With our DATM moving on to bigger and better places in his life and aviation career, ZAU will be seeking someone new to take his place.

ZAU Deputy Air Traffic Manager Duties and Responsibilities

-Reports to the ATM
-Must hold C1 rating or above
-Responsible for day to day operations of the ARTCC
-Assume the duties of the ATM in their absence
-Oversees the quality and duties of the support staff
-Maintains, updates and manages facility SOPs and LOAs with the approval of the ATM
-Assist in the development and implementation of ARTCC projects as designed by senior and support staff
-Primary advisor to support staff
-Calls staff meetings with the approval of the ATM
-Stays current in VATUSA issues and policies
-Provide guidance to members and visiting controllers
-Serves as overseer of the suggestion box
-Requried to provide relevant articles to the monthly newsletter if utilized
-Maintain active online presence on the website, forum, teamspeak, and network
-Must complete a minimum of 7 hours of controlling time per month

The ideal candidate will also have staff and training experience, though not required, and be willing to serve on our training staff as a mentor or instructor.




How to Apply

Any interested candidates should submit the following:
-A professional VATSIM resume including any staff positions held in ATC and/or Virtual Airline, anticipated activity levels in the DATM position, and one sentence statement on why you would be good for the position.
-A letter of recommendation from your ATM or VATUSA staff member
-Your vision and goals for the ZAU ARTCC and ideas on how to increase activity along with potential methods for achieving this.

Application materials can be sent to: [email protected]

The application process will remain open until May 31st. Interviews will begin as soon as applications are received. The position will be filled as soon as the right candidate is found, so apply soon!

Well, I think this is a good idea. If this is truly a plan to take away major/minor certifications, this will be a much better way to advance controllers quickly in a more inviting environment. The fact that a controller has to learn a set of procedures for one location that may not receive much traffic and then learn more procedures for the main airport can be tough on a controller's excitement on the network. We have this at Chicago and if we can just do away with ORD being a major facility and allow all students to control there it will be great to see. Rather than check out our visiting controller on a minor facility first, they would already have the training necessary to move right into our major airport allowing for more ATC coverage. It will be good to have a standardized training system so that controllers will be able to learn what they need to know and implement this knowledge everywhere rather than having facilities that train students less efficiently suffer when well learned controllers from other areas are visiting there. It works the other way around too. Having a poorly trained controller trained as a visitor at a facility that practices very realistic operations will hardly allow for that controller to be granted permission to visit. If we have that standardized system as mentioned here, controllers can be trained with the same material, be trained for realistic situations and thus be able to better get into any online position and be able to use those realistic skills anywhere. I'm glad to see the network moving in this direction.

The ZAU Events Department is now officially announcing March Madness! Beginning at the end of this month, ZAU will undergo a bracket competition between its members and visitors to determine a grand champion controller that will be awarded a worthy prize at its conclusion. Are you ready to hear it works?

ZAU March Madness Bracket Competition

Who Can Participate?

As long as you are a ZAU member or visiting controller by February 16th, 2015 you are eligible to participate in the event.


If I join or submit a visiting controller application ZAU on February 17th, why can't I participate in this competition if the competition isn't until March?

We intend to have an early cutoff ZAU registration for the event due to the fact that if a new controller starting as an OBS joins late in the month, they may not have the ability to be promoted to an S1 prior to the beginning of the competition. By using February 14th as the ending eligibility date, it allows for those OBS controllers to get training and be promoted. Unfortunately, if a C1 controller joins on February 17th they are still going to be ineligible for the competition in order to be fair to all potential members even though the C1 controller will be able to control on ZAU positions.


What is the purpose of this competition?

The purpose of this competition is to increase controller activity at ZAU in order to encourage more pilots to fly in/out/through our airspace. And, it's fun!


What positions are eligible for the competition?

Any position within the ZAU airspace, DEL thru CTR is eligible for the competition. If you spend the entire month on MKE_DEL, it still counts.


How do I win?

There are two ways to win and you can actually be eligible to win both ways! The first way to win is to defeat your competition and be the ZAU March Madness Champion! The second way to win is to submit a completed bracket indicating your predictions and having the highest scoring bracket at the end of the competition whether it predicts you winning the competition or not. If you get the most points for your completed bracket and you are the grand champion controller at the end of the competition, you win both prizes!


How are seeds determined?

In an NCAA March Madness bracket, all the teams are placed based on their ranking. Since we cannot rank controllers prior to the event, rankings will be based on VATSIM CID. We will equate experience with ranking. Therefore, a controller with an 8XXXXX CID will be ranked higher than a controller with a 12XXXXX CID number.


We don't have 64 controllers, how will some rounds be determined?

Because we don't have 64 participants, the remaining slots will be filled with a BYE. If we have 40 participants, seeds 41-64 will be considered BYE weeks allowing the participants competing against a BYE to automatically move into the next round.


How can I submit my own bracket?

