All of the arrival and departure procedures for flying into or out of the Las Vegas area (KHND) and sample proposed routes from the 4 corners of the USA have been published in this forum previously.
This year at M12 we will have for the first time an electronic Guidebook - the Migration Program Guide that will contain everything you need to know about M12, in addition the arrival and departure procedures are listed as well.
After you download and install the Guidebook, on the main screen near the very bottom left side is a section labeled Arrival/Departure. It contains all the procedures as well as excellent scalable PDF charts.
Please review this information as you head to M12.
Please review the arrival/departure procedures section in the M12 Migration Guidebook. Las Vegas is a high traffic area and the procedures were put in place to ensure the orderly (and SAFE) arrival of all aircraft.
KHND sits just under the class B shelf that extends around KLAS.
There is a terrific Las Vegas VFR Planning Chart PDF located in the procedures. You can enlarge it to any size you would like for clarity.
Listed in the procedures section of the Guidebook are “suggested” options for your arrival.
Although you can just “vfr right in” like you said above, perhaps this is not the best area to try that…
Because if you are going to migration, you are/were required to go to the M12 Migration Registration page and they are/were posted there. The link in the guidebook is to that location.
I think the migration committee and Andy have gone out of their way to make sure all M12 migration attendees have all the information possible to have a safe and fun time. It has been there for over 4 months. Andy’s message was a reminder for folks to go back to that information and review it prior to arrival.
So does this meet your needs to have it posted HERE. I recommend that all go back to the Migration Registration web page and guidebook and review the information there. We are NOT going to repost all the information there on the forums. Not enough time and then we would have multiple locations with potentially different information.
And just to set expectations. The late breaking news on changes at migration will be done in GUIDEBOOK messages NOT on the COPA Forum.
The M12 registration website and process was painful. I did it yesterday. I wondered what the bounce rates must be. It was not clear at all that there was a procedure etc. Happy to help with next years site setup. I also suggest whomever is controlling the M12 FB account do a more proactive job in pushing out the info there and driving excitement and energy into an event that will be and could be attended by many non COPA members.
Thanks for the feedback. Make sure you put it in the Migration Survey at the end of the event so the planning team next year can remember and consider.
Interesting comment on ROL I guess it varies by users. I did it and found it very simple. But then I have used it many times over the years. The questions do get longer as they try and offer more flexibility to members that don’t plan to attend the whole migration.
Again, make sure you put it in the survey and be as specific as you can on what you found complicated and if you have suggestion to make it better.
David,
Good suggestions. On the FB one many of our members hate FB and will not even consider getting a log on, even if all they used it for was COPA. Privacy concerns and some generational differences in how they view the world. But you are correct it may attract new members. I have FB and check it often, although I rarely post to it. See you at migration.
It would be great to have a little pic of each pilot with their plane and a bio of whom is going. Those could Freely message it to the M12 migration facebook page and Dennis could post it. I’d certainly be interested in following the people that are going through that. However, I’d like to know how many folks are registered to go so far. How many are COPA members vs not (not including spouses etc). Right now M12 is a black hole from my POV. I want to get a much better insight as to whom will be there. I’m mainly going for the meet-ups with other pilots vs education. I believe most are also from previous posts. The more data you can supply here the more I can better suggest a course of action to handle the build up.
David,
More data for everyone, good message. Well, one datapoint I can give is there are 386 attendees signed up as of yesterday. From a PC you can actually see a lot of that data by looking at the event. You can even see attendees. There is a lot of stuff on the full website that heavy iCOPA users never see.
Not the PERFECT picture and bio that you were thinking, but you can click on the names you are interested in and see any BIO information they have posted to their COPA MY PROFILE page. Using badges you can gleam other info as well. (FYI: the reason the number is less there is if it can’t match an email with a COPA member, it does not count them.)
I certainly welcome the new member ideas from you and others that this will be their first migration.
As another data point. Almost half of the members go to this migration will be their first.
I think we as a community have much to learn on other social tools like FB or Google+, etc. As Roger says, we are certainly a divided camp.
One thing I would love to see is everyone post a picture prior to their departure to M12 and post it in the Photo APP in Guidebook. On the way there, post pictures of the cool things you see on the way to M12 (after you land). Please post a caption so we all know what we are looking at, etc.
