In my 2 days of playing IF on the Expert server, I haven’t had any real ATC, and almost no one is actually active. I’ve seen videos with lines of airplanes waiting to take off, and active ATC, but I haven’t experienced any of that. Is this normal?
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It all really depends on where you fly. If you’re flying at GA fields or more out of the way commercial airports, you may never see ATC staffing. There’s generally always a few airports staffed, so if you want ATC services, you should go seek them out.
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I’ve been to LAX and Boston, neither of which had ATC
I would have a look at this month’s Expert Server ATC schedule:
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You kinda have to seek them out, otherwise consult the ATC schedule and plan your flights based off of that. If you’re looking for large crowds and ATC staffing, thats the way to go.
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Ok thanks
Before you choose your airport you can see which airports are staffed as well as how many people are currently flying to that airport in the tab above aircraft selection.
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You can also see which frequencies are currently online which is pretty cool too!
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I would follow what @BennyBoy_Alpha said. I tend to look at the schedule and either fly in or out of one of the airports listed for the day. You can also fly the featured route, but traffic can get to be a bit hectic.
You can also click on the dropdown arrow on the upper right corner of the screen to see which airports have active ATC at the time. I wouldn’t plan to fly into one of those airports because they may become offline en route, but you can definitely fly out of them to another destination.
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If you’re not flying to one of the “hubs” from the Schedule, then it’s a matter of luck whether you get ATC at your departing/destination airport.
If you want to experience Hub-level traffic, I recommend flying out of the hub first, rather than flying into…unless you’re confident communicating with ATC and following instructions.
Should you become inclined to fly hubs, get an idea of how your local time matches up with the peak times of traffic. Hubs change at 6:00Z, and normally during this “transition” time the traffic at the new hub is normal and mild, and there’s a good chance there’s already ATC.
As the day goes on, especially from late afternoon to evening in Western Europe, the traffic peaks and the volume of pilots flying in/out can often be unrealistic. This is the time you’d see the long departure queue especially if there’s a community event going on at said hub.