What kind of person are you? A sheep đ or an individual that makes his own decisions?
Sheep! đ
Obviously not đ¤Ź!
0voters
Provocation aside, letâs get to the point⌠Iâd want to talk about how we decide to plan our flights. What do we tend to look for? Interesting places? Novelty? Or queues? I think youâll go for the first two. I do anyway⌠I often see people or even whole topics discussing the fact that we should try and explore the world now that we have global. Threads trying to find small airports there are yet to explore. But, with all those possibilities, why do we keep seeing 100 inbounds for one airport and virtually none to other airports? Why is it not evenly distributed or at least have a couple that lead the board instead of one?
Some will say itâs because they want ATC, some because they donât know where to find other airports. Iâd want to address these answers and show how we can eliminate them. Today I opened approach at an airport Iâd never heard of. There was tower and ground too. I think it was very interesting with mountains all around. Nice easy ârealisticâ traffic but still 10 times less than the hub. A bit later, someone else opened another interesting airport. Guess what? No traffic. Even after being open for 2 hours in my case and still being open in the other, the traffic is still unevenly spread. So here weâve got the ATC opening which means youâve got ATC and youâve got ideas of places. However you still go to the main hub. âBut when I get there ATC will have leftâ: it can happen and I know itâs frustrating. But I do think if there were more planes, they wouldnât close. There are tons of ATC ready on standby but wait for the main hub because the rest is boring. So itâs not the people that are missing.
Sometimes thereâs this concept where ATC open up a full region. All at the same time. And it works! Because there is no main hub. Everywhere starts even. Now it canât be done every day and early since there are fewer people at some times of the day. What I think would be ideal would be that both ATC and pilots make an effort to âaccept less trafficâ. It ends up being way more interesting and realistic. Remember doing patterns? I donât see many of them anymore. Remember flying vfr around an airport to discover? Not many of that anymore. But we have incredible imagery! Why stick autopilot and leave it when we can discover places. Especially since weâre getting new small planes such as the xcub and the tbm that are perfect for that. Personally when I see an empty airport with atc I go there immediately if I just want a few patterns. Lots of ATC, when flying do that. So why donât we all change our way of flying and make the most of IF? Atc will adapt to that and make it even better, but pilots need to change too.
I agree with you 100%. I do fly to the main hub, but usually, I either depart or arrive at smaller featured airports. But usually I will depart or arrive at the main hub. For me, this is because I like ATC. It makes it much more organized. But I agree, why not fly to smaller hubs?
The gatekeeping wasnât needed to make your statement, calling people sheeps wonât make them listen more.
I totally understand your point of view and I will even add that we share the same idea of flying to discover new territories!
One thing to note is that people participating to the FNF for example are here mostly for the ATC and the idea of being in a busy airspace as it could be irl. When youâve flown to mildly active airports during the week, I understand the will to get that fresh dose of delays and seeing dozens of plane all flying around you.
So maybe we lose more than we gain from that situation (definitely my point of view) but it is how it is and probably wonât change anytime soon.
While you do make a great point, everyone is free to enjoy IF how they want to enjoy it.
Some people may absolutely love discovering new areas and scenery.
Some people may love having professional ATC service at large airports.
Itâs not up to anyone to decide what people should and shouldnât do with their enjoyment of IF, itâs up for each person to find out what they enjoy and thatâs part of what makes IF great!
Could they all handle an A380? - One of the main reasons i stick to the main hubs is these are usually the bigger/main country airports that ATC accept an A380 at.
Theres one answer for your query then i guess. I usually go to the airports that are quieter as long as they can handle the larger aircraft, or i check who the atc may be as i have a more pleasurable experience with some than others.
I do agree with your point, that sometimes traffic can be unevenly distributed. I definitely agree with your point, but I feel like it comes down the IFATC featured Airport for a day
For exâŚ
You just logged into Infinite flight and you see that the featured airport for the day is EGLL.( The big hub airport.) You see that EGLL has 60 arrivals. Naturally, I feel like the average pilot will go to EGLL because of the realistic amount of traffic at the airport. Now, the second airport that is open is lets just say for ex.(lets also say that KLAX is a lesser known airport) KLAX is open with only 7 arrivals. I dont think a ton of people will go to KLAX with 7 arrivals, over having the choice to go to EGLL( the main hub airport) with 60 arrivals, unless the pilots intent was to do some patterns.
Now, I do agree with you point that some people will only go to hub airports, and not go to smaller less-known airports. But I think that just all comes down to pilot preference, with them knowing that the main hub is going to really busy.
You do make valid points which should be followed up on :)
I am a mix of both to be honest. I am a âsheepâ because I really enjoy flying to very busy airports. Partly because of the great ATC service, partly because there are so many other planes and great people around.
But on the other hand I am not a âsheepâ because I like doing different stuff like in this thread. I also thoroughly enjoy doing patterns at less busy ATC airports e.g. with the XCUB. I really like that and learned how to fly without the HUD. There are not only two types of people (sheep and not sheep) there are more. But I can agree with you that there is too much focus on one main hub day by day.
Thatâs exactly what happens. Youâre totally right. But Iâm sure in your example we can make it work out to have KLAX 20 inbounds, EGLL 20, and 30 divided in a few airports that you can fly between with a ga and vfr. That would be ideal. Like that most people would be satisfied. Also on the ATC side, there is an increase of people wanting to open small airport. But itâs only theoretical. The fact is as you described
Nice idea. Gotta try that once. And to get a fight of a specific time, you choose random coordinates and then random heading. And adapt the length of the flight for what you need