This will be my 5th Migration. You will make acquaintances there you can’t even imagine. You will not want it to end and you want the next one to be starting soon. The challenge we have been trying to improve is how do we keep that experience going all year long. Gil and the GOVs have been trying to do just that.
Keep your ideas and thoughts coming. If you see a way to make a difference; Step forward and make it happen.
One of the reasons that we selected Las Vegas for an Oct. Migration is that the weather is usually “severe clear”. (Now, watch Mother Nature make a liar out of me!) And, IMO the best way to fly near mountainous terrain is VFR. That said, M12 Planning Team member Andy Brown spent untold hours on the phone with LV TRACON trying to get them to answer questions. Like previous Migrations, we have posted “M12 Fly-In Procedures” on the Lodging & Logistics tab (here) for the registration website. Please include a review of these procedures as part of your Preflight Planning process.
An aside: Roger Whittier is my friend and a very experienced pilot who has flown into/out of the LV area many, many times. Of course, he’ll go VFR if the weather permits. BUT, for folks who haven’t been there before and would like to avoid learning the hard way, read the procedures. [;)]
To attend M12, folks have to register. And, since there is only one registration website with four BIG blue tabs, your hardworking Planning Team sort of expected that folks would actually read what was under those tabs… Arrival/departure procedures as well as a Las Vegas VFR Planning Chart and an airport diagram showing where the FBO wants us to park are all available on the website under the aforementioned tab.
Last year, we tried several experiments with respect to conveying information to potential Migration participants. Nearly every experiment failed.
We tried Facebook. Some of our long-time, most experienced pilots said they forego Migration rather than have to have a Facebook account. Those were pilots who had flown to every Migration since the beginning of time… So, despite Dennis H’s valiant efforts, we don’t post “official” information on Facebook. (Of course, Dennis has “followers” on the Facebook page. But, then Dennis has followers anyway. [:D]) COPA has it’s own website. And, this event is organized by COPA primarily for its members. If COPA used Facebook, then Migration would use Facebook. Til then…
We tried using the forum for general information as well as real-time communications. The usual forum “stuff” (many expletives come to mind!) happened with wandering thread content, hijacked threads, and relevant posts being pushed off-page where no one would read them.
After predominantly using the forum last year, we discovered through Gil Williamson’s post-Migration survey that a large percentage of attendees get their (only) Migration information out of Cirrus Pilot! Go figger…
So, we concluded several things:
We needed a static source of information that was easy to find for planning purposes of potential attendees - that’s the Migration 12 website.
We’d publish articles in Cirrus Pilot primarily for event marketing and general knowledge. Plus, we’d send email “blasts” to all 3700+ members containing basic Migration info. (Only about 40% of “us” open those emails … poor return on my effort IMO.)
On the COPA website, this year John Ylinen has set aside a specific area under Regions & Events that is only for Migration discussions. (If you haven’t noticed, John did the same thing for our European counterparts.) This is where real-time Migration-related conversations can take place. Unfortunately, these conversation will suffer from the usual issues inherent to every forum conversation - they generally lose focus over time and people rarely read the entire thing.
This year our “experiment” is to move to an electronic Program Guide called Guidebook. Not only is this a replacement for our hard-copy Migration event program, but it opens up new possibilities for communications! For example, the Arrival/Departure procedures being discussed are already in the Guidebook under … Arrival/Departure! Plus, now we have a way to send last-minute NOTAMS to attendees about changes. AND, this is only our first year using the new tool! I suspect that we’ll utilize many other features as we become more familiar with its capabilities.
We always need (and usually welcome!) fresh ideas. However, bear in mind that it’s much easier to sit in the stands and shout suggestions to the coach and his staff than to be down on the floor where the game is being played. [:P] That said, I’m always on the look-out for new volunteers. You’ll get the same high pay and fringe benefits as the rest of us - nada. But, you’ll receive (and have earned) the sincere appreciation from those folks who know what it takes to plan and execute an event of this magnitude. Just send me an email ( fcalbrightAZ@gmail.com ) or a PM.