On February 16th, after the cut-off for the event, a blank bracket will be completed by the Events Coordinator and made available to the public. All you have to do is download a blank bracket and fill in your predictions. Once you have filled in your bracket, you will email it to the events coordinator and your bracket will be made public for all to see. That's it. Your bracket will be scored and updated as the competition progresses.


How will the brackets be scored?

Due to the number of controllers that will be participating, there will be 6 rounds of competition. Each win will be awarded a certain number of points depending on the round. The scoring is shown below:

Round 1: 64 Controllers competing - Each win in this round will be worth 1 point. (32 points possible)
Round 2: 32 Controllers competing - Each win in this round will be worth 2 points. (32 points possible)
Round 3: 16 Controllers competing - Each win in this round will be worth 4 points. (32 points possible)
Round 4: 8 Controllers competing - Each win in this round will be worth 6 points. (24 points possible)
Round 5: 4 Controllers competing - Each win in this round will be worth 8 points. (16 points possible)
Round 6: 2 Controllers competing - Each win in this round will be worth 14 points (14 points possible)

Total Points Possible: 150

For the final round, all bracket competitors will be asked to provide the total hours controlled by the final two controllers IN THAT ROUND ONLY. For example if you think Controller A will beat Controller B by a score of 20hours to 15hours in the final round, you will enter 35 as your guess. This will be used to break any tie that may occur at the end of the competition. Of the tied leaders, the competitor with the closest guess to the actual score will be declared the winner. It does not matter who is the finals but if there is any kind of a tie at the end of the last round, this tie braker will come into effect.


How will hourly ties be handled each round?

If two controllers who are competing against each other happen to tie in the hours controlled for that round, the following steps will determine the winner:

1). Which of the two controllers has the most hours total in the competition to date?
2). If still tied, which of the two controllers has the oldest VATSIM CID?


How long is each round?

Each round still start on Friday evening and run through Tuesday evening.

The competition dates are as follows:

Round 1: February 27 2359z thru March 3 at 2359z  - February 27 at 6:00pm Central thru March 3 at 5:59pm Central
Round 2: March 6 2359z thru March 10 at 2259z - March 6 at 6:00pm Central thru March 10 at 5:59pm Central
Round 3: March 13 2359z thru March 17 at 2359z - March 13 at 7:00pm Central thru March 17 at 6:59pm Central
Round 4: March 20 2359z thru March 24 at 2359z - March 20 at 7:00pm Central thru March 24 at 6:59pm Central
Round 5: March 27 2359z thru March 31 at 2359z - March 27 at 7:00pm Central thru March 31 at 6:59pm Central
Round 6: April 3 at 2359z thru April 7 at 2359z - April 3 at 7:00pm Central thru April 7 at 6:59pm Central


What are the prizes?

Of course, the reason to compete other than for the bragging rights! The winner of the competition will recieve a download code for the FlightBeam KDEN scenery, a prize value of approximately $30-$50. If you have the highest scoring bracket, you will win the opportunity to create the idea for a ZAU event to be held this year.



If you have any questions, please email [email protected]

Just a reminder that this event is coming up on Saturday!

Of the comments so far, you seem to get our intent correct. It would not be easy for a visiting controller what with the hours they might need to commit to visiting. However, it would give the VC some extra experience outside of their own airspace while helping VATUSA at the same time. It should be a fun month.

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We know you love to travel, but when it comes to the holiday season, we welcome you back to sweet home Chicago. If you have flown Chicago at any time this year, this event is for you. We want to thank you for flying Chicago whether you were here for an event or just another trip. Let us close out this year by throwing a party for you, the pilots who keep us up and running! This one's for you. We're glad to have you home for the holidays!

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Chicago ARTCC certainly hopes that you will come and support VatVenture this year. Beginning August 2nd at 11am Central Time, Oshkosh will staff up for the weekend. 12-hour days on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

Below you will find links to various information about the weekend that we would love for you utilize and pass on to anyone you know!

Pilot Arrival and Departure Procedures
http://www.zauartcc.org/forum/index.php?board=54.0

Competitions!!!
http://www.zauartcc.org/forum/index.php?board=56.0

Hello from the Chicago ARTCC! My name is Mathew and I head up the events department in Chicago. Every year we host the virtual version of the EAA AirVenture fly-in, something that in the VATSIM world we call VatVenture. To enhance the realism of this event, we want to extend an invitation to controllers like yourself to work a shift or two with us during the event. Last year, we had controllers from around the globe sign on at the various Oshkosh positions and we want to do it again this year.

This does not mean that you need to become a member at the Chicago ARTCC. You don't even have to be a visiting controller with Chicago either. Because Oshkosh is a non-major airport, anyone from anywhere can control without any training at all. Of course for this event we would want everyone to be aware of the special procedures in effect, but it is easy for you to help us out and be a part of this unique event.

If you think you would like to be a controller at our VatVenture event, please know that you can volunteer as much or as little time as you would like. If you want to control the Oshkosh airport this summer, please contact me at [email protected] and I will give you all the details that I have and I will make sure to get you on a shift.

We at the Chicago ARTCC appreciate you considering to help us out and I personally look forward to hearing back from you very soon.