[Every Tuesday, 18-20z] Zurich Night

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Welcome to the Zurich Night, the weekly onlineday of Switzerlands major airport! Every Tuesday from 1800z to 2000z, expect full staffing, professional and friendly ATC service and plenty of traffic.

Enjoy one of total 4 IFR approaches or get yourself a spot as a small VFR aircraft between the big birds. VFR flights are still performed regularly despite the airport's size. This makes flying VFR to/from Zurich extremely interesting, but it's also a huge challenge which requires careful preparation. A lot of small airfields in the vicinity offer numerous possibilities for short VFR hops.

Zurich is a unique airport with a lot of operational restrictions due to noise abatement and its challenging layout. We know it by heart and love this airport with all its rough edges. And we are sure you gonna love it as well!

Almost every Tuesday we will also staff Geneva (LSGG) and Basel (LFSB) for you. Check out the bookings on vacc.ch.

Join our frequencies every Tuesday evening and enjoy!


Airport information, Scenery & Charts
LSZH - Zurich

Routes
Find valid routings on routes.vacc.ch.
Still looking for a destination? We recommend Berlin Brandenburg (EDDB) (18:00-20:30z) and the Adria Region (18-21z).

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Von HTR123 ein grosses Dankeshön an die gesammte ATC-Crew :)

Ebenso von HTR89

Tonight last official recurrence before the summer break of 6 weeks where you may expect reduced staffing. The Zurich Night will be officially back at August 29th!

Don't forget to participate in the Checkout next tuesday, July 18th!

@Tim
Wie im Feedback schon erwähnt, vielen Dank für den super Service gestern. Noch so zur Visualisierung, wie das bei mir (EZY91YA) ausgesehen hat.

1. Versuch
Attachment 4816

2. Versuch
Attachment 4817

:D

Vielen Dank Tobi!

Ich hatte den Niederschlagsradar auf meinem 2. Screen, aber leider kann man diesen nicht im EuroScope einblenden. Somit ist es schwierig euch sauber um eine Zelle zu manövrieren.
Zudem war gestern doch einiges los auf der Frequenz... :)
Wenn immer möglich versuche ich aber eine Lösung zu finden und freue mich immer über Inputs von Pilotenseite.
Deine Info über die Zelle am Ende des Downwinds beim ersten Anflug, sah ich nicht so klar wie du.

Ich hatte gestern einen super Abend und viel Spass auf Arrival.
Vielen Dank fürs fliegen!

The Zurich Night will be in summer break for 4 weeks after 17 July and return 21 August.

Zurich Night wird morgen Abend nochmals stattfinden vor der Sommerpause. Aufgrund der heissen Temperaturen freuen wir uns umso mehr auf euren Support vor der Sommerpause!

Don't forgett the last Zurich Night before the Summerbreak! So a last time for this season support our vACC and get the Pilots some great ATC experience!

Danke an Alasdair und HP für den Service heute Abend! Damit ist der Event Zurich Night bis am 13. August in der Sommerpause. Natürlich freuen sich die Piloten immer auf euren Service und es dürfte auch ohne Event den ein oder anderen Piloten nach Zürich ziehen am Dienstag. ATC ist also trotzdem erlaubt;)

Thanks Alasdair and HP for Service tonight. Zurich Night will make a Summer break until 13th August. Pilots will always be happy for your Service and it might have some Traffic at Tuesday from Pilots flying every Week to Zurich. So feel free to book for LSZH during July ;)

Liebi Grüess und schöne Summer!
Ramon

Summer break is over! Next Tuesday it's time again for Zurich Night. See you next Tuesday!

Am 17. Dezember ist es zum letzten Mal im 2019 Zeit für Zurich Night! Da Weihnachten und Silvester heuer auf den Dienstag fallen machen wir somit eine kleine Winterpause und sind am 7. Januar 2020 zurück.

This tuesday, 17. December, last Zurich Night for 2019. Due to Christmas and New Year's Eve on Tuesday we will do a Winter break and will be back on 7th January 2020. See you!

Ich habe einmal die Zahlen der letzten Dienstage zusammengestellt, jeweils von 17z bis 22z (wahrscheinlich hätte mann zum Teil bis 23z nehmen sollen). Es sind unglaubliche Leistungen die wir in den letzten Wochen vollbracht haben:)

17.03 Dep 57 Arr 63
24.03 Dep 81 Arr 84
31.03 Dep 73 Arr 98
07.04 Dep 80 Arr 93
14.04 Dep 73 Arr 110
21.04 Dep 54 Arr 75
28.04 Dep 41 Arr 83
05.05 Dep >61 Arr > 83 stand 21.16z

Quelle statsim.net

:merci:

Und wir sollten immer 2 CTRs und 3-4 APP/DEP aufmachen, damit das noch Spass macht!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Michael Kühne

immer 2 CTRs

---

Ja, unbedingt. Auf die Radar-Lotsen sind wir momentan noch mehr als sonst angewiesen. Alleine ist es bei aller Effizient unkontrollierbar.

