Vatsim Ep3 - IFR Basics - For Beginners

[@kurtvwSims]

My friends, I'm an idiot... I didn't include anything about filing the actual flight plan into the VATSIM network. We did briefly cover this in the VFR vid, but IFR is a bit more involved. These long format 4k Videos take an age to render and upload, so I'm not going to pull this one as it is over-all what I wanted. If you feel like you want detail on how to actually get the IFR plan filed, please reply to this comment and let me know. If it seems like something people want I will put together a short video on how to do that -- Which of course is something I'll probably do some day anyhow, but this is your chance to help me decide if it needs to be a priority! Thanks for watching, and let me know what you think!

[@gregs9492]

Any vids helping to step through Vatsim would be helpful. I haven't gone through their orientation yet, but perhaps a tutorial on the stuff they teach in that, since it is such a 'dry read' as you say?

[@kurtvwSims]

I'll have to see what it currently looks like on their site. I'm happy to help people get an idea what to expect, but I want to make sure I don't just create a cheat sheet. I think it is important for people to understand the concepts. Thanks for the idea.

[@gregs9492]

@@kurtvwSims I agree. It is very important to understand the concepts. However, as someone that taught, I can tell you that if you limit the way to learn the information to just reading a dry article, you limit the number of people who can learn and truly understand the concepts (and don't just figure out how to do some kind of open book test using copy and paste) to a much smaller percentage of the population. I know that for me, watching a tutorial video that walks me through the orientation as I'm reading it would be immensely helpful.

[@gregs9492]

Love the vid. Very clear. While I still have questions on VATSIM, such as flying with increased sim rate for long flights (over 4 hours). This series was very helpful. I'm not sure though, how I feel about the suble subliminal's you put in about clicking like and subscribe.

[@kurtvwSims]

Thanks for watching the full vid! As far as time compression, I don't use it because I don't do hours long flights... But I know they allow it. I know it is pretty much always ok in airspace nobody is controlling, and is available based controller's workload in staffed sectors. It can present issues for them, so if its very busy, they may not be able to accomodate. You can ask for approval for time compression. I believe you are expected to be within ear-shot if they need you, or at least have a specific check in point "Cleared 4x to XYZ" in effect, but its not something I use, so you may need to look up the finer points. That might be a good topic for a future vid. As far as the like and sub reminders, I don't like to SAY "like and subscribe" but, the truth is some folks do intend to click one or the other or both, and then forget, so the reminders do help some folks. I try to keep it minimal. It's more fun this way than me just awkwardly shoe-horning it into my narration. Thanks again for the watch, and if you have other topics you might want me to consider discussing, let me know!

[@robandrews7044]

12 FPS on final? I thought VATSIM autobooted you if you got below like 20 fps? Or am did I misunderstand that?

[@kurtvwSims]

Vatsim has no idea what your framerate is. Vatsim collects position data at a rate of about 5 times per second. And I'm sure if you get below about 1 update per second to their network it might start to get a little grumpy, but that 5x per second rate has only been around for a couple years now, prior to that it was one update every few seconds. So even if it knew your frame rate, 12fps would have been MUCH faster than the network was updating anyhow. So I think you misunderstood, or someone told you wrong. There is no reason for it to need to be that fast, even real radar systems only update every several seconds, so the only advantage to having a faster update rate is that if you are very close to another plane in the system, it will animate a little smoother. Since MSFS is running comfortably across several CPU cores, there is no reason to assume that the position data going at 5 per second has any relationship to the screen draw rate. In fact we know that your rate of change over the terrain happens regardless of if you actually get the screen draws during that time. Those Orbix airports murder my frame rate, and running OBS to capture at 4k stings a bit too.. But as you have probably read over and over... steady poor framerate isn't bothersome, its jerky slow surging frames that are a problem. Thanks for the question and for watching!

[@karlrado]

VATSIM disconnects (not “autoboots”) when using the X-Plane simulator and when the frame rate drops below 20 fps. This happens because X-Plane slows down the simulator’s “clock” when the frame rate drops in order to maintain smooth visuals. This then results in the plane appearing to lag from the point of view of other pilots and controllers in VATSIM, which is obviously undesirable. I suppose that the VATSIM client for X-Plane, xPilot, is the thing that detects the low frame rate and initiates the disconnection. Apparently this doesn’t happen with MSFS. I can configure things to stay above 20 fps on my setup except when using AutoOrtho. AO can cause periodic drops in frame rate when it fetches and processes new tiles (I think).

[@robandrews7044]

Thanks, @@karlrado I knew the 20 fps was stuck in my brain from somewhere!

[@kurtvwSims]

@@karlrado Thanks for that informative post! I didn't know that about the x-plane version.