As the poll for FG Festival Spring Festival 2016 comes close

[MIG29pilot]

English Channel or the North Sea?

[SkyBoat]

Okay, the North Sea. Ya happy now?

[legoboyvdlp]

I do not know what the idea behind the festival locations is, but as i have experienced it, it is about discovering lesser used areas. In that light Scandinavia is a very good one. But central Europe not at all. Germany, Benelux and France are often well populated with ATC and pilots. I would not even mention them in the poll.

Looking at the UK and Ireland a bit more, i see a huge advantage in being able to have a 100% builtup airports. Gatwick-Edinburg-Dublin Could be a good base triangle. But there are so many more to choose from. All London airports are developed. Further there are Londonderry, Newcastle, Liverpool, Hull, Cardiff, and many more.

Sure a few military airports are used by fguk. But being military is a totally different category from the mostly civil festival. There is no chance of interference, and finally the fine British civil airports will become known to the greater public.

Btw. Can the "UK and Ireland" be mentioned as such in the poll, and not by those 2 specific airports EGOD and EGNS?

Kind regards, Vincent

Since I am from the United Kingdom, I totally support it, although scandinavia sounds nice too.
Scandinavia or UK -- WHICH?
Belfast-Dublin-Edinburgh-London-Manchester-Birmingham... so many.
Manchester and Belfast need models.

[legoboyvdlp]

ATC is too stressful, and even boring at times.

That sounds like a contradiction.
(But I know what you mean)

Yeah. One minute you are totally bored, having no traffic for like two hours, then suddendly you get 15 pilots.

[KIWI34]

Exactly ^ , but it is a pretty cruisy role, until yes 15 odd pilots are inbound . When i see over 10 jets heading my way , i think #challenge accepted

[SkyBoat]

@MIG29pilot: Today, I moved into the Top 50 All-Time FlightGear Pilots List and would like to celebrate by commissioning you to work with me on a new splash screen for my beloved MD-10.

On one condition. Since you seem to have a thing for preciseness, let's test your knowledge of modern navigation. Precisely.

1. Why does modern navigation rely on GPS satellites rather than standard radio satellites?
2. How many GPS satellites are required for the GPS system to work so a single aircraft can navigate?
3. At what distance are the GPS satellites orbiting the earth and at what speed do they orbit?
4. How many United States controlled GPS satellites are currently in orbit?
5. What is the power in Watts required for each satellite to broadcast its signal to earth?
6. What is the power in Watts for a ground-based device such as a GPS watch, a tracker, etc., needed to broadcast a signal to a GPS satellite?
Bonus Question: In which arm of the Milky Way Galaxy does our solar system reside?

Really, though, I'm moving this over to a new thread, because it isn't part of the Spring Festival discussion, but does relate to modern navigation, and if you'll answer the questions over there, I'd also be interested in having you do the new splash screen.

The conversation continues over at the topic "Unrelated Nonsense"

[elgaton]

Crossposting Lydiot's response:

With so many suggestions for where to hold the festival I think the productive thing might be to discuss how to figure out if an area is good, meaning what parameters are important. For example: I would have thought that already developed airports would be preferable simply because there's no guarantee that people can actually develop enough new airports for an area to be interesting. And that of course assumes that we care about airports in the first place. Someone else mentioned that people would create new ones. I'm just worrying that someone would commit but then not be able to carry it out.

A similar question can be asked about previously controlled airports. In other words, is it important that an airport has been controlled by someone already, or can new ATCs get/make charts and learn the necessary procedures.

So that's where I think we should probably start the conversation, because once we have a clear idea of what we are looking for it becomes much easier to at least exclude some areas. Again, my priorities would probably be:

- Already developed airports.
- Interesting and varying topography (mountains/valleys, oceans/lakes etc)

PS: I'm not saying we should reach consensus on it, but perhaps it'd be good to discuss it to figure out what we really want (individually).

---
Regarding my China proposal: agree on the feedback - I had in mind Eastern China as it's not far from the sea and other islands. Thumbs up for the Japan proposal as well. I also agree with KL-666's post above - we could also ask the FGUK guys if some of them are willing to participate and controllers, and interference won't be a problem (they focus on military operations and I can give them ample prior notice so we can coordinate).

