It’s 60 Hours of ATC! Happening now, and until 11pm ET on December 2, you’ll find continuous air traffic control coverage in Boston Center. Any time you want to fly, day or night, we’ll be staffed up for the rest of the weekend.
We also have two other major events coming up: The Holland-America Line and a Northeastern Holidays FNO.
Beginning at 7am ET on Saturday, December 15, join the Boston Virtual ARTCC and Dutch VACC for a long-haul, trans-Atlantic, inter-division jamboree! During the Holland-America Line event, KBOS will be staffed to accommodate departures to EHAM, with full gate-to-gate coverage planned in this Cross the Pond-style event. This event is part 2 of 2, as we hosted an EHAM-KBOS arrival event earlier this year.
Then, on Friday, December 21, we’ll be partnering with the ZNY and ZDC ARTCCs for a Northeastern Holidays FNO! The event will feature staffing at Boston, LaGuardia, and the Washington Metro airports from 7-11pm ET. You’ll be able to fly between some of the busiest airspaces in the world, or just enjoy our full coverage at KBOS.
December is a busy month of ATC and events for our community. We hope you’ll brave the cold weather and winter operations to join us for 60 Hours, the Holland-America Line, and our Northastern Holidays FNO, along with the regular ATC and special pilot events taking place all month.
Ground School returned to the Member TeamSpeak on Monday, November 19, featuring a discussion on Radio Communications. The session, led by real-world pilot and ZBW controller Alec Liberman, drew a lively crowd and featured participation and discussion on phraseology, including examples.
The next session, focusing on Weather, takes place at 7pm ET on December 3 in our Member TeamSpeak. Each 1-hour Ground School seminar is designed to bring members together and share discussions around common virtual aviation learning topics.
Please join us on Monday at 7pm ET in the Member TeamSpeak for the next session. You can find server connection information and a detailed connection guide on our website.
As our members know, FlightSimExpo is BVA’s biggest meet-up of the year. In June, more than 40 of our members descended on Las Vegas for FlightSimExpo 2018! In addition to a dinner at Jimmy Buffet’s Margaritaville, drives through the desert, visits to the Hoover Dam, plane spotting at the airport, late nights in the casino, and concerts and shows, BVA members were the primary source of volunteers that made FlightSimExpo the success it was. Our community ran registration, stuffed bags, and represented the event with professionalism and class.
And as the calendar year draws to a close, it’s time to start thinking about FlightSimExpo 2019! As you may know, FlightSimExpo 2019 takes place on June 7-9 at Renaissance Orlando at SeaWorld. Expected to be bigger and better than ever, the 2019 event will feature a larger space, great venue, and—new this year—a series of advance seminars called Captains’ Corner. These Friday afternoon seminars will give attendees the chance to interact with leading simulation developers in a more personal setting. The smaller audiences will mean you have the chance to ask your scenery, PC building, and hardware tweaking questions directly to developers Lockheed Martin, Jetline Systems, Navigraph, Orbx, and Laminar Research.
Advance Registration for FlightSimExpo will kick off later this month for the same $50 price as last year. However, tickets at this price will be very limited, and BVA members are encouraged to subscribe to the FlightSimExpo mailing list so they’ll be notified as soon as tickets go on sale.
The FlightSimExpo 2019 website is now online at www.flightsimexpo.com. Attendees can book hotel rooms, check out travel discounts with WestJet, Delta, and Lyft, and view the initial event schedule.
As with 2018, we expect BVA members will be out in full force as the FlightSimExpo “Ground Crew”, in addition to supporting the VATSIM presence at the event. We’ll be talking more about that in the new year. For now, we encourage you to make your travel plans and book your hotel room at the discounted $114/night rate.
We look forward to seeing you in Orlando again soon!
In November, it became my privilege and honor to be nominated to the position of Air Traffic Manager here at ZBW. Through the process, the Administration Team took the opportunity to review our involvement with the community and to create ways of enabling members who want to participate with the chance to give back to the community.
As a result of these efforts, we posted four new administrative and staff positions on our forums earlier this month: Training Administrator, Events Coordinator, Social Media Manager, and Treasurer. The positions were posted for approximately three weeks this month and were advertised to the community in a membership-wide email sent on November 18.
We look forward to reviewing applications and conducting interviews with those who have applied. BVA is an active, thriving community thanks to the dedication of the many volunteers, pilots, and controllers who comprise the organization. We are grateful to the many applicants, and are looking forward to meeting each of you in the coming weeks.
This month, I was able to announce that Krikor Hajian was named Deputy Air Traffic Manager and former Training Administrator Evan Reiter has been named Community Manager. Additionally, after more than 10 years of involvement with the community, Phil Coyle vacated his role and is leaving the Administration Team to focus on FlightSimExpo.
Please join me in thanking Phil for his contributions to the community, and congratulating Krikor and Evan on their new roles. I look forward to seeing which of our members will step up to continue giving back to our organization.
Last month's question was:
Answer: the PARE model stands for Power, Ailerons, Rudder, Elevator. These are the four steps, in order, that a pilot should take to break a spin. Power: the throttle should be set/lowered to idle. Ailerons should be neutralized. Once these two have been done, full Rudder should be applied in the opposite direction of the spin to stop the rotation. Lastly, once the rotation has stopped, nose-down elevator should be briskly applied to reduce the airplane's angle of attack, after which normal stall recovery procedures can be executed.
Challenge question: what is the minimum control speed's (VMC) significance with regards to a multi-engine aircraft? How is it calculated, and how does it change with altitude?
