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?