VATSIM Oceania Quarterly Report

Q1 2013 (January to March)

The first quarter of 2013 has seen the usual activity over a very hot summer in both Australia and New Zealand, with far less traffic at this time of the year.

Evenings in both VATPAC and VATNZ airspace continue to be the most serviced by ATC but pleasing to see is a steady increase in ATC services on weekends.

VATPAC continues to be very active with events on several evenings each week, including their “milk run” events on Monday nights between the major airpots on Australia’s east coast as well as the regular Tuesday event. VATNZ Sunday Night Ops is the main focus for VATNZ with steady streams of traffic up and down the country participating.

During the quarter 187 members joined VATSIM Oceania, four more than joined previous quarter. At the end of the quarter there were 2,074 members in the Region, down very slightly on the previous quarter’s count of 2,087.

This was my first quarter as Chairman of the VATSIM Executive Committee and I would like to thank my fellow Regional Directors for their support. It coincided with some real world issues that has seen me work some very long hours in my day job so VATSIM had to take a back seat on and off in the quarter. Nonetheless, we made some good changes to the Global Ratings Policy to allow for solo validations at Center level as well as Approach level in order to try to get Controllers online quicker with less input required from Instructors and Mentors.

This quarter saw the unfortunate closure of VOZ Virtual, one the Region’s most active and longest serving Virtual Airline. The VA was highly respected in the Region for its professionalism and dedication to emulating the real world activities of Virgin Australia (formally Virgin Blue, Pacific Blue and V Australia). The loss of such a thriving VA has certainly been felt across the whole Region.

That’s my little lot for this quarter. Thanks to my Deputy Regional Director Jeff Smith and the Regional team for their efforts this quarter.

Mark Richards Regional Director 10th April 2013

VATPAC Quarterly Report January – March 2013 STAFFING During the quarter Mr James White resigned as Director of Events and Communications. Mr Tracy Shiffman was appointed as the new Director of Events and Communications. Despite the usual mutterings from the usual quarters about how the senior levels of VATPAC are a closed shop, Mr Shiffman was the only applicant. He was however a quality candidate and should prove an asset to the board. ATC TRAINING Despite falling during the school holiday period this was a relatively quiet quarter for ATC training. Successful In progress Terminated

Tower Rating 4 0 1

TMA Rating 3 2 1

Enroute Rating 1 3 0

Senior Controller 0 2 -

Oceanic Endorsement

1 1 -

Procedural Tower Unfortunately earlier this year VATSIM BoG began a process that appears to commence the phase out of Procedural Tower from any sort of competency associated with GRP. This has profound impacts on VATPAC operations. Including military towers there are around 40 tower positions in Australian airspace. The break up of these is as follows: Civil Class C 8 Military Class C 7 Joint Use Class C 4 Civil Class D (Procedural) 16 Other temporary military 5 – these can be procedural or Class C is radar is deployed n activation. In regular use we have 12 Class C radar towers and 16 Class D procedural ones. It is obvious that we must by the nature of Australia's airspace design place a high emphasis on procedural control, as this also applies to much of Australia’s en-route airspace and also to the surrounding oceanic airspace (which is quite obviously a significant volume of airspace). In addition the 15-20 tower positions administered by VATPAC through the South Pacific vACC are also all Class D procedural towers, with the exception of NTAA, which now has a radar head.

