Why bother flying a realistic FP if IFATC does not even care?

ATC
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Hi there! Just took of from OMAA and was trying to replicate a real-world flight, including the exact departure runway used in real life. Before taxiing, I requested the correct runway twice, but the controller ignored my request and directed me to the nearest one instead.

I completely understand that sometimes ATC can be under heavy workload, and I’ve been an IFATC myself, so I know how challenging it can get. However, in this case, traffic in Abu Dhabi wasn’t particularly busy, and there seemed to be no operational reason to deny the requested runway.

It’s just frustrating when we try to simulate realistic flight plans and procedures — which is what Infinite Flight is all about — and that effort isn’t respected or considered by ATC.

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Controller was FALKOMV, but this happens often, nothing personal

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Hey!

This sounds like it was a disappointing experience for you, and it’s honestly understandable. Many pilots try to fly realistically, as you tried to today as well, but sometimes, as you could see (not just today, but in general I’d imagine), it’s not possible. You mentioned the airspace wasn’t extremely busy, so, judging with an external eye who wasn’t there, I could say the controller could accommodate your request, but there may be a long list of plausible reasons why the controller did that, and none of us really know; we could just guess, haha.

Given you’ve got the controller’s name, have you tried messaging them? In topics similar to yours, where people explain their dissatisfaction with IFATC controllers, users are often redirected to this topic, which is pretty helpful. Some think it’s just to shut down a public discussion/topic or defence IFATC, but it’s actually because, as I mentioned, you, me or anyone here really knows why the controller took the decision. So, sending them a message could turn out to be a useful discussion between you two, and hopefully, a learning lesson for them, you, or both, if you get what I mean :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

In general, I personally try to accommodate every pilot’s request most of the time, as we’re told to do, unless it’s impossible due to traffic levels, wind component, or similar. However, as humans, we’re all different and act differently, so who knows what could have happened there.

Let me know if I was clear enough!

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Hi Jinco! Thanks for your reply, I really appreciate you taking the time to explain things.

The reason I mentioned the controller’s name here is because I couldn’t find their @handle, otherwise I would’ve reached out directly. I’d actually appreciate if someone could redirect me to them so we can talk about it.

I completely understand the circumstances and I’m not trying to create any kind of hate or negativity towards the IFATC community — not at all. I’ve been a controller myself, and I always appreciated when a pilot reached out to me afterwards so I could clarify the reason behind a decision I made.

Also, the main reason I opened this topic was simply to raise a bit of awareness — respectfully — so controllers try, whenever possible, to accommodate pilots’ flight plans and runway preferences when realism is the goal. Of course, always within operational limits.

And who knows, I might even come back to the IFATC community in the future :slight_smile:

Have a great day

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No worries at all! I totally understood the purpose of the topic from the start, haha. We’ve seen topics under the same category which are very disrespectful towards IFATC controllers over some miscommunication or misunderstanding, so yours is a very pleasant surprise: discussing respectfully about an issue or dissatisfaction faced, which could happen to everyone at any time, but there’s no need to escalate it unnecessarily as many sadly do.

As for the controller’s profile, try clicking below and see if it brings you to their account, then from there, hit the blue “Message” button and proceed PMing them:

Let me know if that works. That being said, it would be great to see you back in IFATC, I’m sure we will gladly welcome you back onboard. Have a good one too!

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I tend to avoid IFATC airports for this very reason. I get it: not everyone knows IRL procedures if it’s not publicly available information but those of us who know, or are observant enough to understand, would like to simulate the real world and not just “play the game”

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I am an IFATC Specialist and also a real-world airline pilot for 15 years. I’m not the only one. Many of us enjoy providing as immersive an experience as we can, referencing real world taxi-routes and procedures. The same goes for SID/STAR selection and runway configurations. However, as some have pointed out, we are constrained by many factors depending on the situation. I find I occasionally don’t have the command that I wish I could give. Additionally, many pilots dislike the level of realism some of us like to provide and ignore or ask for something else, so we might get complacent. Thank you for the dialogue.

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I can relate.i will taxi at the same speed and everything that the real flight is in real time. However, sometimes you just have to go with the flow. There are some quirks with IF that make a perfect replicated flight not possible. Like not being able to fly a direct to waypoint. Or canceling speed restrictions which happens a lot in Taiwan.