Also Guest Controllers with CTR approvals are requested to join the weekly tuesday evening and staff a suitable Swiss Radar position to help organise the traffic.

An dieser Stelle meinerseits ein grosses Kompliment an alle Controller! (War als EDW72D EGCC-LSZH und EDW642 LSZH-LEBL unterwegs)

Das war ja mal ein riesen Ansturm diesen Dienstag! Waren das in der stündlichen Belastung nicht viel mehr als an einigen VA-Meetings? (Ohne Bezug zu diesem Jahr, da dies ebenfalls speziell tangiert wurde durch Corona..)

Auch am Boden als es nicht mehr ging und Starts begrenzt werden musste: TOBT/EOBT Ankündigungen super geklappt auf DEL und in der Zeit als ich auf der Frequenz war, schienen sich die Piloten gut daran zu halten.

(Ok, ich wollte erst eine TOBT haben, da ich meine APU nicht unnötig laufen lassen wollte - Umweltschutz und die armen Ramper ;-) - und mich GSX auch nicht 30 min mit "Release parking breakes" vollquatscht. Die TOBT habe ich dann auch so erhalten und konnte das weitere Vorgehen in den nächsten 25 min planen.)

Nochmals sorry meinerseits für die verk***te Landung... Noch bremst mir der 330er zu wenig bei der tiefen Zuladung welche ich hatte...

After the next Zurich Night on 30th June we will make a Summerbreak as usual. We will be back on 11th August. Enjoy the Summer and the great weather in Switzerland!

Feel free to controll during this period but there will be no promotion.

See you!

A question out of curiosity: Wouldn't it be smoother to remain during the Zurich night within one arr/dep concept instead of doing an operational change within the event? I do know that this happens in real life according to noise abatement and I also prefer to simulate as close as it gets to real life, but it always causes delays due to reclearances and jams on the taxiways.

I disconnected frustratedly yesterday while standing in the queue on taxiway A.

- Waiting time to get the dep clearance via rwy 28: approx 15-20 minutes
- Waiting time to get startup clearance: 5-10 minutes
- Just before taxi clearance came the operational change, meaning to get a reclearance via rwy 32 (reclearance was received rather prompt but it took another 5-10 minute nonetheless)
- and finally I would have waited another minimum of 20 minutes till takeoff

In total, I spent 1.5 hours on the ground, without even lifting off.

So don't get me wrong in this matter, the ATC service was as friendly and professional as always, but the fun factor got lost a bit. I just wonder whether it would be smoother by remaining within the concept of dep rwy 28 and arr rwy 14.

Not sure if it make a big difference, if done efficiently you loose maybe one or two departures/arrivals due to the config change. The issue is the very high number of traffic in general, not regulated as real word traffic would be, leading to delays both on ground and in the air.

As I was flying-in early this tuesday and did not depart again, I don't know how the situation was later on. But the problem with this ammount of traffic comes from different sources.

1. Real World has a fixed capacity, depending on runway config. As far as I know, this is approx 35-40 landings per hour and 35-40 departures with 14 arrival and 28 only departures. As soon as you have 16 departures, this is reduced by 2 to 3 arrivals and approx 2 departures per 1 departure 16.
If now 30 pilots want to depart within a time frame of 30 minutes, this is strictly not possible, also due to different further reasons.
a.) Different sceneries, resulting in confusion when there is an aircraft standing on a taxiway within another scenery.
b.) Pilots tend to be lest efficient compared to real world (Also due to single pilot workflows)
c.) Zurich has many many special push back procedures in use in order to optimise traffic flow. (e.g. Push backs onto taxiway F/E from aircraft stands in the bay (from taxiway N)) Majority of the sim pilots does not have this, which causes delay on push back. (But also on taxi in due to blocked taxiways.) --> I have to set them up again, because I updated my scenery.. Takes me up to 3h to program them all.


2. Real World operates with way more ATCO during peak times. Handling that ammount of traffic with our ATCO numbers is beyond real. (Especially enroute has more ATCO in order to reduce delays due to frequency occupation.)

