Evan Reiter

Thanks for your feedback! One of the issues with Texas's airspace is that it's covered by two center controllers: Houston Center (which covers KIAH, KSAT, KAUS, and those other two you mentioned at the end in the southern portion of the state) and Fort Worth Center, which covers airports like KDFW and KDAL. While I know those are major airports, KDFW is ridiculously out of date in FSX. It's missing several terminals, and the runway layout was poorly done. One of the things the scenery design team cannot (yet) handle is custom terminals, so I wanted to avoid DFW as much as possible during the Getaway. However, KCRP and KGLS are both within Houston Center and will be controlled by that Center controller during the Getaway. Just like any BVA event, you can always fly to other airports. We pick only a few featured airports because it's a pain to create routes between several other airports and we have limited ATC resources. I do hope to see some traffic into and out of many of the other more interesting airports within Houston ARTCC during the Getaway, and I understand some Cape Air Virtual routes have been set up to other (non-preferred) airports in the Getaway in order to allow those pilots to do just that. Hope that helps! Let me know what you think about that. The best possible configuration would be to get a Houston Center and Fort Worth Center going at the same time during the getaway| then we'd be able to get KDFW opened at least once.

I should have mentioned... the airports probably need to be in the United States or Canada. We'll have to archive this one for the European Tour this summer... I mean, the undisclosed event that might be coming later this year.

If you have any suggestions or requests for upcoming Regional Circuit events, please post them here. Regional Circuit airports should be roughly 60-150nm apart. Please provide the ICAO codes of the citypair as well as the (approximate) distance between the airports. Routes are not required. I can't promise that every request will make it into our lineup, but I will try to include as many as I can.

Research? I'm Canadian too... and polar bears inhabit northern Manitoba, especially north of (and even in) Churchill.

We've been to the SoCal area quite frequently -- we just did a getaway in that area, featuring KLAX, KSAN, and KLAS. KSFO requires a second center controller, and is a little bit far to be part of a Getaway event, but we have done Dj events between the two. Too many polar bears.

It looks like we might test out the first of our tri-city circuits on the Tuesday after the Getaway, probably featuring some combination of KATL, KAGS, KMCN, and/or KCGS. For a number of reasons, including technical, we've postponed the HTC for a little while. Think summer.

So just a Regional Circuit but with the odd third airport thrown in?

We're going to the Caribbean in two days... is that not "south" enough for ya? Do you have any ideas for a specific set of featured airports (I don't know the area well enough from memory to know whether the samples you provided would fit the criteria). Ideally, we'd want to feature 3-4 airports that are roughly 80-130 miles apart, without any major airports to be left unstaffed in the distance between them.

We've tended to find that, when three airports are staffed, one airport (and the controllers staffing it) tends to be left out. However, given the number of people that have made this suggestion, I think it's a very good one, and is probably one we can implement. Let's think of a good name for it, and we can add it to the rotating roster of Dj, Pp, and Fi events. I think we have a better shot at putting together a successful, interesting, and realistic event this way.

The Regional Circuit events seem to be much more popular for both pilots and controllers... I'm not really sure why. One of the problems with the Dj is that the length can make controlling a little bit boring. You can wait quite a bit of time between arrivals, and everyone is doing the same thing (so you are only dealing with departures and not arrivals).

The Regional Circuit events have been: KGEG & KMSO, CYVR & KSEA, and KSEA & KGEG (this week). Someone requested KSEA & KGEG, KSEA & CYVR was in honour of the Olympics in Vancouver. The documentation on the website has reflected each of these airports accordingly.

I only have the one, from KLAS, as it's just starting to get busy...

Any charts that you need would be available from a number of resources, including www.airnav.com and www.myairplane.com.

Good idea... I think some international destinations would be a nice change. However, as we've discussed before, flying to different countries, even neighbouring countries like Canada, can cause some difficulties. For starters, charts for these countries are rarely available online, and when they are, they're out-dated (try to find a Canadian airport on AirNav or myairplane.com... unfortunately, it won't work). Even worse, there's no SkyVector.com for Canada, meaning we don't have access to low- and high-altitude en-route charts or sectional charts. Then you come down to the question of ATC. Different airports and airspaces require different procedures and (maybe) different phraseology... and learning all that takes hours! Even when we move around the country, our controllers will often take some time to get used to a new airspace (I know I had to do some quick research when I set up for Salt Lake City Approach last night (with the mountains nearby), and that was still in the United States!) While we would like to think about going international, it's not something we could do on a rapidly-changing basis. Our controllers are able to do the job they do because they are familiar with the airspace. If you take me out of ZBW, I'll need at least 4-5 days to prepare, and if the location is away from the continent, then I'll be in a lot of trouble. I do think that we need to begin exploring other parts of the world we live in slowly, and that's why, coming in 2010, we're going to have a major European focus featuring a getaway and several events... stay tuned!