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A bit of a semi side track here but still relevant to your statement since you’ve mentioned it, but wouldn’t it be beneficial for information to be shared within the forum?

I will explain what I'm saying here so as not to distract others from the main point of this thread.

I can predict why the current rituals of keeping things “between the two” are the way they are (from a HR and marketing standpoint of my own deduction…) so why not use anonimity to publish these? All user names and flight number displayed as xxxx.

I believe lessons learned from violation study cases will be beneficial for customers and had we known a lot of these, me and others may have high probability of avoiding them and cause less frustrations for both parties. Because face it, the current reporting system doubles as a final course of action frowned upon by many (unless you like that kinda thing) before leading to a process of accounting leading to counter-accountability! Seems like a redundant additional stress built into a “game” but the case itself along with its chronological story leading to a violation usually produce a way higher understanding to parties involved…

…until someone else clueless steps on the same ditch the next day.

So why not convert said redundancy process above and package them into valuable infographics materials? It may mend a lot of ditches.

What I’m saying it’s not just about reading and memorizing written rules and regulations, but also reading about unwritten, unstructured nuances… stories of what leads one thing to another leading to a report that may be appreciated as a deeper important lesson, apart from being an exciting read.

Anyways, just my thoughts.
Thanks for readin’!

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Just food for thought here… someone said somewhere in the forum that ES is all about realistic procedures, not which plane on which livery you use. So elaborating on that, I think you may get away with copying “realistic FP” off FR24 or Flightaware and doing them in TS by yourself if replication is what you’re after without any intrusion from ATC.

But if “procedure” is what you’re after, then that means to execute your plan-B updating skills in the air when things don’t go your way with ATC wouldn’t it? I saw countless FP not going the pilots’ way in the moment in cockpit videos, so isn’t hoping that your FP went about smoothly is more realistic than lodging a complaint when it doesn’t? What if IF one day have weather radar in the cockpit and you’d need to go around a nasty area?

Disclaimer: Every time I experienced what you just shared here I sometimes cursed too, but if I’m really persistent with my FP I’ll do it another day until I get the exact flight experience I had in mind from the beginning.

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Hello!

Thanks for the message! I’ll try to make my answer as brief as possible to avoid going too much off-topic.

I totally understood you here, and I get where you’re coming from. I’d say the main reason why these kinds of topics are often closed, or people try to redirect OPs to PMs, is because, anonymity used or not, it being public means people will comment, making their own statements, which often try to make hypotheses on what could have happened. Besides the pilot and, most importantly, the controller involved, no one really knows what happened, so in most cases, topics like this (which are usually rude and disrespectful, unlike itzKeineer’s one) lead to useless discussions which go in circles and don’t really solve much.

Personally, I’d say that instead of creating a topic complaining about a single violation, misunderstanding, confusing command or similar by ATC, it would be better to find an actual pattern (as, after all, the OP tried to do in this topic, so I’m not specifically talking about this one) instead of a single mistake, and then create a topic which induces to a proper discussion, which will help many to learn from actual situations happened in-game, rather than written rules :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

That’s what I think based on what I’ve seen on this forum in the past years, haha! Thank you too!

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Hi, thank you for the explanation! :+1:

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I appreciate it when you guys do that and I understand the limitations which is why it’s easier to just do it on my own or to have IFATC at a less busy time or airport that’s not featured as prominently

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Realism. I wish this word would be banned in the community.

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Simulated realism of course is relative rather than absolute (sometimes there can be more of it, and sometimes conditions dictate less).

Real enough should be possible and sufficient for most cases.

One simply can’t simulate all the environmental conditions and circumstances, no less so with the desire for perfect ATC fidelity. The actual staffing structure and the actual traffic will always present a tension vs irl conditions.

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Best comment I found.

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It took me a while to realize that we have limited commands in the Infinite Flight picklists, and that (even IRL!) the most realistic thing to do is listen to ATC.

That flight you were following, maybe the pilots originally planned for the runway you used and ATC asked them if they could accept the other one. Now the same is happening to you in reverse. I don’t think the point of realism is to follow the script of a flight exactly, but to face similar decisions and learn to make good choices.

Rationalizing things like this helps me enjoy the app. A flight plan is just a plan, and as Eisenhower said: “Plans are worthless, but planning is everything.”

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