We’ll explore what an “A to B” event flight on VATSIM looks, feels and sounds like, through the lens of well, myself, in the cockpit of the PMDG 737-800, on a short evening hop from Melbourne to Sydney.
Firstly, what is VATSIM?
Virtual Air Traffic Simulation Network. It’s a platform that connects pilots and air traffic controllers through realistic air traffic control (ATC) services. Pilots will use a desktop client to connect their aircraft to the network, and air traffic controllers will be able to view these aircraft on their scopes^1, and issue instructions to them using voice and text communication protocols over simulated radio and satellite networks, in an overall goal to ensure the safe and efficient flow of air traffic through the virtual skies. Simply put, it’s as close as it gets to the real-world air traffic control environment, whether you’re a pilot or a controller!
It’s really an entirely new level of immersion for your flight simulation experience – I cannot stress this enough. It’s also a vibrant and dynamic community with hundreds of thousands of active members, with very frequent events and gatherings taking place, both virtually on the network, as well as in real life. The best part about all this – the entire network is run by passionate volunteers and it’s 100% free to join the fun!
Virtual events are the cornerstone of the VATSIM network, with hundreds of them, big and small, organised every week, without fail. Just have a look at the events calendar – at the time of writing, I can count 19 events taking place today, on Friday, 27th April 2024. And there are 20 scheduled for tomorrow!
So what’s an event? It’s a gathering of pilots and controllers, in a specified time and space (virtual) where there will be guaranteed air traffic control coverage at one or more airports and airspaces. These can be as big as a mass migration of aircraft across the Atlantic Ocean, with thousands of pilots and hundreds of controllers staffing up positions to provide realistic ATC coverage throughout the entire crossing, and implementing true-to-life procedures that every aircraft crossing the Atlantic in real life goes through. Dubbed “Cross the Pond”, it’s one of VATSIM’s flagship events, and along with many, many others like it, they make flying on VATSIM just so incredibly exciting exiting and rewarding.
Since I’ve got way too much to say on this and this post isn’t just about VATSIM, here’s a link to a post where I go into full detail about VATSIM, including what to note when first starting out, the perks of joining, and the downsides of doing so.
Have a look at some of these timelapses to see what sort of level of traffic can be expected at events!
Milk Run Monday
What a strange name, you say. The term “Milk Run” has its roots from back in the days when aircraft would fly continuous, short hops between multiple towns, delivering essential goods like – milk. Here’s an article from Simple Flying on some Milk Runs that exist to this very day. In a separate post, we’ll be exploring one of the most exciting ones and a true classic at that, in great detail – the Alaskan Milk Run!
The busy domestic route between Melbourne and Sydney was given such a title because of the very high frequency of flights between the 2 largest cities in Australia, and the short, 1 hour-ish flight time. To be frank, calling MEL – SYD “the milk run” is pretty localised to Australia, because this route doesn’t really fit the traditional idea of one. But, that’s the name of the VATSIM event, so we’ll roll with it! And it does have the figures to back it up – here’s the list of the top 5 busiest flight routes of 2023, data courtesy of OAG:
1 . Jeju International – Seoul Gimpo, 13,728,786 seats 2. Sapporo New Chitose – Tokyo Haneda, 11,936,302 seats 3. Fukuoka – Tokyo Haneda, 11,264,229 seats 4. Hanoi – Ho Chi Minh City, 10,883,555 seats 5. Melbourne – Sydney, 9,342,312 seats
For our purposes, it’s the VATSIM Australia Pacific division’s (VATPAC) busiest of all regular events, with full ATC coverage almost always guaranteed along the route, as well as into airports along the so-called J-curve between the 2 cities, such as Canberra. Here’s a brief description of the event, amongst some of the others that VATPAC hosts.
VOZ879 YMML – YSSY
We’ll follow flight VA879, callsign VOZ879, from Melbourne International Airport (YMML) in Victoria, to Sydney’s Kingsford Smith Airport (YSSY) in New South Wales. This is one of the regular shuttles between the 2 cities, with a scheduled departure time of 6.30 pm and arrival of 7.55 pm in Sydney, operating every day of the week bar Saturday. Interestingly, this very flight has been in operation since at least 2017, with the exact same departure timings. How do I know? The venerable Flightera website, which contains an entire host of information going way back on not just flights, but aircraft as well. No more being unable to see past 7 days of flight history on Flightradar24! We’ll explore more of such other gems that contain extremely useful information in another post.
