Weekly Domestic Journey?

[Guest John Kangles]

What are the chances of BVA being able to have a weekly DJ instead of a Regional Circuit or myabe even both?

 

What do people think of this?

[Guest Brandon Carter]

Or perhaps alternating the R.C. and D.J. each week?

[Evan Reiter]

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).

[Guest John Kangles]

Ah ok. I only ask because haveing a DJ in my mind sounds a lot better, from a pilots POV. You can at least climb up past FL180 fly an actualy approach etc...

 

Would having a BVA poll be ok?

 

1. DJ and RC in a week

2. DJ once a week

3. Keep It as is ( 1 RC a week )

 

i donno just a thought :D

[Guest Kevin Wojtanek]

Well there is one way I was thinking we could do a DJ and have controllers do both departures and arrivals. Lets say we do KBOS-KRDU which should take around 1hr 15mins| and we start the event at 7pm ET, we fully staff KBOS and have boston center and NY center online, close KBOS to landings(to allow max # of departures) and allow for fully staffed KBOS departures for 45 mins, after the 45mins all KBOS controllers switch to there positions at KRDU, and once the last plane is leaving BOS center airspace they switch to DC center and do the same with NY center but switch to center covering RDU if it's not DC center. Just a thought let me know what you think.

[Devon Hathaway]

Your idea sounds good now but from a controllers perspective that won't work because the amount of time it will take will depend on how many planes, everything going smooth, everyone being on time. Heck even a super strong tail wind down to DC would screw up the process. Now if it was a longer flight then yeah I can see it working if we staff 2 center controllers as an ICSH kind of deal, but IMHO I don't think it would work out in-game, just too many variables.

[Erik VanderWerf]

Well what happened to the Hyper Tension Convention? That sounds like something similar.

[Guest Kevin Wojtanek]

Well with my idea if a pilot shows up late then they don't get any ATC service. And if you absolutely wanted to get the max number of flights out you can at KBOS if the wind is from the NE you can use 4L, 4R, and 9 for takeoffs allowing about three planes to take off every minute. But that's just my thought from the pilot point of view.

[Guest Brandon Carter]

Well with my idea if a pilot shows up late then they don't get any ATC service. And if you absolutely wanted to get the max number of flights out you can at KBOS if the wind is from the NE you can use 4L, 4R, and 9 for takeoffs allowing about three planes to take off every minute. But that's just my thought from the pilot point of view.

 

It would also encourage that everybody departs within a certain time window, maybe 20-30 minutes.

 

This would make for a lot of traffic arriving at the same time, which is always fun for both pilots and controllers.

[Devon Hathaway]

true true...we might could give it a shot...if anything it would be a good test to see how it goes! :D i'm down.

[Erik VanderWerf]

And then poeople might get sent into holding patterns. That would be fun.

 

*If it works, what would we call it?

[Guest Brandon Carter]

And then poeople might get sent into holding patterns. That would be fun.

 

I agree. It would be more realistic, as well.

[Guest Kevin Wojtanek]

Another thing to do to free up coms and make it easier on controllers is have everyone use only 2 different flightplans 1 for heavies the other for non heavies so there is no need for a clearance controller, so just when ground clears you for the taxi they can say something like " AAL700/H taxi to runway 4R via B, squawk 4536" or something like that. Just so theres not 25 people trying to get clearance all at once and you have to wait 20mins just to get your flight plan submitted.

[Guest Robert Williams]

And then poeople might get sent into holding patterns. That would be fun.

I agree. It would be more realistic, as well.

Well, "we don't hold anyone" in the U.S. for traffic saturation anymore, except for really exceptional situations, because it backs everything way up and exponentially increases controller workload. Our computers predict sector saturation and send delay times or increased spacing back a few hundred miles to other sectors if a particular sector is going "red." And the computers add departure delays to nearby departures so they get delayed on the tarmac instead of burning fuel.

