I have given this some thought, and came up with a system that should make the problem go away.
It works entirely client-side so you don’t need to tell anyone what they can or cannot do.
Consider this:
The red zone is a bubble covering a runway, It is no more than 50~100 feet high.
The blue cone is the “approach zone”, it extends 5nm downwind of the runway and goes up to 3000ft AGL
Here’s how it works for each of those planes:
The Red plane is stopped on the runway (red zone). He is invisible to the Purple plane.
The Blue plane on the taxiway. He is visible to all and sees everyone.*
The Purple plane is inside the approach zone. He is invisible for Red.
The Green plane has departed the runway and can be seen by and sees everyone.
*If Blue taxies ahead of the hold-short line, he enters the red zone. He is now invisible to Red and Purple, who are also no longer visible to him. Once Blue takes off, he becomes visible and able to see everyone again.
You can make a binary truth table of plane visibilities for each other, it’d go like this:
This being all realized in each player’s own computer, there is no need to have new data going over the MP network. And more importantly, all players can configure the exact parameters however they like.
You could maybe select friends to be visible at all times, if you’re formation-flying with them, for instance. Or set different zone geometry rules for human or AI traffic. Many options exist and all are up to the individual player’s preference.
This may even be implemented as a mod.
Thus, people don’t need to bother anyone, and nobody should bother them. Everyone can spawn anywhere they like, and the poor guy on his third missed approach doesn’t have to do yet another go-around.
Conflict avoided.