VATSIM NOTAMs

[Michael Krause]

VATSIM Notice to Airmen (NOTAM)
Issued by Richard Jenkins (800012), 15-Jul-2006 16:48 UTC
__________________________________________________ ________________________

Iron Mic' Approach starts July 16, 2006 at 00:00:01z

Iron Mic' Center has been a great success, controller times have skyrocketed in the past weeks. Pilots are now finding more ATC and controllers are finding more pilots. Sounds like a winning combination!

As promised the Iron Mic' contest is now expanding to the approach position. Now there will be two competitions each week, one for center and one for approach. The rules are the same just applied at the approach level.

Who is going to take the first trophy on approach? Will Albuquerque ARTCC, Iron Mic' Center powerhouse, try for a double victory, taking center and approach? Or will the guys from Munich show how it is done? Maybe a surprise winner? In all seriousness, this is now chance for more people to get involved in promoting their ACC/ARTCC/FIR to the VATSIM world. We look forward to seeing everyone on the scopes for this friendly competition. Best of luck!

Contest Rules:

1. Only Approach position will be counted at this time.
2. Maximum score is 168 hours.
3. Multiple controllers manning the same sector will only count as one. Example: XXX1_APP, XXX2_APP, and XXX3_APP staffing the same facility at the same time will only count as one controller for counting purposes.
4. Multiple winners are possible each week.
5. Contest period is 7 days (Sunday 00:00:01Z to Saturday 23:59:59Z) or 168 hours.
6. Controllers found to have an unattended connection will have their time for that session removed from the facility total.

[Kai Klingenberg]

VATSIM Notice to Airmen (NOTAM)
Issued by Richard Jenkins (800012), 31-Aug-2006 03:03 UTC
__________________________________________________ ________________________

Vice President Operations

Full Voting member of the Board of Governors. Reviews, monitors, develops, implements changes to the
overall VATSIM system to achieve optimum efficiency and interest. Interacts with the Board Members, Executive Committee, and/or Regional Directors as needed to accomplish these tasks.

The successful candidate will have significant experience in server administration and project management. Candidate will be responsible for implementation and monitoring of projects outside of software development. Additionally, candidates should have a good working knowledge of VATSIM structure and personnel.

Interested applicants can send their qualifications to jobs@vatsim.net no later than September 8, 2006.

[Michael Hermes]

VATSIM Notice to Airmen (NOTAM)
Issued by Roberto Bazzano (800025), 13-Sep-2006 22:05 UTC
__________________________________________________ ________________________

On Friday 15th, around 10:00 UTC, the dataserver will be moved
to a new location and it will get a new IP address also.
For this reason all services related to the dataserver will be
unavailable during the move, that will take a few hours.
This means no ServInfo and Who is online list updates, and no
statistics data collection: all statistical data related to
flights/atc connections during the downtime will NOT be recorded.
All FSD and voice servers will remain available so it will be
possible to connect to the network and to flight/control normally.

[Andreas Boehme]

VATSIM Notice to Airmen (NOTAM)
Issued by Terrence Scanlan (810628), 12-Oct-2006 06:20 UTC
____
At a recent meeting of the VATSIM Executive Committee, the GLOBAL CONTROLLER INFORMATION (ATIS) was amended to bring it into line with the new ATC client software.

“The first line of any CONTROLLER INFORMATION (ATIS) will contain voice channel switching or network information that is either automatically inserted by the ATC software or manually entered by the controller, and thereafter a controller shall add not more than 4-lines of pilot operational information. A line shall be not more than 64 characters in length. Wherever possible a controller should try to construct the Controller Information in fewer than the maximum number of lines allowed by this policy”.

Information that is NOT allowed to be included in the Controller Information is; Controller’s Name and or Rating Controller’s frequency Raw METAR data that has not been decoded by the controller.

Position Specific Guidelines

Different ATC positions have different Controller Information requirements. This section provides guidelines for each position. The examples below are taken from the newly formed VATPAC ATIS policy but would serve well as a general guide as to who has an ATIS or more correctly, Controller Information

Clearance Delivery
None [Optional] a 1-line statement about:
Availability - Log off time (UTC)

Ground: Redirect
Ground ATIS should refer pilots to the associated local Tower
ATIS:
“ATIS AVBL FROM TWR”
Note: If Tower is not online, Ground must take up the Tower Position and provide a FULL ATIS.

Tower: Tower must at all times provide a FULL ATIS that complies With the content guidelines.

Approach (With Tower Operating)
Redirect: Approach ATIS should refer a pilot to the associated local

Tower ATIS:
Approach (Without a Tower Operating
Approach should provide a FULL ATIS in lieu of the missing Local Tower service, in accordance with the content guidelines Set for Tower.

