VATSIM South America Region

Quarterly Report to the Executive Committee

Q2 2013

Q2 has been a very busy quarter for South America, with lots of changes and news.

I would like to start giving a warm welcome to our newest staff members: Marcos Pereira as Divisional

Director for VATBRZ, Leandro Chaves as Flight Operations Manager for VATBRZ and Pablo López as

Pilots Training Director for VATSUR. Welcome you guys and thanks for joining our team! I hope you have

a great time with us and look forward to work with you.

Our VATBRZ and VATSUR ATOs are now working at full speed. We have had 194 pilot rating promotions.

VATSUR has already certified P3 pilots and is looking forward to receive approval for P4 and P5.

VATBRZ held the first member general online meeting where Marcos introduced himself and his action

plan for this year to the membership. This was a great experience which 79 members attended live and

the recording is available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSaLNm89sN8 This is something that

he plans to do once every 6 months to maintain a direct communication channel with members.

In South America we are eager to receive visitors from around the world and we now have most of our

websites ready with an English landing page for the majority of ARTCC’s/FIRs in VATBRZ and VATSUR.

Additionally, VATBRZ is preparing a Spanish landing page to share with VATSUR and VATSPA.

VATCA, our Central America Division has launched their new domain. Come and visit them on

www.vatca.net

Some great events are taking place on the region, I invite everyone reading this to look for the next one.

You can join the buzz at Facebook, the forums, the divisional team speak servers or our division

(www.vatsur.org, www.vatsim.com.br, www.vatca.net) or regional website (www.vatsim-sa.net).

Thanks to all our members, staff and collaborators for all what you do to make VATSA what it is!

Up next, our regional membership statistics and divisional reports.

Thanks for choosing VATSIM South America!

Daniel Abellá

Regional Director, VATSIM South America Region.

VATSIM South America Region

VATSUR DIVISIONAL REPORT – 2ND QUARTER 2013

STAFF

On these last three months, we have had a change in our team. Juan Cabral has resigned as VATSUR ATO

Director and Pablo Lopez is currently occupying the role right now. He is a real militar pilot on the

Argentinian Air Force with the Captain rating. He is a real helicopter pilot in the Air Force with a lot of

flight hours on his book. We thank Juan Cabral for their time and for fulfill our dream of having a

functioning ATO in the division. And we welcome Pablo Lopez in his new function.

VATSIM South America Region

ATC TRAINING

We are working on the modernization of our ATC training center. We currently have ready the study

material and we are developing new tests to all ratings. The number of promotions obtained on this

quarter are shown in the following image

PILOT TRAINING

We have had several upgrades in our ATO. We are now working on the P4 and P5, we hope finish it as

soon as possible. The new VATSUR ATO Chief (Pablo López – 1141501) has demonstrated good skills

within the ATO. The following image shows the total promotions obtained on this and the previous

quarter when our ATO began working:

VATSIM South America Region

MEMBERSHIP

The following image shows all the members that we have within the Division:

ONLINE ACTIVITY

Pablo Maciel

VATSUR Divisional Director

Vatsur1@vatsur.org

VATSIM South America Region

Summary Report and Current Staff

In May 2013 VATBRZ had it’s change of Divisional Directors. Edson Felix after two years of service

decided to step out to take care of family affairs and the arrival of his new son. The applications process

started and Marcos Pereira was named Divisional Director for Vatsim Brasil.

Since Felix’s management Brazilian Division has been developing different resources in order to help

members and comply with international network standards. As the new DD my first step has been to

work on the consolidation of such resources and assure they are available to and known by all active

members.

In transition from this 2nd quarter towards the 3rd quarter, after making available new resources

described below, we have started actions with the objective of boosting online presence (both pilots

and ATC). Our main actions in order to achieve such target are generating new events, bringing staff

online in network environment (not only TeamSpeak), and accelerating pilot and ATC training and

career.

The current STAFF in VATBRZ is listed below:

Callsign Position Name

VATBRZ1 Divisional Director Marcos Pereira

VATBRZ2 Deputy Divisional Director Eduardo Passos

VATBRZ4 Training Manager Otávio Bonomi

VATBRZ41 ATC Mentor & Social Networking Assistant Pedro Meireles

VATBRZ5 ATC Operations Manager (ATM equivalent) Rafael Dutra

VATBRZ6 Flight Operations Manager Leandro Chaves

VATBRZ7 Events Manager Rafael Dutra

VATBRZ71 Events Assistant Lucas Pigato

VATBRZ8 IT Manager (Webmaster) Ariel Rosar

VATBRZ9 Divisional Conflict Resolution - DCRM Marcos Pereira

VATSIM South America Region

Transition Management

As soon as I taken office I announced Vatsim Brasil’s first general meeting, and I invited all Brazilian

users to connect to our TeamSpeak server to watch my presentation on 2013 plans.

The audio recording of the meeting is 1 hour long and is available in YouTube, 80% time past the

meeting start we had 79 members connected listening:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSaLNm89sN8

It was the first time all users could hear the DD announcements and know the upcoming plans and

actions. We plan on doing this every semester. Users will be able to keep track on projects development

in our website in a specific session called Espaço CAVOK (“CAVOK Lobby”).

Two months later, June 17th 2013, we sent out a NOTAM for all VATBRZ users. It was the first NOTAM in

the past two years. The results on this action have been arising with the reactivation on many accounts.

