Your First Flight on VATSIM: VFR Circuits Tutorial (with lots of Tips) Part 1 (Pre-Flight Briefing) 

Hope it helps. And thanks for letting me know. I sometimes end up spending hours making these videos. Nice to know my time is not wasted.

Happy to help out. Thats my goal.

Friendly greetings from the other side of the planet, Canads.

Caution. Its ridiculously addictive!

Aviation is about practice and aiming to always improve.

I think I said it to you in my stream, but just get out there and try it. Everyone has a first day. It may not go well. But hopefully you'll learn from it and still have fun. Even my tutorials did not go as planned. In Part 2, my controller logged off halfway through my flight. VATSIM is great for teaching you to just roll with it and keep going. :)

No. I have a friend who sent me a TrackIR. I love the setup except that the tracking does steal a percentage of your system performance. Its not a lot, but quick movements of the head do sometimes cause a short but perceptible pause in the sim.

@@CaptNabs oh ok thank you! great videos too!

No, because the ground controller is only responsible for taxiways and inactive runways. So contact GND after landing.

@@CaptNabs ok thanks

Are you talking about panning around inside the cockpit so smoothly? I use a product called TrackIR that tracks head movements. It makes looking around the airplane very natural.

@@CaptNabs Ok thank you :)

Can you be more specific? Who are you asking and what do you want to ask?

Thats an easy question without an easy answer. In short, you will have to learn what 1 mile looks like from the air with practice. There are little tricks to help you learn. You can often find landmarks on a map (that intersection or that building) that are at the right distance and fly right over those while looking at the runway. Some airplanes may have tricks too. When I was learning, halfway up the wing strut of the C150 or C172 would be about the right distance. More than anything, practice will help you learn.

@@CaptNabs That makes sense. Thank you, your tutorials have been very helpful!

Yes it is very possible. The test is just designed to prove you read the welcome material.

@@CaptNabs ahh ok cool :)

hehe. Controllers just have to smile and move on because crashes, both aircraft and computer happen pretty regularly.

So, the easy answer is YES, you can disconnect from VATSIM at will. Controllers are used to seeing it, as even network troubles can cause pilots to disappear temporarily or permanently. Many pilots start a long flight and disconnect sometime after takeoff, leave the plane flying, do errands, and come back and reconnect for the landing. If you can give a heads up on when you are disconnecting, that's great, but its not needed. Just keep in mind that when you 'Connect', you should generally be at a quieter location, such as an apron. Not on a taxiway or runway or final approach, where other pilots are also likely to be flying. (Of course, if you were disconnected by a network issue and come back a minute later, controllers expect that and won't get too upset as long as you aren't disrupting operations - they are mostly pilots too and have dealt with many network/connection problems in the past.) If you make a mistake, you can disappear, but often times if you ask for some guidance or advice, controllers will try to help you directly or point you to useful resources. This depends on controller workload. If they are super-busy, they will not have time, but most controllers would rather you learn and keep coming back. A big part of it is just how you approach mistakes. A willingness to admit error and learn from the mistake will go a long way.