3. Runway changes are sometimes coordinated to late. During normal times (Non-Corona time) it is mostly sufficient to call it 15-30 minutes before. But due to traffic volume since corona, we should increase this at least to 1h before the change. ATCOs should coordinate the last departing/landing traffic latest 15 min before the change. (Tower/Arrival are the majors here. GND/DEL to reclear accordingly earlier.) --> I personally have to keep this in mind too. We as ATCO have great potential here.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Florian Hofer

3. Runway changes are sometimes coordinated to late. During normal times (Non-Corona time) it is mostly sufficient to call it 15-30 minutes before. But due to traffic volume since corona, we should increase this at least to 1h before the change. ATCOs should coordinate the last departing/landing traffic latest 15 min before the change. (Tower/Arrival are the majors here. GND/DEL to reclear accordingly earlier.) --> I personally have to keep this in mind too. We as ATCO have great potential here.

---

A good point I can underline. The timeframe of receiving clearance for rwy28 and having to get a reclearance was - as I remember - below 10 minutes. Maybe DEL should clear earlier on rwy32. Or at least DEL should check again before giving the hand-off to Apron due to start/push request. If the config change is up within the next 10-15 minutes, an immediate reclearance would make sense.

Generally when the Runway Change is announced 30 minutes prior it should not be a problem to make it smooth and without a big loos of capacity. On this Tuesday the Runway Change was not announced early enough (only like 10-15min) which caused to this little chaos around 19z. We already talked with the involved controllers to make it better next time. As the others already stated, if plannend and done efficiently it's not a big deal.

After some years with the same banner Zurich Night will be advertised with a new one! Look at the initial Post for this one. The reason for that you can find here.

Thanks to Stephan Fässler for his work!

Out of curiosity i checked the Numbers for today Evening, we had:
67 Departures between 1809 and 2230
and 102 Arrivals between 1830 and 2230

So thanks to all Pilots and Fellow Controllers, and Merry Christmas to all of you.

Attachment 5120

Hier noch ein Bild von meinem Holding über GIPOL. Hat Spass gemacht auch wenn ich lange warten musste im Holding. Aber wurde schon von Swiss Radar vorgewarnt um auf clean speed zu gehen... Im Kopf war auch noch ein Divert nach Basel. Aber wollte wieder mal Holdings fliegen:)

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Dear Pilots

As you maybe already noticed, there will be new event times for our Zurich Night. Starting of tomorrow, the event will start at 19:00z and will end at 21:00z. There are different reasons for this change, mostly to relieve our controllers a little bit since we often have some problems to find enough controllers. Furthermore the overtime often leads to 4 hours shift on a weekday. With this changes we hope that we can give you every Tuesday an appropriate staffing, high quality ATC and an enjoyable experience for you and our controller.

Thanks for your understanding and see you tomorrow!

Die Swiss ATC's sind eh meistens Spitzenklasse, aber heute abend hat das DREAM TEAM eine EXCELLENT PERFORMANCE geboten. Beste Werbung für VACC Switzerland. Gratuliere! (Auch wenn mich André auf eine "Tour de Schwarzwald" schicken musste). Hab nach dem Shutdown noch ein bisschen zugehört: Matt ist ein absolut begnadeter Flohzirkusdirektor (auch APRON genannt) :-). Schönen Abend allen.
LG HP (FDX49T)

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We are in Summer Break with Zurich Night, see you again on 16th of August!

Dear Pilots and Controller

The Zurich Night from 30th August will not take place due to the lack of controller. It was not an easy decision to cancel this event but since we always want to provide you a good service we had to do this. We hope to see you again next week!

To our pilots and controllers;

Due to poor staffing at this time, we have decided to officially cancel the Zurich Night event on the 27th of September 2022 as an appropriate staffing to deal with the inherent traffic amount is unlikely to be found in proper time. We always aim to provide the best possible experience to our members on both sides of the scope and the decision to cancel was made in the interest of all involved. We hope to see you again next week in surely better circumstances!

Dear Pilots and Controllers

Thank you for visiting us yesterday, around 145 Movements, wow! We will take a break for the holiday season and let our controller some time to recharge the batteries. We will be back on 10th of January 2023 for the next Zurich Night.

We wish you and your family a Merry Christmas, calm holidays and a happy new year!

Administration Department vACC Switzerland

Dear members,


Hoping you are all well, I would like to remind that, as announced in the "Eventplannung" thread and communicated in our February newsletter, the "Zurich Night" on the 28th of March has been cancelled in order to ensure a sustainable staffing of our "Happy Birthday vACC Switzerland" event on the following day. This decision was made in the best interest of our members on both sides of the scope and in hopes of providing the best possible opportunities for our Birthday celebration on the 1st of March. Therefore, the next "Zurich Night" will be held on the 7th of March 2023 as planned.