 

For more interesting ATC in the events I think they should have three airports in a "triangle" instead of just two, like maybe MKE, ORD and DTW. Everybody going one way isn't really challenging for ATC, but having to merge two arrival streams from different directions with two departure streams could be. And it would pretty much take the same ATC staffing level if there was just local and ground at each of the three instead of local, ground and clearance.

[Evan Reiter]

For more interesting ATC in the events I think they should have three airports in a "triangle" instead of just two, like maybe MKE, ORD and DTW.

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.

[Guest Robert Williams]

I think just make it part of the regular Tuesday event... there's already a lot of other event types to remember, I think!

[Evan Reiter]

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

[Guest chuck]

yes, possibly have an approach/departure controller stationed at a 3rd medium distance airport on regional circuit night. Good thought. Personally - of course depending on controller availability - I would love to see a medium distance airport staffed with an approach controller more frequently. Even on non-event nights - ie. Chicago or DC or something. Every so often I see Toronto staffed on an ad lib basis. More of something like that?

[Guest John Kangles]

Tri City Circuit?

[Guest Bob Moore]

We have done 3 airport events. They can be very successful. The whole thing depends on participation. Participation depends on frequency and promotion. If we get on average, a constant 25-30 pilots flying for 2 hours between 2 airports the traffic , congestion and busy communications( my barometers for a successful event) make it a decent to good event. Now Bump that up to 30-40 pilots between two airports and your getting a good- to great event. Adding a 3rd airport dilutes the Congestion,Traffic and communication on frequency, unless the pilot participation increases by 33% or more.

 

All ATC enjoy Congestion,Traffic and busy ATC communication. Without a certain level of those 3 things they have no other stimulation to be in sessions or events.

Most pilots also enjoy in varying degrees, the Congestion,Traffic and busy ATC communication. But without those three things Pilots still have a plethora of other things to keep them stimulated. So the variety, type and style of events that can engage pilots are numerous but can leave our ATC dying on the vine. Some events are slanted more to pilots ( D.J.) some maybe more towards ATC. But always try to keep a balance.

 

 

I have an event planned, with some unique promotional idea's, That puts 62+ pilots in action along with 13 ATC staffed positions between two airports. The participants in the event would definately experience Congestion,Heavy Traffic and Busy ATC comm's. That would equal a Great to Awesome rating based on the level of TRAFFIC-CONGESTION-BUSY ATC COMM's. we all would experience.

 

-Loc

[Erik VanderWerf]

Well I'm serious, what happened to the Hyper-Tension-Convention?

[Evan Reiter]

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.

 

Well I'm serious, what happened to the Hyper-Tension-Convention?

For a number of reasons, including technical, we've postponed the HTC for a little while. Think summer.

[Guest Steven Marshall]

What about a racing event(at least I haven't seen anything on it with BVATC)? I know this space is for standard pilot mannersims. I am Private, Instrument and soon to be Comm rated and totally enjoy BVATC 110% just the way it is. But just to spice things up, especially since I cannot stand any other multiplayer site because of the chaos....I was thinking P51/Reno race or something like that. Any thoughts on a racing event?

[Devon Hathaway]

What about a racing event(at least I haven't seen anything on it with BVATC)? I know this space is for standard pilot mannersims. I am Private, Instrument and soon to be Comm rated and totally enjoy BVATC 110% just the way it is. But just to spice things up, especially since I cannot stand any other multiplayer site because of the chaos....I was thinking P51/Reno race or something like that. Any thoughts on a racing event?

 

post it up in the events section and we'll see if we can get things going! sounds like a good iea.

[Guest Steven Marshall]

And a hopeful plan/goal for us would be to generate a good portion of the BVATC annual budget. Suppose the fee to enter was $10, we could expect maybe 50-100 people to enter. That obviously brings $500-$1000 and the prizes could be something like $300 for 1st, $150 for second and $75 for third. Including paypal fees that a cost of about $525. So two events per year could contribute hopefully about a grand per year to the annual BVATC budget.