VATUSA Forums
NOTAMs => USA Division Updates => Topic started by: Manuel Manigault on July 04, 2021, 10:10:28 AM
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Happy 4th of July!
2021 has been a successful year so far for VATUSA.
- As of June 30, 2021 the controller population has grown by 27% on average YTD.
- I've been attempting to track unique VATUSA monthly pilot connections since October 2020. Unique VATUSA monthly pilot connections appear to average 2149.
- VATUSA's controller activity is 96% of March 2020 high and Designated Airspace traffic is 94% of March 2020 highs.
Uptime ranking by ARTCC YTD (based on calculations using Statsim data)
- ZNY
- ZBW
- ZDC
- ZLA
- ZTL
- ZME
- ZDV
- ZJX
- ZHU
- ZOA
- ZMA
- ZAU
- ZSE
- ZFW
- ZID
- ZOB
- PCF
- ZAB
- ZLC
- ZKC
- ZMP
There has been talk of creating a VATUSA Iron Mic Competition broken down by three leagues. The leagues take into account roster size without observers and were proposed to be re-evaluated every three months. Here is how things would stack out based on the leagues:
League 1
League 2
League 3
We had a successful launch of our VATUSA YouTube channel. If you haven't done so already, please subscribe to be notified of new content.
VATUSA Academy is still on track to launch this Summer.
VATSIM Global Air Traffic Control Administrative Policy draft (GRP Revision) is due to be available for review this summer. I encourage everyone to take advantage of the public review period. All Division and ARTCC policies ultimately will have to be in alignment with this policy once it is passed.
Thank you for your contribution to VATUSA. I wish everyone a safe and happy 4th of July!
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The Independent Federated States of ZLA are happy to report that we, too, controlled a lot. We would like to extend our warmest greetings of friendship to the newly doubled Republic of ZBW.
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The Independent Federated States of ZLA are happy to report that we, too, controlled a lot. We would like to extend our warmest greetings of friendship to the newly doubled Republic of ZBW.
I, for one, welcome our newly doubled ZBW overlords. The fact that ZLA is missing is also a delight to ZAB controllers everywhere :P
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The Independent Federated States of ZLA are happy to report that we, too, controlled a lot. We would like to extend our warmest greetings of friendship to the newly doubled Republic of ZBW.
Thanks! Corrected. ZLA was in 4th place.
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ZMA is out on summer vacation. Gotta run away from storms and hurricanes.
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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 :).
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*walloftext*
this tbh emoji goes here
Not sure why the focus has always been on attrition at OBS/S1 ranks. You're losing out on perfectly good mentors/instructors when you let S3+ controllers walk away from the division without any sort of exit interview. Keep those people around and maybe facilities wouldn't be begging for visitor restrictions when their training programs can barely keep up with the demand for home controllers.
Don't know why we need to be comparing facilities either, speaking as the head of a facility that's relatively middle-of-the-pack. Nastygrams from RMs about encouraging people to staff more when a healthy bulk of controllers have real lives to attend to (even more now that COVID restrictions have largely been lifted in the US) shouldn't even be a consideration on a network that exists as a hobby. Keeping your own internal analytics is fine, but instead of releasing them maybe consider reaching out to those facilities toward the bottom of the list and seeing if you, as the division, and as facilities' liaisons to the BoG, can do anything to help increase those numbers.
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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 :).
(https://memegenerator.net/img/instances/55706072.jpg)
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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 :).
I’d like to +1 this^… especially point #2.
Give the controllers reasons to be here. There are times I have time to control and consider that I have to handhold a lot of people and it breaks the realism factor for me… so I just go watch TV or something else.
Now… credit where it is due: Command Center (though not perfect) has been a Great Leap Forward to making controlling “EVENTS†more enjoyable. Let’s not stop there… VATSIM headquarters needs to hear our voices and VATUSA HQ is our representative there. So, even though I’m not sure this is exactly the thread to have this discussion, I am 100% in agreeement with it.
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Also… will the new GRP be a “review and provide feedback†or is it going to be a “review and deal with it†like usual?
