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Can we please get our microphone volumes under control? Ever since audio for vatsim came out, we've had this epidemic of people who are way too loud, and people who are way too quiet. I'll be flying along and all of a sudden: "CENTER THIS IS AMERICAN ONE WITH YOU!!!!" and if it doesn't blow out my speakers, it certainly makes my ears ring.

It's not only pilots. I find controllers with the same problem. My recommendation for everyone is at the beginning of your next flying or controlling session, go into your client settings and make sure your mic is in the green band.

Side note, does anyone have any hacks to make my pc mitigate suddenly loud volumes? If I could limit the maximum db level or something that would be awesome.

disclaimer: AAL1 callsign is a placeholder and not intended to single anyone out.

I am honestly a little confused with this one as the SID has published crossing restrictions from the CGO VORTAC as posted in this picture.

https://prnt.sc/1x6uqos

My best guess is to why they assign the "Climb Via Sid" instruction is to provide vertical separation for arrivals and departures. Since it is a radar-nav sid, I am assuming basically the TRACON will vector the aircraft to the applicable DTA to get aircraft on it's assigned route of flight. I also want to assume the TRACON may have aircraft fly over other aircraft that are arriving.

https://prnt.sc/1x6v8s9

In this second picture, at DRSCL the aircraft should meet DRSCL at 2200 feet and will be 6.7 DME from the runway.  In the first picture, aircraft are required to be at or above 3000 feet 5.5 DME from the CGO VORTAC. I hope this helps in a way, but this is why I think that aircraft that fly the ORD6 are assigned climb via sid so they do not conflict with arrivals.

When i heard that JFK was having an FNO i new that it was gonna be one of the biggest FNO's Vatsim has seen in a while.. what i didnt expect was that i was held on Chicago Ground for 3+ hours for absolutley no reason, I departed chicago finally at 0150 Zulu, now noticing that i can no longer participate in the FNO im making the decisions if i should continue the flight or just close out of my sim. Why fly an FNO when you cant even Participate. Very Disappointed with this FNO

Quote from: Umar Ashraf on August 15, 2021, 10:22:59 AM

We know you’re sick and tired of flying into boring FNOs where all the traffic is nicely distributed!

Imagine using dodgy advertising to create ground stops and try to work around rules implemented and agreed upon by every ARTCC.

Nobody likes groundstops

Fair, it is cool to see who's at the top and who isn't. But what exactly is the point of ranking 'best to worst' in a volunteer organization?

I'd suspect that facilities under, probably 10th are getting messages or emails from their RMs with something along the lines of "You should do better in your facility" (in fact, I know some are). So let me dive into why this, in my opinion, shouldn't be done:

1) Each facility has a different membership base with different circumstances. Some have a lot of new-ish members that are just here to have a good time, some take it more seriously, etc etc.  Yeah, they all have a VATSIM CID. Let's use, ZMP as an example (ranked last). (Using HOME controllers only) ZMP has 78 controllers on there home roster. Now lets take out the OBSs that can't do anything (29). Now we have 49. Now, lets take into consideration how many controllers actually have a cert for any level (GND, TWR, APP, CTR): 40. Now, lets look at ZMPs uptime on any level of controlling, YTD (1/1 thru 6/30): ~756 (+/- a few, math done by hand, and there's probably positions I missed). Lets take that 756 and divide that by how many controllers were active with certs (40). That's an average of 18.9 hours per active, certified controller. Take into account ZMPs activity requirement (3 hours per calendar quarter) and they're doing just fine per their required hours (6 hours required for the two quarters, Jan thru June...literally averaging triple their requirement). Point here is, you can't just rate this all by up-time. It should be done using the logic above, to actually see how their doing.

2) What is the UNDERLYING cause of controllers not wanting to control? P I L O T S. I'll be damned if I'm going to staff more than I'm required, when us controllers are held to a crazy high standard, yet the 13 year old that gets MFSF2020 can connect without actually being checked for competency to comply with basic ATC instructions. Obviously this issue goes higher than VATUSA, but VATUSA isn't doing anyone any favors by telling facilities towards the bottom of the list "You should be online more." What VATUSA COULD be doing to help improve and motivate controllers to do more than what it required, is to be up at the front door of the BOG, knocking until they actually start taking pilot competency seriously. IT IS NOT FUN when we get online, and have to hand hold 50% of the pilots on our frequency. That alone is a big reason why most facilities don't have an higher uptime. Then you need to account for environmental factors like, I don't know, actually having a life outside the hobby, LOAs, etc. Controllers are BURNTOUT from dealing with the pilots that do not know what they're doing. We can preach to them that they should read the Pilot Learning documents, but currently that is merely a recommendation.

3) Last year (IIRC), VATUSA was more worried about having exit interviews with S1s (who cares?) when we should have been focusing on our C1+'s that got fully certified, worked some hours, and went away. Who cares why the S1 who did minimal training to work a DEL/GND position left? You'd have much more meaningful feedback if we focused on the fully certified C1+s that left after certification. If we did that, I'm willing to bet that you'd be hearing the same thing about pilots over, and over, and over again...if you had that feedback last year, maybe we could have made meaningful impact network wide regarding pilot competency, and eliminating that as a factor for Burnout.

4) You don't motivate leaders/members of a volunteer organization by comparing them to the guy next door. You're treating this as a company-type measurable metric, as if the pilots are our customers. No. Don't. PLEASE DON'T. By reaching out to some ARTCC leaders and telling them "We think your facility should be on more" again, is ignoring the underlying issues at hand. We need to first address the WHY, fix those issues, THEN we can begin to make headway in uptime.

Disclaimer - I wouldn't have made this post, if some ARTCCs weren't being told to "Do Better" when there are things that need to be addressed first, before we start asking more of VOLUNTEERS. This isn't meant to be an attack [insert legal jargon here] but is just honest feedback from a concerned VATUSA member .

The correct answer is Canes for chicken tenders, Chick-Fil-A for sandwiches.