As a staff member at the facility in question, I feel I need to address some of Jason's comments and put a stop to the allegations that he has brought against us both here and on the
VATSIM Forums.
Jason, prior to making any more allegations against ZMP as a facility and the procedures to which we hold ourselves, I suggest you re-read those SOPs to comprehension, something that countless students within our facility have done without complaint.
That specific facility SOP was approved by our ATD prior to its publication on our website. Indeed, the first page and introductory paragraph explicitly states that the SOP is designed for high-traffic situations and shall not be a substitute for good controller judgement in the absence of traffic levels that justify its use.
Regarding ground metering and SWAP routes, VATUSA has conducted an officially sanctioned comprehensive traffic management course over the past 4 months, in which two of our facility members have been enrolled. The purpose of that course has been to increase awareness and proficiency in applying various FAA traffic management initiatives, INCLUDING SWAP routes, to the network. Feel free to contact Alex Evins at ZNY or the VATUSA staff if you feel this is going against the spirit of the network. Since I have yet to see a complaint on your part about ZNY's Operational Information System regarding the VATUSA NAS or their spearheading of this Traffic Management Training Course, I can only conclude that either you are uninformed on this matter, or simply selectively targeting ZMP out of convenience, malice, or both.
I'm curious as to your interpretation of airports that "CANNOT be staffed by an otherwise appropriately rated controller". Our facility requires a KMSP tower certification prior to starting M98 TRACON training as KMSP is our major field. Until such a certification is complete, a controller cannot provide top-down service as MSP_APP and therefore is unable to work the position in compliance with the GRP. At NO point during our training do we instruct students to terminate services at a TRACON boundary. If a pilot is executing an instrument approach procedure to a Class D airport at a time outside that airport's hours of operation without the tower staffed, then yes a frequency change is given and we advise that the pilot report an IFR cancellation, a policy, to the extent of my knowledge, that is echoed by a majority of the ARTCCs within VATUSA. Unless you have specific examples to the contrary, I suggest you keep such allegations to yourself.
Regarding 'letting the students get on and control', that's exactly what we do. We simply prefer that our controllers be prepared to handle a high level of traffic should it occur, and I have been informed by more than one student following a busy event how appreciative they are of this philosophy.
Allow me to close with the following. You are not now, nor at any point have been a member of ZMP. Thus, none of our policies should directly affect your enjoyment of this network. At no point has one of our controllers used our policies or procedures as a crutch to deny services to a pilot, thus I fail to see how our SOPs are causing you any anguish or inconvenience.
My inbox remains open to any SPECIFIC grievances you may have, rather than simply blasting rhetoric about the philosophy in which ZMP's staff chooses to conduct operations within our facility.
