Opinion needed: focus fields?

[Keith Smith]

Hi all,

I discontinued the Focus Field program because it didn't appear to be serving its intended goal. The goal was to increase the likelihood of pilots seeing or at least hearing each other on the radio, and flying with a common origin or destination.

My observation over the past month was that the vast majority of pilots were flying to other fields, which meant that the few pilots who were utilizing the focus fields were not seeing any benefit from doing so.

If anyone has any feedback about that program, either for or against, please let me know. We'd be happy to continue it (at least Mon-Fri, outside of the event windows) if it was beneficial for a reasonable number of people.

[arb65912]

In my opinion, fly-in events serve the same role as Focus Field Program and as such are basically replacing the FFP with lower frequency.
I think that twice a month or even every week fly-ins would be the nice and usable option.
I was not able to attend the last one but I have read the post about it and it seems that it was a huge success.

[jdzurisin]

lover frequency.

?

[arb65912]

Good catch, jdzurisin..lol. Corrected.

[Steven Winslow]

I enjoyed the Focus Field program and I would usually include at least one of the fields in my flight plan. It also gave me a list of sceneries to work on. Maybe you could modify the Focus Field program to be two or three nights a week, rather than every day. I know it's a drain to have to come up with airport pairs and then post them on the webpage.

[MXMiles]

I was able to take part in the fly-in event and at least do some brief pattern work at one of the airports. I typically try to make at least one of my airports to be in or out of one of the focus fields and saw more traffic during the fly-in event than I've ever seen at a focus field. So...I would say the fly-in event was definitley successful but not sure if I would completely remove the focus fields. Mabye you could designate focus fields for a week and one day out of the week host a fly-in event for a pair of the focus fields.

[NM Doug]

It's an interesting challenge. By limiting (by design) the controlled area to Socal (and later Norcal), the *space* constraints encourage a higher density of traffic - especially as far as seeing other traffic. Kind of like a social network, the more people doing it, the more fun it becomes.

The focus fields program has its difficulty in its lack of *time* constraints. One thing that made the coastal caper event work was the addition of the time constraint - lots of pilots piled into the time window of the event to fly (though I noticed that the excitement it generated spilled over into the hours between the southbound and northbound sessions).

So I say it's an interesting challenge, because adding time constraints to focus fields would turn them into mini-events...and having multiple times available would diffuse the concentrating effect you saw during the coastal caper event. Hmmmm. It's a great question! I'll be thinking about this and looking to see what others suggest, too.

- Doug

[Calvin Waterbury]

--- FOCUS FIELDS (FFs) ---
I think you should maintain the FFs idea. Yes, it has not been a smash hit (yet), but it at least serves to provide some kind of "focus" as opposed to an amorphous blob of indiscriminate airfields we would be faced with otherwise. While this idea will never probably be a real money-maker it does serve a useful and necessary service. It is my considered opinion the FFs should remain as a permanent feature of PE in their present form. In some ways, they are like "presents." You never know what you're getting until you unwrap them!

[speartylr]

So, I was wondering where they went and that's why I've logged on just now. Anyway, I liked the assignment value of focus field program because I'm not native of the area. I also, find it more challenging than a route that I would have chosen for my own lazy benefit. As busy as pilots can sometimes become, I find value also there too. Thanks for reading me, God bless.

[Charan Kumar]

+1 on the FF feature. With SOCAL's smattering of airports, it begs to qn which pair to fly in/out and that made the decision for me a lot easier. I know I haven't been a sincere follower of these fields, but I try my best to stay in range...if not for AIRLINE atleast for GA and instead of multiple fields for twr patterns etc, just pick two airports as FF and let them be used for flights patterns too and pick a non-towered near the FF towered so we can see the other traffic while we try to remain in the pattern and not do a 15nm d/w leg