Departures: None [Optional] a 1-line statement about:
Position name

Centre: None [Optional] a 1-line statement about:
Position name and service coverage.
Availability - Log off time (UTC)
"CHRISTCHURCH CONTROL, EXTENDED COVERAGE AVAILABLE, LOGGING OFF AT 1130Z"

Oceanic : None [Optional] a 1-line statement about:
Position name and service coverage.
Availability - Log off time (UTC)
"BRISBANE RADIO, NORTH PACIFIC COVERAGE AVAILABLE, LOGGING OFF AT 1400Z"

EDIT (KK): offizielles Dukument -> http://www.vatsim.net/EC/newatis.doc

[Lars Eiberger]

VATSIM Notice to Airmen (NOTAM)
Issued by Ruth McTighe (824054), 14-Oct-2006 17:57 UTC
__________________________________________________ ________________________

We are very pleased to announce the release of FSInn 1.2 by MCDU. Designed to be compatible with FSX, new features include
- better FPS
- high performance P2P
- P2P powerful enough to connect anyone
- VATSIM Voice improved
- better management of aircraft repository
- early support of FSX
- better installers

Downloads and documentation can be found at http://www.mcdu.com/ and a movie showing FSInn 1.2 at ftp://www.mcdu.com/mcdu/fsinn_trailer.wmv

MCDU are already working on FSInn 1.3 which will be fully featured for FSX

[Lars Eiberger]

VATSIM Notice to Airmen (NOTAM)
Issued by Richard Jenkins (800012), 20-Oct-2006 16:47 UTC
__________________________________________________ ________________________

Full Voting member of the Board of Governors. Accepts and processes individual requests for membership to VATSIM through use of manual and/or automated system of records. Accepts and processes changes to membership status. Maintains database, ensuring validity of accounts. Responds to inquiries on membership status. Conducts analysis of membership and reports results. Interacts with the Board Members, Executive Committee, and/or Regional Directors as needed to accomplish these tasks.

Applicant will also be responsible for managing the 10 person membership team.

Interested applicants can send their qualifications to jobs@vatsim.net no later than October 27, 2006.

[Lars Eiberger]

VATSIM Notice to Airmen (NOTAM)
Issued by Richard Jenkins (800012), 20-Nov-2006 07:36 UTC
__________________________________________________ ________________________

VATSIM is proud to announce the release of VRC1.1 by Ross Carlson. Please see the list of enhancements below. You can download VRC1.1 here:

http://www.metacraft.com/VRC/download.shtml

Virtual Tower View. VRC can now create an MSFS multiplayer session and populate it with aircraft. By connecting FS9 to this session, you can have a realistic "out-the-window" view of the airport environment. Be sure to download the model sets if you don't already have SB3 installed.

Simple radar mode. This mode is what used to be called the Ground mode in version 1.0.

Ground radar mode. This is a new mode which shows the callsign, aircraft type, and ground speed.

Park Air radar mode. This mode emulates the approach control radars used in the United Kingdom.

TAAATS radar mode. This mode emulates the TAAATS system used within and around Australia.

PSR radar mode. This mode provides basic "skin paint" primary radar targets without SSR information.

3D radar mode. This unique mode provides a 3D "wire frame" view of your airspace, with targets represented as basic 3D models. This is an excellent tool for teaching students how the airspace is structured. Brings a new aspect to how air traffic moves.

Colorized sector areas. VRC now supports the ability to draw filled, colored polygons on the screen, to represent airways, special-use airspace, bodies of water, etc. This is also useful for creating ground radar maps. These polygons, referred to as "REGIONs" are available in .sct2 format sector files.

Static text labels. You can now define simple lines of text to display on your scope at a specified lat/lon. This is useful for labeling items such as taxiways, MVA values, special-use airspace names, etc. These labels are available in .sct2 format sector files.

F2 <ASEL> allows you to quickly add a weather button for the destination field for the selected aircraft. This is handy when controlling aircraft flying into satellite fields, so that you can quickly pull up the weather and monitor altimeter changes.

The new .center2 command allows you to quickly center both your scope and the range rings at the specified point.

Right-click context menus. Most areas in VRC now have right-click context menus, allowing you to quickly access important functions with only the mouse. For example, by right-clicking a target on your scope, you can quickly initiate a handoff to another controller. Right-click context menus are available for targets on the scope, entries in the arrival/departures list, entries in the controller list, entries in the weather panel, entries in chat group member lists, and flight strips.

Profile import/export. You can now easily share profiles and common settings using the profile import, export and merge functions.

