Friends (and Tim),
This blog post is one I’ve been excited to write for almost a year now… but now, it’s finally time. AIRAC 2306 sector files are now valid and available to download. This update brings major changes to the en-route airspace, with sectors that are picture perfect accurate with the real world. This update also brings us away from the “basic” and “enhanced” files down to just one sector file. With this, we officially retire support for the GNG files, and turn our focus entirely to the GitHub based files – where anyone (and everyone) can help contribute to making these sector files the best on VATISM.
Many changes have occurred to the en-route airspace. All the combiner positions have been retired (H, L, EL, WL, WH, etc.) in favor of having each specialty have a primary sector, who will own all the positions when online. The 4 specialties (high, north low, east low and west low) all have their own primary sector – however, each sector can individually be logged into and ran, or split off under custom ownership. It’s all up to you. Other exciting news, controllers soon will be able to initiate auto handoffs to our colleagues in ZMP. Their sector IDs have been updated accordingly. Automated handoffs with ZLC are also on the way.
These files could not have been possible without the support and information people have given me. To those individuals, I would very much like to say thank you. I hope this update is everything you wanted to see out of our en-route airspace. For those who aren’t happy about this being a center focused update, don’t worry. Each terminal and tower will be getting their individual love soon.
As always, these files can be downloaded from your controller dashboard, or directly from GitHub for your enjoyment. If you find any bugs let me know right away on the discord, my DM’s, or email at [email protected]. Lastly, I’d like to thank each and every single member of the FIR, visitors and home controllers, for their patience. I hope you all enjoy this update as much as me and my team enjoyed making it.
Ryan and the Sector File Team