Welcome Aboard!

[Evan Reiter]

Welcome to our new website and forums! As you've been reading about over the past few months, this launch represents the culmination of hours, days, and weeks of effort by our webmaster Szymon Puzdrowski. Szymon has been working tirelessly, mostly on aspects of the site we as members will never see, but we will take advantage of on an almost daily basis. To do this, he has moved his computer from home to the office, and avoided controlling on the network to get everything done. I hope you will join me in offering thanks to Szymon, and the others on the Administration Team, who have made this new site possible! 

 

Please take a few moments to look around and orient yourself to the new site. As of this launch, there are now four main components of the website, all of which are tied together through VATSIM's Single Sign On:

1. The landing page, accessible from www.bvartcc.com. This page is designed for non-member pilots looking for information about our community, and for prospective members who want to join.
2. The main website and forums, where you are now. Before, our website and forums were two separate systems, with separate logins and databases. Now, you're able to access the forums alongside information from the website like events, the ATC Timetable, Pilot Ratings Program flights, downloads, and more -- all in one place. The new technology we have will enable future integrations with Discord and TeamSpeak, too.
3. Project Lindbergh, a new system that streamlines air traffic control training. Controllers will be able to request training, view progress, and submit test corrections all through the new system. Controllers should check their email for more information about this component of the website. 
4. FlyBVA, where you can find a live map showing flights across the ARTCC, charts, and more. 

Beginning today, you'll be able to login to all four of these systems using your VATSIM credentials: the same information you use to login to the VATSIM network or website. Once you have been authenticated through VATSIM's Single Sign On, you'll have full access to the website if you are a BVA member. You will no longer need a BVA Username or unique/BVA password for access. (Please note: we have migrated user accounts from our old forums. If you didn't have a forum account, or you haven't logged into our old forums within the past year, you'll need to reclaim your account. Information on how to do this is available when you click the "Sign In" button.) 

 

Using newer technology has also allowed us to transition our website and forums off the ISP that has been providing hosting services for many years. This will result in much less website and forum downtime than we have had in the past. 

 

As you can imagine, converting the many existing forum posts, users, and website content was a large undertaking. We know there will be some bugs that need fixing, a few items we still need to clean up over the next couple of days. The current list of known issues includes: 

1. We are still in the process of transitioning information and sign-ups for events (like the Regional Circuit) to the new website. This will be available in the coming days.
2. The Pilot Timetable was not something we could convert directly to the new system. In our recent review of underused aspects of the community, it was identified that the Pilot Timetable receives very little usage from our existing members. (By comparison, the ATC Timetable, which has been migrated, is used almost daily.) As a result, we have elected not to convert the Pilot Timetable at this time. We encourage members to use Discord and TeamSpeak to coordinate group flights. We're happy to look at the addition of a Pilot Timetable again if members identify this as a feature they would like to see restored.
3. Controllers are currently not able to submit Pilot Safety Reports. These will be added to the Lindbergh portion of the website in the coming days.
4. The Notification Setting "send me news and information" does not actually do anything, nor will unchecking it unsubscribe you from the community. We are working on removing this setting.

We will update this list as additional issues are identified. 

 

Because of the change in domains, we expect there to be several URLs and links that are no longer pointing to the correct place...and we're hoping you can help find them! As a thank you, the member who finds the most broken URLs on our website will win a prize of their choice from the Boston Tea Party prizes (these include items from Aerosoft, HiFi, Orbx, QualityWings, RealityXP, REX Simulations, and Thrustmaster). Please see this post for more information.

 

In addition, we recommend you take a moment to edit your profile and (if you wish) include a cover and avatar photo. You can view this information by hovering over your name in the top right corner of the forums, and choosing the "Profile" link. You can also check your "Account Settings" (accessible from the same menu) to set your signature and choose notification and other preferences.

 

We look forward to your feedback on the new website! This site is much more adaptable to changes than we have had in the past. Issues, changes, things you like -- please, post here so we can continue to build a website and forum system that will serve the community for years to come. 

[Gilles Lagace]

"THANK YOU SO MUCH" to all and everyone that participated in the growth of BVARTCC. I join special thanks to Szymon and the creators of "the new way" that allows us to continue enjoying Flight Simulation and Air Traffic Control, together !!!

[Peter Alberti]

I'm honestly just completely amazed at how professional, organized and supportive BVARTCC is. The new website looks fantastic and the resources - particularly the team - are tremendous. As someone who's very new to the sim environment, I can't put into words how grateful I am for this community. I hope to give back as much as possible over time. Thanks for all you do!

[Matthew Walker]

Looking great!!! FlyBVA looks STUNNING. 

[Evan Reiter]

Thank you to the many members who have taken the time to email, Discord, or provide feedback to us via voice in TeamSpeak. We are excited to finally have a website platform that we have control over. 

 

Over the next 1-2 weeks, we will be implementing several bug fixes and minor changes to improve functionality based on your feedback. Stay tuned on this thread and here on our forums where we'll provide more information.