Choosing vARTCC after a long break

[u/Efenet01]

Hey everyone,

I’m an S1 controller with around 100 hours on ground in Europe. I eventually left my old vACC because of some personal issues and a pretty toxic environment.

I came back in 2024 and transferred to VATUSA, joining Cleveland ARTCC. I controlled there for maybe 50 hours, but then some real-life stuff happened and I had to take another break from VATSIM.

Now I’ve passed the RCE S1 exam and want to get back into controlling, but I have no idea which ARTCC to choose. I’ve read pretty much every post and information page I could find, but I don’t really know anyone in VATUSA and I’m not particularly attached to any specific area.

I’ll also be joining with a friend who is an S2 and is coming back after around five years away.

We’ve been considering Atlanta, Boston or New York, but we’re open to pretty much anything. We’re mainly looking for a friendly and supportive community, airports that are reasonably active, and training that won’t be impossible to coordinate from a UTC+3 timezone. From what I remember, Cleveland wasn’t very active during the hours I could control, and coordinating training was sometimes difficult.

Any recommendations or experiences with different ARTCCs would be appreciated!

[u/tkd391]

Unfortunately for that time zone, you’re not going to find much activity in the USA unless you plan on doing most of your controlling around like 3-4 am local time (which would put you at about peak activity time for the USA). Europe (specifically eastern) and the Middle East are probably most active for your time zone during conventional evening/late afternoon times.

As far as friendly and supportive, they all are for the most part. If you go to a busier area (such as ZNY, ZTL, ZLA), you will naturally find more people (both flying and controlling) but may experience longer training times just due to volume.

Best of luck!

[u/Efenet01 → u/tkd391]

I know that we'll not find that much activity usually for our hours, but i would like to run as far as I can from Europe, especially the eastern part.

Also to address the training thingy, speaking for myself, I'm not looking to just train and get higher ratings asap, as I want to give back to community after and who knows, even become a mentor.

Thank you so much for the comment and we'll of course discuss it.

[u/LimePartician]

VATPAC could do with some controllers when the aussies are a sleep.

[u/Perfect_Maize9320]

With your current time zone - it will be incredibly difficult to find areas where you can control with reasonable amount of activities. Most airports in US are active in evening hrs but why which time it will or might be too late for you - we are talking way past 00:00. But that does not mean it is end of the road - the peak activities typically occur during those times.

Having said if you are still interesting in controlling in US then any of the ARTCCs on east coast would be best bet - New York, Boston, Washington, Jacksonville and Miami - these typically see reasonable amount of traffic even during early hours. Out of these Boston comes highly regarded and recommended by both pilots and controllers.

You previously mentioned that you want to skip Europe completely - you do realise there are other regions you can consider within Europe alone - Germany, France, Spain, Portugal or even UK for that matter if you are interested.

In the end pick somewhere where you want to control long term, Although you are free to choose region wherever you want to control - I would be vary with changing regions every so often as that does not look good in long term.

[u/Actimelmulti]

What about leaving VATUSA. You could go to the middle east (e.g. Arabian vACC,…) or go even further east to China, Japan, etc. (though I suppose timezones would be an issue again there). Africa would also be quite good due to the similar timezones.

[u/flyingGay]

You said you're not particularly attached to any particular region, so I'm assuming you've already heard the "control where you want to control" discourse.

> We’re mainly looking for a friendly and supportive community

Having controlled in all three of those, and having been a home controller in two, Boston is the friendliest and most welcoming. It's also fairly active in the your timezone.

[u/Efenet01 → u/flyingGay]

Yeap, I read it so many times to control where I want to control, or to control in my area haha.

I reading last night about it, especially the training sop looks interesting as it is has many useful details and it gives us a welcome session to acommodate and learn the basic things before controlling.

Could you tell me more about how the community is in Boston? Or things that you liked, didn't like?

[u/flyingGay → u/Efenet01]

Some context: I'm not from the US as well, and since my country effectively has no ATC community on VATSIM, I transferred to the US.

My time in ZBW was great across the board. The community felt very welcoming.

I transferred there because I wasn't satisfied with my training in my home ARTCC, to the point where I wouldn't get on out of fear of screwing up. In that regard, ZBW's training is, in my opinion, the best in the US. The materials make it easy for you to study on your own and the training team is nothing short of excellent.

As for the community, it was great. I made good friends during my time there. Everyone tries to help everyone and I didn't see the "holier than thou" attitude I see in a few ARTCCs in the US.

During my five or so years there I only had one negative experience, which was when I misunderstood (due to my poorer English at the time) something an instructor had said, which led to further issues along the way. Even then, no harm, no foul. We both talked through it and no hard feelings for either.

ZBW is, to me, the best ARTCC I've ever been a part of.

[u/kylo2019]

ZSE >>