General
Before you fly...
Welcome to Niederrhein! This small airport primarily hosts Ryanair flights from or to various other European cities, including some holiday destinations, as well as occasional military traffic. Among VFR pilots, it is a favorite due to the low levels of scheduled traffic and simple airport layout, but pilots need to be wary as Niederrhein's CTR is located partially within Dutch territory.
Although the airport has a simple layout and low traffic levels on VATSIM, you should still prepare yourself thoroughly to keep it fun for everyone and avoid mistakes which might lead to delays for yourself and other users.
If you are new to VATSIM, Niederrhein is a perfect airport to get started on the network. Controllers will almost always have enough spare capacity to answer questions or quickly explain a procedure to you. It rarely gets very busy, so making smaller mistakes will usually not have a negative impact on anybody else's experience on the network. When flying IFR, however, you may experience busier frequencies during departure and arrival due to the neighboring Köln/Düsseldorf TMA and should already be comfortable enough with these frequencies.
Parking position
Please make sure you choose an appropriate stand for your aircraft type.
Passenger flights use parking positions 1 thru 9.
General aviation aircraft park at GA Terminal 1 and GA Terminal 2.
The maximum aircraft size at Niederrhein is code C (Medium aircraft) and parking positions for larger aircraft are not available.
Handoffs
When instructed to contact another controller, do so as soon as possible. This will avoid you having to stop moving or level off. Please do not hold your position to switch the frequency, keep moving on the ground!
Be aware that some frequencies in use might not be shown in the controller list of your pilot client, so it is important that you listen carefully to what ATC says.
Auto-handoff
Niederrhein utilizes an auto-handoff procedure for IFR departures where Tower will not hand off outbounds to the approach controller. The current airborne frequency will always be noted in the ATIS.
Contact the airborne frequency immediately when airborne unless explicitly told to remain on Tower frequency.