This change has leas to the regrettable situation of what was good progress with our training materials now largely becoming defunct. The only way we could possibly require some sort of endorsement for procedural tower would be to designate them as special airspace, the traffic volume simply does not warrant this. The VATPAC board is unanimous in requesting the EC examine this situation and make representations to the BoG to allow for a procedural control endorsement to be delivered to tower controllers. PILOT TRAINING Programs P1 program is still available but full participation has dropped off, but still pilots start and return to the Moodle which is assumed for reference purposes. The P1 Moodle has had over 240 participants with only 39 pilots P1 rated. P2 rating program planning and moodle-isation is in progress . P4 &P5 Rating Programs. As approved by the board VATSIM P4 and P5 ratings will be next priority and preliminary planning has commenced. A framework for the program has been formulated and phase 1 is a Delivery and Assessment approach for the Moodle. A team has been formed. Staff will focus on moodle construct and assessment models- as we will be moodle based it will require considerable effort to extract the competencies in Moodle form. Dual assessment (P4,P5) feasibility is being investigated. P3 Rating - this may follow after the above ratings. On hold as these programs will require 100’s of hours of effort to be borne by a small team of volunteers Survey A Pilot Survey will be conducted by mid April. This survey will solicit feedback from pilots on Pilot Training , Events(Pilot Perspective) and General trends and issues . Staffing A quarterly TS staff meeting was conducted in mid March. One new Instructor has been appointed to initially with the P1 program and then project work in support to the P4,P5 ATO approval submission. One pilot coach has also been appointed to replace ineffective staff. The pilot coaches role has been reviewed and they will now be integrated into the assessment phases of the P1 program . If successful a similar employment will be included into follow on rating programs.

Timelines P2 target approval May 2013( slipped from end of 2012) lack of staff P4 P5 approval by late 2013 ( based on new staffing) Comments The P1 program at VATPAC is demonstrating trends with the rollout of the P1 Rating across VATSIM – Our pilots do some of the training and then forego the assessment phase. Pilots perhaps “learn” but unlike the ATC mandatory requirement opt for using the knowledge and not worry about the P1 rating which only represents a note in a flight plan. VATSIM Pilot Ratings are not promulgated as such. The use of the P1 moodle for reference purposes continues and offsets the effort by the PTT. It is expected (hoped) that the rollout of P2 and then P4, P5 in 2013 will excite pilots to take on the challenge. EVENTS Discontinuation of role as VFR Coordinator Mr Peter Smith has elected to discontinue his role as designer of Friday and Sunday night VFR ops events, however, he will continue to work on World Discovery Flights. A post on the forums announcing this will be forthcoming, along with an invitation for members to apply for VFR coordination duties. Event Participation Participation in regular events such as Australia Online, Milk Run Mondays, World Discovery Flights, and VFR Ops has been excellent. Of particular note are World Discovery and VFR Ops which has now gathered a dedicated group of individuals who show up for each and every event. In January, Panic Stations Sydney was a resounding success with (according to Vatsim Data) 50 pilots vying for the coveted landing time. ATC was fully staffed and TeamSpeak proved a critical component to the success of the event. Upcoming Events “Spilt Milk Runs” held on the last Monday of each month are becoming popular. With the introduction of non standard ops on top of the occasional geographical relocations, I expect this event to become even more popular starting with the secondary radar failure simulation on March 25th. Ben Ohene has kindly volunteered his scenery expertise in helping to facilitate non standard ops. His first effort of placing a disabled A380 surrounded by fire and emergency vehicles at the intersection of 16R/07 at YSSY is now in testing and is expected to be ready in time for April's Spilt Milk Run. Other upcoming events include a Secondary airport Panic Stations (Poll to select location currently posted in the forums), a VatPac staff ATC evening, a completely new style of event (with the working title of TMA Trauma) which in it's inaugural running, will encourage operations out of every single aerodrome within the YMML TMA. The next "What if.....?" event will entail the use of curfew ops at YSSY regardless of the time of day or weather conditions.

