Vol 9: Issue 4 VIRTUAL SKY MAGAZINE FOR THE ONLINE FLIGHT SIMULATION COMMUNITY “My first flight as an airline pilot” An insight of this amazing day. New 2017 World Tours ! A preview for the readers. Photo: John Murphy IVAO NEEDS YOUR SUPPORT IVAO is, and will always be, free of charge for its members; however, to continue with our expansion plans we need your help with donations. Every small donation makes a huge difference to our organisation and any amount you feel able to give is incredibly helpful and generous. Help us maintain IVAO as the number one online virtual aviation network. www.ivao.aero/donate designed by freepik.com 2 International Virtual Aviation Organisation Editorial It is with pleasure that we today release the Volume 9 Contents Issue 4. As you can see, this edition is shorter than previous IVAO Crowded Skies XIII 4 ones. We decided with the current team to reduce the Welcome to The Israeli division 5 page numbers because we believe that previous editions Membership Department Interview 9 were too long to read in full. Zurich Load Control Agent 10 We hope you will enjoy this amazing issue ! World Tour Department news 13 “Virtual Sky” has always been The Magazine Survey 19 supported by, and produced for, our members and we The Board Of Governors 20 can only survive with your article contributions. My first flight as an airline pilot 21 We look forward to receiving Britair Virtual 10 Years ! 25 your amazing stories and thank you all for sharing ! Welcome to The Hong Kong Division 26 We wish you all nice year’s end celebrations. Best regards, Louis Verdeau Virtual Sky is published by: Contributors: The International Virtual Aviation Daniel Shulga, Julien Moreau, Luc Organisation - www.ivao.aero Schweizer, Wilm-Hendrick Schulz, Eric Olson, Jérémie Clergue, Claude Email articles to the magazine team: L., Jacky Wan [email protected] Editor-in-chief: Stanislas Chareyre Louis Verdeau Editorial Assistants: Henk Wolsink, Mohammed Almuqbel, Achilleas Moraitis International Virtual Aviation Organisation 3 IVAO Crowded Skies XIII Dear Members, I am sure you already saw some of our broadcasts that were sent during the course of the Crowded Skies event, highlighting our excitement and our positive impressions of this event. We were initially focusing on just beating last year’s figure of 2604 connections, but we really did not expect to reach 3004! Which was a surprise to us, and we are sure, many others...again, congratulations to everyone involved! We also have to extend our gratitude to the HQ Events and divisional departments for the planning and coordination of this global event, as well as the DEVOPs department for ensuring such a stable network during this massive influx of simultaneous network connections. The Executive Council 4 International Virtual Aviation Organisation Welcome to The Israeli division by Daniel Shulga (IVAO Israel - Director) As you may all know (or not) the Israeli 16,299,406 passengers passed through airspace is one of the smallest airspaces Ben Gurion gates, that is approximately that exists in the world. Many people find 118,861 flights a year. What you may Israel not an attractive place to take your not know is that we have another four plane and fly to, because we have only one international airports: Eilat (LLET), Sde Dov international airport (Ben Gurion – LLBG) (LLSD), Ovda (LLOV) and Haifa (LLHA). In with some standard procedures. I think addition we have 15 airports and airstrips they are wrong. that host the sizable activity of general aviation in Israel. Putting all this together, with the activity of Israeli Air Force (IAF), making the Israeli airspace one of the densest and crowded airspaces. To overcome this challenge and not cause the military, international and general aviation flights interfere with each other, CVFR - Controlled Visual Flight Rules, are implemented in Israel. What is Controlled Visual Flight Rules? All domestic VFR flights are classified as C.V.F.R – “Controlled Visual Flight Rules” The tiny Israeli airspace makes flying in which means that in Israel you may fly Israel very challenging, however in 2015 VFR along predefined routes only. All VFR International Virtual Aviation Organisation 5 aircrafts must establish and maintain radio contact with ATC as long as they are airborne and must have a transponder with mode C on board. You have various types of routes. Some of them only for military use, some are for civilian and military and some of them are military in the middle of the week and civilian on weekends. Most of the routes are bi-directional and have an assigned altitude for each direction. Altitude separation between inbound and sightseeing flights. and outbound traffic is typically 500 feet. Assigned altitudes are marked as yellow Located at 1,240ft (378 m) below mean sea filled rectangles with arrow