The Expert Server is lacking expertise - let's fix that

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An important point to add is that players who are not bound to IFC or have not enabled ‘display username during flight’ are prohibited from controlling the airport! When an enthusiastic pilot detects an issue with ATC while flying at a manned airport in TS, they can inform the controller on IFC

Perhaps we can also provide a translated version of IFATC basic conversations at the ‘Ground School’? I believe that English is a universal language worldwide, but learning aviation English through a translator is indeed a difficult task

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Another thing Ive noticed is lots of people doing local flights, like BUR to LAX when there is ATC active at LAX or EWR to JFK when ATC is active at JFK. Didnt there used a rule that local flights like that weren’t allowed, and people who tried to do them would be ghosted if they didn’t divert? I think that should be a rule and the controller should be able to add that to the ATIS or Notams. It is always these people who mess up the entire approach sequence, ATC had me do a missed approach at LAX today because of some guy who decided to fly from LGB to LAX.

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I think this can be done when the traffic is low, which can help pilots who are not familiar with ATC operations improve. But when the traffic increases, it needs to be banned. Just like the “no light aircraft” or “no pattern work allow” in ATIS, perhaps we should add another “no local flights”?

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Figured I’d come out of my IFC retirement here, just wanted to put my two cents in. I read the main post, but I mostly scanned over the responses so far, didn’t entirely read them. Sorry if these points have already been brought up

I’ve been on/off flying on Infinite Flight since 2018. I’ve logged just over 2750 flight hours, mostly long haul. Back in 2018, when I was in high school I had plenty of time to spend to do the research for find the charts, and educate myself on how to understand said charts. I also had the desire to learn the correct way to do things.

6 years later, and after about a 2 year break from IF, life is a lot busier for me. Infinite Flight has become nothing but a hobby, something I can set up to run in the background as I do other stuff. I have the rely on the things i learned 6 years ago, today. I’m constantly double checking to make sure I’m at a correct flight level based on my heading. While I still do my best maintain a level of “realism”, I simply don’t have time or the want to go out of my way to find specific charts for every airport I decide I want to fly too. I don’t have the time to go the extra mile for what is, at the end of the day, a mobile “simulator”, no matter the quality of the simulator. That is not a statement to discredit the quality of Infinite Flight, it’s an amazing simulator. I have a very nice PC nowadays, but still choose IF over MFS any day.

But we have to remember that Infinite Flight is one of the easiest flight simulators to get into, since it’s not only an app for the phone, which almost everyone has nowadays, but it’s not a super expensive app. The app cost me 8 bucks when I first bought the app in 2018. For comparison, to play MFS, you’d have to spend ~$300 at least, for an Xbox, or more for a whole computer if you want the “full” experience.

I’m not factoring in money i’ve spent on the pro subscription over the years, my argument to that is MFS has DLC and you still need Gamepass or buy MFS

There’s probably a large amount of people who have used Infinite Flight to “dip their toes” into the world of aviation, I know I did. I just found it interesting enough and was able to find the resources to become a better “pilot”. Sometimes I think the community on the forums is very detached from the community outside the forums. While here on the forum, we are able to cultivate a place for those who want to learn and become better pilots, there probably a large of users in IF that will never visit these forums once in their life. There are users who will never “learn the rules”, whether that be they simply don’t have time, or they just don’t care enough too. From what I’ve seen since starting to flying again in the past 6 months, a lot of the “problem pilots” are those who are “fresh” on the expert server (less than 200 flight hours) and they don’t have an IFC account.

The things is we shouldn’t shame them or look down on them, as those are the people we should try to bring into the IFC so they have an easy way to find the resources to becomes better pilots. IF hasn’t become as large as it’s become solely based off of quality, I’d say it’s mostly because its easy to get into Infinite Flight. Maybe it’s just because I’m out of the loop, but I never really see the development team post anything on social media channels trying to drive people to IFC so they can learn to become better pilots. Again, that very well may be just because I don’t stay super up-to-date on the happenings with IF and the IFC.

My two cents on a solution, more outreach to bring more people onto the IFC and make it super easy to find tutorials, places to find charts, explanations on what certain things mean etc.

For those who want the extra bit of realism, have a new server with strict rules and “veteran” IFATC where you need a significant amount of hours to access the server. Id say more than 1500 flight hours. With experience normally comes with respect for the rules. Can’t do a Grade 4 and 5 only though because people like me, who don’t fly enough to maintain a grade 4, wouldn’t have access, but I’d still want the better realism.

Again, just my two cents. I’m sure there some factors i’ve missed since I’m not as active with the IF/IFC as I used to be. One I can think of is the business cost of running another server. It might take me a couple of days to respond back to y’all, sorry in advance.