Finally, VA Publicity events are in the works. VAs will be contacted and invited to prepare a scenario which could include something like getting as many of their pilots online at one time and doing a low flyover in formation, or all parked along a single runway for photo / video purposes that they can then use to advertise their airline on their websites. OPERATIONS The Document Manager resigned. Had to wait until the 2 Director positions were filled before replacement occurs (due to possibility of losing them to other positions straight away as before). This will be concluded late April early May. ATC Allocation system out of test phase and working well. Policy’s: Updates progressing and will produce drafts when the move / wife's illness and post funeral requirements are completed. Affiliated VA’s: Temporary suspension of VOZ until further notice due internal issues/ web site closed etc. No ‘official’ explanation received from their contact officer although I spose it is inconsequential to some extent. 2012 Q4 ops

2013 Q1 Ops

AIRSPACE Sector Files All sector files and AIRAC cycles completed (1212 was delayed slightly, but is now published). Managed to resolve the issues with the new format that Air Services Australia (ASA) is using for High and Low Airways. Panic Stations All sector files produced to support the panic station events and the new sector file for Sydney is being built as we speak. Training Plans are being drawn up to increase the number of people who can build the sector files up for each AIRAC cycle release. CONCLUSION Despite low numbers over the school holiday period a relatively successful period for the division. It was regrettable to see one of the leading virtual airlines in the region being forced to close it's doors. Jackson Harding

Director of Division

VATSIM New Zealand

Quarterly Report to the Regional Director Q1 2013

The first quarter of 2013 has been a period of generally improving results for VATNZ.

Flight and controller hours are up slightly on the previous year. There has been a re-newed focus placed on organising and publicising Sunday Night Ops events well in ad-vance and this has helped to build turnout on both sides of the scope.

Staff Changes

There have been no staff changes.

Membership

There were 18 new members who joined VATNZ and become active during this

quarter. There were 10 VATNZ members who provided ATC in VATNZ airspace dur-

ing the quarter. There were 98 VATNZ members who flew in VATNZ airspace during the quarter.

Overall there were 99 VATNZ members who were active in VATNZ airspace during the

quarter. These numbers are largely unchanged compared with the previous quarter.

The number of VATNZ members providing ATC in VATNZ has dropped from 13 to 10, a reverse of the change between Q3 and Q4.

A large number of people (24 out of 42: 57%) join the division but never become active, and decreasing this percentage is going to be key to revitalising the division. This proportion has come down 13% this quarter, but there is still plenty of room for improvement.

Activity

4

Airspace

The three sectors around the country's major airports continue to see the most cov-erage. As usual, however, Raglan sector – home to Auckland International – remains the most thoroughly covered. There is only 11.5 hours of activity within the two Oce-anic Sectors: as is typical during Q1, the McMurdo Sector has seen increased activity.

5

Position Type

The Position Type distribution shows a bias towards Enroute control, as is typical in non-Cross the Ditch quarters. Solid proportions of Tower and Approach activity reflect the current crop of new Controllers working their way through the ranks.

Flights

The majority of flights continue to involve the three main New Zealand airports. As is typical of the summer months, Pegasus Field (NZPG) in Antarctica saw significant flight activity, ranking 5th out of all VATNZ airports for the quarter.

Summary

Q1 has been a period of relatively stable activity. Membership activity and sign-up conversation rates are both up slightly, and the last two months have been the first in a year and half to show year-on-year increases in controller hours. If we are able to sustain this growth into the winter months, there is every reason to believe that we will lock in some genuine gains over the course of 2013.

The number of active VATNZ controllers however remains static and the long-term trend is still slowly downwards: this is a key area that must be addressed in order to achieve the Board's goal of reinvigorating the division and ensuring its long term health.

Nick J o h n s t o n DIVISION DIRETOR

5th April 2013

Controller Activity Hours

Historically Q1 is the quietest quarter of the year in terms of controller hours, and this year has suffered from an especially sunny summer in NZ which generally has a negative impact on online hours. Despite this, February and March both posted increases in controller hours on the same time in 2012. These represent the first net-positive months since July 2011, and are signs that the reinvigorated Sunday Night Ops programme is starting to bear fruit.

VATNZ Controller Count

Despite the increased controller hours in February and March, this has not translated into an increased number of VATNZ Members controlling. Unique VATNZ Controller numbers are flat compared with 2012 (an extra Ice Event in January 2012 accounts for some of the difference in January numbers). The long-term trend is still downward, and reversing this is the core challenge facing the di-vision in the medium-to-long-term.