social media profiles.

The ISP posted an update last night and also conducted about 30 minutes of maintenance that involved the website being offline for a brief period. According to the post, the ISP has installed new server infrastructure and is now copying data over to the new hardware. Once that is completed, the ISP will "schedule [...] maintenance to complete the transition to the newly upgraded disk infrastructure. This is tentatively scheduled for this weekend but will be dependent upon the completion of the data replication process". I'll re-post when I see another update with the planned timing of the next maintenance outage.

Our main website has been experiencing ongoing and intermittent performance issues (i.e. slow loading at times) over the past few weeks. This has not seemed to impact the forums or other static portions of the website like the PRP and Getting Started Guide portals. There has been no impact on FSX or FlightDesk. Our ISP is aware of the issue and says the issue is "a performance problem related to disk I/O". The ISP has scheduled maintenance for next weekend to "upgrade the disk subsystem to resolve the issue". In the meantime, it's likely we will continue to see slow performance. I will post as additional information becomes available and when I find out about the exact amount of downtime we can expect on the site during the scheduled maintenance.

On the subject of Aspen, I have received a lot of great questions about the LOC/DME-E and VOR-C (GPS-C) Approaches into the airport. Pilots often ask me about the "circle to Runway 15" instruction given that most aircraft actually make straight in to the runway and don't actually do any circling over the DBL VOR or of the field. Rather than referring to a hold or an actual circle, the term "circle to land" is in reference to the fact that the approach ends in a letter. That means it's not "attached" to a runway and that you need to perform a circling manoeuver (or traffic pattern entry) in order to line up with the appropriate runway. The confusion comes because a circling manoeuver is essentially entering a traffic pattern -- and "make straight in" is a circling instruction even though you don't actually fly in a circle. Most aircraft landing at KASE will be given either vectors to final ("5 miles from JARGU, turn left heading 170 cross JARGU at or above 13,400, cleared LOC/DME-E approach, circle to Runway 15") or an approach clearance from the DBL feeder route ("cross DBL at or above 13,400, cleared LOC/DME-E approach, circle to Runway 15"). In either case, aircraft intercept and fly the approach like any other localizer approach. By about a 5-mile final, aircraft can expect to be given a pattern entry instruction from Aspen Tower that will likely be "make straight in, Runway 15, cleared to land". Thus, the entire approach is flown like a localizer approach to Runway 15 at any other airport. Before the Getaway in January we wrote a Logan Informer article on this subject. You can find the article on Page 6 of the January Logan Informer (http://www.bostonvirtualatc.com/dnn/Portals/0/Logan%20Informers/Volume4_Issue1.pdf). If you'd like additional clarification, please post your questions here. If you're looking for more information, Pilot Ratings Program Flight 9 includes circling approaches: http://bostonvirtualatc.com/prp/ifr-9.html.

The restart time has been moved to 5:30pm ET this afternoon. Please do not plan any flights immediately before the VFR Challenge. The server will then be restarted again immediately after the VFR Challenge to return to a standard configuration for those who wish to fly with real-world weather and time as we would on any other evening. Details are available on the ATC Timetable page: http://www.bostonvirtualatc.com/dnn/ATCTimetable.aspx

The server will be re-started once again to accommodate the second VFR Challenge planned for Saturday. Please do not plan any flights overnight on Friday. The server will be restarted between approximately 1-2am ET on Saturday, February 4. In order to reset back to normal weather, the server will be once again reset at approximately 1-2am ET on Sunday, February 5.

Thank you for your cooperation; the server has been set to VMC and a 2-hour time delay for the VFR Challenge. The server will be reset back to real-world weather and conditions at 1:30am ET on Monday morning.

