The Festival of FlightGear, November '17

[SHM]

I just updated the charts for ease of use, would highly recommend to download again

• LIPX
  https://files.fm/u/3aa244ad
  
  
• LICJ
  https://files.fm/u/2qggn4tt
  
  
• LIMJ
  https://files.fm/u/jsss999v

[elgaton]

I've just published the new LIPX scenery build including a few objects (sorry for the lack of detail, but unexpected commitments and some technical issues with the generation caused some delays).

See you shortly!

[V12]

Flying home from November Fest :

[IAHM-COL]

Palermo session closed for Italy 2017

A huge thanks to every pilot that participated. It was a smooth and very kind experience.

Best,
IH-COL

[jwocky]

And so it ends, the November 2017 Festival in Italy! Despite lesser promotion, it was lively, Genoa, where I was ATC, had some traffic and, noticeable, no rude outbreaks from anybody. Who knows, maybe it has to do something with Curtis' forum not promoting the Festival?
Still, FG has become a small group. We need more promoting, also outside of the existing communities.

[V12]

Thank You for very nice and good organised event ! Special thanks for mens at towers. I had small troubles with ATC in Palermo, who navigated me on very short runway 20. But solved it with go around and then safe manual landing at 25 in strong wind gusts. Again, big thanks for Festival.

[J Maverick 16]

OPRF event was an incredibly challenging tight combat.
My team won last stage 115vs111 in the last 4 mins.
What a fight, been up 14hrs to make it happen.
Cheers, Mav

[IAHM-COL]

Arrivederci Italia; grazie mille

@ALL

The Flightgear festival concluded its seventh biannual edition, held on the boot-shaped peninsula of Italy.
Every festival to date has been an unique and rewarding experience.

This time, barely a few days to the commencement, a large administrative rearrangement took place. IAHM-COL was redirected to serve in the Southernmost main airport, in the Regional Capital of Sicilia; infamous Italian larger mediterranean island. Palermo Airport offered an outstanding sight for pilots approaching and departing both with all traffic restricted to the north end of the airport, due to terrain topography. A few pilots tried approaching Trapani and Catania airports, which meant they had low-level flights on established routes bordering the South of the Island for some interesting sight-seeing flying.

Traffic was somewhat sparse on the Saturday evening, but it picked up more constant to the Sunday evening hours of my service. Which is somewhat counter what we usually had experienced in Festival's previous editions. Most importantly, every pilot; new to the festival, and seasoned alike were superb, in listening and following ATC instructions, which helped to a very smooth experience with fast and expedite transitions towards and outwards palermo. Thanks to the pilots for their polished behaviors and good piloting skills.

Weather was mostly scaterred or broken at 3500, with temperatures in the evenings of around 14 C. altimeter very stable in 1011/1012. but the Wind in palermo is quite a different matter. As oppose to all other parameter's stability, the wind picked up, gusted, shifted. I've got pilots lined up, or holding short for a dramatic shift in winds. I've got concorde planes forced to land 25 crosswinds due to runway length considerations, with other pilots approaching the 20 runway. Some pilots even got to experience the gusts of Saturday afternoon wind, which forced them to experience go-arounds.

Sunday evening, a group of us even flew out towards Jomo controlled Frankfort for a controlled environment prime-time experience.

In other posts I want to underline excellent service by JWocky in Genoa. His third time ATCing for a festival, this time his post remained opened for 6-8 hours each Saturday and Sunday. In addition traffic on Genoa was lively. From and To Palermo I continually sent pilots and receive pilots on a flight over the Thyrrenian Ocean on their route of Genoa. Jwocky got to experience the burden of servicing a festival post on its full. Just as ATC411 experienced in UK. I want to extend my gratitude to JWocky's continuing efforts to keep an alternative North-Italy airport lively for the continuity of the Italian Festival.


Other ATC service was available more sporadically. For Saturday evening, and for some hours each, we had initially Rome Fiuminici and the Roma FIR with ATC411. He served an intermediate step in the Genoa/Palermo route. And a new ATC offered transient service in Venezia, which did not receive much traffic. Once Roma was closed, Verona opened for a late afternoon Saturday Closure, with NIATCA's project and Elgaton. A last flock of birds departed Palermo towards Verona. Another big thanks to elgaton who has helped continuously during the organization of all seventh editions of the FG Festival.

Brief service on Sunday by D-ECHO was offered on French territory, in the Ajaccio airport. Who also serve some minimal shuttle services from Genoa. Brindisi was a last-minute cancellation. We apologize for this.

The OPRF activity seemed rather invisible, although they claim it took, somehow, place.

Looking forward to begin the conversations for our selection of the Festival zones for 2018,

Best Regards,
IAHM-COL
Free Flight Free Speech Admin.

[J Maverick 16]

The OPRF activity seemed rather invisible, although they claim it took, somehow, place.

In the end the OPRF event took place into the private OPRF server because of the nature of the event we did.
It would have become a real nightmare for ATCs and civilian pilots, especially in the central part of the country.
I have to say it was VERY intense, I spent 14hrs flying and 10hrs sleeping over the weekend, I think this renders more than enough how intense it has been.
There have been pretty consistent dogfights, some of those lasted for about 30 mins non-stop and believe me, half an hour spent evading and firing can be really tiring.
The event (which I planned) was named "Seize the base" and was a so-called capture the base where two teams must capture bases and related in order to score as much points as possible in 7 stages lasting 3hrs distributed in the 48hrs of the Festival. Battle has been tight, stage 1 was won by my team by 11 points, second was a back-to-back pretty much dominated. Third and fourth stage were won by the opposite team, and some issues regarding rules were found (my fault not having specified some parts accordingly). Stage 5 was won by myself alone as nobody else showed up. Stage 6 was very tight with an initial advantage to team 2 due to me being absent in the earlier phases, I regained soon field and took advantage, defended myself till the end were there was a 3vs1 battle which I've lost in the very last minutes by 8 points due to a massive recapture by team 2. Last stage was the big matchpoint with 3 stages won per team. I started it aggressively, then opposite team leader got major laptop issues which led him to be absent for some time. I gained field sending the other team to negative points by downing them and reconquering bases. Still alone, I started loosing when again a 3vs1 organized situation led my team to loose points, leading the other team to a possible victory. In the very last part, situation got more balanced being a 3vs3 where we've been able to reconquer a couple of bases and shooting down enemies. Everything was decided in the last 10 minutes, after a dogfight I've been able to land at a nearby enemy base with the remaining fuel reconquering it and putting us again in the lead, by 4 points. Soon after stage was over and so the event and we won it 115vs111, 4 minutes to the end.
Was exhausting, stressful, challenging, insane and add whatever you think it fits in there, but was loads of fun too and I really enjoyed how it turned out.
This is a summary of what happened, in the hope it rendered a bit the idea of what we actually did.
Another fact, I've set my new personal record for confirmed aerial victories in a single big event: 24, probably one of the highest ever in OPRF.
Cheers, Mav

[IAHM-COL]

Congrats on the win