Thumper's Flightsim / VATSIM Page

Given my early exposure and fascination with aviation, it wasn’t long after I had my first PC that I got my hands on a flight simulator. My first flight simulator was Microsoft Flight Simulator 5 which of course ran on DOS. It took me a while to get the settings correct for the program to actually run and I didn’t have a joystick so I had to start out flying with the keyboard, but this was only the beginning. I had no idea what I was doing when I started, but I was already impressed by the graphics and realism of flying in the simulator even though today’s simulators absolutely put the quality of flightsim 5 to shame. Without realizing it, I started out navigating purely by dead reckoning since at that point I had no idea about radio navigation. Eventually I figured out what NDBs and VORs were and how to use them, and that added a whole new dimension to the simulator.

Just as I was running out of new things to play with in flightsim 5, I stumbled upon a new program called ATP (Air Transport Pilot). Although much simpler and more limited in capability than flightsim 5, it added the concept of virtual air traffic control where the computer would respond in text and voice to simple take-off, landing, and clearance requests. It also exposed me to large air carrier jets and cargo jets as well as the use of the enroute airway system for flying from one place to another.

School and work took me away from my flying interests for a few years, but when MS Flightsim 98 came out I had to get it and in the process of learning the new program, I discovered the ability to connect and fly with other people online through Microsoft’s web site. Shortly thereafter I found out that the place most people actually went to fly online was a place called SATCO. The SATCO network was fun because not only did you connect and fly with other virtual pilots at the same time, but there were also people connected with virtual radar screens providing real-time virtual air traffic control to the pilots flying online. This was too much to resist so I quickly went from the ranks of just a pilot on SATCO to also learning how to be an air traffic controller online as well. I ended up just about splitting my time between flying and doing ATC for other pilots.

I flew online using Flightsim 2000 and did air traffic control with the only radar client program at the time called Pro Controller. There were apparently some problems among the leadership in SATCO because the network actually went offline for a bit and changed names to what it is call today; VATSIM. Just about the time the network went down, I upgraded to Flightsim 2002 and there were a bunch of technical problems with making 2002 work with VATSIM so I gave up flying and doing ATC online for about a year. In late summer of 2003 I finally picked up the latest version of software to get FS2002 connected to VATSIM and got back into flying and ATC online again. Unfortunately since I wasn’t actively using the network during the switchover I lost my account and had to start over at the lower level of ATC and go through all the training again, but it was a good refresher.

Since shortly after starting to fly online, I also found that many of the other pilots belonged to virtual airlines so I joined up with Pacific West Airways back when I started on SATCO and continue to fly as a Senior pilot for them. At the time of writing this I believe I have logged some 600 hours of flying PWA routes and planes. More recently my friend Tim, who I introduced to flying online last fall, decided to found a new virtual airline called Allegiant Air based on a real airline. I jumped on board and helped design the flight schedule and routes for the airline which has about a dozen pilots right now even though none of us are very actively flying the routes. I have the most time of any of the pilots in Allegiant so far since I flew most of the routes at least once to make sure my schedules and routing information were accurate.

I did my retraining for ATC on the VATSIM network in the Seattle ARTCC which covers most of Oregon, Washington and parts of Idaho. Shortly after advancing up to full controlled status again the new radar client software ASRC (Advanced Simulated Radar Client) was introduced and it was a whole new learning curve learning that software. It is far more realistic and feature rich than the old Pro Controller software ever was. Today they have made almost seamless integration of voice services into the software for pilots and controllers alike and more pilots than ever are doing communications with ATC over real-time voice connections rather than the original text method. With the realism of the new Flight Simulator 2004, the realism of the ASRC software and real-time voice communications between virtual pilots and controllers, the experience of flying online is quite reflective of flying in reality. Working with this stuff online also helps keep my communication and flying skills fresh for when I go up flying in the real world. Any pilots reading this who are uncomfortable communicating with air traffic controllers, I can’t stress enough the value of learning to be a virtual air traffic controller. It will really help you understand what is happening on the ground while you’re flying and make your communications with Air Traffic Controllers in real life much easier and more comfortable.