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Thanks for addressing the 800lb gorilla in the room, Dylan... I was half tempted to post questioning some of this yesterday, but figured I'd hold off a bit considering I've been told my opinions are "extremely unpopular" and not very appreciated by network management ( :-\ :-X).
Anyways, point 2 is monumental right now... You hit about everything square on the head of the nail here. My motivation to stream to my channel (let alone control in general) is drastically impacted by this, and has been since the (extremely poor) induction of MSFS2020 to this network. I streamed this time last year (Hell I did an interview with Ethan Hawes, head of pilot training at the time) about how pilot training initiatives were ramping up for the network and nothing ever really came of it. We're in a position where senior, experienced controller membership in the division (quite possibly even the entire network) is very deterred to be involved right now because of all of this. The basic network test doesn't begin to address competency issues as we were told it would.
I'd question additionally this "27% YTD growth" as well from the initial post... Can this be broken down a bit? Like, are we talking new OBS/S1's here because I doubt I'm going out on too far of a limb saying that there's been that much, if not more, of a decline in senior/experienced controller activity as well around the division since MSFS induction. Numbers can be made to sing in any way you want them (just look at anything political right now out there) and this is a very loose number to be tossing around. I have suspicions this isn't as positive of a number to the division as many might think taking it at face value.
I can speak for many of the controllers at ZKC that they are not very motivated to be online as of late with the state of things. It's not fun at all much of the time. Here I am off of a 60 day suspension (which was entirely pilot-competency/stream-trolling in nature regardless of how many of you may personally feel about my character) and I can bet that ZKC's activity would be far higher if it weren't for that as well, but nothing has really changed at all with the general state of things since then (nor my opinions)... I (and Derek now) continue to address these very topics on my stream (much to the displeasure of VATSIM management because it isn't molding with their narrative), but at the end of the day, and morally-speaking, we know it's the right thing to do because it is wrong that the primary focus is on seeing more signups rather than improving pilot expectations/behaviors. We have countless examples of these issues from nearly every single stream we do now days of underprepared individuals and/or individuals out to cause trouble hopping onto the network.
Also, the announcement of the VATUSA "Stream Team" (which, in my eyes, is really just another level of bureaucracy in addition to VATSIM's streaming partnership) is basically an insurmountable task for my brand with the negative light that's been unjustly shined on it since the beginning of this year considering how much network management has ignored leading up to our present situation... I suppose this is more of a subject for that thread when it surfaces, but the concerted effort to phish viewership away and, in an official manner, make it clear to new members that my streaming (or those similar to me) is not supported or approved is insulting to say the least and really robs members of opportunity to learn from people who not only have done this for years on the network, but also have an education and real world background in aviation. For me, particularly, being someone that really spearheaded this streaming movement on many levels in the division - it hurts to see this happening. It's frustrating and I find myself questioning whether or not it's time to move on from here quite often as roadblocks are continuing to be stacked up against me (or people like me).
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A huge +1 to Dylan's post.
Even bigger +1 to Skylar's reply to AJ.
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I +1 to everything Dylan says. I cannot word it any better so I won't repeat the same points.
Can you not turn this thread into how everyone is out to get you, and instead actually focus on the merits of Dylan's post? If you have issues with yourself and VATSIM that has no bearing on this conversation, and that was half your post.
Despite your opinion on AJ and what he wrote, he’s not wrong along with countless other members on this network who have been here for 15+ years.
We have put thousands of hours into this hobby and when you see the network constantly degraded due to pandering to the masses, you’d be upset as well. Yes it’s a hobby and we all need to check the attitudes sometimes, but when it’s 3-4 hours controlling and half the pilots have ZERO idea what they are doing it gets tiring. The excuse of not having charts, not knowing where to learn about phases of flight and what controllers expect is not an excuse, especially in the digital age we live in. Information is readily available and Ethan and our team put in countless hours of work to get these pilots the information needed.
The problem I see is that controllers have no leg to stand on anymore, the pilot always gets the benefit of the doubt and controllers are ostracized because they try and correct pilots constantly not following instructions. Yes we were all new at one point and I made thousands of mistakes, but I was forced to learn and chose to so I wouldn’t A.) look like a idiot forever and B.) get better and more proficient in the areas that I was working on at the time in my real world flying.