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I was deeply moved by these words, especially the fourth and seventh paragraphs. At that time, the Infinite Flying Body was sold for 30 RMB, and I was still an elementary school student who purchased it with my father’s consent. At that time, I never thought about buying Pro, let alone IFC. At that time, the infinite flight interface could not adjust the language. After trial and error, I realized that “GARE” was a wheel and AP was autonomous driving… I used my elementary school level English to explore and discover professional aviation English

The story about me becoming a “professional” (which may be boring)

Later on, I obtained a Pro and with the encouragement of my friends, I attempted to fly on ES. Probably middle school? I can’t recall how I felt when I was on the phone with a friend on another phone, watching ATC messages on my tablet, and asking my friend with my mouth, ‘What does this message mean?’ ‘What should I do?’ ‘Where do I need to go?’. Simplifying the complex and tedious cockpit, fixing buttons in some places… IF is really friendly to me.

There are many IFC topics to distinguish between RFS and IF, and I have tried RFS and I still insist on IF. From a professional perspective, the ATC system of IF and RFS are simply worlds apart. Is the cockpit of Aerofly FS interactive and more professional than IF? Yes, but as someone who is still in school, I don’t have that much time to study every button in the cockpit. The professional level of IF is just within the range that I can explore and try.

I only registered for IFC in 2023 and gradually became familiar with it. We discussed it with other community members and later started activities together. It is inevitable to specialize in IF, and there are also areas where IF is not specialized. We cannot expect everyone to be an expert in the expert server, we need to provide opportunities for improvement to ‘rookies’. In my operations as a controller in ES, as long as it does not affect other aircraft or is too excessive, especially for operations that can be easily identified as mistakes, I will not directly “gost” them. I think this is also the purpose of IFATC designing three types of “warnings” in miscellaneous messages

Professionalism can be achieved on IF, but it requires time and the effort of everyone. My text is about improvising after seeing the viewpoints written by @ColinS , and some of my views on “making IF more professional”. My main point was mentioned in the previous responses, which is another additional perspective I have on the professionalization of IF.

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I went and reread some of the posts on this thread from past week and I want to piggy back off a couple of points.

First big one, we have to remember that we have a huge age group who flies on IF. While we can realistically expect our older age groups to take the sim more seriously, we can’t expect everyone who is in Elementary School or Middle School, maybe even some in High School, to go out of their way to take this app “seriously” for lack of a better term. What we can do is continue to promote the IFC as a place for those who want to become better pilots, and do our best to provide those resources.

The other half falls into our hands as members of the IFC. We all get a little annoyed seeing the same questions asked over and over, but we have to remember that person asking the question might be 8 years old, or having to use ChatGPT to translate every post because they don’t speak english. On the other side of the hill, it could be someone who is 75 years old and Infinite Flight is the only way they’re able to still “fly.” We don’t know who’s on the other side of the screen, so we have to continue to foster a welcoming community to help those who want to learn become better pilots. It’s something we’ve done over the 6 years I’ve been apart of this community, and it’s something I’m proud to say I’m apart of, because it’s hard to find communities like the IFC nowadays.

I’ve had more time to sit and think on a couple solutions.

First, The expert server is perfectly fine the way it is, but it could used a bump in requirements, I’d say you need more than 250 hours. But the expert server needs to be a place where realism is the goal, but it’s okay to make mistakes, because we can provide the resources to show you what went wrong. The Expert Server should still maintain its high standards to foster that atmosphere of realism.

Next, make Training Server exactly what it says it is. Have it be the place where pilots and IFATC trainees can train, while supervised by an actual IFATC member, or you need approval from an IFATC member or the organization, something along those lines. I’m not entirely sure how they have their hierarchy structured. hopefully y’all can expand on that.

Obviously the training server still needs to be a place to learn, so these trainees really should only be able to give out warnings and maybe violations, not ghosting, at risk of losing their IFATC eligibility if they abuse their power.

In turn, this may also cause more people to come to forums to discuss, find out, and in reality complain, but that an opportunity to show those people where to find said resources to become a better pilot.

Hopefully that creates a place where everyone understands that its a learning environment, and everyone is there to get better both as pilots and ATC.

Finally let causal server be the chaos it’s always been. I’ve never done a “serious” flight on casual so I’d be okay if there was unrealistic ATC, but with restrictions. Causal ATC doesn’t need to give out warnings and we can simplify the commands they have, don’t give them all the options you’d normally have. Just the basics, like Taxi, Takeoff, Landing, but “make a 360” or “expect ILS/vectors” is too complicated for causal server. That’s creates exclusivity and an incentive to learn for those who want to.

From a pilots side, I do wish there was more Misc. Messages, and I wish we were able to give a reason why when we reply “unable”. I can’t not imagine how frustrating it must be for IFATC to be slammed but managing the flow, just to have one plane start lighting you up with “unable.” I’ve been apart of that situation, the approach controller lost focus and the entire sequence got royally screwed up, and someone who I know is a Veteran IFATC had to come save the day. So to those who are IFATC, I see it, I can imagine the pain.

On the flip side, as someone who has only ever been a pilot on IF, I really do rely on yall in the IFATC to help keep me separated from other aircraft and help with my descent into a busy airport. I’ve gotten better over the years of managing my aircraft myself to be less of a pain in the butt, but I rely on yall as the IFATC to know what’s speeds we should be at, or at least have your sequence following at reasonable speeds for each stage of approach.

y’all IFATC don’t understand how happy i get when i get a thank you message from one of y’all in the middle of super busy sequences, hats off to y’all

On the social media front, I think a just a simple weekly post with a link the to the tutorials section of the forum, and let it be a community photo spotlight. that’s gives people 2 different incentives to join the forum, to learn or to try and get their photo posted.

