The Festival of FlightGear, Spring '16

[J Maverick 16]

BTW, where and when are we going to vote to choose the locations? There were so much messages I maybe missed the point...
Regards, Maverick

[legoboyvdlp]

Elgaton is busy with his thesis, but he'll get to is sometime soon.

[elgaton]

(Apologies for not posting earlier, I had an academic deadline to meet in the past days.)

At first, a couple of words about FSWeekend.

As far as I know, nobody involved in the Festival of FlightGear helps organizing/participates to FSWeekend. Nevertheless, for the first edition, IAHM-COL suggested - and METAL, the main organizer of the Festival at that time, accepted - to hold the event on the same dates as FSWeekend. No motivations were explicitly given, but I suppose there were a few, such as the following ones (personal speculation here):

1. holding the "virtual" event on the same dates as FSWeekend would be - in every case - an ideal, symbolic counterpart to the real world event;
2. up to a few years ago, booth organizers at FSWeekend used to show off activity on the multiplayer servers (see the links mentioned by simbambim earlier) - that does not happen anymore as Internet connections have been found to be unreliable or nonexistent at the FS booth;
3. since most regular ATCs are in Europe (see e.g. EDDF, LFOK, LKPR...), there's a high probability some of them man a couple of airports outside the Festival area, giving a pilot more choices for a controlled flight;
4. if a participant wants to fly from an airport participating in the Festival to another controlled one, (s)he would have had to fly to Europe (or vice versa), which takes a long time if the Festival area is far from there (unless simulation rate is altered);
5. European airports, at the time, had more 3D models and custom layouts (note: this has - in part - changed now with the introduction of the Scenery Gateway, we just need to wait for the next World Scenery rebuild and/or mass import of 3D objects).

The choice process for the 2015 editions was complicated by the fact we had to decide how many times per year the event should be held. The location and the frequency poll ran at the same time. Again, IAHM-COL proposed the arrangement (holding the Fall festival at the same time as FSWeekend and the other one in Spring, about six months apart, on a weekend), and it was accepted - there was no poll for this, but some organizer/participants stated their agreement explicitly, and no one spoke to the contrary (there was only a request for clarification by Lydiot regarding holding the event in conjunction with the Festival, but everything was more or less settled in the end - at least in my opinion). This is the only time I've found an explicit motivation:

This because it is sooo much easier to fly in/out of EHAM and EHLE from the Alps, than it is from Las Pampas, and given the fall festival coincides to FSWeekend, it makes some logistical sense to be closer to home..

Anyway, I assumed in good faith I had sufficient consensus - especially because, before Lydiot asked for clarification here, nobody had expressed a different opinion regarding this formula. From a purely personal point of view, I'd like to keep this arrangement for the reasons listed above so far, plus the one IAHM-COL mentioned and Lydiot referenced (if we hold an edition in Europe, the other one will be held outside that continent), but I'm open to all options. (Hence the second poll proposal me and simbambim referenced). For clarity, I'll update the first post and mark confirmed information in red from now on.

Hope this clarifies things a bit - also, Lydiot, sorry if I've been unclear in some posts of mine (I'm following this thread and the one on Jabberwocky's forum at the same time, and, while I try to do my best to crosspost all points of view/discussions, it might happen I inadvertently summarize some discussions ambiguously). Feel free to reach out to me if needed.

I've crossposted your point of view to Jabberwocky's forum. Regarding the location, a proposal was made - using the same system adopted in 2015 to choose areas (one single poll, not requiring the Fall Festival to be in Europe, instead of splitting European and non-European destinations). Please tell me your point of view regarding this and/or the dates so that I can crosspost it there as well.

As for FGUK (also summarizing what has been discussed on the other forum as well as here): while some FGUK members might not be interested/willing to fly in a controlled zone and others, on the contrary, might be, should the UK be chosen as a location, I'm sure we can discuss this in more detail (and I'm willing to contact them). Personally, I would suggest ATCing with them, or at least agreeing on an area (preferably not near their home base, EGOD) where we can hold the event without affecting their operations. They also seem quite experienced to me in the free/acrobatic flying department; I don't have any such skills, so I can't comment on that, save for the fact that it would be nice to see some games again (so far, LesterBoffo proposed a challenge in South America, and there was some GA/unplanned activity in Sabadell and Innsbruck, but nothing official).

Regarding the vote: the poll has not been opened yet. I'll open and announce it when everything is clear.