We thank you in advance for your understanding.


Kindest regards,

vACC Switzerland Administration Department.

To our pilots and controllers,


Good evening all. Unfortunately, owing to poor staffing and pursuant to our Event Staffing Policy, we have decided to cancel our Zurich Night on the 21st of March (tomorrow) due to a lack of controllers at the CTR level. We appreciate the unfortunate nature of this news but are confident in the prudence and quality emphasis our policy helps guarantee.

Nevertheless, we thank you all in advance for your understanding and are looking forward to the exciting events we have coming up next week!


Kindest regards,

vACC Switzerland Administration Department.

To our pilots and controllers,


A lovely evening to all. Unfortunately, owing to poor staffing at the CTR level, we have made the decision to cancel our Zurich Night on the 25th of April (tomorrow) as pursuant to our "Event Staffing Policy". We appreciate the unfortunate nature of this situation but are confident in our emphasis on early-planning and forward notice.

This being said, we are looking forward to next week's instalment which seems already well-planned and adequately booked, we hope to see you all soon!


Kindest regards,

vACC Switzerland Administration Department.

To our pilots and controllers,



Good evening all. Unfortunately, owing to poor staffing at the CTR level and pursuant to our "Event Staffing Policy", we have decided to cancel our Zurich Night on the 16th of May (tomorrow). We appreciate the less-than-ideal nature of this news but we remain confident in the prudence and advance planning our policy aims to guarantee.

Nevertheless, we thank you all in advance for your understanding and are looking forward to the exciting events we have coming up in the coming weeks.


Kindest regards,

vACC Switzerland Administration Department.

To our pilots and controllers,


A good evening to all. Unfortunately, owing to poor staffing at the CTR level, we have made the difficult decision to cancel our Zurich Night on the 30th of May (tomorrow) as pursuant to our "Event Staffing Policy". We appreciate the unfortunate nature of this situation but are confident in our emphasis on appropriate planning and adequate notice.

We have taken note of the frequent cancellations as of late and will be relaying any changes in long-term planning in due time. Enjoy your weeks.


Kindest regards,

vACC Switzerland Administration Department.

To our pilots and controllers,


Good evening. Sadly, owing to repeatedly poor staffing lacking at both the CTR and the APP level, we have decided to, once again, cancel our Zurich Night on the 6th of June (tomorrow) in accordance with our "Event Staffing Policy". We do regret this unfortunate situation but are trying our best to work within the increasingly limiting staffing constraints as of late.

Cancellations are, of course, unpleasant for everyone but nevertheless we thank our members for their understanding. Let's hope for a better turnout very soon.


Kindest regards,

vACC Switzerland Administration Department.

To our pilots and controllers,


It seems these messages are becoming more and more recurring, much to the understandable displeasure of of many of our members. Owing to poor staffing at the CTR level and as mandated by our "Event Staffing Policy", we have decided to cancel our Zurich Night on the 13th of June (tomorrow). Needless to say, the Administration Department will have to amend many of its plans for the rest of the year.

We thank all our active members for their hard work over the past semester and appreciate their understanding. We are sorry this season of Zurich Nights has had to end like this but hope for a swift recovery from this staffing downfall.


Kindest regards,

vACC Switzerland Administration Department.

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A lovely evening to all,


As previously announced in our "Eventplannung" threads, our signature "Zurich Night" franchise will be on an extended summer break until the second half of August, with the precise modalities and dates of its return to be confirmed in due time.

We would like to thank our active members for their support and express our appreciation to the pilots who, with their interest, keep this franchise popular and a fan favourite amongst our regular fliers. We are eager to return back to action but until then, we wish you a pleasant summer break and hope to hear you very soon on frequency!


Kindest regards,

vACC Switzerland Administration Department.

A lovely evening to all,


We hope that you are enjoying the summer break and are as eager as we are for the return of the "Zurich Nights".

During the past weeks, the Administration Department has been busy collecting, sorting and gathering feedback on how to improve the staffing of our franchise and help lower staffing-related constraints and cancellations as evident by the many posts above. As such, we have made 2 key direct logistical changes to the franchise to aid in our efforts and help improve the attractivity of our landmark event;

• Reduction of frequency: the "Zurich Nights" will return on the 22nd of August as planned but will boast a bi-weekly pace to help prevent ATCO saturation and improve chances of reliable staffing.
• Elimination of myVATSIM and social media posting: our key franchise will no longer be regularly posted/advertised on the myVATSIM platform nor on our social media outlets which will hopefully reduce our traffic quantities by 25-35%.

