VATSIM Oceania Quarterly Report Q2 2013 (April to June) Hi all and welcome to Winter in Oceania! In some parts (read my house) winter hit with avengence with many overnight temperatures dipping below freezing point (0ºC). New Zealand has seen some very unseasonally colder weather than normal than won t let up in the next quarter. From a VATSIM perspective, the colder weather has seen a mixed bag of changes, with ATC figures and pilot figures up across the Region slightly. 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. Most pleasing has seen a steady stream of new Controllers joining the ranks in both VATPAC and VATNZ and my thanks to the training teams for their efforts. 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 212 members joined VATSIM Oceania, up substantially on the 187 that joined during the previous quarter. At the end of the quarter there were 2,134 members in the Region, increased slightly (up 60) from the previous quarter s count of 2,074. This increase can be directly attributed to the new members and the number of older members who have reactivated their accounts. I had the pleasure of controlling for most of the day in May when the Region hosted the Cross the Ditch Autumn event hosted by VATNZ and VATPAC jointly. Well done to Nick Johnston and Tracey Shifman for their work in hosting this event once more. It s become more and more popular with pilots both locally and from different regions in the world and it s always a pleasure to host visitors to the Region for a supreme event such as this. 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 1 st July 2013
2 VATPAC Quarterly Report April - June 2013 STAFFING Peter Smith stepped down as the co-ordinator of the weekly VFR event. Pete has coordinated this event series for a long time and the Board are grateful for his tireless efforts in this area. Zach Biesse-Fitton has been appointed the new co-ordinator and he is being guided by both Pete and Trent Hopkinson, the Deputy Director of Events. OPERATIONS Steve Cotterill was on leave for most of the quarter whilst he relocated from Darwin to country Victoria. Affiliated VA s No new applications received. Documentation Advertising for Manager again this month.
3 ATC TRAINING ATC Training has gone from a phase of being very quiet to a busier time with less assessments being completed. This would appear to be due to a number of assessment requests that turned into mentoring requests after a NYC result. We consider this reflects more on the type of candidates we have attracted this quarter than the quality of the training. Successful In progress Terminated Tower Rating 5? 2 TMA Rating 1? 0 Enroute Rating 1? 1 Senior Controller 1 1 - In addition there were no successful candidates for the OCA endorsement and we welcomed 2 visiting TWR controllers from VATUK. Changes to the Training Team: ñ Tracy Schiffman is now an Instructor. ñ David Zhong is now back as a Mentor. ñ Steven Brown has joined as a Mentor. ñ James Ham is on Leave for 3 months. ñ James Larkin is about to lose his place if he doesn't return emails from the Director of Training Development & Special Projects: During Q1 2013 we received a review of the current Tower Rating Course from a former Director ATC Training. This report identified some areas for improvement and as such we have begun preliminary work to completely rework the course. At the same time we are migrating the course over to a new Moodle system, which at some point we foresee, replacing our current system. For the time being the Moodle2 server is for development purposes only and runs entirely separate to any current training resources. EVENTS VFR OPS As mentioned under staffing Zach Biesse-Fitton was appointed as the new VFR Coordinator and is being guided by outgoing Coordinator Peter Smith as well as Trent Hopkinson. April Events: Spilled Milk Run - Trouble at YSSY Excellent numbers but there was a feeling of trepidation when it came to using the addon scenery. At least a third of participants using FSX were not confident enough in their technical ability to play around with their scenery configuration. This trepidation has been noted for any future events that will involve event specific add-on scenery.
May Events: Cross the Ditch This installment in the CTD series attracted an excellent crowd, highlighted by flying in and out of YBBN instead of the usual Sydney or Melbourne. Well done to Nick Johnston for some superb organizational skills. Spilled Milk Run - Slotmania Adelaide This turned out to be hugely popular with pilots having to book departure slots. Fantastically positive feedback received from both pilots and controllers. As a result, Slotmania will become a regular event. June Events: Panic Stations - Coffs Harbour Very well attended event within class D airspace. This event was somewhat of a litmus test, as it had no FLOW controller. Despite this, and being procedural airspace, the controllers stepped up to the plate and handled the heavy traffic with little fuss. Numerous forum posts suggest frequency congestion was an issue, but it is the opinion of the events team that for a Panic Stations event, this only added to the experience. Future Events: A plan to have all of the ATC rated Board members online simultaneously will be attempted in early July. This will take place during the Monday Milk Run and be known as The Boardello. Following the success of the first Slotmania, a second such event will be run. PILOT TRAINING No report AIRSPACE No report 4 Jackson Harding Director of Division
5 VATSIM New Zealand Quarterly Report to the Regional Director Q2 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 renewed focus placed on organising and publicising Sunday Night Ops events well in advance and this has helped to build turnout on both sides of the scope. Staff Changes There have been no staff changes. Membership There were 21 new members who joined VATNZ and become active during this quarter. There were 15 VATNZ members who provided ATC in VATNZ airspace during the quarter. There were 112 VATNZ members who flew in VATNZ airspace during the quarter. Overall there were 113 VATNZ members who were active in VATNZ airspace during the quarter. These numbers are up slightly compared with the previous quarter. The number of VATNZ members providing ATC in VATNZ rose from 10 to 15, the increase nearly twice the drop seen between the previous two quarters. A large number of people (31 out of 52: 60%) join the division but never become active, and decreasing this percentage is going to be key to revitalising the division. This proportion has climbed 5% this quarter, on the back of increased sign up numbers, but clearly there is still plenty of room for improvement. Activity
6 Q2 saw very steady flight activity. May's ATC hours are skewed by the impact of the Cross the Ditch 8 event, however April and June were both also above average for the last year. Controller Activity Hours Historically Q2 is one of the busiest quarters in terms of controller hours, with both the autumnal weather and the May Cross the Ditch event combining to drive some of the division's best controller hours. This year appears no different: we saw our best May numbers in two years. So far in 2013 monthly controller hours have improved year-on-year for three out of the six months. VATNZ Controller Count As with the controller hours, the active controller numbers for this quarter have been trending in the right direction: three of the first six months of 2013 have seen an increased number of active controllers than the year before. The May number which is typically high due to members returning to the scopes for the Cross the Ditch event increased slightly this year, snapping a three year decline. Interestingly, June's controller numbers are up on last year, despite its hours being down on 2012.
Airspace As usual, Raglan (home to Auckland International) and Taranaki (Wellington) sectors remain the most thoroughly covered. There is increased coverage in Bay and Ohakea sectors due to focus being given to these regions during the April/May Sunday Night Operations events. 7 Position Type As is typical in Cross the Ditch quarters, the Position Type distribution shows a more evenly distributed coverage pattern with strong components of both Tower and Enroute control, as well as significant elements of Approach and Oceanic coverage.
8 Flights The Cross the Ditch 8 event helped drive Auckland to a commanding lead in terms of the number of flights this quarter. Summary Q2 has been a period of continued gentle growth. New and existing member activities are both up slightly, and the previous quarter's year-on-year improvements in controller activity and hours have been largely sustained. The number of active VATNZ controllers however remains fairly static: 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 Johnston DIVISION DIRECTOR 13th July 2013