There is a breaking point and I would hope that Vatsim would not want to see their most experience members take their talents elsewhere.
Derek
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Hello All,
I think some very good points have been brought up in this thread. If I may, I would like to give some thoughts from a pilot's perspective. Sorry for the long drawn out response in advance. I'll admit I am not the most amazing Vatsim pilot out there and only have 150+ hours on the network but I do have 1000s of hours flight simming (mostly xplane11 and a couple hundred on MSFS2020). I agree with alot of what the controllers are saying in this thread.
First, I feel like the addition of MSFS2020 to the network is a big issue. That "sim" is where alot of issues lie right off the bat. I feel like MSFS2020 is an amazing sim for VFR flying only and theoretically it could be on the network in VFR conditions for VFR flying. The real issue is IFR. I have tried the airliners (747,787, A320Neo and FBW A320) and jets in msfs2020 and they are nowhere near being ready for Vatsim (hence why I fly them offline until they are good enough to be flown on the network which will be later). I cannot speak as far as the popular CRJ7 and the other CRJ's that Aerosoft has produced however. The systems are not to where they should be in order to fly on the network. Speaking of aircraft on the network, I do alot of flights in a new aircraft off of the network before I even consider jumping on the network and flying it on the network like at least 5-10 hours of flying off the network before doing it on the network and making sure I am 100 competent in that airplane first. Alot of people seem to get a new airplane regardless of what sim they are on and jump straight on the network, which is the wrong thing to do which is where alot of issues come into play.
My second point will be about the incompetency of the pilots. The fact that pilots in MSFS2020 and even some in other sims don't even know what a chart is disconcerting. The pilots don't even know about such things as skyvector. I bring up Skyvector as a perfect example. Why? Because its free. When I started getting into IFR flying about a year ago, Skyvector was my go to tool before I upgraded my Navigraph subscription and as I fly real world I also have a foreflight subscription as well. I learned how to read the charts, I learned about spd/alt constraints, the differences of what different airplanes can or cant do. For example, /L vs /W vs /A etc. I learned the lingo of ATC and what to expect and what to have pre-planned for my flight (example, what is D-Atis saying regarding runways and taxi ways), what is the metar and current weather conditions and the airport im departing and what can I expect weather wise and runway wise at my destination? The fact that pilots are not doing the research and not having the knowledge is the issue even when the info is free and readily available even on the internet or on the particular VATUSA pages for those specific airspaces.
I feel really bad for controllers when they have to deal with incompetent pilots. I as a pilot even get annoyed with this issue. There's alot of great younger pilots but the immaturity of some of these pilots is an issue as well regardless of age. I feel as if with the addition of MSFS2020 there are alot more immature teenagers and frankly kids on the network. There are alot more trolls on the network as well who want to have fun and fool around even on the frequencies which is frustrating especially if say you are on an arrival or approach, etc. As a hardcore simmer, I feel like trolling is a big issue right now. Evryone wants to fool around and BS with their friends and so on and so forth. For example, I was taking off at ATL going to KSDF the other day. A youtuber and his following decided to spawn in at KATL (no big deal). This youtuber it appears has alot of younger pilots that follow him, specifically of the teenage age group. Like I said I have no problem with ages whatsoever. KATL and KZTL controllers were amazing and did a great job, however the other pilots were causing havoc. They were stepping all over each other on the ground frequency, not letting the controller do his job, chit-chatting on the frequency, and more. I think I sat there for approximately 30-45 min to taxi to the runway. (I wasn't even mad and was greatly impressed with this ground controller's skills).
Yet it seems vatsim gets on the controller's instead of getting on the real issue, incompetent pilots. I can totally see why the controllers get frustrated and burnt out. I feel like they get talked to or perhaps in trouble for something that's completely not their fault. It is the pilots responsibility to be able to fly their aircraft without the handholding of the controllers. Aviate, Navigate, Communicate (the responsibilities of the pilot). And if feel as if ATC is having to handhold one pilots hand or focus on them bc that pilot is competent or doing whatever they want to do and not listening to ATC, it takes attention away from their controlled airspace, etc, which can also make the pilots feel as if their service is degraded which isn't fair to those other pilots or the controllers. I think we have alot of amazing controllers on this network and I don't think its fair to them.