pointing the level, actually it is the lowest airport in the assigned altitude direction. world, adding to this the Israeli-Jordanian border in the east the high mountains As you may have noticed I want you to (450 meters above sea level) making it taste some Israeli flight, I believe that this challenging airport. topic will increase this will. If you have not been convinced yet let me introduce you Haifa Airport (LLHA): which is also known as the challenging airports in Israel: U. Michaeli Airport is a small international airport located in Haifa, Israel. It is located Mezada Airstrip (LLMZ): Named after to the east of the city, close to Kishon Israel Bar-Yehuda, is a small desert airfield Port and Israel Shipyards and mainly located in the southern Judean desert , serves civilian flights, with some military west of the Dead Sea. Opened in 1963. The usage. Most passenger flights utilizing airfield is a public concession, mainly used the airport are domestic operations to as an alternate airport, and for charter Eilat and Tel Aviv. The airport is named 6 International Virtual Aviation Organisation after Uri Michaeli, one of the pioneers of Jewish aviation and one of the founders How International is IVAO? of aviation in Israel. The airport has one WITH OVer 180,000 reGISTereD MeMBerS short runway, 1,318 metres (4,324 ft) in In OVer 200 COunTrIeS IVAO IS One Of length, and there are plans to extend it THe WOrLD’S LArGeST VIrTuAL Aviation onto reclaimed land in the Gulf of Haifa. neTWOrKS, take A LOOK at THe ACTIVe COunTrIeS AnD AreAS WHere IVAO IS The non straight approach to runway 34 repreSenTeD BY DIVISIOnS Or reGIOnS with high chimneys and dangerous fire spewed from them making the approach Algeria Luxembourg to the ATR’s and Saab 2000 one of the Argentina Malta Aruba Mexico most thrilled. Australia Morocco Austria The Netherlands Eilat Airport (LLET) - which is also also Bahrain Netherlands Antilles known as J. Hozman Airport, located Belarus New Caledonia in the city of Eilat which is the most Belgium New Zealand southern city in Israel. Eilat airport mostly Brazil Norway Bulgaria Oman handles domestic flights, but there are a Canada Poland few international flight operating form Chile Portugal this airport as well. Eilat airport has one China Qatar runway available which is 03/21 (6,234ft Columbia Romania or 1,900m long) and its elevation is 42ft Croatia Russian Federation above sea level. Czech Republic Saudi Arabia Denmark Senegal Dominican Republic Serbia The airport has no taxiways, have only Egypt Slovakia apron for 4 passenger’s airplanes and a Finland Slovenia runway. The approach to RWY 03 is via tight France South Africa right circuit. The high mountains (1700ft) in French Polynesia Spain Germany Sudan the west and the Israeli-Jordanian border Greece Sweden making the approach to the 757’s, A320’s Hong Kong Switzerland and ATR’s one of the most challenging as Hungary Syria an inexperienced pilot will overturn the Iceland Thailand turn to the final. India Tunisia Indonesia Turkey Iran Ukraine I hope that we have managed to impress Ireland United Arab Emirates and educate you a little bit. The Israeli Israel United Kingdom division is welcoming you to fulfil the Italy United States excitement with some flights in the Jordan Venezuela Israeli airspace - thank you for reading. Kuwait International Virtual Aviation Organisation 7 Screenshot Contest Winners SepTeMBer nOn-eDITeD SCreenSHOT Juergen Kopelent - pakistan (Mountain nanga parbat north-west side) As350 max altitude, max rpm, on the absolute turbine limit. SepTeMBer eDITeD SCreenSHOT Tobias Goevert - Delta 470, taxiing to the gate at Málaga, after landing from new York JfK 8 International Virtual Aviation Organisation Membership Department Interview by Julien Moreau (Membership director) What IS YOur JOB AS MeMBerSHIp DIrector ? My job is with the MAD to manage the Membership department (at senior and divisional level). I manage the HQ membership advisors, create new tools, set up new procedures and write some staff instructions. I also keep an eye on the divisions and their needs. HOW MuCH TIMe DO YOu COnCenTrATe On YOur IVAO staff pOSITIOn ? Depending on my availabilities but it take me from 2 to 4 hours per day. It’s really a full- time job ! What IS THe MeMBerSHIp DepArTMenT rOLe ? The Membership department role is to take care of everything related to our members: division change, email change, password problems, connection problems, HQ award attribution, divisional awards change if needed, and manage all the divisional MC/MAC/ MA. WHICH eMAIL ADreSS SHOuLD We uSe to COntact THe MeMBerSHIp DepArTMenT ? If you want to change your name, email, birthdate, and/or country, you shall contact your division MC/MAC. Their email are [email protected] and [email protected] (replace xx by the two letters of your division).