FlightGear Forum
who enjoyed this event - without knowing what kind of a stupid guy your ATC was. After the event he was getting real desperate that nobody posted any comments to this event - he was just applying for a place in a cloister when he noticed that his "subscribe topic" was reset! Thank you David that you got me out of that desperation!
Out of the sight of an ATC:
When D-79 asked me if I wanted to do that I really thought it would be impossible to guide more than 10 unique pilots in one group! But we decided to try it - and my compliments to the participants: You reacted much better than I feared! And yes: I remember also I once had an outburst because some guys (and one especially) did not follow advise and when they finely followed they changed their mind once in a while - so they used up a whole lot of supervision-time. And believe me: If there are 20 plans to supervise and 3 of them in short final - try to figure out how much time you have/need to keep an eye on all! Sorry if I got nervous and frustrated a couple of times! I promise I will try to become a polite guy (just give me about another 60 years time!)
Based on the experiences during the event, I do NOT vote for any differentiation in some kind of "good", "average", "newbie" pilots. First of all: All shall learn and have fun - and where can they learn better as in a group with the "best of" ones?? Also the "good" ones would probably be bored if flying in a very small group! And what only ATC knows
: Very often the "good" ones cause the biggest problems because they believe they know better and thus break out of the group - and then start arguing 
! Of course nobody should crash into a mountain because ATC "is sleeping" - but pls "awake" him with a (very) short notice that you deviate from his advise! And you have all the rights to deviate - you are the "responsible pilot in command" - ATC is "just an advisor" (but you better have good reasons for any deviation 
). And all in all: The Radio discipline was great - I had no real problems to find a spot to speak - with MPchat it was different: I admit I did not read all of them and surely I overlooked some important ones -- sorry to all that are still waiting for an answer from me 
! Also here: I would not suggest to accept only FGCOM-users, but I very seriously hope more and more will install it! And I believe such an event is ideal for convincing some more people of how great that is -- and do not forget: FGCOM is still relatively new. And if I remember correct there were 5 w/o FGCOM -- thus >75% were with FGCOM. That's great (for the beginning)I thank you all for those wonderful photos - it seems that really was a big event within a wonderful scenery! And this huge amount of planes in some of the pictures are great - just sorry that I did not take some pictures from the MP-map and/or Radar: It is very very difficult to identify that unique target you need to call by name! It is a lot of switching, zooming, searching, etc. - and I know I lost control a couple of times when there was a crowed just on short final while i was trying to identify the next to leave the circle. Sorry enough only after the event I found a solution for that -
if we do it again: Somebody within/above the circle could take the job to monitor on MPmap (e.g. while flying on AP) and send the plans one after the other to the airport - and ATC just picks them up half way, where they are already nicely lined up! I do propose to do that next time (when there are again that many!).But I also believe: We should not overdo it with the perfect line up: I guess this kind of event would get boring if e.g. all landings would be separated by minutes - some near parallel landings just belong to such an event! Keep in mind: Such a crowed of 20 in a waiting loop is not possible in reality! I know many of you know me and are frustrated when I insist on "following the real, simulated rules" at EDDF! But sometimes there needs to be some fun (in a simulator!)
And that means: I would like to do it again! It was great and a real new experience. Thank you all.
joe
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