Reminder lights. A new button in the button bar contains four reminder lights. These lights remind you if you have a chat message waiting, a pending handoff, aircraft in your reminder list, or if your microphone is muted.

Tool window hotkeys. Using the Alt key plus a number, you can quickly show or hide the various tool windows. See the Command Reference for details.

The new CTRL+G key combination provides quick access to the Diagrams Window for the currently active scope.

Callsigns in the reminder list are now sorted by how long they have been on the list, so you can quickly see which aircraft has been waiting the longest.

The SELCAL window. VRC now provides a window listing all aircraft in range which have a SELCAL code in their flight plan remarks. By double-clicking an entry in the list, you can quickly send a SELCAL alert to the specified aircraft.

Mutable microphone. VRC has integrated voice comms. There is no need for external third party applications for talking to pilots or other controllers. You can now mute your microphone if you don't wish to have a hot microphone when being overridden.

The new .fd command allows you to use aliases to toggle diagrams on/off.

Session statistics. VRC now keeps track of various operational statistics during your session. You can view these stats with the .showstats command.

New alias variables and functions. You can now insert additional data in an alias. The new variables and functions include $atiscode, $type(), $route and $aircraft.

[Lars Eiberger]

VATSIM Notice to Airmen (NOTAM)
Issued by Richard Jenkins (800012), 25-Nov-2006 00:47 UTC
__________________________________________________ ________________________

Iron Mic' Tower starts November 26, 2006 at 00:00:01z


Iron Mic' Center and Approach has been a great success, controller times have skyrocketed in the past months. Pilots are now finding more ATC and controllers are finding more pilots. Sounds like a winning combination!

As promised the Iron Mic' contest is now expanding to the tower position. Now there will be three competitions each week, one for center, approach, and now tower. The rules are the same just applied at the tower level.

This is a chance for more people to get involved in promoting their ACC/ARTCC/FIR to the VATSIM world, especially for students who can only man tower. We look forward to seeing everyone on the scopes for this friendly competition. Best of luck!

Contest Rules:

1. Only tower position will be counted.

2. Maximum score is 168 hours.

3. Multiple controllers manning the same sector will only count as one. Example: XXX_N_TWR and XXX_S_TWR at the same facility at the same time will only count as one controller for counting purposes.

4. Multiple winners are possible each week.

5. Contest period is 7 days (Sunday 00:00:01Z to Saturday 23:59:59Z) or 168 hours.

6. Controllers found to have an unattended connection will have their time for that session removed from the facility total.

[Lars Eiberger]

VATSIM Notice to Airmen (NOTAM)
Issued by Jeff Clark (810352), 25-Jan-2007 07:08 UTC
__________________________________________________ ________________________

The Board of Governors has decided that we wish to create a team
of people who are specifically dedicated to helping VATSIM
expand, and consequently I am now looking at recruiting some
volunteers who have any of the following skills:

- experience in marketing / advertising, especially in
languages other than English.
- an ability to create attractive graphics for advertisements
- anyone with good connections to Flight Simulator Hobbyists
groups, especially in countries which aren't well represented
on VATSIM.
- anyone with skills in creating videos for a possible "VATSIM
Promotional Video"


If you think you might be able to help, or if you just want to
know more, please contact jeff@vatsim.net .


Jeff Clark
VP - Marketing & Strategic Development
VATSIM Board of Governors

[Hermann Rölz]

VATSIM Notice to Airmen (NOTAM)
Issued by Roland Collins (800023), 18-Jul-2007 18:16 UTC
__________________________________________________ ________________________

Notice To AirMen:
Addressed to all VATSIM members with ATC rating (S1 or higher)

The VATSIM Executive Committee (EC) is pleased to announce the
release of two important EC policies.

Please note, these policies are applicable to members with a
rating greater than Pilot/Observer. The Policies have been
approved by the EC with a unanimous 6 to 0 vote, one regional
director position is vacant, and therefore no vote was counted.


*** Transfer and Visiting Controller - Global Policy ***
This is an update to an existing policy with an effective date of
01 June 2007.

http://www.vatsim.net/EC/transfer_an...bal_policy.pdf

*** Global Ratings Standard Policy ***
This is a new policy with an effective date of 11 June 2007.
It is expected that all VATSIM regions will be in full compliance
by the Full Implementation date of 01 January 2008.

http://www.vatsim.net/EC/global_rating_standards.pdf


This is an extra guide with background information regarding this
new ratings policy
http://www.vatsim.net/EC/new_ratings_guide.pdf


On behalf of the VATSIM Executive Committee,
Craig Merriman
EC Chairman
http://www.vatsim.net/EC