Plan in advance where and when there will be active controllers

General Discussion
1

Hello is there a way to know in advance where and when there will be active controllers
This would be helpful when you want to plan in advance a flight with ATC practice
On the french Vacc home page you have Today booking, where you can see when and where there will ATC for the Current day.
Does this exist for other countries ?
It is so disappointing when you start a flight or arrive at destination and suddenly the ATC service stops !
Thanks

2

Finding ATC schedules requires a bit of homework, but you are on the right track by checking the French vACC website. Here are some ideas.

  • Start by looking at the Vatsim Regions webpage for the region you would like to fly, and then select an individual division. You can further select a vACC or ARTCC website to see if they have an ATC schedule posted.

  • Even if you find a posted schedule, I’ve found them to be hit and miss. Controllers and pilots tend to connect as they wish. An ARTCC might have an empty schedule for the day, but a handful of controllers are online. That’s just the way it is.

  • Divisions and vACCs can post small-scale events on their website and on their Discord channel. These events should have good ATC services.

  • VATSIM Discord has a controller-activity channel where controllers can post a message when they go online. Some will even post a block time they are planning to control.

  • Flying regularly in a particular region, you will learn patterns of when controllers “typically” go online. For me, this is actually my most effective tool I have. It’s not guaranteed, but I have the best success finding my favorite controllers this way.

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3

Thanks for your answer

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2 Likes
5

Thanks useful tool. Will use it

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6

Qutescoop is a very useful tool when it comes to ATC scheduling.
Also statsim as mentioned previously.

Unfortunately, VATSIM seems to have two or more different ATC scheduling systems.

What I like to do is to use google calendard to have online atc visualised.
I open Qutescoop and statsim to get scheduled ATC times:


Today for example, I’ll fly CYDF to LFBZ, as I know there will be ATC online in LFBB FIR between 2000 and 2200z.

I only fly by ATC scheduling and therefore I’d love to see more ATC filing their sessions.
Not only to reserve their ATC station but even more so to attract more pilots.

By the time the PMDG 777 is out, I want to do more long range flying into the US, but there’s so little ATC scheduling on statim for the US (except Boston).
What comes in really handy on statism is the very quick search function. Go to: ATC bookings | StatSim and type in “CTR” and you’ll have all the Center positions at one glance.

Qutescoop on the other hand is great to determine where trainings and exams take place.
Even if trainings and exams are sometimes scheduled for 2hrs, they never take longer than 1,5h.

Login codes can also be a showstopper sometimes… If you search for UKBV_CTR or EGGX_FSS, you won’t find anything as they are logged in as UKR_CTR and NAT_FSS instead.

Also, you have to note which station is responsible for which airports. EDDP_APP for example is not only responsible for EDDP, but also for EDDC and EDDE. This information isn’t provided in the ATC scheduling.
'cause you have it at one place and available every time you fly to or from an airport. :slight_smile: