The Festival of FlightGear, May '17

[IAHM-COL]

Phuket Radar Close. Thanks everyone that participated in this festival. Leave us comments and your personal experience


Best,
IH-COL

[J Maverick 16]

Why not instead of controlling all these airports, just control two airports with all positions along with enroute control, which will increase pilot density which will be interesting for both pilots and ATCs.

You were talking to me?
Regards, Mav

[KL-666]

Jwocky was the first ATC i saw yesterday, and the last i saw today. I did a fly-out out of the festival area from Mandalay to Paro Bhutan. Landed there safely at about 23:00 UTC, and about then Jwocky at Mandalay closed too. Now there are still the last die-hard fighters over Vietnam.

It was a good festival, with today a nice mini event. I did not see many "strangers" joining in though. I suppose if we would have been in South America, the Brazilians would have been curious and take a look what we are doing.

Kind regards, Vincent

[IAHM-COL]

The festival is officially concluded

[Octal450]

Very nice time. Sadly I did not get to ATCing today. I apologize for that.

Kind Regards,
Josh

[IAHM-COL]

Very nice time. Sadly I did not get to ATCing today. I apologize for that.

Kind Regards,
Josh

No apologies necessary. It was real fun all over the weekend, and you did an amazing job when you were able to offer Bangkok. Thanks for all the time and effort, both preparing as ATCing the very central position for SEAsia 2017.

IH-COL

[Octal450]

Thank you,

Kind Regards,
Josh

[jwocky]

So, another Festival is over. Of course, it was really not propagated on Curtis' forum and the situation with scenery availability is over there also as covered up as ... well, as free information actually in any other dictatorship since the dawn of times. So, nothing new. The sad part is, you get as ATC new pilots who actually have no other information source as the "official line" from over there and who really believe, TerraSuck is the only way to go and scenery authors are all selfish bastards because "they can't be bothered to send their work to TerraSync". Pilots like Connie for example actually believe that and it is not their fault, they are just victims of the channeled, controlled and strictly limited information, they can get from Curtis & Co. They don't know, that work form some of the most prolific scenery devs is not even accepted by TerraSync. They don't know that, if such work is accepted, it takes months till it is actually available to pilots. They don't know about TerraGIT because King Curtis and his little helpers have decided to keep that information a secret from them to prevent their little brains from an overlaod of freedom of information ... well, we know from history how the idea of a ruler to declare all his people as "stupid" usually ends. But it takes time.
So, ATCing was fun, and for me, an almost complete new area to wriggle my way into. And I had really some nice pilots there. Well, actually all were nice, disciplined and, another important point for me, flexible to react on kind of iffy situations. Rikkie who came in with a kind of "wounded" 777 in declared emergency, all with chat only, no voice and without AP working under bad visibility - and KL-666, who had to take the wide bow while he had to rely blind on me because the clouds were hiding the mountains around to give Rikkie the priority approach. SkyBoat, first precise and professional, then when time allowed, a nice chatting partner to kill some time. Lester who came by and chatted about the Peep-Tweet, which led into a discussion about mpore RV like planes (with 2 full baths and a kitchen pls), Michat, who showed off the Tu-160 from Herby. Wonderfufl machine. AAL in a bad visibilty approach hindered by TerraSuck scenery. And especially in my memory, SP-BAN and a French pilot (sorry forgot the callsign, you are the one ATCing in Orly). In both cases, there were language problems and we had to throw a bit the formalized language over board and try to reword till the message came through. And trust me, my French sucks Bottom line, it demanded patience and good nerves from both sides, the ATC but the pilots as well, but we got it done. Connie, who showed off the Lockheed, that made my day in the classy department

So, there were some new pilots or at least pilots I had not met before. Very few, admittedly. Which means, we have to do more to promote the Festivals because they seem, like so much else, now fall victim to the restrictive no-information policies on Curtis's forum. Together with some "irregularities" in the voting process that happened over there (Curtis & Co denied any investigation into dummy accounts that seemed to have pushed SE Asia through in the last hour), it appears as if another FG tradition is sacrificed on the altar of Curtis' power preservation policies and that is the sad recognition, I take from this festival. We have potential there to make more out of it in long terms, but we can't rely on Curtis and his political trench warriors to support it, so it hangs on us and we are, as we all know currently a bit short with manpower. But then, in the past, we found always ways to make things happen nevertheless.

Now, Fall 2017, we go to Italy. Given the no-information policy on Curtis' forum, we should think how we can promote that festival early.

[J Maverick 16]

Now, Fall 2017, we go to Italy. Given the no-information policy on Curtis' forum, we should think how we can promote that festival early.

Big f****** posters spread everywhere!
Lol, I'd say let's try to use social network media on our side, like promoting it with with posts on FB, Twitter, Insta or whatever, creating a kind of FB or Twitter page for it who shares post regarding event updates, promotional stuff and whatever. It might seems utopian, but I think its' worth a try.
Also, this time we need more damn cross-posting over there and in other forums (not FGUK) like the Italian one, which is nearly dead but there are still some people over there.
Also, they have to understand this ain't an FGMEMBERS related event, but a global FG event which should bring everyone together in the same damn place for 48hrs. We need to get more old styled again.
As an Italian myself, I want this next Festival to be great; count on my help for it.
A thing we have to fix is the fact that we are too much ATC oriented, it's nice, but not as it could be with more Mini-Events organized.
Italy is nice for VFR, so some fast & low-level events for jets could be a great idea. Also GA aviation in the Alps is great, especially in the North-Eastern area, nice small airports between high mountains. Even a programmed airliner round trip over the coastline is a great deal.
Italy is open to everything, just let your mind give you interesting inputs.
I think a dynamic Festival is the clue this time.

Cheers, Mav

[SHM]

I found the festival to be rather dead this time sadly. Last time there were definitely more participants. Lets make sure to promote it well enough for the next festival.

Also, as Jwocky pointed out no one except the people here had the custom scenery. I had to send links to the standalone FGMembers scenery to most of the pilots who asked whether there was any 'Custom scenario' .

Italy is nice for VFR, so some fast & low-level events for jets could be a great idea. Also GA aviation in the Alps is great, especially in the North-Eastern area, nice small airports between high mountains.

I'm totally in for that. (No helis though )
Maybe 2 VFR flights for the festival (one on each day), and since the scenery is really nice for Europe it should be awesome
A tour to the Leaning tower of Pisa, Venice (with terraGit all the water ways along with the bridges which are probably there in OSM) should be interesting.
I see myself doing more VFR than IFR this time
Hopefully the Italian weather plays nice

Also as Vincent pointed out, the distances between the airports seem to be small. But nothing can be done about that.

Scenery wise most of the airport layout are developed. 3d airport buildings are required though.
@elgaton This should inspire you to finish LIPX.
Maybe invade the whole of Italy with osm2city buildings too.


SHM