My Only Wish

[CrackerJack]

I signed up for the 2 week PE trial and have been very happy with the experience. I completed the V1, V2 and hope to do the V3 shortly. As a former holder of a PPL the immersion using PE really makes me feel like I'm flying again. I've purchased some addon scenery KSNA, KSAN for example. I run Prepard 3D. I only have one issue with the experience and that is the lack of aircraft at the airports and in the air. I'm new to the whole sim thing so I'm looking for some education. It's my understanding that PE has some built in drone aircraft. There is of course the other users who might be online, but they tend to be only a handful when I'm on PE and they don't add to the traffic typically where I might be flying.

So how do I go about getting some realistic AC parked and moving around my airports. Is this possible with PE?

Cheers!

[stealthbob]

The main issue is that there are no drones at Towered fields for obvious reasons. Airports like KBNG and KAVX have lots of Drone traffic however.

Also when the network is busy you will tend to find other live pilots typically at KSNA.

There is a lot of drone traffic out there...just look at the Live Map: http://map.pilotedge.net/map/ and clik show drones

[Shinjo B]

Yeah, I wish there was a way to sim more traffic at the towered airports. I think you can turn up the traffic on your sim, but the problem is that the controllers won't know it's there. So you might get cleared to takeoff when there's another aircraft landing only in your sim. And also, you'll get the sim ATC trying to talk to the sim a/c which is really confusing.

[wmburns]

On the PE home page there's a section on the lower right titled "upcoming Focus Fields". For each day there's a suggested airport pair to fly from/to. The idea behind this is to increase the number of pilots at the same place/time. I have used the focus fields as a way to fly to different airport pairs as it keeps things more interesting. This is another method to increase the chances of running into (oops) other PE members online.

http://www.pilotedge.net/pages/focus-fields-overview

Another method is to fly when the network is busy. When there are 10-20 pilots online, it can sometimes be difficult to get a word in edgewise. Also try going to the PE live map and see where everybody is.

http://map.pilotedge.net/map/

If just wanting to "see" more traffic, as mentioned above, go to the live map and click on the "show drones". Pick a non-towered airport with a lot of activity. I have attempted to land at some military airfields that look like hornets nests with the level of traffic landing/departing. Trying the gauge and enter the traffic pattern with so much NORDO traffic can be a real challenge.

Attending a PE "event" is another great way to interact with higher numbers of PE members. Some of the events are PE sponsored and some are set up by other PE members. Check out the "Fly with Me" sub-forum.

viewforum.php?f=9

This topic has been covered before. Mixing local sim based AI traffic and PE traffic just isn't really a satisfying experience because the local sim based AI traffic does not interact with ATC or the other PE based traffic. In general you should decide if you are fish or fowl. If you want to interact with ATC and the other PE members, then PE is the ticket.

If you just want to see a ton of planes flying around, then by all means fly offline and crank up the AI traffic levels as much as your PC can handle.

Not the prefect answer to your original question. However I for one feel the over all PE experience beats the options hands down.

[CrackerJack]

Good suggestions which I hadn't thought of. As I said in my OP I'm hooked on the PE experience so our feelings are similar. The cake is there but my wish was for a bit of icing I'm going to try the focus fields today, cheers!

[Kyle.Sanders]

i second the idea of joining or creating your own events
viewforum.php?f=9