Cross the Pond VATSIM, 2015, East Bound

I wanted to write a little bit this morning, about the event, and my thoughts as a "lifetime" flight simmer, because that is what I intend to be. Yesterday I took the PMDG 777 from KMIA to EDDT as part of the titled event. just shy of 10 hours, and my computer handled it like a champ. But, more on that in a bit. First, for the event itself:

·         FSS stations, for the most part, were outstanding. I had ONE problem "controller" that unfortunately I had to report for his attitude on the air. All, myself included, if you cannot handle the stress of an enormous event, don't work it. If you are not prepared, don't fly it. Literally thousands of people plan for this event and it only works if everyone is prepared.

·         ATC, was incredible. Couldn't be happier with how it all played out!!!

·         The event itself, overall, was everything I remember it to be. I haven't done a cross the pond in a long while and was lucky enough to snag a slot last-minute.... well last days anyway. 

Now for some suggestions:

·         VATSIM should strive to get an automatic reporting system, which i am told exists in real-world. I've never done trans-Atlantic in real life, but my dispatcher that I "use" for flight sim has, and has to do several a year to remain current with his real-world job. This would take a HUGE burden off the voice system and FSS controllers, as all they would need to do is SELCAL or voice acknowledge the position report.

·         System tests. yes, I know voice servers can die the day of, but EVERYONE should check their system, controllers check mic levels, USE a headset!!!!! Not a mic sitting on your desk with reverb on every transmission. I am not just preaching, the night before I loaded up the 777 in both KMIA and EDDT and made sure the scenery matched the diagrams we were all given. I also loaded in the flight plan into the FMC to make sure it matched what I needed the next morning. Again, be prepared!

·         Other than that, I LOVED the event, and do every time it’s that busy online.

Now I wanted to give some feedback on what I call “chasing the system.”  For YEARS, and even with my tenure with AVSIM, I chased my system to make it better, and better, and better. Constantly moving to improve, spend what I could, upgrade. I want those of us, with less cash then we’d hope, to know this. You don’t always have to have the latest and greatest. I am an IT Analyst by trade, and it’s NOT my lack of know-how holding me back on the top-end system. I am a single dad, so flight sim has to be “what it is” and work for what I have. And thankfully yesterday was about the largest stress test I could do, and it worked. I took off, cruised, landed with ZERO issues.

I wanted to encourage people in the same situation as me. Get your sim stable. It may not be perfect, but if it works, STOP. Don’t make major changes unless you have to, or unless it’s just that big of a bang for the buck. Then test some more. I am counter to most of what we always see on here, latest and greatest Intel CPU, video cards that could run the highest end engineering on it and still don’t push FSX the way you think it should, etc. Frame Rates, MY GOD stop worrying about them, if VISUALLY the sim looks smooth TO YOU, then stop chasing the system! I am going to give my specs below, trying to give ALL of them, every part, so that maybe I can help future and current simmers see that it’s not always what you spend, but what you can DO with it. ENJOY flying again, I do. J

My setup:

Main rig:

Windows 10 Pro, 64-bit (upgrade, then fresh install), 1TB primary Seagate SATA at 7200RPM, secondary 500GB Seagate at 7200RPM, ASUS SATA-DVD ROM, AMD Radeon R7 260 with 2GB RAM, AMD Phenon II 970 at 3.5Ghz (Quad Core) with Zalmann cooler (Fan, not water), 16GB Crucial Ballistix Elite at 9-9-9-27 timing, ThermalTake SMART SP-750M Power Supply, ASUS M5A99FX Pro R2.0 MotherBoard. Three 17” Dell Monitors running from the above video. Logitech G510s Keyboard and Logitech gaming mouse. For now (until this week delivery) I am using a Logitech Extreme 3D Pro flight stick. Internet connection is a 30MBPS down, 5MBPS up with Time Warner Cable. (sorry only thing available here)

Software as flown yesterday: FSX Steam Edition, ActiveSky Next, REX SoftClouds, GEX for ground equipment, vpilot for VATSIM connection, my VA’s ACARS software. Airport scenery was freeware from AVSIM; just enough to give me current runways and parking. WOAI installed for traffic for the above vpilot for VATSIM.

I AM running a secondary laptop, that runs WideFs to the above system for the moving map using FSCommander. That is all it runs, along with pulling up anything PDF that I need like flight plans, charts, etc. Oh, it's also Win10 64-Bit

Seeing a common thread in all of that? Yes, it works, but it’s in NO WAY the latest and greatest! ENJOY flying again and not worry so much about the latest and greatest. I do. J

(Will be cross-posting this to VATSIM as well to give them feedback on their event.)