VATNZ - VATSIM New Zealand

Sunday Night Ops for 1st August 2010 - Chatham Island's to Wellington

This weeks SNO will see us travel across the pacific to our neighbouring island of the Chathams. For the past 25 years, Air Chathams have been running regular services to and from the Chathams from the mainland in a variety of aircraft, but probably most popular, the Convair and Metroliner.

Join VATNZ as we celebrate Air Chatham's 25th birthday as we make the hop from the Chathams to Wellington. As an additional challenge, load your aircraft to the maximum with fresh crayfish from the island's fishing industry - The heaviest aircraft will be crowned 'King of the Crays'. Pilots should insert their payload weight into the remarks section of their flight plan for judging.

Typical sector length will be approximately one hour twenty minutes (depending on aircraft type).

Departure Time: Sunday 1st August 2010 19:00-23:30 NZST / 17:00-21:30 AEST / 07:00-11:30 UTC
Flight Time: approx 75-100 mins
Flight Plan Route: NZCI-NZWN (CI Q611 WN)

Click on the image below to view the preferred routing in the airspace map:


Airport Details: Chathams Airport
Airport Details: Wellington Airport

Priority ATC Positions:
NZWN_GND - Ground Control
NZWN_TWR - Aerodrome Control
NZWN_APP - Terminal Control
NZCH-K_CTR/NZOH_CTR - Enroute Control
NZZO_FSS - Oceanic Enroute Control

Note: If you're providing ATC on the night, please give priority to these positions. They are not an exclusive list, but they are the ones that will see the most action this Sunday.

To reserve a particular ATC position, please post a message to that effect (including the times you expect to be online) in this thread. If possible, also book your position using vroute - large numbers of bookings in vroute attract additional traffic.

Charts/Airspace Info: Available by clicking on the airport links above, or from the VATNZ Airspace Reference site.

If you have any questions please feel free to email me, or reply to this thread.

Good trip, perfect length in my opinion - long enough to make it worth the effort but short enough to keep it interesting. Id like to see more SNO of this nature for that reason. Haulage of crayfish was 81000 lb (36800 kg) in the trusty c-130, starting with 25% fuel, finishing with 3%, oops

And Cameron I think you take out the title tonight with the most payload on board (some 81000 lbs - 36.8T!)

Well done all the pilots who participated in the event. It made for a fun approach training session with all of the aircraft arriving on top of each other!

Good work by the WN ATC crew .....quite busy on approach, I was expectiong a Go-around,but brought the 737 back to +5kts above Vref,however with the normal WS & potholes on approach for 34 speed control is never easy...with a late landing clearance I managed to nail it just past the numbers....thanks to Leon & Wesley for the en-route ATC...a good night with no major issues with FS or the PNG internet...Brian