ATTENTION ALL BVA PILOTS: Important Notice Regarding Aspen (KASE) Aspen Airport (KASE) has recently completed an expansion project that includes a 1,000' extension of the runway (used only for departing aircraft) as well an extension of Taxiway "A" and two new short taxiways on the west side of the field. These additions have been commissioned and are in use according to airport NOTAMs, photographs of the airport, personnel at Aspen Airport contacted by our Scenery Design Team, and charts from Jeppesen. However, the FAA's charting office has not yet reflected the changes in Aspen's Airport Diagram. It is important to note that the extension of Runway 15/33 is not intended for arrivals; thus, landing aircraft should still vacate Runway 15 by Taxiway "A8" and are not to use the new 1,000' extension which is for departures only. BVA's scenery update for the Colorado Getaway includes the changes to Aspen because not only are they in use in real life but they will also provide a major improvement to delays at the airport during our Regional Circuit events. Controllers will therefore be issuing instructions to use the new taxiways and runways as appropriate. Specifically, ATC instructions will include: For departing aircraft, intersection departures at "A4", "A7" or full-length at "A9" as your aircraft allows. Advise ATC when requesting taxi if you are able to accept an intersection departure. Taxiway "A8" is not available for departures. For arriving aircraft, instructions to turn off the runway at "A2", "A5", "A6", or "A8". Taxiways "A4" and "A7" are not available turnoffs. Runway 15 between "A8" and "A9" is closed for arriving aircraft so all arrivals should be clear of the runway at or before "A8". Arriving aircraft that accidentally pass taxiway "A8" can expect to use taxiways "B8" and "B9" on the west side of the field to turn around and taxi back to "A8". If the airport is busy there may be a delay accomplishing this procedure. Aircraft that do not have the Colorado Getaway Scenery Package will not see the runway extension or the new taxiways. Aircraft without the scenery must advise ATC on initial contact and can expect to depart from Taxiway "A7". These aircraft risk accidentally turning onto "A8" (which they will see as the end of the runway). Any departing aircraft that accidentally turn onto "A8" will be blocking arriving aircraft and risk causing a "nose to nose" situation. Thus, departing aircraft that accidentally turn onto Taxiway "A8" risk being ejected from the server or being asked to re-spawn. These changes are incorporated into a Photoshopped version of the Airport Diagram that BVA has created for this event. You can view this diagram (which reflects what the FAA's update for February 2 will likely look like) here: http://bostonvirtualatc.com/dnn/portals ... ASE_AD.pdf. Get an idea of what the airport looks like and be sure you are listening carefully to ATC instructions when you are moving around Aspen. Remember that the scenery update is REQUIRED and as long as you have that update -- and are following the taxiway signs to comply with ATC instructions -- then you should have no issues in and around the airport (except, of course, the tricky conditions, challenging approaches, and surrounding terrain).

ATTENTION ALL MEMBERS: FlightDesk/FSX Server Restart Planned for Sunday, January 29 Our server (FSX/FD) will be restarted at approximately 1am ET on Sunday, January 29 in order to set the server to VFR weather to accommodate the VFR challenge taking place later in the day. The servers will be restarted again at approximately 1am ET on Monday, January 30 to reset the server back to real-world weather. Please do not plan to be on the server or complete long haul flights on Saturday or Sunday evenings as you will lose your flights when the server is restarted.

In order to ensure that our General Aviation Fly-In to the Norcal area (KSQL/KHWD/KCCR/KOAK) is as successful as possible, we have postponed today's event. Additional details will be posted later when a new date is determined.

Our website will be offline for approximately 1 hour this evening, starting now, to complete database maintenance.

The forum update is complete. Please let me know if anything appears out of place.

Our forums will be offline for a brief period between the hours of 2pm and 5pm ET tomorrow (Tuesday, January 3) for scheduled maintenance. The website, FSX server, and FlightDesk will be unaffected.

The shout out should go to everyone on the A-Team, as well as the controllers that helped make this happen.

This week's Poll Question (found on our homepage) asks what you thought about our High Five (+30) event concept. While in previous years we have staffed up a large airspace for several hours at a time, we changed things up this year, staffing different airports heavily throughout the week in conjunction with regular events, and then topped off the week with 30 Hours of ATC. This concept has the advantages of spreading out traffic over the course of several days, minimizing the possibility of technical issues and giving more people the opportunity to participate. However, it also meant that we didn't see the concentration (50+ pilots) in the server that we might have were the event one day only. Please share your thoughts on the event, and how we could change it next year. If you aren't familiar with the concept of the event or didn't get to participate, you can view information on the event homepage at: http://www.bostonvirtualatc.com/dnn/HighFive.aspx.

I Can't Believe It's Almost Over! That week went by quickly! It seems much longer than 6 days ago that we kicked off our celebration with the European Tour. And as we move into the final three hours of our 30-Hour ZBW marathon, I'm trying to remember how to control Boston Center after having spent my week everywhere but! While I wasn't online to witness it, we had a busy night last night, including multiple arrivals lined up on the Light Visual Runway 33L Approach and aircraft holding short to depart on Runway 15R. Oh night ops... The ZBW marathon comes to a close in about two hours as we come full circle: Dan started the event at 6pm ET yesterday and will be wrapping things up tonight. Thanks go out to everyone that participated, pilots and controllers, in this fantastic week-long celebration. We should also thank the FSX Blue Angels for two incredible performances that helped us celebrate our fifth year. Things return back to normal (read: no more annoying e-mails from me every single day) tomorrow, and our next event features KPHX & KTUS (a request from Drmrboy29) on Tuesday. If you're around tomorrow night, I'll be on ZBW and working with a trainee on BOS_G.

Today's flyover:

Once again: give me a date.