Today I had my first controlled flight on Vatsim. I actually flew for the first time on Vatsim yesterday, but there were no controllers on at my departure, route and destination. so I used that as an opportunity to listen to other pilots on UNICOM during my journey.
Today (Fri 24 Jan) I logged in at EGSS with a planned departure of 1100 to the Isle of Man. This was my first Vatsim flight where there were controllers present. At EGSS I had GROUND and then it was straight over to London Control and finally UNICOM for the remainder of my journey.
I was very nervous when I had to make me first call to EGSS Ground for IFR clearance - took me about five minutes to actually PTT and say something. I had done a lot of pre-study including watching hours of YouTube, using BeyondATC and listening in as an observer. All this really paid off when I came to make my first controlled flight.
I just wanted to give a shout out to the controller at EGSS (online at 1100 Fri 24 Jan) and to the London Controller. Despite being busy they both were patient with me and spoke clearly and slowly (I had put in the FP remarks that I was new to Vatsim). The EGSS controller was really good and very helpful when I had to ask a “dumb question”. He gave me the exact information I needed.
The London Controller was so busy with so many aircraft to deal with, yet he did not seem one bit annoyed with me when I asked him to repeat something.
Both of these controllers were so professional and both really gave me a huge confidence boost when speaking to them. I am not sure if they are here, but if so - thank you both very much!
Today I flew my third controlled Vatsim flight, and my first landing at a large controlled airport (ESSA).
All went well except for at the final part when I taxied to the incorrect gate. The controller (Sweden Control) contacted me and informed me that I had parked at the wrong gate. I apologised and told him I would correct my error. But then I decided rather than wasting his time I disconnected and shut my aircraft down before logging out of FS24.
I feel a little bad for doing that as my disconnection may have come across as a bit rude.
If the Sweden controller (I arrived at ESSA at about 1300Z) is reading this. Please accept my apologies, but also please accept my thanks for being so patient with me when I made errors in my readbacks.
A warm welcome from a beginner too in that community!
I am still a beginner because of unfortunately very few time to fly online and allthough I already had some more VATSIM controlled flights in the German area I still feel very nervous to make mistakes or not to understand or keep in mind all things, that the controllers are telling me. And yes, on allmost every flight I experience some things running not so good because of not enough experience of me and the kind VATSIM controllers always are very polite, helpful and patient with me. I am very thankful for that!
Yes, it is very nerve-wracking when using Vatsim for the first time, but it does get easier. It reminds me of when I first joined the military police and had to log onto the civilian police national radio network. All I had to do was give my call sign, “collar number” and tell them I was on duty and available, but you’d think I was having to give the Gettysburg Address.
I did a lot of listening in as an observer and watching YouTube tutorials. Another thing I do before I even log on to the network is to write out all the information I know I am going to have to give and read back. I get all my charts ready and study the taxi map. It really does help. I even made up some crib sheets that I fil out as the information is read to me.
Another thing I do when I have time is to watch a channel on YouTube called “The Vatsim Controller”…, It shows him at work as a controller on the network. Wow, those guys work hard! But it’s a real eye-opener to me as I watch him and gives me a fuller appreciation of just what is going on behind the scenes when I request various permissions from the controller.
I started off on quiet small airports and am now departing/arriving at medium-sized busier airports.
So far all good, no major bumps - except when I took a wrong turning as I taxied to the gate. The controller was good about it though.
Thank you for your advices and yes, whenever my time was not sufficient enough for a controlled flight I too used to fly as observer. It is really helpful to get used to better understanding of fast spoken radio messages and keep better in mind the messages contained. From that point when I started a paid Navigraph subscription with actual charts and good addon software and taking my time for bestmost flight preparations it boosted my VATSIM flight experiences. But it remains still difficult to me to taxi some given taxiways on less known airports to reach a given gate because it is not easy to switch between chart and cockpit view and in the sim the taxiway signs are very often too late or almost not readible. The problem of flying alone…
Kind regards,
Johanned
Today I was flying EGHI - EGPH. I contacted LONDON CENTRE and the controller told me to fly direct to a waypoint quite a ways down my flight plan. I didn’t see the waypoint on the plan at first and I panicked a little bit and ended up heading toward the wrong waypoint. Controller called me back up and asked me to confirm where I was going. When he saw I was heading to the wrong waypoint he restated the correct one. In my panic I didn’t see the waypoint he wanted me on in my flight plan (it was there). I told him I couldn’t see it on my plan so he read out my flight plan to me and told me where the waypoint was on my plan. I saw it and corrected my error.
The controller was so understanding and patient with me. So kudos to him.
I messed up my approach into EGPH. I was on UNICOM and was approaching too high and so I turned around and circled until I was at the correct altitude according to the charts. As I headed back toward the airport a Cessna sneaked in and was given permission to land just as I was tuning in to Edinburgh tower (but had no yet contacted them). So I turned back away again and waited to hear that they had landed as I knew I would have caught up with him before he landed. I then set myself on the approach and announced myself to tower.
I wasn’t sure if I did the right thing there, or should I have contacted tower anyway and let them vector me in around the Cessna?
Also, once I had taxied to the gate and shut the aircraft down should I contact ground and tell them I am now disconnecting, or do I just disconnect?
Thank you. Hope I didn’t bore anybody with my post.
That is the right thing to do, towers normally are not allowed to vector aircraft around at all.
(Some rare exceptions where tower covers a procedural approach airspace where they are responsible for separation outside their ctr or rarely they can give vectors in behalf of an overlying radar controller but that is not applicable here.)
If it is busy on frequency definitely just disconnect, if it is not busy some controllers like if you do others don’t like it. But it is not part of correct phraseology so strictly speeking it is even prohibited.