From the bottom of my heart, I want to thank all of you Vatsim staff, VATUSA staff, Controllers of all levels, from C/D all the way up to center controllers. You all do an amazing job on this network, and us pilots appreciate you all! You all are the real heroes of this network and I genuinely appreciate the dedication and the time you guys put in to control us pilots. You all are amazing. Keep your head up and keep up that amazing great work that you all do! THANKYOU all so very much
Like I said, I apologize for the long post. Thankyou all for your time. Mods feel free to take this down or edit if something I said is not allowed.
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Also… will the new GRP be a “review and provide feedback†or is it going to be a “review and deal with it†like usual?
It is to be a review and comment.
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Also… will the new GRP be a “review and provide feedback†or is it going to be a “review and deal with it†like usual?
It's going to be a review and comment. Rick, Dhruv, and I are on the Revision Committee. The committee is being led by Matt Bartels. I am the official VATUSA representative; Rick and Dhruv are at large members.
I have been impressed by the committee discussion to date. The draft has been modified several times based on feedback from committee members and the BoG. I have learned quite a lot by being on the committee. For the larger Divisions, lack of training bandwidth is a major issue. There are some Divisions that have much larger training backlogs than we do. VATCAN and VATUK for example have backlogs of 9+ months -- just to receive initial training! I am looking forward to the VATUSA Academy. I hope it can successfully relieve some of the backlog and pressure that the ARTCCs experience.
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It's going to be a review and comment. Rick, Dhruv, and I are on the Revision Committee. The committee is being led by Matt Bartels. I am the official VATUSA representative; Rick and Dhruv are at large members.
In that case, I am confident that any concerns I would have had, will have been already addressed by these people. Thanks!
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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 :).
Point 2 is beyond the scope of this Division update. I don't want to shut down that discussion, I just don't want it to override the purpose of this post.
Regarding the ARTCC ranking: This information is readily available to anyone that wants it on the various VATSIM statistic sites. I simply compiled the data by ARTCC. One of the purposes of VATUSA is to simulate the vNAS --a system that is available 24 hours a day. Many talk about the want of realism in the forums and Discord on a regular basis. Sending a pilot to UNICOM because controlled airspace is uncovered technically is not realistic. I value competent coverage. Notice I did not put the actual ARTCC uptimes in my post. For all anyone knows, the range between 1 - 21 could be a matter of minutes or it could be a very wide range.
Yes, this is a volunteer hobby. If you have a staff position; however, you volunteered for a non paid job. Just because you are not getting paid doesn't mean you don't have standards and expectations.
I am personally judging my success based on:
- Membership growth - The growth comes from OBS
- New member retention - What are we doing to increase training bandwidth?
- Increase in controller hours during non-event times - I value competent coverage day in and day out.
- Increasing C1 retention - The Command Center, Web Services Team, Social Media Team are non staff avenues C1 rated controllers can take advantage of to expand the hobby.
- Successfully developing a pilot community - Yes, pilots are our customers. Pilots have several online and offline choices to engage in flight simulation. Online controllers need pilots to practice their skills.
- Building a unified team of managers who are willing to champion the above.
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Point 2 is beyond the scope of this Division update. I don't want to shut down that discussion, I just don't want it to override the purpose of this post.
Regarding the ARTCC ranking: This information is readily available to anyone that wants it on the various VATSIM statistic sites. I simply compiled the data by ARTCC. One of the purposes of VATUSA is to simulate the vNAS --a system that is available 24 hours a day. Many talk about the want of realism in the forums and Discord on a regular basis. Sending a pilot to UNICOM because controlled airspace is uncovered technically is not realistic. I value competent coverage. Notice I did not put the actual ARTCC uptimes in my post. For all anyone knows, the range between 1 - 21 could be a matter of minutes or it could be a very wide range.
Yes, this is a volunteer hobby. If you have a staff position; however, you volunteered for a non paid job. Just because you are not getting paid doesn't mean you don't have standards and expectations.
