Geneva chaos

Live
1

Is it so hard to follow traffic flow within an airspace?

Do you really need to land to the point of jeopardising the experience of other pilots?

Is it so hard to obey the pre-determined traffic flow by a disconnected Approach controller?

Do we really need more ‘babysitters’ in the servers?

Okay, here we go. Upon seeing that Geneva was open today, I decided to fly PEK-GVA. All was going well, Approach ATC vectored us well. The trouble started when the ATC personnel disconnected.

Traffic went haywire. On right downwind 04, there was an Aeroflot that dived from 14000 to 11000 in a twinkle of an eye, while an El Al 737 cut me off and overtook me. Upon seeing the chaos that was at 10 DME from RWY 04’s threshold, a natural instinct was to extend downwind to stay away from the commotion, imagine 3 aircraft fighting for a landing slot, a scene similar to a Red Arrows formation flight, but now involving 3 A321s.

Okay, I’m now clear of traffic, with the commotion 6 miles ahead, I decide to align to the localizer, then from nowhere, a BA A320 dives from 8500ft to capture the glide slope. As a peace loving person, I reduced speed to minimum approach speed of 145kts as another commotion ensued in front of my eyes.

Gladly, @Thunderbolt took charge of the airspace and deflected the erratic ‘pilots’ away. I’ve never been as satisfied as I was in that moment in the sim. Clearance to land was given and that was it.

Lessons learnt,

  • Don’t interfere with traffic flow in the hopes of an early landing, you’ll just be sent around.
  • Ignore the erratic pilots, stay on track and continue with your approach.
  • Just follow the predetermined traffic flow to avoid such problems.

Suggestions

  • Expansion on the number of pilots able to ghost other pilots. Factors to determine may include membership in the IFC and a good flight history(similar to IFATC requirements, maybe with a written exam for such individuals). I think there’s a request in #features for this already
  • Obey traffic flow. This is the ultimate sign of airmanship.

Those questions above are really fundamental, answer them if you can ;)

Let’s work for a healthier Expert Server.

Regards,

Kiz

74 Likes
2

I’m tired of the stupid antics of some pilots on Expert Server. We can only hope that strict rules start being made to avoid this

26 Likes
3

I cannot reiterate how important this message is. When I stepped in for my session, it felt like EGLL on training server all over again. 6 aircraft within a mile of each other, aircraft landing at the same time, etc. Expert server conduct is horrific these days and needs to be fixed! I reckon messages like these should be pinned globally! Need the wise words of those who have the knowledge and the judgement to fly responsibly! Conduct today was deplorable, action is desperately needed! I, as well as other IFATC controllers will not tolerate this behavior!

62 Likes
4

Too much load on just one airport. Its something unavoidable unless we spread traffic. I completely stopped flying into atc hubs recently for same thing. Hope this could solve this problem.

7 Likes
5

Tbh Geneva should have never been chosen as the hub it is way to small!
Cign :D

4 Likes
6

Isn’t that what the point of the report user button is for?

7

Feature was deactivated a while ago, does not do anything at the moment.

Geneva has events later today, impending doom is inevitable! Get your act together pilots!

13 Likes
8

The purpose of the report button and why it’s still there is for IFATC supervisors and moderators to report pilots while they are flying for breaking expert server rules.

1 Like
9

I have some really annoying experiences while taxiing or ready for take off, some others pilots trying to block or keep parking their plane on the run way for long time. (Non ATC airport/expert server)
While ATC was exist, i asked for push back but there was fellow pilot who kept his plane blocked my space for push back. ATC instructs him many times for taxi but seem he felt a slept. ATC send me a messages “i’m sorry” to me many times.

1 Like
10

It’s a horrible situation with people diving for slots to land, especially at airports similar to Geneva where traffic flow can be a bit restricted in the first place. I’m glad a controller was able to come in and sort out the situation. I agree that some feature should come along to better help the monitoring of the expert server.

1 Like
11

This is just my opinion:

  • ATC Active at a busy airport: A pilot gets the experience of a sim
  • ATC Not Active at a busy airport: A pilot gets the experience of a game
14 Likes
12

Well said. Even yesterday at the EDDF fly out where we were using 25C for departures someone decided to land 7R and cut pilots off that were departing South. It’s getting a bit annoying. Hopefully the stricter rules that are coming in will help but I guess they only will if someone is there to actually enforce the rules.

13

This is why I hate one runway airports with atc on expert

3 Likes
14

Not relevant to geneva, but intersecting runways without ATC is a mess as well. I went around twice at YYZ yesterday because intersecting runway traffic (also someone was doing 8 shapes lol)

15

The main problem with today was Geneva’s smaller size compared to other European airports (i.e. Zurich, Frankfurt, Vienna, etc.), and was/is unable to hold the massive amounts of traffic that Infinite Flight has. IFATC is trying our best to provide quality services to all pilots, but sometimes due to traffic levels, we may need to cycle off and wait for an approach frequency to open or traffic to die down. We are human too, not just robots that have malfunctions here and there.

2 Likes
17

There needs to be multiple main hubs that are almost always staffed instead of one hub which means you have to guess what other airports will be open at the time you arrive.

1 Like
18

I think this is an excellent idea. Just let IFATC sups/ moderaters choose pilots who would be able to do this and thats it. It would clean up the expert server very well.

1 Like
19

Not everyone wants to join the community, some just use the app a few times a month and just want to fly a bit. Although, it would help a lot I think

2 Likes
20

Maybe make a optional option for pilots to connect their community account with their IF account and show their community name to the controller?

1 Like
21

@Kiz What was the callsign? It better not have been one of my pilots.

1 Like