[IDEA] Transcontinental fly-in

[Scott Norton]

Now about a week and a half since we have submitted the first idea and two reoccuring themes have emerged. The first one is that this is not meant to be a second "Light Up America". We intend for this to be more of a "Cross the Pond" style event with great organization. The second theme is about pilots ignoring "the middle guys". Well this going to change!

Now about a week and a half since we have submitted the first idea and two reoccuring themes have emerged. The first one is that this is not meant to be a second "Light Up America". We intend for this to be more of a "Cross the Pond" style event with great organization. The second theme is about pilots ignoring "the middle guys". Well this going to change!

Presenting...
[size=]From Sea to Shining Sea- In Two[/size]

Act One
Departure Airports: KBOS, KJFK, KIAD, and KMIA
Arrival Airports: KMSP, KIND, KDFW, KMCI

Act Two
Departure Airports: KMSP, KIND, KDFW, KMCI
Arrival Airports: KSEA, KDEN, KLAX, KSFO

Join the fun for one leg or both! Middle guys need not worry... you will get enough action to go around! We would expect to have fully staffed departure and arrival airports and if possible, centers for most artccs. Time frame for event I think would be around January to February in order not to interfere with any other major events.

As always I am open to suggestions and I hope we can get this started!
-Andrew Ordentlich

ORIGINAL MESSAGE BELOW

Here's an idea for the event coordinators to consider. It's been floating around for a while, and it's starting to gain support on Vattastic.

What if we had an event similar to Cross the Pond, but instead of going transoceanic, we go transcontinental? A fly-in event where pilots would take off from some airport on the east or west coast and traverse the country to land on the other side, all with full ATC from DEL to CTR. The entire country would be lit up with all ARTCCs (possible exception of ANC and HNL) participating at least on the CTR level, possible participation from VATCAN, airports on both the east and west coasts fully staffed, and pilots could book slots from New York, Boston, Miami, and Washington to Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle (to name a few). Combine the event traffic with the regular weekend crowd, and you've got the makings of a great experience for controllers and pilots.

In terms of timing, I'm thinking a Saturday in July or August would be ideal, and maybe 1400Z-0200Z on the chosen day?

[img]http://i.imgur.com/aOneXim.jpg\\\" border=\\\"0\\\" class=\\\"linked-image\\\" /]

[Camden Bruno]

Hmm... I like this idea. To be honest, it kind of reminds me of Light Up America. LUA isn't necessarily for transcontinental flights, however, because all of the US is pretty much fully staffed, it gives the opportunity for transcontinental flights with full ATC coverage and a lot of pilots use the event for that purpose. Regardless, if VATUSA wants to host an event specifically for transcontinental and use the same concept of lighting up all of the US, I'd totally be in. Sounds like fun!

[Matthew Bartels]

Hmm... I like this idea. To be honest, it kind of reminds me of Light Up America. LUA isn't necessarily for transcontinental flights, however, because all of the US is pretty much fully staffed, it gives the opportunity for transcontinental flights with full ATC coverage and a lot of pilots use the event for that purpose. Regardless, if VATUSA wants to host an event specifically for transcontinental and use the same concept of lighting up all of the US, I'd totally be in. Sounds like fun!

Light up America does not specifically prefer transcon flights, but we find that more often than not everyone starts at JFK/BOS/IAD etc and goes to LAX/SFO/SEA. etc

It's a bit of a shame really, that all the great facilities in between see primarily overflight traffic. We tried offering incentives to flying to other airports last year with limited success.

[Erik Partridge]

Light up America does not specifically prefer transcon flights, but we find that more often than not everyone starts at JFK/BOS/IAD etc and goes to LAX/SFO/SEA. etc

It's a bit of a shame really, that all the great facilities in between see primarily overflight traffic. We tried offering incentives to flying to other airports last year with limited success.

I too like this idea.

In regards to the overflight problem:
What about a trans-con in two? Say you do something where the first leg west-bound gets you to the Mississippi- say KBOS-KMCI and the next leg carries you on to the Pacific eg. KMCI-KOAK? It lets people bring out their favorite Dash-8s and for people who can't do the whole flight they can do one leg or another.

[Umar Ashraf]

I agree with Erik. Even though it does not matter to New York since we are on a coast and not in the middle, I still feel that we should give the guys in the middle a chance. This sounds like an amazing idea and I would be prepared to start work on it if everyone else is in!