LiveATC

One site that I visit very frequently is LiveATC.net - it provides both live and recorded ATC audio transmissions with instant archive retrieval. To make it easier to access the live feeds I prefer to use FooBar2000, a freeware Windows audio player with some great features, including the ability to play streaming audio, such as that found at LiveATC. Over time I developed a playlist based on the live feeds to use with Foobar. You can download this list from the AeroTexas website, which I've included with a regular m3u playlist that can be imported into other popular media players.

Download LiveATC Live Feeds Playlist

After Cross[ing] the Pond

The traffic was a snarl at Toronto in the wee hours on Saturday morning for VATSIM's "Cross the Pond Eastbound" event. This meant lots of waiting...my aircraft stood more than an hour delayed at various taxiway hold-points before finally getting the green light to `line up and wait`, as they say it in Canada.

The rest of the flight was uneventful, but never lonely as there were always plenty of controllers and tons of traffic for company along the way. This was my first time to fly transatlantic with VATSIM. Received Oceanic clearance about 20 minutes before entering Gander airspace on NAT-N at DENDU, and then it was position reports every 45 minutes or so; my last call was, `AeroTexas One reporting fifty two North, thirty West at one seven five nine zulu, flight level three three zero, mach zero decimal seven niner estimating five five north two zero west at one eight four nine zulu, RESNO next.`

Entering Shannon control area was cleared "ROKNA direct, expect no delays" - as in no holding via the published - but on final things were tight and they had me slowed way down on final for the ILS RWY 28.

The slow speed and fierce crosswinds made things too interesting so I wisely went around. The second time I approached with more power - but still had a near 20 knot component on flare. Nice to be in Dublin, even if it is dark - now it's time for a pint!

New Features

AeroTexas is working on a more personal online experience. This will likely begin with a login system and enhanced access to your online pilot log. Do you have an idea or suggestion to help improve AeroTexas? Please login to the Members Only area and post your idea in our new UserVoice Feedback Forum - you can also see what other ideas have been proposed, and vote on the ones that you like.

Cross the Pond Eastbound

AeroTexas will Cross The Pond (CTP) - a bi-annual event which takes place on the VATSIM Virtual Air Traffic Network. It involves a large number of aircraft flying between the United States of America & Canada and United Kingdom. This year the Eastbound event is taking place on Saturday 25th October 2008. There are departures planned from two airports in the USA and one airport in Canada, with arrivals into three UK airports and one Irish airport.

All members can participate in this event and log hours flown using ATAVS - even if you're a new member you can join in on the fun. Slot reservations are required, and you will need to brush up on your oceanic airspace skills, but it should be fun.

VATSIM Cross The Pond Eastbound 2008

Embraer 135 Replacement

In 2003 AeroTexas added Nick Botamer's Embraer ERJ-135 to the passenger fleet for use in regional service. That aircraft has seen a lot of use! With the release of POSKY's version I saw an opportunity to upgrade our freeware model, and started work on passenger textures. Work on those finished a few weeks ago, and now I'm happy to report that cargo textures are now close to being complete as well. Here's a little preview, showing the new E135 enroute with a pallet of mangos, and three cases of awfully good scotch! Panel-wise there are not too many freeware options, but if you have any suggestions please let me know - Grabowski's ERJ panel seems to be about the best out there right now.