As for the selection criteria suggested by Lydiot, I'd throw another one into the mix - choosing areas that are not controlled regularly. One of the goals of the Festival is bringing people to new places. (Of course, we should still check if there are developed airports in the area, but (1) I hope we will have World Scenery 3.0 ready, at least for the Fall edition, and (2) failing that, pommesschranke has developed a tool to convert X-Plane airports - including 3D objects - to FlightGear custom scenery.) The AIP availability question is important as well (having up-to-date OpenRadar files is essential - they can be prepared relatively quickly though).

[simbambim]

@lego
Yeah, but it's the way you put it that was funny.

it is a pretty cruisy role, until yes 15 odd pilots are inbound .

Emphasis on "odd".

[legoboyvdlp]

Crossposting Lydiot's response:

With so many suggestions for where to hold the festival I think the productive thing might be to discuss how to figure out if an area is good, meaning what parameters are important. For example: I would have thought that already developed airports would be preferable simply because there's no guarantee that people can actually develop enough new airports for an area to be interesting. And that of course assumes that we care about airports in the first place. Someone else mentioned that people would create new ones. I'm just worrying that someone would commit but then not be able to carry it out.

A similar question can be asked about previously controlled airports. In other words, is it important that an airport has been controlled by someone already, or can new ATCs get/make charts and learn the necessary procedures.

So that's where I think we should probably start the conversation, because once we have a clear idea of what we are looking for it becomes much easier to at least exclude some areas. Again, my priorities would probably be:

- Already developed airports.
- Interesting and varying topography (mountains/valleys, oceans/lakes etc)

PS: I'm not saying we should reach consensus on it, but perhaps it'd be good to discuss it to figure out what we really want (individually).

---
Regarding my China proposal: agree on the feedback - I had in mind Eastern China as it's not far from the sea and other islands. Thumbs up for the Japan proposal as well. I also agree with KL-666's post above - we could also ask the FGUK guys if some of them are willing to participate and controllers, and interference won't be a problem (they focus on military operations and I can give them ample prior notice so we can coordinate).

As for the selection criteria suggested by Lydiot, I'd throw another one into the mix - choosing areas that are not controlled regularly. One of the goals of the Festival is bringing people to new places. (Of course, we should still check if there are developed airports in the area, but (1) I hope we will have World Scenery 3.0 ready, at least for the Fall edition, and (2) failing that, pommesschranke has developed a tool to convert X-Plane airports - including 3D objects - to FlightGear custom scenery.) The AIP availability question is important as well (having up-to-date OpenRadar files is essential - they can be prepared relatively quickly though).

UK comparatively does not have that much traffic, or controlling.
Also, charts are available from the nats site.
http://www.nats-uk.ead-it.com/public/in ... id=13.html

[IAHM-COL]

@elgaton

Thanks for the cross posting

Very interesting everything.

1) Great idea to indicate Eastern-China (that reduces the area of the proposal)
2) Based on comments by KL666 that I agree with, I withdraw my inclusions for France, Germany and Benelux
3) Note UK + Ireland by suggestion of KL666, as well

See updated current poll options in the first post here.

3) I agree with Lydiot, in the sense that we can't expect that scenery will be developed for the Festival.
4) The decision is not about Airports, but areas, thou. Example, if the poll decides to choose for lets say the US SouthWest, where KLAS, KLAX, KPHX and other airports are clearly developed, as Lydiot suggests, any participant can choose where to serve. And, per example, one could choose serving KSAN instead. There is nothing compelling the participant. In addition, clearly having a mix of developed and undeveloped may at least create the option that some scenery gets developed. So there 's a good payoff, as shown by our last Fall Festival. Just food for thought

5) We can /and do / invite the whole community to participate. This includes the FGUK folks. But if they choose not to participate, or anyone for that matter, shouldn't imply a "change" of plans... sort to speak.
In other terms, the poll still decides the next festival locations, not the willingness or not or someone or somegroup to join. Does this make sense? Basically, we don't know yet whether UK is the next fall location, and we are kind of "making the soup without buying the chicken" sort to speak.