Mani, why include them then? It really seems to have done more harm then good. I fail to see how realism and competency come into play. Unlike the real world, VATUSA doesn't force new people to go staff facilities with low amounts of controllers. We cannot have VATUSA listing the ARTCC's from first to last by number of hours controlled. As Dylan already said, it does not tell the full story. When one facility has more OBS's on their roster than another has total controllers, it's clear who will have more time on the network. My question to you is. Why are facilities towards the bottom of the list getting emails being told to "be better". Small facilities will never be able to put up the number of hours as the big ones, 30 people can't keep pace with 100+.
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Point 2 is beyond the scope of this Division update. I don't want to shut down that discussion, I just don't want it to override the purpose of this post.
Agreed... Continued here then?
https://forums.vatusa.net/index.php?topic=10181.0
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Excuse my back of the napkin math on this, but it seems like (in general) the larger ARTCCs have more controlling hours. If the division is planning to keep ranking ARTCCS like this, the solution shouldn't be to tell smaller ARTCCs to staff more. I know this is a very hot hot take, but what if after graduation from the Academy, OBS were assigned a facility, or maybe a shortlist. I'm sure several controllers can relate that they visit/are home controllers at a place nowhere near their home. They stay because of the community aspect. As a bonus, this should hopefully help to reduce the ridiculous training backlog at the larger facilities. I know it's not going to be popular, but I think that it's an idea to be considered if we're serious about evening the playing field between the largest ARTCCs and the smallest. Heck, I'm pretty sure ZLA has more OBS than most facilities have certified controllers! Does that not seem wrong to anyone else?
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Point 2 is beyond the scope of this Division update. I don't want to shut down that discussion, I just don't want it to override the purpose of this post.
Regarding the ARTCC ranking: This information is readily available to anyone that wants it on the various VATSIM statistic sites. I simply compiled the data by ARTCC. One of the purposes of VATUSA is to simulate the vNAS --a system that is available 24 hours a day. Many talk about the want of realism in the forums and Discord on a regular basis. Sending a pilot to UNICOM because controlled airspace is uncovered technically is not realistic. I value competent coverage. Notice I did not put the actual ARTCC uptimes in my post. For all anyone knows, the range between 1 - 21 could be a matter of minutes or it could be a very wide range.
Yes, this is a volunteer hobby. If you have a staff position; however, you volunteered for a non paid job. Just because you are not getting paid doesn't mean you don't have standards and expectations.
Mani, why include them then? It really seems to have done more harm then good. I fail to see how realism and competency come into play. Unlike the real world, VATUSA doesn't force new people to go staff facilities with low amounts of controllers. We cannot have VATUSA listing the ARTCC's from first to last by number of hours controlled. As Dylan already said, it does not tell the full story. When one facility has more OBS's on their roster than another has total controllers, it's clear who will have more time on the network. My question to you is. Why are facilities towards the bottom of the list getting emails being told to "be better". Small facilities will never be able to put up the number of hours as the big ones, 30 people can't keep pace with 100+.
It is no different than VATSIM Golden Mic Award, the Iron Mic Award, or the rank of positions by callsign that is on most VATSIM statistic sites.
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In my post, I didn't advise any facilities to staff more. I didn't assign any value judgement on an ARTCC's performance. I was recognizing facilities that have high uptime. If you are on an ARTCC's staff and are not satisfied with your uptime, what can you do to increase it? Marketing? Events? Partnering with an ATO? Nolan is brainstorming. More ideas are welcome. You can brainstorm in regions with your region manager if you would like, or a staff member can organize a group to brainstorm.
There has been talk of creating a VATUSA Iron Mic Competition broken down by three leagues. The leagues take into account roster size without observers and were proposed to be re-evaluated every three months. Here is how things would stack out based on the leagues:
League 1
League 2
League 3
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It is no different than VATSIM Golden Mic Award, the Iron Mic Award, or the rank of positions by callsign that is on most VATSIM statistic sites.
The difference there is that Iron/Golden Mic are fun, friendly competitions. You are presenting this data as a performance metric, and then telling ARTCCs at the bottom to "do better" (a direct quote from my RM).
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It is no different than VATSIM Golden Mic Award, the Iron Mic Award, or the rank of positions by callsign that is on most VATSIM statistic sites.