[LesterBoffo]

Personally, I would suggest ATCing with them, or at least agreeing on an area (preferably not near their home base, EGOD) where we can hold the event without affecting their operations. They also seem quite experienced to me in the free/acrobatic flying department; I don't have any such skills, so I can't comment on that, save for the fact that it would be nice to see some games again (so far, LesterBoffo proposed a challenge in South America, and there was some GA/unplanned activity in Sabadell and Innsbruck, but nothing official).

Did I? I can't remember in what context, was this from last spring's Festival?

Sux getting older.

[elgaton]

Affirmative (it was an informal challenge - the closest to a minigame we got during that edition, in my opinion).

[Warty]

Re: "casual flight, games, mini games, playground area/crazy area", in what is allegedly a "mostly civil festival" (as they are referred to by people such as elgaton, IAHM-COL, Jabberwocky, KL-666, simbambim, etc) . . .

One advantage to holding the Festival in the UK would be that there is already an established group of childminders that could help in keeping the uncontrolled away from the serious/adult ATC "participants".

Basically FGUK is not a bug it's a feature! The group know the area pretty well and have a large number established scenarios available. They can find their way around without any guidance from the grown-ups. So people can just turn up in the general area and follow the group. They often create new scenarios with only a day or two's notice and have been doing this for a long time. There are so many airfields in the UK that no amount of grown-ups could hope to control them all. And that doesn't include the MP aircraft carriers they can deliver off the coast, or the landing zones in mountains for casevacs, or the oil platforms for helicopter op's. I could go on but I think that's enough for starters.

[Warty]

Did I? I can't remember in what context, was this from last spring's Festival?

Sux getting older.

Lester, I must admit that I have noticed some events that you have organised but have not made it to one so far because I can rarely even get the WWI birds off the ground let alone keep them in the air in any controlled manner. So I didn't go onto MP with it for fear of being an embarrassment (to myself) and a distraction to others. Promise I'll try harder next time

Without fully checking this out, I should think that a number of UK airfields that were operational in WWI will still be fairly pristine in the FG scenery and so could be "modernised" to 1916 standards.

[Tomaskom]

Re: "casual flight, games, mini games, playground area/crazy area", (...)

Crazy area? Yep, that's EGOD!

[Warty]

Something like this would be impressive to see over the Welsh mountains:

FGUK normally mainly operate fast/manouvrable aircraft which tend to be military and so I'm not sure we could pull this off easily.
Any volunteers from the airliner set?

[Lydiot]

(Apologies for not posting earlier, I had an academic deadline to meet in the past days.)

No worries. And thanks for a clear post.

[legoboyvdlp]

Well, I'm rubbish at formating, but as long as it doesn't have to be so tight, I'd gladly volunteer to fly in formation at 100 AGL over EGOD or somewhere else...

[MIG29pilot]

A Thud, but no crashes

[Warty]

@ Legoboyvdlp: the only airliner I've tried (that I can just about manage) is the Concorde. Maybe we could give that a try some time. These things are so big that you don't have to formate so close for it to look impressive. Anyway, it will come with practise

[LesterBoffo]

Lester, I must admit that I have noticed some events that you have organised but have not made it to one so far because I can rarely even get the WWI birds off the ground let alone keep them in the air in any controlled manner.

Without fully checking this out, I should think that a number of UK airfields that were operational in WWI will still be fairly pristine in the FG scenery and so could be "modernised" to 1916 standards.

Can't say that my events are ever 'organized', we're lucky if we make it to all the way-points in a an untimely fashion. Part of the problem being Corine based scenery in East France.

You know I did make a British Expeditionary forces Mobilization Groundnet in August of 2014 to coincide with the start of WWI's centenary.

http://www.mediafire.com/view/s1jrzvvde2n4g8t/EGDM.groundnet.xml

I made a rough estimation of the above for the location, ( linked above..) called RFC 'Stonehenge', which was where a lot of RFC BEF flights originated. There's Stowmaries and Eastchurch on Isle of Sheppy, all 3 are not official FG airports, but then Brooklands isn't either. There's not a lot of WWI airfields still extant, especially in FG.

[LesterBoffo]

@ Legoboyvdlp: the only airliner I've tried (that I can just about manage) is the Concorde. Maybe we could give that a try some time. These things are so big that you don't have to formate so close for it to look impressive. Anyway, it will come with practise

Oh jeez the Belslow, should have a combined formation with the Douglas C-133A.