Cross the Ditch 10: Spring 2014
It's December, the spring weather is kicking up a storm in the Southern Hemisphere, and it's time once again to Cross the Ditch!
Help us celebrate the tenth edition of Cross the Ditch!
Featured for Cross the Ditch 10
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Tenth Event Itinerary
We're celebrating the tenth running of the Cross the Ditch event by combining favourite elements from previous events — Adelaide, Noumea (New Caledonia) — with a never-before visited destination — Dunedin — and a number of upgrades to the website.
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Wave Format
We're adopting the Wave Format for our tenth event. This unique and popular approach sees the event divided into five waves where the event route changes every few hours zig-zagging back and forth across the Tasman to create six mini-flyins.
The route you fly is determined by the time you wish to depart; the routes are designed to highlight some of the fantastic scenery in this part of the world, and to create as much crossing traffic as possible. ATC will be assigned according to the schedule to ensure great coverage throughout each flight.
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New Airport: Dunedin
Cross the Ditch is excited to be adding another New Zealand airport to the Cross the Ditch catalogue! Dunedin is a regional centre on the south-eastern coast of the South Island; surrounded by stunning scenery, this will be the first time that Cross the Ditch has ventured to this part of New Zealand. Note: the short runway and limited parking limit Dunedin to B737/A320 sized aircraft and smaller, so larger aircraft will be able to operate out of Christchurch for the Dunedin waves.
The flight route for Wave 2 from Noumea to Dunedin takes pilots almost the length of the South Island, through some of the most spectacular scenery in New Zealand, from the beech forests of Westland, along the majestic Southern Alps, to the Canterbury Plains and south to Dunedin.
The flight route for Wave 3 from Dunedin to Adelaide traverses desolate Central Otago before passing Queenstown and the Southern Lakes enroute to the Tasman and Australia beyond.
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Website Upgrades
We've made a number of improvements to the event website:
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Integration with VATSIM's Single Sign On service
You can now identify yourself by using VATSIM's Single Sign On service. This allows you to log into the Cross the Ditch site with the confidence that we will never get to see your VATSIM login details. (We never stored them when you gave them to us previously, but now we never handle them at all, so you can feel even safer logging into the site.)
The real benefit is that you no longer need to fill in your VATSIM details when booking a flight or signing up to control.
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User Profiles
Once you're logged in you can customise the timezone to use when displaying dates/times, and easily access your flight bookings and ATC applications.
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Enhanced ATC Application process
The ATC Application process has been overhauled to improve the quality of information that we receive when you volunteer to control. Hopefully this should translate into more controllers getting more of the controller shifts that they really want when we generate the roster.
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What's it all about?
For twenty hours this December, the skies over the Tasman Sea between Australia and New Zealand will be filled with aircraft all on a mission to Cross the Ditch.
An example of that typical down-under understatement, this "ditch" is over 1100nm wide. The flight routes all range from two and a half to four hours flight time.
Throughout the event, the Oceania region's two divisions will be providing full gate-to-gate ATC coverage, in the Southern Hemisphere's premiere oceanic event.
This is a great opportunity to experience Oceanic flying without the need to commit to an eight-hour flight!
If you're new to Oceanic Flying, our reporting tool makes taking part a breeze.
Event Times
This twenty hour event is timed to allow pilots from all over the world join the fun:
- UTC: Saturday 13th December 2014 17:00 - Sunday 14th December 2014 13:00
- AEDT: Sunday 14th December 2014 04:00 - Monday 15th December 2014 00:00
- NZDT: Sunday 14th December 2014 06:00 - Monday 15th December 2014 02:00
Waves
This season's event is organised in waves. Each airport will have a three-to-four hour departure window, during which time flights will be able to leave for the next destination. As the window closes, the departure window will open at the next destination.
Given each of the flights is 2.5 - 4hrs in length, the previous wave's flights will be arriving at the same airport as the next wave departs, maximising the amount of traffic at each airport.
NOTE: in order to ensure that you have ATC coverage throughout your flight, you MUST fly the wave route that is active at the time of your departure.
The individual routes are designed to ensure as much opposing traffic enroute as possible.
Each flight passes from one Oceania division to the other, and the result is six mini-flyins over the course of twenty hours!
The Waves for Cross the Ditch 10 - Spring 2014 are:
| Wave | Flight | Departure Window | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| UTC | AEDT | NZDT | ||
| 1 | Wellington (NZWN) to Noumea (NWWW) | 1700-1930 | 0400-0630 | 0600-0830 |
| 2 | Noumea (NWWW) to Dundein (NZDN) (B737/A320 and smaller) |
1930-2230 | 0630-0930 | 0830-1130 |
| 2a | Noumea (NWWW) to Christchurch (NZCH) (Large aircraft only) |
1930-2230 | 0630-0930 | 0830-1130 |
| 3 | Dunedin (NZDN) to Adelaide (YPAD) (B737/A320 and smaller) |
2230-0230 | 0930-1330 | 1130-1530 |
| 3a | Christchurch (NZCH) to Adelaide (YPAD) (Large aircraft only) |
2230-0230 | 0930-1330 | 1130-1530 |
| 4 | Adelaide (YPAD) to Auckland (NZAA) | 0230-0600 | 1330-1700 | 1530-1900 |
| 5 | Auckland (NZAA) to Melbourne (YMML) | 0600-1000 | 1700-2100 | 1900-2300 |
Calling all Pilots and Controllers
Flight plans are available from the Flight Plans section.
Book your flights now from the Flight Bookings page. Bookings made on this site help us plan for the event, and will also show up in vroute.
Controllers wanting to get in on the action can also apply now at the event's ATC Applications page.