The difference there is that Iron/Golden Mic are fun, friendly competitions. You are presenting this data as a performance metric, and then telling ARTCCs at the bottom to "do better" (a direct quote from my RM).
No I didn't. I said "Uptime ranking" I didn't assign a value judgement to the rankings at all. I just reposted the rankings at the beginning of this thread based on roster size (as of March 2021) without Observers.
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It is no different than VATSIM Golden Mic Award, the Iron Mic Award, or the rank of positions by callsign that is on most VATSIM statistic sites.
The difference there is that Iron/Golden Mic are fun, friendly competitions. You are presenting this data as a performance metric, and then telling ARTCCs at the bottom to "do better" (a direct quote from my RM).
No I didn't. I said "Uptime ranking" I didn't assign a value judgement to the rankings at all. I just reposted the rankings at the beginning of this thread based on roster size (as of March 2021) without Observers.
It sounds like there was a breakdown in communication somewhere because there are some mixed signals between what Mani is saying here, and what others are saying have been communicated to them by their RM.
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It is no different than VATSIM Golden Mic Award, the Iron Mic Award, or the rank of positions by callsign that is on most VATSIM statistic sites.
The difference there is that Iron/Golden Mic are fun, friendly competitions. You are presenting this data as a performance metric, and then telling ARTCCs at the bottom to "do better" (a direct quote from my RM).
No I didn't. I said "Uptime ranking" I didn't assign a value judgement to the rankings at all. I just reposted the rankings at the beginning of this thread based on roster size (as of March 2021) without Observers.
Direct quote from my RM by email: "...I really think you guys can/should do better". RMs represent the division, and thereby you, no? That sounds like you are considering this a performance metric. Or maybe you and your RMs aren't on the same page? Either way, there is a disconnect here that needs to be fixed.
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Point 2 is beyond the scope of this Division update. I don't want to shut down that discussion, I just don't want it to override the purpose of this post.
Agreed... Continued here then?
https://forums.vatusa.net/index.php?topic=10181.0
Thanks for creating this Kyle, it will be an important thread to follow. Hopefully some good can come out of this
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Point 2 is beyond the scope of this Division update. I don't want to shut down that discussion, I just don't want it to override the purpose of this post.
Regarding the ARTCC ranking: This information is readily available to anyone that wants it on the various VATSIM statistic sites. I simply compiled the data by ARTCC. One of the purposes of VATUSA is to simulate the vNAS --a system that is available 24 hours a day. Many talk about the want of realism in the forums and Discord on a regular basis. Sending a pilot to UNICOM because controlled airspace is uncovered technically is not realistic. I value competent coverage. Notice I did not put the actual ARTCC uptimes in my post. For all anyone knows, the range between 1 - 21 could be a matter of minutes or it could be a very wide range.
Yes, this is a volunteer hobby. If you have a staff position; however, you volunteered for a non paid job. Just because you are not getting paid doesn't mean you don't have standards and expectations.
I am personally judging my success based on:
- Membership growth - The growth comes from OBS
- New member retention - What are we doing to increase training bandwidth?
- Increase in controller hours during non-event times - I value competent coverage day in and day out.
- Increasing C1 retention - The Command Center, Web Services Team, Social Media Team are non staff avenues C1 rated controllers can take advantage of to expand the hobby.
- Successfully developing a pilot community - Yes, pilots are our customers. Pilots have several online and offline choices to engage in flight simulation. Online controllers need pilots to practice their skills.
- Building a unified team of managers who are willing to champion the above.
Mani,
Point 2 directly impacts your division update in regards to uptime, whether you want to believe it or not.
"One of the purposes of VATUSA is to simulate the vNAS --a system that is available 24 hours a day." -- Do you honestly think that any facility is going to staff 24 hours a day for again, pilots that can barely fly a heading, maintain an altitude? Again, you need to address the issues as to WHY ARTCCs don't have higher uptimes, which pilot competency DIRECTLY affects.
"For all anyone knows, the range between 1 - 21 could be a matter of minutes or it could be a very wide range." -- Irrelevant. You presented the data in a ranked way, period. The difference between each ARTCCs uptime doesn't matter. Next time, maybe display the data as "VATUSA uptime for the past xxxx timeframe is".
