Oakland Oceanic is a large area of airspace that extends from the west coast of North America well past the Hawaiian Islands. This large area can not be practically serviced by radar surveillance, therefore, aircraft operating within the airspace are separated by non-radar methods. Compulsory position reports are sent by pilots through a special HF and VHF radio network operated under national authority for the FAA by the ARINC corporation.
On VATSIM, this region is managed by VATUSA.
Pilots will the see the facility operate on the text callsign of "ZAK_FSS" with a primary frequency of 131.95. The facility will use the call sign "San Francisco Radio" on the voice channel. A complete tutorial explaining everything a VATSIM pilot needs to know, from filing a flight-plan to landing is provided on this web site. Pilots should not be nervous to give this interesting airspace, and it's unique procedures a try. In order to allow more traffic to make use of the airspace we've implemented procedures to support multiple-x simulation rates. Special "hi-speed" procedures are outlined to allow an organized way for pilots to fly at 2x or 4x speed for segments on the Pacific oceanic routes. See the Pilot Info section.
Controllers wishing to qualify to operate the Oakland Oceanic FSS are not required to become visiting controllers in any US ARTCC. The one requirement is to pass a verbal exam, and over-the-shoulder (OTS) mentoring time. This space works very different from normal airspace under radar coverage. While we use the radar client and a sector file, taken to extreme accuracy, you should not need to look at the aircraft "blips" to separate targets. A basic tutorial for controllers, and all needed tools are provided on this site.
Pilots and controllers are encouraged to participate in this different and challenging environment. Please contact me if I can help you in any way, or to send any feedback on improving this web
site, or FIR operations.
Abel Tuinei, KZAK Facility Leader
p.s.
We would like acknowledge the contributions of John Schumacher, an old hand at SATCO and VATSIM, who built the first incarnation of the Oakland FIR, including some great sector files, and Jeff Clark, former Chief of Los Angeles ARTCC, who made a strong effort to revitalize the FIR, and whose work was liberally reformatted into this web site. Thanks to Ian Elchitz (Former Western RD) for pushing KZAK forward and getting the ball rolling and to Craig Moulton and Craig Merriman for their contributions. Finally Jim Bartosh for his hard work in commissioning the FIR and putting together the website.