They wouldn’t want to and people choose VATSIM over IVAO and vice versa for a reason.
It does, it allows for competition.
Depends on what time it is and where you fly, remember they’re volunteer networks. Having said that I’ve seen ZBW up virtually all day (not uncommon actually). Even outside of events you can find positions staffed up and a lot of traffic (and I love TrackIR for this). During events (which happen very frequently) traffic can reach levels that flow control comes into effect.
EDIT: I’m looking very forward to the CalScream event…
VATSIM is the top choice, if / when someone is online where i want to fly.
Otherwise, Pilot2ATC with ATC Chatter as well for background noise.
Pilot2ATC has come along way if you use the public beta, and the developer Dave is very active. If we find bugs we email the logs and within 24 hours (typically) yes emailed us a new version with a fix.
I have Pilot2ATC, and it is good, but it can be a little inflexible, so it never feels very real to me.
Most of the time I fly without ATC of any kind as I’m just exploring places or aircraft, or just trying to master a particular aircraft so I’m not “That guy” on vatsim who can’t seem to work his airplane.
I fly a lot of VFR on vatsim, and I like that they handle it just like real world… Much of the time you don’t need to be talking to them at all in VFR, so its nice just to have the network air traffic out there as you zip around between uncontrolled airports and fly under class B shelves etc.
Pretty much anything is better than the built-in MSFS ATC. Seriously, you’d be better off asking your dog for clearances.
like i wrote to someone else just earlier, take advantage of the weekly events, you’ll always have ATC where you want it then. You also have bigger events when almost an entire zone/continent is available for 24hrs.
very helpfull tool. I use it EVERYDAY . after a while you manage to find a nice routine at each airports, and make a good advantage of the weekly events ( or bigger events like commuting between 2 airports).
you’ll for example notice that EGKK has almost 24/7 staff, and since they are 1hr “behind” the rest of Europe, they are often open/online, later too.
Excellent tool !
I use Pilot2ATC. What I like is that I can talk to it with voice commands and it usually gets them correct and answers appropriately. It will aslo give you vectors to an approach when you ask or set up the approach that way.
Only thing really missing is other aircraft in the communication stream. Kind of lonely. It does recognize when another aircraft is on the runway to force a go around but you can’t here the controller scream at the guy to get off the runway!
