On February 11, the “Cape Approach” (both on the network and in real life) callsign is going the way of “Northwest”, “U.S. Air”, and “Redwood”. Cape-area airports such as Nantucket, Martha’s Vineyard, and Hyannis will now be managed by controllers from the Boston Consolidated TRACON (A90) in Nashua, New Hampshire, using the "Boston Approach" identifier. The change is effective at 6am ET on February 11.
BVA will be making this airspace change at the same time the real-world facilities consolidate. Starting February 11, controllers connected to the network as BOS_APP will be managing the “core” Boston area only, which is mostly congruent with the Class B airspace. Controllers connected as MHT_APP (the north area, from Laconia, NH down to just south of Nashua) or ACK_APP (the south area, from Plymouth to the ocean) will still identify as “Boston Approach” but will only control those select areas. As always, Boston Center will continue to cover any airspace that is not staffed by an underlying controller.
In celebration of the change, we’re staffing up Cape Cod on February 11 from 2-6pm ET! You’ll see controllers at Nantucket, Martha’s Vineyard, Hyannis, and even Cape Cod Coast Guard Air Station all afternoon. Mark your calendars and join us as “Boston Approach” takes over the Cape for the first time.
On the events front, please be on the lookout for Cross the Pond Westbound airfield information and voting in the next few weeks. Additionally, thank you to all the pilots who flew into one of the busiest FNO events we’ve hosted: Northeastern Corridor. On January 19, we teamed up with ZNY and ZDC to staff KBOS, KJFK, and KDCA with great success.
As many BVA members know, Boston Virtual ARTCC has been proud to offer the community an integrated and easy-to-install set of models that are used to depict the other aircraft you see while flying online. Now, we’re on the verge of releasing BVAI, a new, free model matching solution that supports FSX, Prepar3D v4, and other Microsoft-based simulation platforms.
The package will include more than 5,000 liveries from around the world, as well as support for general aviation aircraft and helicopters.
The package will be released to the community, and available as part of the Getting Started Guide for new members, in the next few weeks.
Boston Virtual ARTCC’s biggest member meet-up of the year takes place in just a few months! FlightSimExpo 2018 is June 9-10 at Flamingo Las Vegas Resort.
The conference’s website has just been updated to reflect the first confirmed exhibitors and sponsors for the event, as well as more details about the venue. The event has confirmed more than 30 sponsors, exhibitors, and media partners. More continue to come in daily, so check out www.flightsimexpo.com for the latest information on the developers who will be in attendance at this event, or visit FlightSim.Com to see the press release.
In addition to bringing the flight simulation developers together, the event is a great chance for BVA members to see each other. We expect 50-60 BVA folks to attend the two-day event this June. Expo will be looking for a group of volunteers from BVA who will be on-site Thursday - Sunday to help out with preparing attendee bags, organizing badges and labels, running conference registration, and other activities. In thanks, the conference is hosting a dinner for BVA members on Saturday night that all community members are encouraged to attend.
We have made it easier than ever to connect to BVA’s Member TeamSpeak! Instead of having to enter ‘teamspeak.bvartcc.com’, members can now connect to the server using its nickname. Just type “BVA” into the “Server Nickname or Address” field and you’ll be connected. We encourage all members to update bookmarks to the new nickname.
Boston Virtual ARTCC's Member TeamSpeak server is available as a social platform for members. We’ll often chat before and after flights, or just hang out. All members are welcome to join the TeamSpeak server at any time.
As you may know, BVA is a registered 501(c)(3) status organization, meaning any donations made to the community are fully tax-deductible. The community relies on member donations to help maintain expenses including website hosting, marketing, and other operational requirements. All members of the community are volunteers.
Members can donate to BVA through our website. Did you know you can also donate to BVA through Amazon? Through Amazon Smile, Amazon donates 0.5% of the price of purchases to BVA. All you need to do is keep making your regular purchases through smile.amazon.com and you can support the community while you shop!
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