"Yes, this is a volunteer hobby. If you have a staff position; however, you volunteered for a non paid job. Just because you are not getting paid doesn't mean you don't have standards and expectations." - No one is refuting that. We know what we signed up for. The problem lies within the shadows of RMs telling ARTCCs they need to do better, despite the fact that controlling on this network is more hassle than fun. Again, this is due large in part by incompetent pilots. Y'all don't care as to why, you're just trying to get numbers to look good on a spreadsheet. Enough with that. You're doing more harm than good.
"Increasing C1 retention - The Command Center, Web Services Team, Social Media Team are non staff avenues C1 rated controllers can take advantage of to expand the hobby." -- C1 retention will not be solved by offering shiny new badges and responsibility. You are ignoring the issues at hand. You should be doing more with VATSIM to come up with solutions with regard to pilot competency, not hounding the people that actually control on a day-to-day basis to do better.
"New member retention - What are we doing to increase training bandwidth?" -- New member retention is not just measurable by training. Culture is another example of what affects member retention, do better.
"Successfully developing a pilot community - Yes, pilots are our customers. Pilots have several online and offline choices to engage in flight simulation. Online controllers need pilots to practice their skills." -- I thought this was beyond the scope of the update?
"In my post, I didn't advise any facilities to staff more. I didn't assign any value judgement on an ARTCC's performance. I was recognizing facilities that have high uptime. If you are on an ARTCC's staff and are not satisfied with your uptime, what can you do to increase it? Marketing? Events? Partnering with an ATO? Nolan is brainstorming. More ideas are welcome. You can brainstorm in regions with your region manager if you would like, or a staff member can organize a group to brainstorm." -- You didn't advise any ARTCCs to staff more, but your RMs are. They were hired by you to instill your vision. If they're going against your vision, or distributing other information contrary to yours, what help is that doing? Time to clean house if you ask me, remember "Not in line with my vision" is a reason for termination!
I challenge VATUSA to do better by: 1) Listening to the underlying issues, and working with VATSIM to attempt to solve such issue. 2) Not hounding the very volunteers that do what they can day-to-day to actually keep VATUSA moving. 3) Not contradicting yourself in statements made by you, your RMs, etc.
All this is doing, is adding to the pile of reasons as to why more and more long-dedicated members are leaving the division, specifically regarding controllers. Don't ignore the underlying issues.
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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.
So let me see if I understand this. Experienced controllers with years or decades under their belts are unhappy and leaving. FNG's coming in as OBS/S1's getting an eyeful, then leaving shortly after joining. Pilots are woefully unprepared, leading to negative experience for the experienced controllers. Got it.
Experienced controllers leaving:
-Many of us have been there with lots of hobbies. You set a goal, such as C1, work toward it, reach it, then realize that the fun was getting there, not being there.
-Pilots ill prepared, reduce the immersion, and fun of controlling, resulting in no incentive to make controlling a priority when discretionary time is available.
New controller recruits leaving early:
-Excessive training requirements.
-Training based on "that's how we've always done it" mentality, prepared by people that have no background in teaching.
-Slow advancement. Not enough on the job learning, and too much "sweatbox" with outdated scenarios that are counter productive
-Too many third party programs needed for a simple ATC session.
Pilots:
-In denial that even a little self study will go a long way in making their experience, and that of others much better.
-Refuse to start low and slow VFR, moving to flight following, graduating to GA IFR, then tackling airliners. Nope, jump right into that PMDG 737, and go.
Solution:
-Narrow the gap between controller training, and pilot expectations.
-Controller cert should not mirror real world exactly, and should not take a year to accomplish. More OTJ, low volume time on the live network, less didactic frat house training.
-Pilots should bear more responsibility for airspace knowledge. New account good for VFR only. Track account VFR flight following time, whenever a controller tags a users aircraft with a transponder code for flight following. Set minimum hours, say 25 hours of VFR flight following in GA pistons. Next step 25 hours of IFR GA pistons, tracked with controller tagging the user account by assigning the transponder code. Then unlimited network use.
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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.