There’s no time difference between Melbourne and Sydney, so the scheduled block time is indeed 1 hour and 25 minutes. Block time is the gate-to-gate time, and with normal flight times between Melbourne and Sydney being approximately 1 hour and 5 minutes on average, this is a pretty tight schedule. We can see that this flight does suffer from a below-average on-time performance, and this is true in general for most flights between these 2 cities.
We’re pretty late arriving at our aircraft, because the original plan was to take VOZ883 with a 7.00 pm departure time, but when I connected to the VATSIM network it told me that the callsign VOZ883 was already in use. This does happen, especially during busy events with few real-world flights between the event airports. I thus chose to fly with VOZ879 instead, with a scheduled departure time half an hour earlier, which would mean a delay, but that’s alright. It wouldn’t be completely unrealistic after all!
56-minute Video Walkthrough
Yes, the rest of the flight will be covered in the form of an edited video recording shot from my perspective as the sole pilot on this flight. We’ll start at the SimBrief page, which is an excellent free platform for flight planning. The video ends after the shutdown checklist has been completed after we are safely on-block at our bay in Sydney.
The full video is available for viewing below. A fair warning – it’s not flashy nor particularly eye-catching. But, it does go through all the important bits of the flight – everything that is relevant I have kept, and almost everything else has been painstakingly edited out. Quite a bit of detail has also been added in the form of text tidbits which you can follow along.
I appreciate that this isn’t the most engaging of videos – and rest assured – I am well aware. Many more, shorter bite-size videos will be coming along, many of which will cover the important aspects which I’ve gone through in this one.
Nevertheless, leave your questions either here, or in the YouTube comments section if you’ve got any, and I’ll be more than happy to share what I know. A full list of the acronyms and initialisms I’ve used throughout the video and their basic descriptions are available both down below and in the video description, because I understand how frustrating it can be for terms to be thrown around, when you haven’t got the faintest idea what they mean!
The list of acronyms, initialisms and terms that might not be immediately obvious. I have left out certain unimportant ones, or names of certain aircraft modes. Feel free to ask away if you want further clarifications.
In alphabetical order:
AC – Alternating Current AFDS – Autopilot Flight Director System APU – Auxiliary Power Unit ATIS – Automatic Terminal Information Service DC – Direct Current DU – Display Unit EFIS – Electronic Flight Instrument System EGT – Exhaust Gas Temperature ETA – Estimated Time of Arrival FL – Flight Level, used when above the transition level FMA – Flight Mode Annunciator FMC – Flight Management Computer GPWS – Ground Proximity Warning System ILS – Instrument Landing System IRS – Inertial Reference System LNAV – Lateral Navigation MCP – Mode Control Panel N1 – The rotation speed of the low pressure spool, expressed as a percentage of a nominal value N2 – The rotation speed of the high pressure spool, expressed as a percentage of a nominal value NADP2 – Noise Abatement Departure Procedure 2 ND – Navigation Display
PACK – Pressurisation Air Conditioning Kit PF – Pilot Flying PFD – Primary Flight Display PM – Pilot Monitoring QNH – The altimeter setting that will allow it to read the elevation above mean sea level RNP – Required Navigation Performance, in this context it means the approach will be flown without the aid of ground-based navigational aids RTO – Rejected Takeoff RWY – Runway SID – Standard Instrument Departure SODPROPS – Simultaneous Opposite Direction Parallel Runway Operations STAR – Standard Terminal Arrival STD – Standard, in this case the altimeter setting of 1013.25 hectopascals TCAS – Traffic alert and Collision Avoidance System TOGA – Takeoff/Go Around V1 – The speed at which there is now insufficient runway left to stop in the event of a rejected takeoff V2 – The speed at which an aircraft can safely climb after takeoff in the event of an engine failure VNAV – Vertical Navigation VOR – Very high frequency Omnidirectional Range Station VR – The speed at which the pilot flying “rotates” the aircraft by applying control inputs to get her airborne
FlightSimSG 
Leave a comment