Good Bye Flightgear Festival Fall 2015!

[IAHM-COL]

The Fall Festival 2015 is officially concluded

This fall's festival was an unbelievable amount of fun, and counted with a resounding and successful participation by the FlightGear community. 48 hours of continuous activity on the Alps, featuring airports in Austria and Switzerland.

As the Festival finishes, some nostalgy is left, but a lot of interest for the following festival, to be held in Spring 2016.

I couldn't keep a count of aircraft participating, so I do really encourage everyone to share their own experiences and how did you enjoy the Festival with us

Biggest thanks to

First and foremost, thanks to Alessandro Menti, elgaton for coordinating with me the organization of this event. Also for his outstanding participation both Saturday and Sunday as LOWW_TWR.

Thanks to KIWI34, who joined us from Australia and kept the LOWW_CTR position for really long and extended periods of time, even serving times that are far beyond the possibilities of people like me living in the "New World" (like at 04UTC). I only hear the highest compliments and praises of his great realistic performance as a controller, and I appreciate his involvement with us largely.

Thanks also to Legoboy for serving on Saturday as the FIR in the very interesting airport of Samedan.

And off course thanks to all pilots that kept the activities during the festival strong and kept an impressive continuity of traffic for the majority of these 48 hours of celebration of our community and celebration of the great software that brought us together (FGFS) --and off course, thanks to Curtis and the core developers that are keeping their development efforts strong for 15 years, ultimately making everything possible.

A satisfaction

It is a personal satisfaction of mine to see the community grow to the proportions of today, from the early beginnings almost 4 years ago (AirH5 and the early days of USA tour). I see a lot of grow in the community, its efforts to maintain nice Multiplayer activities, and their efforts to be a core of participation and friendship.

Also, although it is sad to see the festival leave (although after 12 hours of ATC service in two days -- and it is tiring), I am very proud and happy to know that the festival leaves for FG and the future generation some Scenery development in the visited areas

Finally, my last appreciation to Firefly who joined me and with time pressure helped me build the Geneve Scenery featured on the festival


Your friend,
IH-COL

[KL-666]

Yes it was a great event again. Good atc at a good distance (LSGG-LOWW). Unfortunately i only found out sunday how nice LSZS is.

Also the pilots seemed all good. At least the ones i watched landing. But the atc's will know best.

Kind regards, Vincent

[LesterBoffo]

Some shots from my view of the event. ( Oh and sorry about forgetting my plane in the grass for 20 minutes, R/L sometimes happens.)

Flying from Raron to LSZS, also landed at the little heli port at Zermatt.


Fall scenery and Flying circus airplanes..

[aiannuzzi99]

It was a very fun event to fly in, I only wish that I didn't have driver's education, so I could have been there the whole day, Thx to all the ATC's who controlled the flow of traffic.

ACI

[legoboyvdlp]

I flew LOWW to LOWI in a boring moment during the controlling, and, boy, it was fun!
Kiwi34 was incredibly proficient, professional, and friendly; willing to help either one pilot or a flotilla!

[IAHM-COL]

Unfortunately i only found out sunday how nice LSZS is.

It is my opinion that the festival also encourages us to explore new corners in the world. I did not fly much, but Sunday morning I performed the Geneve Sion VFR flight.

TOTALLY recommended. After take off one surrounds Lake Geneve, and exists the lake Geneve in the east shore, entering the mountains strait, which sinuously lead the way to Sion, hidden in the depth of Les Alps.
Quite great views, some challenging Mountain "hiking" and if you get the pain of coming in for Sion's RWY 25, the strait provides very very narrow turning space. It is a visual appealing, challenging, little VFR.

A jewel I discover thanks to the Festival.

[elgaton]

A few OpenRadar screenshots of my two shifts at LOWW:

Saturday 7th:

A typical view - kudos to KIWI34 for keeping the planes on course and properly separated


Looks like there was a bit of traffic around LSGG and LOWI

Sunday 8th:

Warty taking off


Kaa overflying the airport and D-FMPW entering downwind with his CRJ-700 (he managed to perform an excellent landing as well - not easy with that aircraft unless you have a joystick/yoke)


The last departing flights - SkyBoat and N2937 - leaving Vienna; the weather conditions were excellent during the whole Festival, they only deteriorated at this point - note the low visibility

The traffic was really nice, but still manageable (even at the times where I was manning LOWW alone).

Again, thanks to everyone who made this event possible - IAHM-COL for helping me organize the Festival and managing to control twelve/fifteen planes at once, KIWI34 for his excellent service at Vienna and to the many pilots flying in and out!

[KIWI34]

Wow what a weekend I probably had the most fun since i joined just over a year ago.

I would like to say a huge thanks to IH-COL and Elgaton for organising the Event .It was very well thought out, and the other ATC's such as IH-COL himself and Elgaton and many more to name were very professional and helpful to all those pilots who flew during those tense 48 hours.

A Massive thanks to Elgaton , who was also at LOWW Vienna as the TW/DEL/GND , you did an 10/10 job at co-ordinating aircraft to park, depart and arrive at the airport. I enjoyed how we discussed the runways to use, and the approaches for arriving aircraft, controlling CTR was very fun especially when i handed targets off to LOWW_TW

Heres a few pics i got :

American ( ITA411 ) 411 , Kaa and JWOCKY on approach to runway 16 ( i tried to separate pilots by 3-5nm )


American ( ITA411 ) on short final for runway 29, while KL-666 is cleared for the approach, and ph-cor downwind of the Active


TEA 111 declaring an emergency after engine failure ( Surprisingly this was the only emergency declared throughout the 48 hours ) And again ITA411 on short final for the active in his A346


To all those pilots that flew into LOWW or into our Airspace, on behalf of myself and Elgaton we would like to thank you for your co-operation ( only one time i had to use a holding pattern ) and more importantly your skills to Aviate,Navigate and Communicate.
I hope you all enjoyed the FG Festival just as much as us and will definitely see you in the Spring
as my exams approach, my time for FG has now been limited ,i will see you skilled bunch of aspiring pilots in a month or two.


Over and out for KIWI

[IAHM-COL]

Surprisingly this was the only emergency declared throughout the 48 hours[/u][/i]

I have a far few more emergencies over at Geneve and Swiss Airspace

1) SP-BAN -- due to language -- was unable to acknowledge a critical turn Left 050 over and collided the Alps rising west of the City.
2) YV-187 lost both engines on the B787 he was piloting when inbound, at around 30 nm from RWY 05 Threshold. he did not have enough thrust to reach airport and dropped South Geneve.
3) SP-79J flew the dhc6. His aircraft was grounded two times without leaving airport. A third time, he got it to take off, to realize that one engine had failure. Temporal closure of active RWY 23 was on place, and he was given immediate landing RWY 05. He performed succesfully and can be counted as "survived"
4) JWocky practicing his Mi24 crashed in Geneve city buildings, a few nm south of RWY 05 threshold.
5) IH-COL crashed-landed Sion due to complex VFR patterns there (base length is minimal)
6) Skyboat lost control of the Autopilot when ILS failed to engage smoothly on a Jumbolino. Meeting ground harshly on RWY 23.

So that counts for 6 emergency situations, IIRC.

[IAHM-COL]

@Lesbof

Love your screenshots!