I was one of the New York Controllers last night. I was on Tower and I was on Approach. I can tell you at one point VATSPY Read 200 Arrivals. I was also streaming the entire event and I can tell you that plenty of pilots provided feedback that they enjoyed it, even including the ground stops and holds. Why? Because it was a non-standard challenge and change of pace. On a normal day on the network, you aren’t getting ground stops and put into holds because of traffic saturation. When the servers died, (for lack of a better verb), that’s when the airspace started getting unmanaged and we had to do some cleanup and holding. Simply because none of our approach controllers and some center controllers could connect. That’s to zero fault of ZNY or any controller. I honestly would love to hear from VATSIM as to the cause of the server issues because if anything this could have provided a stress test data point to VATSIM. I’m not here for a political discussion of the event, or how it was managed, or why it was fair or unfair. I feel like many times after these events we forget the reason we are all part of flight simulation, to have fun and get a taste of realism. Anyone can argue ‘WELL THIS EVENT IS FAR FROM REALISTIC!’ You’re spot on. JFK doesn’t get slammed like this IRL. However if you want to take that stage and podium, I’ll ask you to then explain Cross the Pond. I’ve flown plenty of FNOs prior to COVID, and after COVID. Personally I love the i sanctity, ground holds, en route holding. It’s fun! Many pilots did enjoy it. Some I’m sure had differing opinions and that’s completely fine. After all was said and done, I talked with other controllers, we spent probably close to 1.5 hours talking about what we felt went well, what our downfalls were, what was out of our control. NYARTCC has always and will always be a difficult ARTCC to train in and learn. Hell you need to learn 4 Class Bravo airspaces. It’s a real task. As part of the Instructor staff I pride myself on helping students excel and learn and become better. I also am an AGI/IGI and love teaching ground and real world pilots procedures and policies because well I’m a weirdo. I honestly could not care any less how some people say ‘you take this too seriously blah blah blah’ Give it a rest. Unless VATUSA has a backlog of emails stating how the FNO was a disaster and they hated it and controllers were not prepared and didn’t know what they are doing (which I highly doubt), I’ll view it overall as an event that people enjoyed and was a success. Does the word success mean it was perfect, hell no. Just because you get your PPL doesn’t mean you didn’t make mistakes during the checkride. Same rules apply here. As I mentioned before I don’t like going into the political side of VATSIM, but what I will say is that the events team who set this up on the JFK side did a damn good job. They spent a long time and coordinating with other ARTCCs to make it happen I’m sure. I’m sure there are other ARTCCs that don’t agree with the approval of this event but it’s done and over. Does not mean a valid post Mortem cannot be conducted in regards to how the network as a whole handled the traffic, plus ZNY, ZDC,ZBW,ZIB,ZOB,ZTL handled ground stops, in air holds, etc. Thats a completely normal procedure. However, I’ll go out on a limb and say if anyone here would classify the FNO as an utter ‘disaster’. You’re out of your mind. People had a lot of fun from what I’m seeing across different social media mediums and that’s the whole damn point of VATSIM. To have a sense of realism, have fun, but know it’s okay to make mistakes!
Joseph Pentz
ZNY I1
Private ASEL, AGI/IGI
