Cornell,

It was great working with you as the ZDV TA last year. Thanks for your time and dedication to VATUSA.

If Fergus is right, then this is definitely a deal. Loss of vertical and horizontal separation. The crossing restriction at SAYGE would still be in Class A airspace, so the horizontal separation was lost by 1000ft. The question that needs to be asked is if the RPA arrival was asked to descend any further on his arrival to KDEN. Assuming that he already passed SAYGE, altitude/speed would need to be coordinated with D50. If he went back to SAYGE and was still under ZDV control, he would have to be at least at FL190, putting them head on with the SKW arrival.

The TRACON is in the clear on this, so it definitely is a deal for the ZDV controller.

BL.

Yeah, it was a deal. Thank God for TCAS. All D01 (Denver TRACON) arrivals are usually told to descend at pilots' discretion to the altitude restriction, in this case being FL190. The article states that the controller was "apparently thinking the pilots would simply merge with the traffic already on the (SAYGE Six Arrival) sources said," which I don't really think is true unless the controller was absolutely not thinking straight...I mean, FL190 is still IFR-only airspace; planes aren't going to follow each other on STAR routes.

(The following is purely my own speculation:) I would guess that the ZDV controller was probably thinking he could put the Republic aircraft on the LANDR5, which runs adjacently to the SAYGE6. However, D01 recently restricted the use of LANDR (I'm not sure if that restriction is still in effect, but I believe it is) due to a lack of experienced controllers on D01's staff to handle parallel STAR traffic. The ZDV controller might have forgotten that in the high-traffic situation. It sounds to me as if RPA may have been inside or very close to the D01 TRACON boundary (perhaps a handoff was rejected?) but vectored north to SAYGE by Denver Center at the last minute due to the LANDR STAR closure. It's hard to say whether or not my theory is correct based on the FlightAware track for the Republic airplane because I can't tell where LANDR is in relation to SAYGE on their map, but I wouldn't be surprised if what I said is close to correct.

Happy Turkey Day, everyone!

There's a map for that.

As both a controller on VATSIM and a pilot, I wanted to comment on the service interruptions. It truly is getting annoying. I was working on getting in a few flights today and spoke to VATGOV5 ( I think it was ) who too was experiencing a lot of boots. USA-S3 I am getting dropped relentlessly, USA-SE keeps timing out and USA-W unable to connect to. ( Connection refused ) The only server that I am able to hold a solid connection to is UK.

As a pilot this is more than annoying. Enjoying the company of other pilots is what we're all here for. Does VATSIM / VATUSA have a solution for this?

Sincerely,
Melinda Romig
ZMA_MR

Melinda,

You didn't mention anything about the other servers. You are still permitted to connect to the remaining ones and see how they work out.

Hey Scott,

Go here for support.

Harold,

You don't have to switch your vox channels to avoid hearing the Network, you just neeed to not select the "SPKR or HDST" options. You will be a "text-only" controller on a different network. You will not interfere with the Network at all.

Yes, you do have to switch voice channels to avoid hearing the real-time servers' controllers' voice frequencies, but only if you want to use voice through VRC. We do this in ZDV, but I know other facilities use Teamspeak/Skype/etc.

If Denver Approach is on USA-S3, for example, on frequency 120.350 and channel DEN_APP, and there is a student on Denver Approach on Sweatbox on frequency 120.350 and channel DEN_APP, then the Sweatbox controller will be interfering with the controller on USA-S3. As long as either controller switches their voice channel, the two can be connected to their respective servers without interfering with each other on voice.

Does anyone have a copy of the VATUSA-designated ARTCC squawk codes?