I agree professionalism is what the goal should always be, but we have to remember Infinite Flight is normally the first stop on someone’s aviation journey. We as a community need to work together to foster the environment we want to see on the app. It’s our responsibility.

Just a few more thoughts I’ve had now that I’ve had a nap.

edits for grammar spelling and formatting

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Sorry I took so long to fully analyze everything you’ve contributed. Wanted to start here and say that yes, I do agree with this idea. Now, I don’t own and run a mobile flight simulator, but my guess is that owning a server is no small task. It’s probably a lot of effort and money going into the upkeep of that. Considering that they already have 4 or 5 servers already (1 for IFATC, idk if they have any others solely for staff/devs), this idea might not be feasible within the near future. But we can still keep it as an option.

I think that this is a very good observation here, and I do think that there could be more done to promote this community. While there are an abundance of members that do have an account, there is also a plethora of those who don’t. I also like how you said that we shouldn’t look down on those pilots, as it may not always be their fault that they’re doing the wrong thing.

Wonderful idea. I genuinely think that this is something that should be implemented sometime in the near future, if we’re going to go down the road of restructuring our current servers.

Yes! Absolutely agree with this.

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No worries, I had a lot of thoughts about this type of subject.

Truthfully, I wanted to make my IFC return with a full post going over most the points I mentioned, but this one fit the bill, so my thoughts landed here.

There’s definitely challenges in any solution to this “problem,” and those solutions will definitely time, I think we have to continue what we’re doing to make Infinite Flight one of the best and most accepting community in the overall Aviation community.

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I completely agree with your points here. I am not trying to argue or seem rude, I however want to point out one thing.

This would definitely be a great addition in the future. I’m not sure if it’s needed right now though, since it kind of already exists. IFATC Trainees already get training. That happens mostly on the IFATC Server, where the trainee gets practice with multiple IFATC members attending the session as pilots, judging the trainee’s performance and giving feedback. Some trainees might even train in TS, (via some ATC tracking threads), some IFATC members usually attend these too, and give feedback. These sessions unfortunately mostly consist of pattern work, which is of course very important, but I feel like training in a busy airport would be beneficial for the controller, and for the pilots in the future. This is how I see one of your suggestions being implemented. Having the trainee in a busy airport in TS, like EGLL or KLAX, with IFATC supervisors or mods monitoring him in the background would in my opinion be a great way of training. I might have got a little bit off the topic but your suggestions can make the training more organized and straightforward.

I 100% agree with you here though, just my brain picking up these smallest of the smallest of things🙂

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As an IFATC member, when i used to control on TS, this was the worst places to control. Unfortunately, it is pretty rare that every aircraft follows instructions as they don’t want to follow instructions. (Also comes without consequence). Whereas, when we have a controller training on IFATC Server, every pilot follows instructions to a T, so we can play it out how it would happen on the ES and how the controller deals with it.

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As an IFATC member too, I’ve been through the same. The TTs are of course the most important way of training, I think high traffic situations should be implemented somewhere though. The specialist CR kind of includes this, but there’s no actual training. Every system has its pros and cons.

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Hard to get the people there to do it.

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Yeah. There’s the pros and cons

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Yeah, I love the idea of controlling, but I can’t ‘practice’ or ‘train’ myself on TS on EGLL. These pilots seem like kids who get their subscription money from their parents. I expected some seriousness from pilots because this is a paid sim, but yeah. In the instances that people follow/know what to do, it feels very good. I wish I could report pilots who just blatantly disregard rules.

Regarding ES, I only have a few flights, but on my first controlled approach/landing, someone behind me on sequence didn’t listen to the controller either.

@Piazza was the staff that day, hello hello. And it’s just satisfying when the controller and the pilot know what to do whether you’re on the tower or the cockpit.

Anyway, I don’t have anything to say (yet?) about ES. But I kinda wish if people want to play and fly chaotic, do it on Casual or single player. TS should be pilots/controllers who want to ‘train’.

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My only suggestion is to apply to join IFATC, where you will be taken seriously, as the pilots actions can have consequences if they don’t.

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It’s seriously on the bucket list!

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Now worries at all, as I said i have no idea how IFATC has their side structured, hence why I asked y’all to expand on that.

The goal with turning the training server into an actual “environment” for training would to be force those who don’t care enough to “learn the way to do things” to stay on causal.

I will die on this hill, I truly think we should just embrace the chaos the causal server is.

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I agree with turning the training server to suit people who wants to ‘train’.

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Then we could have more amazing events like the one at LAX a few days ago lol

Yes. People don’t really care about the Training server, so it just becomes a Casual server with violations and untrained ATC. Any “training” part of that is completely removed, and therefore it’s undeserving of the title “training server”

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It sure is.