ATC will be staffed at both featured fields from 8-11pm ET. Click here for more information.
FlightSimExpo, BVA’s largest member meet-up of the year, happens next month! We look forward to seeing you, and the rest of the flight simulation community, in Orlando on June 7-9.
In addition to meeting up, sharing drinks, and simming “live and in person”, many of our members also volunteer as conference staff with FSExpo. For more information about BVA’s involvement, please visit our forums.
If you are planning to attend, there are several important things you should do:
- Complete BVA’s FSExpo Participation Form. This will help us plan numbers for social events and offer you the opportunity to volunteer with the conference. If you’ve already completed the form: thank you! We’ll be in touch with more information shortly.
- Book your hotel room. FSExpo has negotiated a great room rate through the hotel, and you can also room with other members if you’re looking to save even more.
- Check out hotel and travel deals available for FSExpo attendees.
FlightSimExpo already has more than 60 confirmed exhibitors, offers free EAA membership to everyone registered, and features a full lineup of speakers and panelists.
For more information about FlightSimExpo, and to register for North America’s community-driven flight simulation conference, visit www.flightsimexpo.com.
On Friday, April 26, Boston Virtual ARTCC hosted our Spring FNO: The ROBUC Stops Here! It was great to see many of our members flying in and out of Boston during this busy FNO event.
Boston was staffed for more than 6 hours, during which time we saw almost 150 arrivals, as shown in the image below, courtesy of simaware.ca. Mother Nature also decided to join the party, bringing several widespread areas of turbulence, rain, and thunderstorms for pilots to contend with. KBOS was at weather minimums almost all night, with airplanes stacked and packed to minimums along the final approach course.
Thank you to the many pilots and controllers who participated in this event!
We are pleased to announce that this year's date has been set for one of Boston Virtual ARTCC's longest standing traditions: Tea Party! This event will be held on Saturday, August 10, from 1200-1900 ET (1600-2300Z). This year's event marks a special milestone as it will be our 20th annual edition of this great event and tradition.
During this event, our controllers get together near the site of the real-world Boston Center facility for more than seven hours of controlling Boston, as well as many of our regional airports such as Bradley, Providence, Portland, and Nantucket! In addition, the event features a competition called Tea Party Poker in which pilots can obtain a virtual poker card for each airport visited during the event. The pilots with the best poker hands at the conclusion of the event will have the chance to win prizes from our event sponsors.
Stay tuned for more information and save the date!
Last month's question was: on multi-engine airplanes, what is a critical engine? Why is it "critical"? Are there cases where there is no critical engine?
Answer: the critical engine that has a more adverse performance hit on an airplane during an engine failure; in most airplanes, the left engine is the critical engine. As with most propellers, the line of thrust is a little to the right of the spinner (due to the way the propeller blades "bite" the air). This creates a shorter arm between the left engine's center of thrust than the right engine's center of thrust. So, when the left engine fails, the right engine induces a bigger yawing moment on the airplane than the left engine would induce when the right engine fails. However, this problem is solved with counter-rotating propellers, or propellers that rotate in opposite directions. In this case, there is no critical engine.
Challenge question: you are a properly rated commercial pilot, and your boss asks you to fly him to a business meeting in his airplane. Can you legally do it? What if he asked you to fly him to the same business meeting in your airplane?