If you haven’t downloaded the Guidebook app, please do so. Explore it for awhile and suggest some additional ways we can use it - next year. This year, our primary objective is just to make a successful transition from paper to electronics. We want to keep things as simple as possible for the Users. With 390+ attendees, you can probably imagine the issues with getting everyone just to download the app. Most of us use a very small percentage of our smart phone’s capabilities…
Bear in mind that there is no full-time team working on this. John Y. (with some help from a couple of M12 Planning Team members) has done virtually everything in the Guidebook himself. Next year, I have to get John out of the driver’s seat, and replace him with another volunteer. (He has a plethora of other duties as COPA’s IT Manager. None of those involve Migration!) But, this year, John went above and beyond his IT Manager duties and shepherded our foray into the Guidebook world. We wouldn’t have gotten here without him! [Y]
Craig, thank you for the amount of information you and others have made available. I thought it was all in an obvious spot. A quick scan of the M12 page and the tabs let me know what was available.
No matter what information delivery mechanism you choose, there will be those who put their energy into criticizing rather than investing a minimal effort in researching the information available to them.
The M12 information needs to be easily accessible reference information. I have no idea how to use Facebook to make that available without it getting lost. Who wants to hunt through facebook posts for the one that says where to park? Your comments on the use of forums is correct, too. Forum topics are even less structured than facebook, plus you have the problem of folks posting new threads like “land at VGT for M12” which do no good and cause confusion.
The information delivery mechanism must not be writable by anyone except the M12 organizers to keep out misinformation. The delivery mechanism must be organized so the desired information can be found quickly. It needs to be easily updated as things change. I believe the website and the Guidebook App John has put together meets these needs.
There may be some value in social media for “social” purposes, but neither social media nor interactive forums are the right delivery vehicle for reference information such as arrival procedures, parking, schedules, and the like.
I thank all of the M12 organizers and look forward to seeing everyone. It’s my first.
Thanks, Mike, I didn’t see David’s thoughts as complaining. As we have new members come to join and contribute, they are not aware of the ground that has been plowed.
I think we have made some good progress this year. I am interested in how the membership accepts guidebook at migration.
Craig and I have a bet of how many will not have a device that is capable of viewing guidebook and see the information. My theory, the number of folks using IPAD for aviation tasks, I am pretty safe. I am sure I will have the one member with a and Craig will win, but I am still holding my ground. [:D] I am counting on the membership to get me to win.
My biggest ask of the members going to migration is to load and play with the app now and don’t wait till migration to try and use it. The more we have gotten over the 5 minute initial resistance model the better it will be for us all.
Mike,
Different generations have different ways of accessing and wanting to access and digest content. The guys did a fine job considering it was done by John alone it seems. Kudos!! John, Andy,
Thanks for all the info and background. Would love to discuss at M12 how I could help support this going forward.
"An aside: Roger Whittier is my friend and a very experienced pilot who has flown into/out of the LV area many, many times. Of course, he’ll go VFR if the weather permits. BUT, for folks who haven’t been there before and would like to avoid learning the hard way, read the procedures. "
I should add… I’ve been going there for years and have many landings in my logbook at McCarren, Northtown (VGT), Henderson and Boulder - IFR and VFR. If I was not familiar with LAS airspace I would file and would definitely appreciate (and use) the suggestions Andy has worked so hard to assemble. Coming from the SE as I will be there is terrain and MEA’s are 10,000 minimum so if you have to file, it is often a no go as our Wx tends to be high, convective and contains ice at those altitudes. Then low altitude VFR is often quite legal and safe when IFR altutudes are not. But you can still use the guidelines Andy put out there for guidance.
LAS airspace is large, complex and ATC is very busy there. You can always just go VFR anywhere but having some advice on how to navigate the pitfalls around it is very useful. Fly safe.
I agree with this. Pilots who have not flown out west don’t always know flights should be limited to day VMC only (in a piston single). Filing IFR is fine, but weather/lighting should be day VMC.
You cannot see the mountains at night, and there are big hills quite near HND. I won’t fly circling approaches to unfamiliar airports (including HND) at night. There is no straight-in approach at HND. I have been into HND many times, but will still not go there at night; it’s just my (strong) preference.
When I’ve gone into HND VFR, I’ve usually asked for a Class B clearance, for descent; sometimes I get it, sometimes I don’t. When VFR, I’ve always had a plan to avoid the Class B, just in case.
The western pilots all know this. I mention it in case there are visitors from east of the Rockies who have not flown around the western mountains.
