How was YOUR first VATSIM flight?

General Discussion Pilot Talk
1

Hello everyone!

I recently took a leap and did my first flight on VATSIM after putting it off for a while and I found it much easier than I expected but still had some issues. (I didn’t end up on a VATSIM fails compilation I think, so thats a success for me..)

If your interested you can read it here (I know “my first VATSIM flight” posts are dime a dozen, so I won’t force you to read mine, and if you do be warned because its very long winded tbh)

My flight...

I did mine at 8 pm PST on a monday night.
My route was KPHX to KSAN (Portland to San Diego) and I used the Toliss A320 for XP12, as it had the most automation out of my fleet (except for the X-Crafts Embraer E195, which is crazy automated, but unfortunately doesn’t support holds yet but they said thats coming soon)

I generated everything on Simbrief, prefiled, and left “VERY NEW PLS BE PATIENT” in my remarks.

My callsign was AAL2122, and after spending an eternity working up the courage to speak after my initial radio check, I finally asked for clearance from Ground. I barely wrote everything down in time and then butchered the entire readback of the departure procedure, but I guess it was good enough because I was told readback correct.

Then I got my push and start, pushed back and.. immediately blocked an Alaskan flight that had just arrived and was trying to get to the gates because I had accidentally turned off the APU while engine 1 was still starting and I had to restart that. Whoops… In hindsight I probably should have called for taxi since my number 2 engine was working and I could have just taxi’d off of that.

After a bit I finally called for taxi to the active and made my way there, almost sped right over the hold short line, transferred to tower, and the nicest controller ever cleared me for takeoff and asked if they were patient enough as he told me to switch to UNICOM. (Btw, shoutout to both the ground and tower controller at PHX, you guys were super nice and I made sure to leave you positive feedback)

After I departed, I went uncontrolled for 40 minutes before entering Oakland Center’s airspace where I tuned in and was immediately surprised to the poor controller juggling all of San Fransisco’s departures, arrivals, a dude doing circuit work in the middle of the night, and an Air China pilot who’s voice comms broke and wasn’t responding to instructions. Made my way through there okay, passing some nearby traffic along the way I could see out my window and on TCAS, transferred to the equally busy LA center, and started my descent via the COMIX arrival.
(Also, if your reading this, sorry to the other American pilot also going to San Diego, believe the callsign was 316, who the controller had me overtake… I tried my best to keep it moving for you)

I descended, contacted Socal Approach, was cleared for the RNAV-Z approach to 27, and then just before the 180 turn to the localizer the controller suddenly canceled my clearance and had my fly present heading and at slowest practical speed. I was completely caught off guard and ended up just hand flying it while I set up the autopilot to fly that. In hindsight I should have practiced sudden heading and speed changes like that more…

Anyway, turns out the controller was just extending my (upwind? dont remember the exact term) and then I was cleared for the approach and lined up. The controller told me to maintain slowest practicle until waypoint TOKOE and contact Tower, but I misinterpreted that as contact tower at TOKOE, so I think I joined the frequency wayyy too late as TOKOE is only 3 miles from 27 (i think)

I then joined Tower, got clearance to land, and what I thought would be a not busy arrival ended up with 3 flights behind me in the sequence, 2 holding short waiting for me to land, and a 777 departing right infront of me just before my landing. I think all the pressure had me nervous because I performed by far the worst landing I have ever done in the A320, at -600 FPM halfway down the runway, far past the touchdown zone (my average across 13 flights was -120 FPM)

Overall I think it went okay though. Could have been a lot worse…

But here is what I want to hear: How was YOUR first flight? I am really curious to see what others experienced outside of what I have already read. What was your first route? What aircraft? What happened?

6 Likes
2

Hello,
I can’t remember my first Vatsim flight. It must have been right after my SATCO account was transferred to VATSIM :wink:
I can remember my first flightsim. It was version 3.1 on a 286 with a monochrome monitor. The sim was on a 3.5" floppy :slight_smile:

Erik

2 Likes
3

My first flight was only May 2024, i was sat on EGCC_GND for 20 minutes to scared to even get a radio check, finally built up the courage to speak and GND went off and sent everyone to unicom :joy: . Glad to say ive come far ish from there, now S2 in the queue for S3 :slightly_smiling_face:

4

My first flight was 9/18/25, SWA3355 KALB-KBWI. I did a few things wrong. I didn’t call for push and start or for tax. But i was on the CTAF saying my intentions not knowing that i had to call Boston center and request push and start and taxi. Other then that it was fun.

5

hi, haven’t done my first flight yet. started today (84006 from ESIB to ESGG) but i panicked after i had started to taxi (i forgot to ask for Taxi clearance) and i even quit after i had sat and listened to ATC for a while because i realized i’m not ready yet. i also fumbled my words when talking to ATC. social anxiety is awful.

6

Well done. I hope you have many more enjoyable flights with the online network and community. :grinning_face:

7

Hi everyone! I recently had my first flight on VATSIM.

So after passing the orientation i felt I was ready to make the jump after watching VATSIM content for years and always wanting to do it myself! However, it went FAR from planned… However i’m not going to beat myself up about it. Instead, I want this to be a learning opportunity for any first timers and myself, since I’m still very much a newbie :smiley:

So, we begin at Athens airport LGAV (I’ve had practice solo with this airport). I call for a radio check, and I get a happy 5/5 I request my clearance from ground and get told my flight plan doesn’t exist. I then realised I connected with the wrong callsign on Vpilot (I had my previous callsign still set from practising the route). So I reconnect, and I get clearance. (Readback correct is SO satisfying i understand it now.) I’m told, however, that the departure runway is DIFFERENT to the one I filed and what SimBrief selected (I had the time set right, and had the latest AIRAC cycle). So, probably very stupidly, I just go along with it. I taxi to the runway and get departure clearance.

This is where things REALLY go wrong. Since my departure runway was different, so was my SID. I had no idea of the waypoints to follow to get back to my planned route. I didn’t know the route or what SID to look up to follow. So now I was really panicking. I chose to make a right base downwind, far enough from the airport that I wouldn’t impede any traffic. The controller then tells me to head to waypoint ‘USINI’ (Where the hell is USINI?) In my panic i make a left turn towards my route on a shallower path in the hope it’s close enough. (It wasn’t) Upon another request, I finally inform the controller that I have no idea where USINI is, and I am B-Lining to my plan, however If i am causing danger to any other aircraft, I will disconnect and apologise. He says “No No No it’s okay, fly your plan, it’s okay with me :). I thank him and continue. Once reaching my cruise altitude i request handoff to Unicom and he hands me over. I thank him for the ATC, apologise for my inexperience and let him know it was my first time. He wishes me well and says, “Have fun Have fun :)” After that it all ran smoothly. I cruise over the med, over Cyprus and down into Larnaca (LCLK) and safely touch down.

There were a lot of takeaways from this. I didn’t know how to amend flight plans properly, Select Direct to waypoints on the MCDU, and most of all, i didn’t TALK, because I Let myself get scared. Communicating is the BIGGEST thing in VATSIM.

I also chose too big of an aircraft, I feel (A330-300) I bit off way more than I could chew.

To any new VATSIM-ers, Take your TIME. it’ll be okay, relax, be calm, and you’ll be okay.

(Good news is the following day I made the same flight after learning from my mistakes and made the flight entirely successfully!)

My final message: HAVE FUN! You CAN do it. You got this!