I wasn’t actually saying that pilots who undertake current courses are insufficiently trained, it is more that overall pilots currently flying on Vatsim have not been adequately trained, nor do they have to be. This is quite unlike the situation with Vatsim ATC rquirements. No-one can actually just start controlling on Vatsim without first being trained and passing a competency examination.
Vatsim is indeed trying to change the situation with pilots by introducing a minimum initial standard (to which I had referred to earlier) through the New Member Orientation Course. This should go some way to towards what you are suggesting.
Cannot we use the https://learn.vatsim.net to create an online ground school course for PPL-A on SEP? What does the system allow for? I know a Learning Management System on Wordpress, that allows for illustrated text, video, homework assignments and quizzes/tests inside Courses split up into topics and lessons. It even has Zoom/Google integration for live classes. What can learn.vatsim.net do in those regards? Would that be feasible?
Getting the standard PPL SEP training ground school into eLearning is a rather huge task - so we would need to have a team working on it also fiddling with some local specialties like traffic pattern entries, airspaces and vfr minimas as well as voice specifics. At the same time we have to also remove everything that is not relevant for SimFlying or shorten it to what’s really needed. Doing this would reduce the need on walking through theory to some ‘video meetings’ to clarify open questions and will only leave the flight training part open.
@1035677 Whom would I need to talk to on that topic? I would be eager to help, if that helps getting the training effort for ATOs reduced.
On me: IT infrastructure expert and team manager, halfway done with real life PPL-A training in Switzerland (theory and voice exams completed, about 2/3 of the flight lessons completed). I got books from CH, DE, US and UK in the shelf. PPL training material from US, CH and NewZealand at hand, too - which we of course can’t just copy without getting approval - but we would just have to ask if we can use parts of that. I am currently training my son (11) and father (67) in X-Plane with a glider by the book and what I already experienced and know. Their training will continue with X-Plane on the C172 and the Gleim Flight Training Course addon, supported by https://lernprogramm.sphair.ch (available in EN/DE/FR/IT!) and NewZealand FI materials - so, I am spending a lot of time on those topics anyway.
Did not even thought about applying so far - I can help without holding any position, just because I can see the obvious need for something like that. IMHO, ideal solution would be VATSIM plus IVAO as one organisation for the overarching community for VA and virtual GA, fun and also training. If development of organisations will not happen, we will just have to wait until BeyondATC and/or sayintentions.ai support multiplayer to make VATSIM and IVAO disappear.
Thank you so much for the ideas! Sounds like wonderful capability. I’d suggest offering your help to the new VP Pilot Training once that person is identified in October. Improving our pilot training capability is one of our key needs and priorities, and the new team will need all the best ideas!