VATPAC Australia

Departure Slot Mania Radelaide

Slot Mania Radelaide

Departure Slot Mania - Monday May 27th

Hi folks,
I'm very pleased to announce the first of our Slotmania events, the antitheses of our Panic Stations events. Our inaugural event is to be held in Adelaide on Monday, May 27th as part of our Spilt Milk Run series.
For this event, we flip Panic Stations on its head and make it all about departures. Choose your departure time slot, and your destination (Canberra and Melbourne only to make it interesting for arrival controllers too) and stick to it, or you may just get held on the ground by ATC until another slot becomes available. Departure slots are just 3 minutes apart and alternate between destinations, with the odd break for arrivals.

Panic Station Coffs Harbour Sunday, June 2nd

Panic Stations

Panic Stations Coffs Harbour Sunday, June 2nd, 2013

Welcome to another installment of our enthralling Panic Stations events here at VATPAC! This time around, Panic Stations visits Coffs Harbour. Located on the North coast of NSW, Coffs Harbour is a favourite destination for short getaways for people of all ages. Expect high levels of traffic and ATC delays as the clock counts down to the target time of 1130 UTC. The first jet and non-jet to land after the target time takes home the prize!

Procedural Towers

The VATSIM Global Ratings Policy now restricts the operation of a Procedural Tower to Tower controllers who hold a special Procedural Tower endorsement, or those with a TMA Controller rating or above. From 2013, VATPAC will be providing a special Procedural Tower course in the Moodle Training System to deliver structured training and assessment to Tower Controllers wishing to pursue this endorsement.

The following control positions are classified as Procedural Tower and must not be manned by those holding a Tower (S2) Controller rating without first completing the Procedural Tower endorsement.

World Discovery Flights

World Discovery Flight

Takaka to "Windy" Wellington Int

by YMA7489

Wednesday May 29th - 10.00 Zulu

Click on > LINK

Co-ordination, Tower-Approach

TWRsm Communication between controllers becomes very important during major events when there are many aircraft movements and broad ATC coverage. During other times it is very important to practice these procedures so that when the time comes, you are properly prepared. What to say and when to say it should become second nature to reduce frequency congestion and controller workload.

For Tower Controllers, the usual run of the mill auto-release jet traffic doesn't require much work. Add to the mix VFR, IFR departures not following a SID or following a radar vectored SID, or the cancellation of auto-release and things get a whole lot more complicated. Below are some general rules and examples of when co-ordination between Tower and Approach should occur and the correct phraseology to use.

ServInfo V201205 Up-Date Released

Get it now from the Pilot Download Area Here

Advanced ATC Techniques

ModernATC Several years ago a long serving VATPAC member, John Keech, delivered a series of presentations at our VATPAC Conference. These presenations contained valuable tips and insights into techniques used to sequence and separate aircraft in both radar and non-radar environments.

They are a MUST READ for the VATPAC controller that wants to expand their knowledge of these techniques which are slowly becoming integrated into our everyday ATC training.

The presentations have been revised (slightly) to bring them up to date with modern ATC clients and procedures. Please take the time to watch them and apply the knowledge next time you control.

Download these and many other useful resources in the Controller Manuals & Guides section.

Non-Radar Control – A Pilot’s Guide

radartower Vast areas of Australian airspace are not covered by radar surveillance. Radar coverage in Australia is largely limited to the “J-Curve”, a band of airspace covering the east coast to 300nm or so inland, plus a few pockets of airspace over western and central districts. There are other types of surveillance in use within Australian airspace such as Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) which rely upon special equipment on board to track the aircraft’s position. More on ADS-B later.

This article will attempt to present to VATSIM pilots some of the concepts an enroute controller will use when controlling aircraft without the aid of radar surveillance. Hopefully this will help pilots to understand what that controller is doing when he asks for an estimate for a particular waypoint or won’t let me change level when the nearest aircraft is 20nm away.