Since the beginning of this year, I have been actively participating in the VATSIM community. At the end of last year, I applied to become a controller in VATJPN. It was more difficult than I thought, and I messed up my first on-the-job training (OJT) session. I was forced to undergo training with an experienced controller beforehand. Then it started my long and painful waiting period…
Finding an Instructor
At the request of the Deputy Division Director (VATJPN2), I began searching for an En-route Controller (C1) rating holder to assist me on my ATC journey. As far as I know, there are only a few people who meet the requirements, and securing their services is more challenging than gaining admission to Cambridge University. At the same time, I was losing patience and time. Coincidentally, through the ANA Virtual Group, I met someone nicknamed ミルクねこ (Mirukuneko), who became my first friend and helped me a lot with my VATJPN journey. Through his invitation, I joined the Tokyo ES Team community Discord server and met another fantastic person who holds a C1 rating and is willing to instruct me through the training: Mika! I never thought I would be able to learn ATC in the Japanese division with a Mandarin speaker.
Start Training and Contributions
On 16 April, Mika and I made a ‘deal’: I would help her with the sector files and cue card, and she would help me with my training. Two days later, I had my first session with an instructor at RJFF. As far as I know, I messed up the first session due to my slow response speed and lack of efficiency. I didn’t even last an hour. We went offline and I joined a small voice channel where I realised that I had to improve my speed and learn the entire airport and its procedures in order to provide an efficient and quality service on VATSIM.
Met Ian
On the same day, I made another important friend — Ian, who I met both on VATSIM and in real life. While I was getting ready, I was chatting to Mika when Ian came in and asked if I was a student at NUCB. I said yes and told him that I was actually a high school student at the International College of NUCB. I was surprised that someone had found my school through my blog or LinkedIn profile. He told me that he was at my school as an exchange student. Within ten minutes, we had arranged to meet at the 7-Eleven on the school campus after school. I later found out that he is the webmaster of VATHK and a student at HKUST. It was great to meet another experienced controller — he actually helped me with my training at Sweatbox. However, this did not help me with the basics in Japan. As a personal favour, he let me try VATHK’s Sweatbox training, which I initially found hellish and terrible. Imagine that there are only 10+ aircraft in total on JPN’s Sweatbox for tower training, but more than 50+ on the ground just for ground training. At first, it looked terrifying, but after playing it for a while, I started to understand how to improve my speed and efficiency. It helped.
Tokyo-ES
After I learnt the basics of making a sector file, I began to contributing and updating the Tokyo-ES project.
Mika-san is happy because she doesn’t have to do much, and she has a helper who can carry out technical tasks and provide support. P.S. Most of the time, the instructor just needs to listen and highlight mistakes. I work through different files and collaborate with multiple experts. For example, the instructor and controller in VATKOR.
VATJPN1 Election
The deadline for submitting the VATJPN1 application was 18 April. On that day, I informed Mika-san that JPN1 had resigned, that VATAPAC was seeking a new director and that the deadline was today. She was taken by surprise and asked why I shouldn’t run in the VATJPN1 election. She submitted her application and had a meeting with the Vice President of VATSIM Asia Pacific later on. Now, we just have to wait for the result. While we wait, we are still actively updating our sector files to demonstrate our ambition and passion.
The bad news came on 18 June. The Vice President told Mika-san that it was a pity she had not become the director of VATJPN. As soon as she found out, it became clear to both of us that I might not see her on the network again. I could see and feel it in her expression. I knew she expected more and wanted a revolution, but she did not make it happen. As far as I know, staying in the JPN division will not help my journey and will make things more difficult. After careful consideration, I have decided to transfer from the VATJPN division to the VATHK division. I wish the best to the JPN division for the future, and I am looking forward to getting my S3 rating within the next two years.