Or just a discussion during our next ATC meeting.

It *might* be in the works... not for several months though. Getting together all those routes and charts won't be easy!

Keep in mind as well that Glacier Park International (KGPI) recently changed its airport code, which means that the airport in FSX will have the wrong code. The scenery update team was thinking about correcting this, but we were worried that might cause some confusion so... If you're looking for Glacier Park International on AirNav (or FlightAware, or anywhere else online), you'll need to use the KGPI code. However, in FS (the airport selection page and the GPS), you'll need to use KFCA, which is the old code.

It will be added in the next update to the homepage. Bill is busy enough working on several projects (including FlightDesk), and I know he'd rather be spending his time trying to improve the program as a whole rather than spending time making minor adjustments. For this reason, we have a long list of about 70 minor requests for FlightDesk that haven't been implemented so we can work on bigger, more meaningful projects. I don't have any access to the "File Flight Plan" page (I do have access to my homepage, which is accessible through the browser), so if you did want a link added, we'd have to go through Bill. I think we have the links to the "Event Scenery" in enough places and, as I've said before, I don't think we're looking at an issue of people not knowing how to access the information. If you have a link to the Wikipedia article about toads in 500 places on the website, it's not likely you'll see a lot of people clicking on it unless there's some motivation or reason for them to want to. I also think that, since we don't have any other links or BVA content on the "File Flight Plan" page, such a link would not be contextual, and could seem out of place.

I don't think there's room for it there. What about if I put a banner right above the link to the Logan Informer?

Due to the structure of FlightDesk's browser window and the architecture of the program (along with the fact that Bill is overworked as is!), this isn't possible. Very neat idea, though!

Both options would be good, or else just leave it as is...but would strongly recommend not releasing only a bundle. Take, for example, a Regional Circuit between KTPA & KDAB. If we released a bundled download and then went back to only one of those two airports in a subsequent circuit, people wouldn't be able to download just the KTPA update. I don't think this is possible because of the way the module on the page is set up. The only thing we could do is have a direct link to the latest update that was released (and I'm not sure that will work either, because I think those links would still take you to the respective page). The other option would be for someone (like me!) to post the downloads to a separate directory on the website and then link them directly onto the event page, which is actually not a bad idea. It just means that Dan has to e-mail me whenever an update gets released so I can make that change. I'll send him an e-mail.

"fire naming scheme"... oh, you mean file naming scheme :lol: I was close...

Fortunately, there's a very easy way to check which updates you have installed and which you don't. Just go into the associated directory (for BVA's event scenery enhancements, you're looking for: C:Program FilesMicrosoft GamesMicrosoft Flight Simulator XAddon Sceneryscenery). All of the files will be listed there, with the format BVA_xxxx_ADE.bgl (where the "xxxx" will be an airport code). If you have the airport code listed, the update is installed. In general, installing two updates will not cause FS to crash. However, if both updates have specific features (like taxiway signs), you might see some duplicate objects or visual artifacts. My understand is that this shouldn't cause any issues with FSX. Something I like to do is keep a backup of the files I regularly update (I have one general backup, and then regularly copy over my "Airplanes" folder and "Addon Scenery" folder). If something does go wrong after you've installed an update, all you need to do is restore the backup. Keeping a second copy of your "textures" folder is probably not a bad idea either.

Again, I'm still not sure how this would work. I don't have much experience listening to an FSS, but I can tell you that such a frequency would be pretty much useless for filing flight plans because of FSX's communications (imagine trying to file a flight plan from Boston to LAX over FSX's comms... unless you're really listening carefully and ready to write, it's going to be a challenge!). That leaves the idea of weather, which is already given to pilots through the ATIS. Flight planning, weather, and uncontrolled (VFR) flight plan updates are essentially the services of a Flight Service Station, and I don't know that any really apply to BVA pilots. If someone is willing to do some research and write up a SOP (standard operating procedures guide) for the Flight Services Station position, and we have a surplus of controllers (that is, we have 9 controllers for an event already), we could always open up an additional position. What you're both talking about (I think) is essentially an instructor -- someone who asks a new member whether or not s/he has the necessary tools that are necessary. But what happens if someone doesn't contact the instructor? What happens if they are TOLD they are missing scenery, but they don't get it? These resources are already available, but if people aren't willing to use them, then I don't think it will make a world of difference. That's why I like having another looping frequency--another automated reminder about something that needs to be done (but, of course, that doesn't address the root cause either). In my opinion, the best option is to bundle some Event Scenery Updates software with FlightDesk. Members download the required software and their scenery files are automatically updated: no interaction required. I'm not sure how far off this program is, though I do understand Sam (sjom13) is working on it.

By the way, we're actually going to the Rockies next Tuesday. This week is a good ol' Rc between KJFK & KBOS to give our scenery updates people a bit of a break, and to catch up on some of the events that we are looking at in the future.