New Resources and Tools

New Website

June 17th was also a very important day because we launched our renewed website. After updating the

website’s interface by making it safer and easier to navigate, Brazilian members can now count on new

resources such as:

VATSIM South America Region

Updated Download Library with Official Documentation, ATC and Pilot information and

software;

Unified HELP Center, gathering all help and support tools such as TeamSpeak settings,

Forum access, FAQ, Account troubleshooting and more.

Foreign users can now also count on:

English landing page

Supervisors landing page

Spanish landing page is under translation and should be available Q3 2013

Support System

Also with the launch of the new website a new tool became available to users. We launched our

Divisional Ticket Support System to handle requests for needs such as Rating Upgrade, Solo

Authorizations, Account (membership) Support, Pilot Rating Upgrade, Practical Exams Scheduling, Press

Requests.

ATC Training

Vatsim Brasil has managed to be one of the first divisions to adjust Training Activities to the new GRP

2.2013.2 that enables users to become a TOWER Trainee directly, since no competencies are requested.

Nevertheless, VATBRZ has created a specific theoretical training in our Training Center, and users are

oriented how to setup ATC software and understand positions they can connect. A theorical test is also

required for upgrade approval.

VATSIM South America Region

This action has been highly successful, 45 members have passed the test that contains questions

regarding the material of study. Two weeks ago we had posted the members approved and upgraded by

then, a total of 22. After that we have upgraded more users but not all of the approved have requested

rating upgrade. We are working on a communicate to inform users even more of the upgrade request

procedures.

Pilots Training

We have reviewed the P1 requirements and the course’s material to adequate it to global requirements.

The practical exam was removed and the advanced material is being added to the P2 rating under

development. Since the new P1 was launched we have had 114 members approved for upgrade.

Rating P2 is currently under review and should be submitted to VATGOV14 for approval next quarter.

Events

Since May 2013 Vatsim Brasil has conducted 5 different events, whether own or in partnership with VA’s

or other divisions.

Tela Quente (Hot Screen) Weekly event that used to be active in 2012. We revitalized it this year and the first we launched was in partnership with American Airlines Virtual Airlines. We had about 40 AAL VA pilots and other Brazilian members flying between Brasilia and Rio de Janeiro airports.

Desbravando a Amazônia

Special event in the amazon. This event wasn’t as successful as expected. After gathering information from users we believe it simply was a day in the week when people couldn’t connect due to work or vacation activities.

Vuelta a Sudamérica (SBEG/Maiquetia)

VATSUR’s event around the continent has flown in Brazil in June’s 22nd. We had a few local pilots and many ATC services provided.

VATSIM South America Region

Aliança Virtual Airline (Confederations Cup Event) Aliança VA together with our event manager Rafael Dutra conducted two events in Brazilian cities that had confederations cup games.

As part of our main objective, events are a huge part of maintaining online presence. During next

quarter we will be conducting both weeky and special events. We are planning on:

Maintaining TELA QUENTE weekly

Having other weekend weekly event

Guaulhos Airport Real Operations (under development, flight booking under construction)

Virtual Airlines

Since May 2013 Vatsim Brasil appointed Leandro Chaves as Flight Operations Manager. Leandro is an

experienced projects manager, lawyer and also a relationship management master. Besides being a VA

owner, Leandro has shown the abilities to separate his own needs with divisional activities, not

generating conflicts of interest as a STAFF member. Leandro managed to help 4 different VA’s to obtain

VATSIM.net certification and made communications with VATGOV9 much closer. He has been delaying

his own Virtual Airlines authorization to be the last on request to be approved so other members have

proper support and understand he is being collaborative with the division, not using his position in his

own favor.

ATC Operations

This is the department we have struggled more in the past two months. Almost a year ago our division

created a system to manage ATC scheduling and online times, but it hasn’t been working well and has

stopped generating proper statistics in the past 6 months. Also the scoring system has been considered

inadequate and the access statistics reached the unfortunate zero. Our staff member Laercio Simplicion

who was first named an ATC Instructor and then became ATC Operations Manager (abroad usually ATM)

has stepped out of office due to personal difficulties and time management problems. Rafael Dutra has

taken this position temporarily.

Since then our actions on this area have been issuing communications through our Training Center

(Moodle) and posting news in our website to gather ATC for events and special training occasions.

We are developing new work plans and are trying to gather new tools to improve ATC operations

services. Ariel Rosar, our IT manager, and I have been studying Auto Tools, Statistics and Data Base

integration to create a new system to automatically manage ATC Roster, Scoring and Prizes.

VATSIM South America Region

Developing Projects

After the transition, we are gradually reaching cruise level on general operation of the division. Our basic

resources are becoming fully available and users (even inactive) are becoming aware of our actions. In

the past few months we have had many users coming back and some others transferring back from

different networks.

One of the last resources we still have to fix is our statistics management system, so far we haven’t been

able to put together a routine that can help us measure properly day-to-day movement and general

membership follow-up.

From a self perception perspective, Brazilian movements have been around 45 flights each night (peak

of the day, around 9:00pm local time) and 4 ATCs. It is still low compared to long term past conditions

but with the raise in TOWER Trainee connections in the past few weeks the forecasting is optimistic.

A summary of the developing projects can be viewed below:

Special Event (international announcement): Guarulhos Real Operations

P2 Rating Course

C1 Rating Course

Visiting Controller Program

ATC Roster Automatic Management

Flight Statistics System