LSZH Fly-In

The fly-in at Zurich was big fun. As I checked on yesterday morning Richard sent me an e-mail and I found out that he got an early start out of Zurich before the traffic got too bad. Can't say I blame him, though - the traffic was something. But I had a good time anyway. My flight was an inbound to LSZH and it was a pretty long flight for me in the 737-700 with an ETE of 4 hours from Madeira to Zurich. I thought the service was great. Lisbon Center picked me up not too long after liftoff from Funchal, and though he was not entirely understandable we made good progress without embarrassing ATX while traversing his airspace to the north. Chatted up a fellow in an A320 who popped up a few miles behind me enroute to Frankfurt. Lufhtansa does good business in these parts. The good ATC continued all the way to Zurich for the Flughafen Zurich fly-in on VATSIM. Traffic was incredible in the terminal area, but Zurich Center, Approach, and Final Approach were so cool you would have thought it was just a few locals in the traffic pattern. Of course you could tell the difference from the rapid-fire back-and-forth in Center and approach airspace. Spent a bit of time in the hold over GIPOL, but it was a breeze using the Smiths FMS - I'm sold on ISG Simavionics gauges now! Landing was picture perfect - it was hard darkness by the time we made it to the terminal area and cleared for approach. Still, the skies were clear below 6000 and the winds were calm, and I managed an excellent landing off the ILS on Runway 14.

September Update

September results are in - flights were up 36% while hours flown were down 8% compared to a year ago. We also carried 3% fewer passengers, and 37% less cargo. Passenger satisfaction was down significantly, from an average of 84% in September 2007 to only 72% in September 2008.

Active Pilots: 15
Total Flights: 161 (Cargo 22)
Total Hours: 178
Total Miles: 46317 NM
On Time Performance: 94.4%
Total Passengers: 8160
Average Rating: 72
Total Cargo: 114670 lbs
Net Revenue: $1093764

Embraer Legacy 600

Here are some simple speed and runway length estimators for the Embraer Legacy 600/ERJ-135. The Legacy 600 is based on the shortened ERJ 135 model, but includes added range with extra fuel tanks and added winglets, similar to those on the ERJ 145XR.
-

Empty Weight: 30148 lbs
Max Fuel: 10195 lbs
Max payload: 5291 lbs
MTOW: 49758 lbs

TOW = Take Off Weight, lbs.
LWT = Landing Weight, lbs.
WT = Weight, lbs.

Takeoff (Flaps 18)
V1 = 49.336 + 0.0017 * TOW
Vr = V1
V2 = 68.387 + 0.0013 * TOW
Vfs= 81.535 + 0.0019 * TOW

Land (Flaps 45)
Vtarget = 81.52 + 0.0019 LWT
Vref45 = 69.327 + 0.0014 LWT

Runway Length = 1369.1 + 0.759 * WT

Squawks

A new page layout for pilot reports (i.e., squawks) was released today. The link has also changed (and updated from the home page). The new layout displays the ten most recent pilot reports, along with associated flight information (eg., origin, equipment, et cetera).

Flughafen Zurich - 2nd Call

A reminder to all of our members to reserve a slot for Swiss ARTCC's online event next Saturday. Flughafen Zurich will be held on on VATSIM on Saturday October 18th from 12:Noon to 8:PM CDT. AeroTexas members should reserve a slot using the following VA registration code ( 48ee721b53d69 ).

Valid flights include any departure or arrival between Zurich (LSZH) and the following airports:

KAUS - Austin, Texas
KJAX - Jacksonville, Florida
LOWL - Linz, Austria
LFMN - Nice, France
EDDL - Dusseldorf, Germany
EDDK - Cologne, Germany
LEBL - Barcelona, Spain
LFBP - Pau, France
LHBP - Budapest, Hungary
LIRN - Naples, Italy
EGPH - Edinburgh, Scotland
EIDW - Dublin, Ireland
LBFF - Sofia, Bulgaria
LEMD - Madrid, Spain
EHFH - Helsinki, Finland
EGSS - Stanstead, England
EGKK - Gatwick, England
LPMA - Madeira, Spain

ATAVS Version 6 Release 41

ATAVS V6 was updated today with release #41. This update adds a menu toggle for passenger/cargo flights, and updates the equipment configuration file with new aircraft support.

Users can download a full-install version (only about 800 kb or so), or if you want to just do the patch that's available as well - both in the Members Only area of the website - and only available to members who have completed this year's check ride.

ATAVS Version 6 Setup Tutorial

I though it might be helpful to take a quick look at ATAVS 6 and see how to properly complete the setup process. After ATAVS V6 is first installed, it will alert you to enter your member id.