These measures have been taken as initial decisions made to help improve staffing and alleviate the current ATCO shortage us and many other European vACCs have been witnessing. A full description of these measures and our implementation of them is available on our "Zurich Night" Staffing feedback thread, where your inputs and suggestions are always welcome.

Thanking you all for your understanding, we are looking forward to a new season of enticing events!

A lovely day to all,


Whether it is back to school, work or both, we wish all our members a satisfying and pleasant start to the new academic year!

Over the past few editions, the Administration Department has been keen to observe the effects of the recently implemented measures announced on the appropriate staffing discussion threads. With the summer slowly fading into autumn and consequent changes observed, we felt it best to communicate some initial impressions and updates to the franchise.

Traffic has decreased by almost 30%; with strategic under-marketing, we have done our best to address the prevalent concerns of excess traffic and ATCO exhaustion with a reduction in the traffic figures. And though we have much to experiment with and adjust, you can hopefully keep expecting moderate and reasonable flows for the next editions.

As planned, the event is now weekly again; as we communicated in August, our process of reducing the event's frequency has now drawn to a close and starting from tomorrow, the event will be weekly once more. This does not mean the end of the feedback process nor that we "solved" all problems; we are still gathering ideas and inputs from our members on how best to alleviate staffing concerns, but we are hoping that with less traffic, shorter days and the coming of winter, the division-wide ATCO shortages will be somewhat alleviated.

We will be constantly monitoring and evaluating our events, the staffing present and the traffic participating. As we said prior, we have not ruled out any measures or decisions and are open to all proposals, so be sure to send your feedback to our email (administration(a)vacc.ch) or on the relevant threads and we will be happy to discuss further.

Hope to see you all there and wishing everyone a pleasant event season!

A lovely evening to all,


As we prepare for our landmark and hopefully popular Geneva Real Operating Hours this coming 19th of November, the Administration Department has been eager to find planning methods reflecting sustainable and conscientious deployment of our dedicated team of ATCOS.

In this intention, given the long and busy event shortly prior, we have made the decision to pre-emptively cancel our Zurich Night on the 21st of November. This cancellation, paired with the slightly decreased pace of events during the week in question, will hopefully allow for a period of adequate rest and much needed relief for our hard-working controllers and department members. The Zurich Night planned for the 28th of November will be maintained, and so too the remaining events leading up to the winter break.

We hope our controllers will enjoy this resting period and hope to see you all this Tuesday!

To our pilots and controllers,


Hoping this finds you well, we would like to announce that the "Zurich Night" initially slated for the 16th of April 2024 has been pre-emptively cancelled. This decision has been made in the strategic interest of allowing for some recuperation from the vACC Weekend event 2 days prior and to facilitate the preparation of ATCOs controlling during that Saturday's "Cross The Pond".

As has been announced on the Cross The Pond planning thread, this "Zurich Night" will be replaced by a briefing session that will allow for the participating ATCOs to convene, enjoy a brief presentation and ask any potential inquiries concerning the latter event. The "Zurich Night" on the 23rd of April will be maintained, so too will all following editions until the end of June unless otherwise advised.

We thank you in advance for your understanding.


Kindest regards,

vACC Switzerland Administration Department.

April?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Michael Kühne

April?

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Apologies, it seems 2024 is passing by faster than expected. Thanks for spotting it, post has been corrected!

A lovely evening to all,


In preparation for our Geneva Real Operating Hours, 2024 edition, we have maintained our priority for sustainable staffing, event viability and adequate recuperation from what is bound to be a busy and packed day of controlling.

As such and keeping these objectives in mind, we have made the decision to pre-emptively cancel our Zurich Night on the 12th of November. This cancellation will allow for a moderation of the pace of events and give time to our regular ATCOs in the interests of rest and renewal of their controlling capacity. The Zurich Night planned for the 19th of November will be maintained, as will the remaining editions prior to the winter break.

We hope our controllers will enjoy this resting period and hope to see you all this tomorrow!

A lovely morning to all,


Planning for our much anticipated 2025 vACC Weekend is well under way, not only relative the event itself but also our surrounding plans in-keeping with our principles of sustainable event planning, the avoidance ATCO saturation and suitable recuperation from large and involved events.

In order to respond to these targets and curate a suitable event calendar for all, we have made the decision to pre-emptively cancel our Zurich Night on the 8th of April. This decision, in line with our objectives, will hopefully allow for a recovery from a busy and packed weekend of controlling whilst empowering better staffing for our future engagements. The Zurich Night planned for the 15th of April will be maintained, as will the remaining editions prior to the summer break.

We wish everyone a pleasant spring!