Flock of flights to the main hub [Expert server]

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#1

What kind of person are you? A sheep 🐑 or an individual that makes his own decisions?

  • Sheep! 🐑
  • Obviously not 🤬!

0 voters

Provocation aside, let’s get to the point… I’d 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 you’ll 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 it’s because they want ATC, some because they don’t know where to find other airports. I’d want to address these answers and show how we can eliminate them. Today I opened approach at an airport I’d never heard of. There was tower and ground too. I think it was very interesting with mountains all around. Nice easy ”realistic” 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 we’ve got the ATC opening which means you’ve got ATC and you’ve got ideas of places. However you still go to the main hub. “But when I get there ATC will have left”: it can happen and I know it’s frustrating. But I do think if there were more planes, they wouldn’t close. There are tons of ATC ready on standby but wait for the main hub because the rest is boring. So it’s not the people that are missing.

Sometimes there’s 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 can’t 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 “accept less traffic”. It ends up being way more interesting and realistic. Remember doing patterns? I don’t 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 we’re 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 don’t 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.

Please consider this next time you plan a flight.

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#2

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?

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#3

The gatekeeping wasn’t needed to make your statement, calling people sheeps won’t 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 you’ve 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 won’t change anytime soon.

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#4

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.

It’s not up to anyone to decide what people should and shouldn’t do with their enjoyment of IF, it’s up for each person to find out what they enjoy and that’s part of what makes IF great!

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#5

Are you talking about the training server?

#6

He is talking about the Expert server I suppose

1 Like
#7

Expert server. I’ll add that thanks for pointing it out.

#8

Can i ask which airports you’re referring to in your article - the one you’ve never heard of and the others mentioned in the same piece?

#9

UGBT and the other I admit I didn’t memorise the name 😬

#10

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.

#11

UGBT yes. The other I doubt it.

#12

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.

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#13

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 ex…

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 :)

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#14

Nice topic @Captain_Zen!

I am a mix of both to be honest. I am a “sheep” 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 “sheep” 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.

That’s all from me. 😂🙂

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#15

That’s exactly what happens. You’re totally right. But I’m 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 it’s only theoretical. The fact is as you described

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#16

Yes, I do feel like this needs to be fixed!

Very nice topic!

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#17

That’s why I posted my random route generator, FPLtoIF isn’t the best at being random…

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#18

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

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#19

I should add that… :)

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#20

Thanks @TaipeiGuru. Actually meant to put it in that category but made a mistake.

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