Sydney International Airport Incorrect Aerodrome Class

Hello all,
I’m not sure who’s in charge of this (airport managers or IF staff) so I’ll just put it out there.

Sydney International Airport (YSSY) is labelled as a class B aerodrome on Infinite Flight. In fact, all our major airports are class B (Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth and Darwin).

However on real Australian pilot charts, YSSY is actually a class C aerodrome.


It is correct that Australia has no class B airspace (only A, C, D, E and G) and I was wondering if it’s a mistake or on purpose. I understand that Infinite Flight is American (who has class B airspace) and they may want all the major airports to be class B. I was just wondering for the reasoning.
Thanks!

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This is a common issue in IF (it even happens a lot in America). It’s up to the Developers to decide things like that.

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It seems that Australian class Charlie airspace is about equivalent to USA’s class Bravo, that is both of them are for high traffic areas, usually near major airports.

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Yes that is correct.

I have a feeling that this is the reason, plus it may also be to define IFATC control (such as which airports various IFATC ranks can control), and hence achieve uniformity throughout the app.

For example, in India we don’t have a Class B or C (the highest class of controlled airspace we have is D). However major airports such as VABB and VIDP in Infinite Flight as classified as Bravo, even though they are Class D in real life.

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That’s not the reason.

In Infinite Flight, an airport’s airspace is defined by its runway length and operable frequencies. For example, an airport with a 10,000-foot runway and Ground, Tower, ATIS, and Approach will be classified as a Class Bravo.

Unfortunately, airports like YBBM, YMML, YSSY have these attributes, causing them to appear as a Class Bravo.

It’s a limitation, so to speak, of Infinite Flight and how it is designed to recognize airspaces.

Hopefully this helps clear things up! Let us know if you have any more questions.

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I understand, they use real world airspace zones (mostly), why can’t they use real world airspace classes?

I can’t answer that, I’m afraid, simply because I don’t know.

My guess, however, is because it’s easier to identify by using select attributes than going airport by airport. Perhaps it’s something Cameron, Laura, or Philippe could look into in the future. No guarantee, though.

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I’d guess, because the rules and regulations for airspace classes differ from country to country. The “shape” of airspace classes is a more tangible thing that you could draw onto a chart.

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Keep calm.
This is just one of those many things that came from development history.
As all developers in the world they had made compromise to match resources. When IF started global they hadn’t the resource to match airport class with real world, several arguments given above, and wanted to start global despite that. That was a great decision, was it?
Now that IF evolve with hardware, OS, and App capabilities as well as with development resources they add step by step features and realism. Not everything at once, but continually.
For myself I had been astonished with nearly every update they push out about the new features, and they do really do a lot of updates. I am not aware of any other software that has such a continuous high frequency update track.
So, if you think the airport class is important, go check if you could convince others by making a #features request. I am sure this can speed up things.
If not, be patient.

Tom

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