Next weekend, BVA members will be out in full force in Orlando for FlightSimExpo 2019! With more than 60 confirmed exhibitors, including the biggest names in simulation, FlightSimExpo is the biggest member meet-up of the year for our community.
Our Administration Team looks forward to seeing or meeting many of you there. Most BVA members are arriving in Orlando on Thursday and Friday.
For those who are in town, we’ll be meeting in the Oceans Ballroom at approximately 12:00pm on Thursday to help with registration and setup.
While most of us will probably end up hanging out all weekend anyway, we would like to invite all members to the BVA Member Dinner! The details are:
- Location: Buffalo Wild Wings SeaWorld, 10761 International Drive
- Date: Saturday, June 8
- Time: 8:00pm
- Cost: $25 (free for anyone who volunteers at FlightSimExpo)
For those who aren’t able to join us in-person in Orlando, we hope you’ll take part in the fun from home! You can catch livestreams of the event at https://fselite.net/fsexpo19. Our controllers will also be staffing up ZBW as well as the local area (KMCO) all weekend.
Given the in-person nature of the event, our administrators may not be as responsive as usual during FlightSimExpo. In addition, although some may choose to fly and control during the event, FlightSimExpo is often a getaway for our controllers and staff. As a result, the community’s online presence may be less visible than normal during the event.
For those who can: see you in Orlando! For everyone else, see you online soon.
For more information about FlightSimExpo, and to register for North America’s community-driven flight simulation conference, visit www.flightsimexpo.com.
Save the date: BVA’s 20th annual Boston Tea Party takes place on Saturday, August 10. For seven hours, controllers from BVA will come together in Nashua for a day of live and in person air traffic control! In addition to enjoying the staffing at Boston Logan (KBOS), we strongly encourage pilots to fly into the many regional airports in our airspace that will also be staffed. You can expect coverage at airports like Hartford-Bradley (KBDL), Providence (KPVD), Manchester (KMHT), Albany (KALB), and across Cape Cod.
As always, Boston Tea Party will feature Tea Party Poker, a competition that takes place during Tea Party. For each airport pilots land at, they get a card. Pilots with the best poker hand at the end of the event will have the chance to win great prizes from sponsors of the event.
Over the past few weeks, our Administration Team has been asking for your input on four elements of our community that may no longer be relevant to the members: the Virtual FBO, Airport Updates, Charts, and the Pilot Timetable.
Based on your suggestions and a review of the community’s current situation, the Administration Team has begun the process of refreshing these four elements, as follows:
Virtual FBO: Given that our community’s members have been more reliant on Discord and the forums than on direct member-to-member coaching, over the next few months, the ‘Virtual FBO’ branding will be removed from the website. The successful Pilot Ratings Program will continue in its current form.
Airport Updates: Existing airport updates, which in most cases date back to 2015 or earlier, will be transitioned to a freely-available, public file sharing website. These files will become available to members of the simulation community at no charge.
Charts: BVA will no longer maintain its (outdated) archive of charts at www.bvartcc.com/charts. We welcome members to visit our Charts page, which provides details on finding current, free publications from around the world.
Pilot Timetable: No changes are planned for the Pilot Timetable. However, as we continue our progress toward the creation of the new website, we will re-evaluate the effectiveness of this tool.
As you may know, Boston Virtual ARTCC has existed for many years, through a variety of developments within the simulation world. When some of these resources were originally created, the only platform they were designed to support was the default FSX environment of 2006. Since then, we have seen a number of technological advancements in simulation platforms, meaning that very few members are still using the original FSX (with most now running either Prepar3D or X-Plane).
Partly as a result of these advancements, and partially as the result of the community's decision-making over the years, BVA has become a more "realistic" organization that focuses more on providing high-quality ATC-pilot interactions than offering scenery, live/in-person training, or charts. We believe these changes will help better align our website and resources with the desires of the community.
As always, if you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, we invite you to share them on our forums or through Discord.
The Training Staff welcomes Nathan Rankin (RI) as our newest Mentor! The Training Staff has remained busy throughout the year, and we are excited about the addition as the busy summer season kicks in. Nathan has been a friendly, knowledgeable, and dedicated member of BVA, and we look forward to him making a positive impact for our controllers and entire community.
As always, I would like to say thank you to all our new students and certified controllers for choosing our community to increase their Air Traffic Control knowledge and experience, and we look forward to more of you joining our strong, insightful, and fun controller staff! If you are interested in becoming an Air Traffic Controller in our community, please visit our website.
As our air traffic controllers are already aware, we will be streamlining our ATC certification system later this month. Our current Class B "Off/On-Peak" system will be replaced with a similar but more flexible "Student Authorization / Full Certification" system. The primary reason for making this change is to evolve and adapt to changing network demands while also maintaining the quality for which we are well-known. The changes will allow controllers to gain more experience on their own without the need for monitoring by the Training Staff, thus allowing the Training Staff to spend more time with new students and certification requests.
For those of you who are part of our controller staff, keep an eye on the forums and your email inboxes for the details of these upcoming changes and how you may be affected. The Training Staff is prepared to make this a seamless transition for all of you. We appreciate all your efforts, and we look forward to our continued fun and success on the network!
Last month's question was: you are a properly rated commercial pilot, and your boss asks you to fly him to a business meting in his airplane. Can you legally do it? What if he asked you to fly him to the same business meeting in your airplane?
Answer: legally, you are OK to fly him if he provides the airplane, since you would only be providing your pilot services. However, if you are providing the airplane, this could be considered common carriage, and you would need an operating certificate (under 14 CFR Part 135). See 14 CFR Part 119 for more non-certificate exceptions.
Challenge question: on most training airplanes, the wing is designed to stall at the root first. How is this accomplished, and why is the airplane designed this way?