So let me see if I understand this. Experienced controllers with years or decades under their belts are unhappy and leaving. FNG's coming in as OBS/S1's getting an eyeful, then leaving shortly after joining. Pilots are woefully unprepared, leading to negative experience for the experienced controllers. Got it.
Experienced controllers leaving:
-Many of us have been there with lots of hobbies. You set a goal, such as C1, work toward it, reach it, then realize that the fun was getting there, not being there.
-Pilots ill prepared, reduce the immersion, and fun of controlling, resulting in no incentive to make controlling a priority when discretionary time is available.
New controller recruits leaving early:
-Excessive training requirements.
-Training based on "that's how we've always done it" mentality, prepared by people that have no background in teaching.
-Slow advancement. Not enough on the job learning, and too much "sweatbox" with outdated scenarios that are counter productive
-Too many third party programs needed for a simple ATC session.
Pilots:
-In denial that even a little self study will go a long way in making their experience, and that of others much better.
-Refuse to start low and slow VFR, moving to flight following, graduating to GA IFR, then tackling airliners. Nope, jump right into that PMDG 737, and go.
Solution:
-Narrow the gap between controller training, and pilot expectations.
-Controller cert should not mirror real world exactly, and should not take a year to accomplish. More OTJ, low volume time on the live network, less didactic frat house training.
-Pilots should bear more responsibility for airspace knowledge. New account good for VFR only. Track account VFR flight following time, whenever a controller tags a users aircraft with a transponder code for flight following. Set minimum hours, say 25 hours of VFR flight following in GA pistons. Next step 25 hours of IFR GA pistons, tracked with controller tagging the user account by assigning the transponder code. Then unlimited network use.
That is a very interesting idea, I like it.
Derek
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> "New account good for VFR only. Track account VFR flight following time, whenever a controller tags a users aircraft with a transponder code for flight following. Set minimum hours, say 25 hours of VFR flight following in GA pistons. Next step 25 hours of IFR GA pistons, tracked with controller tagging the user account by assigning the transponder code. Then unlimited network use."
I am a huge proponent of General Aviation on this network, but I completely flat out disagree that *forcing* pilots who are interested in airline flying (and are not interested in General Aviation flying) to fly General Aviation is the way to go here. You cannot tell someone who is on this network completely to enjoy what interests them and what they consider fun, that they must first do something that doesn't interest them and they don't consider fun for X number of hours first. It's just going to send them to other networks.
And many of them, if given the right resources and motivation could become perfectly capable sim airliner pilots without ever once having booted up a plane weighing less than 100,000 pounds. There are, in fact, thousands upon thousands of pilots on the network on a weekly basis who fit that description exactly.
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> "New account good for VFR only. Track account VFR flight following time, whenever a controller tags a users aircraft with a transponder code for flight following. Set minimum hours, say 25 hours of VFR flight following in GA pistons. Next step 25 hours of IFR GA pistons, tracked with controller tagging the user account by assigning the transponder code. Then unlimited network use."
I am a huge proponent of General Aviation on this network, but I completely flat out disagree that *forcing* pilots who are interested in airline flying (and are not interested in General Aviation flying) to fly General Aviation is the way to go here. You cannot tell someone who is on this network completely to enjoy what interests them and what they consider fun, that they must first do something that doesn't interest them and they don't consider fun for X number of hours first. It's just going to send them to other networks.
And many of them, if given the right resources and motivation could become perfectly capable sim airliner pilots without ever once having booted up a plane weighing less than 100,000 pounds. There are, in fact, thousands upon thousands of pilots on the network on a weekly basis who fit that description exactly.
Rob,
I also understand that there are countless pilots who do this, but there is a argument that many others bite off more than they can chew. I think this is a problem that all of us see behind the scopes, yourself included. You cannot disagree that since the release of MSFS it has definitely gotten worse with pilots not having nay clue on what they are doing. With that being said, these new pilots choose not to learn or get better because there is no recourse for bad behavior or disregarding controller instructions, coaching etc....
Derek
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I don't disagree with anything you just said, Derek, but I do disagree that forcing them to fly General Aviation first is the correct solution.
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Locked. If you have an issue, question, comment, or concern with regards to this thread, please take it to your RM or Mani directly.