Practice ideas between VATSIM S1/S2 sessions

July 17, 2026 · Network training · written by simmers, not affiliated with VATSIM · US/FAA-flavored examples

Every VATSIM facility runs its own syllabus — CBTs, a written test, mentored sweatbox sessions, then the over-the-shoulder exam (OTS). This guide won't replace your division's documents: read those first, they are the authority. What it covers is repeatable skills you can practise alone, so a mentored session does not have to be your first attempt at saying the words under workload.

S1: Delivery and Ground fluency

Delivery and Ground look procedural — read a clearance, issue a taxi route — but what mentors grade is fluency and completeness under load. One clearance read slowly from a crib sheet is fine on day one and disqualifying at the OTS. The skills:

• The full IFR clearance, in order, without dead air — the CRAFT structure — including the altitude form the chart demands: climb via SID, except maintain, or plain maintain. Saying the wrong one is the classic written-test and frequency error.
• Taxi routing with explicit hold-shorts — and knowing that every runway crossing needs its own clearance.
• Catching bad readbacks. This is the skill that separates trainees: the pilot reads back the wrong squawk or drops a hold-short, and either you catch it now or it becomes Tower's emergency later. Mentors deliberately inject these.

S2: runway separation and sequencing

Tower is where the rating stops being about words and starts being about judgment with concrete: one runway, departures and arrivals sharing it, and you deciding who gets it and when. The core is runway separation, LUAW and the go-around, and the skill mentors watch for is gap arithmetic — knowing that a 5-mile final is one departure if it's ready now, and zero departures if it isn't. The most common OTS failure isn't phraseology at all: it's clearing a departure into a gap that doesn't exist, then hesitating on the go-around call when it bites.

Solo drills by skill

Preparation before a mentored session

• Speak out loud when you practice. Phraseology lives in the mouth, not the eyes — everyone discovers this on their first live frequency.
• Readback errors are yours to catch. Treat every pilot readback as a checksum, not a formality. On the network, human pilots get it wrong constantly.
• Say the whole instruction or don't key up. Half-transmissions (“Delta two thirty-one… uh, standby”) read as being behind the aircraft.
• Know your airport before the session — the SIDs and their clearance forms, the taxiway names, which exits arrivals actually take. Mentors notice preparation in the first two minutes.
• Don't fear the go-around. Sending one around because the gap collapsed is a correct decision, and examiners grade it as one. Hesitating is the error.

Common mistakes

• Studying the written material but never speaking — then spending three mentor sessions building basic fluency, which leaves less time for position-specific work.
• “Climb via SID” on a chart with no published restrictions (or “maintain” on one with a published top altitude) — the classic clearance-altitude mix-up.
• Issuing a crossing implicitly. “Taxi to the ramp via Bravo” across a runway is an incursion waiting to happen; the crossing is its own clearance.
• LUAW as a reflex instead of a plan. Line up and wait needs an exit strategy — what departs, behind what, before which arrival.