Simply select File...User:




The member (or pilot)-id can be entered in upper or lower case - so for example, either atx77 or ATX77 is valid. If you have a single digit id, then use a leading zero, such as ATX09, not ATX9.



By default the flight designator is set to Passenger, which is designated as PAX in the menu bar. Simply click on the designator to toggle between PAX and CGO (i.e, cargo). The flight designator cannot be changed once airborne.



The system tray is usually a fine place for applications that do not require lots of interaction and work either automatically or with shortcuts - such is the case with ATAVS. Minimizing ATAVS 6 will automatically send it to the task bar. To resotre ATAVS, simply click on the icon in the task bar to restore it. Note that with this version of ATAVS however, there is no longer any need to stop and restart after each flight. It keeps a running log of your flights, and at the end of the day you can log each of them in turn.



Now you're ready to go fly. Have fun!

Flughafen Zürich

Swiss FIR's VA-Meeting Zürich is touted as "one of the biggest VA-Events on VATSIM!"

AeroTexas has pre-registered all members for this new event, which will be held on VATSIM on Saturday October 18th from 12:Noon to 8:PM CDT.

AeroTexas members should reserve a slot using the following VA Registration code (slot reservations will guarantee priority handling)

AeroTexas Registration Code: 48ee721b53d69

Slot Reservations Link

Note: ALL members can participate in this event and will receive flight credit with ATAVS Version 6 with any ATX aircraft on flights between Zurich and the following airports:

KAUS - Austin, Texas
KJAX - Jacksonville, Florida
LOWL - Linz, Austria
LFMN - Nice, France
EDDL - Dusseldorf, Germany
EDDK - Cologne, Germany
LEBL - Barcelona, Spain
LFBP - Pau, France
LHBP - Budapest, Hungary
LIRN - Naples, Italy
EGPH - Edinburgh, Scotland
EIDW - Dublin, Ireland
LBFF - Sofia, Bulgaria
LEMD - Madrid, Spain
EHFH - Helsinki, Finland
EGSS - Stanstead, England
EGKK - Gatwick, England
LPMA - Madeira, Spain

A Brief History of Events

September, 2008 - AeroTexas Check Ride
July, 2007 - ZFW Friday Night Operations Event
April, 2007 - TexAirVirtual Fly-In on VATSIM
Feb, 2007 - Mountain Madness Flyin (Vancouver FIR on VATSIM)
December, 2006 - Surprise Fly-In on VATSIM
September, 2005 - 4th Annual Flight Review
August 2004 - 3rd Annual Flight Review
July, 2004 - Tour de France
August, 2003 - 2nd Annual Flight Review
June, 2003 - Jacksonville June Jumble
March, 2003 - Mardi Gras Fly-In
December, 2002 - Flyin' Around the State of Texas
August 2002 - 1st Annual Flight Review
July, 2002 - July Evening Tour of Texas
September, 2001 - Battle of the Airlines - Scent of Southeast Asia
October, 2001 - Online IVAO Fly-In
July, 2001 - Hawaii Bash - online SATCO Fly-In

New RSS Feeds

AeroTexas has several RSS feeds that you can monitor for news and updates. We recently "burned" our RSS feeds at feedburner so you can more easily add these feeds to your favorite RSS reader.

NOTAMS and general messages from HQ:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/AerotexasNOTAMS

All-Weather Cargo Updates:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/AerotexasMAC

Squawks (i.e., pilot notams)
http://feeds.feedburner.com/AerotexasPilotNOTAMS

The Daily Flight (charter services)
http://feeds.feedburner.com/AerotexasCharters

August Operations

Compared to a year ago, total flights were up 41% and total hours were 25% higher. Cargo flights were down by more than half.

Active Pilots: 14
Total Flights: 218 (Cargo 28)
Total Hours: 274.1
Total Miles: 74604 NM
On Time Performance: 94.5%
Total Passengers: 12930
Average Rating: 79
Total Cargo: 134050 lbs
Net Revenue: $2362153