Birbla

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  • Play this for a few minutes and you start to realize why sequencing and published flight paths are so important!

    Really fun, thank you!

    by ivraatiems
  • And traffic patterns.
    by bigbuppo
  • If you like this I highly recommend the Air Traffic Controller series

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Traffic_Controller_(series...

    https://www.sonicpowered.co.jp/world/nsw/rjgg/

    https://store.steampowered.com/app/1348390/I_am_an_Air_Traff...

    by haunter
  • Great little game! Thanks for sharing!

    Just two little niggles:

    - I feel like I should be able to fly over a runway without crashing in a landing/taking-off airplane. The vertical separation would allow for that.

    - It would be nice to have an (optional?) zoom-out level, to have a bit more space for routing.

    But a lovely little game, thanks again.

    by fransje26
  • This is super fun! Really gets your heart rate going. I tried various tactics borrowed from actual ATC/tower techniques (drawing common approach paths; throwing in some 360 degree turns) but it never seemed to be enough as the traffic picked up :P I'm curious if anyone figured out any good strategies.
    by keito
  • At some point I started to send incoming planes away like no airport for you!
    by tom2948329494
  • Think it needs just a little zoom out on my phone but had a fun time. Both my games ended off screen
    by bakies
  • Android makes this a chore with all its gestures too!

    But I'm not sure it could (or that I'd want) it to supress gestures like back and close application

    by rustyhancock
  • Not enough of you played Flight Control in 2008 and it shows.
    by paxys
  • I was 3 years old
    by istoleabread
  • When playing for the first time, a simple pop up tutorial would be nice, explaining what to do. Figuring out how to land and how to drag the planes takes a second, but it is fine. However, I still haven't figured out what to do with starting planes? I can't change their route, so how do I prevent two starting planes from crashing?

    Edit: I would also add some “crash margin” around the border of the screen. A plane coming from the top right corner and crashing into a plane leaving just to the right of the top right corner is frustrating.

    by V__
  • yeah, not being able to vector departing planes is also a pain. Kinda makes sense I guess, but still annoying
    by tenacious_tuna
  • Took me far too long to work how to get a plane to land, was drawing lines along the runway rather than dropping them on the coloured spot at the end and they were overflying. Was thinking the paths weren't straight enough, once I figured it out was quite funny to find the planes can do 180° turns mid air to land.
    by wjdp
  • Yeah to be more realistic they should be able to land from either end of the runway. Mayve depending on wind.
    by paxys
  • The pilots in this game are complete dum-dums and not following 14 CFR § 91.113 (b):

    When weather conditions permit, regardless of whether an operation is conducted under instrument flight rules or visual flight rules1, vigilance shall be maintained by each person operating an aircraft so as to see and avoid other aircraft.

    I had some aircraft pop in from off-screen and just run into another one that just took off.

    by DarmokJalad1701
  • This game would also be better if I could actually decide when to clear departures.
    by foo4u
  • Nice! But whatever happened to "Show HN"? I see more and more people posting their own projects here (which is completely ok!) but avoiding (or unaware of?) the "Show" option.

    About the game (sorry, sim) itself: it was really fun once I realized that I have to drag the airplanes to the runway threshold matching their color. You can draw a straight line from the plane to the runway, and it will land even if it has to do an instant ~360° turn directly before touching down, which is a liiiitle bit unrealistic :) Also, while landing the planes just float with constant speed right until the end of the runway and then taxi away. A nicer animation would be if they would touch down somewhere in the middle of the runway and then decelerate gradually before taxiing away. Same in reverse for take-offs.

    by rob74
  • Show hn was overrun by ai slop for a while so I and presumably many others filtered it out of our feeds. That would have resulted in show hn getting much less interaction and potentially led to people not wanting to use the feature.
    by cure_42
  • Maybe it's by design, but Show HN posts seem to just get completely buried, whereas posting stuff directly is more successful

    I've spoke to other people who've had the same experience, maybe just a coincidence but could be why people avoid it?

    by jmkni
  • This was really fun to play with, I have a few suggestions: - As the airspace gets more congested, it becomes difficult to click the airplanes as you can also grab an existing path, messing everything up.

    - The big stats table on the top left completely obscures a good portion of the map, making it harder than necessary. A togglable or semi-transparent option would be nice.

    -The possibility of zooming or moving around could be nice

    by thanzex
  • ctrl-shift-<minus> until the stats table is as small as you like
    by kronk
  • Speaking of congested airspace…

    Yesterday’s 50-mile line of planes coming to Oshkosh is something to behold: https://youtu.be/9IHbO0tzpMc

    by nativeit
  • I was only thinking about Flight Control[0] the other day and how I wish there were more modern takes on it! There was Mini Metro[1], but that was released over a decade ago.

    --

    [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_Control

    [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mini_Metro_(video_game)

    by sarreph
  • Flight Control HD was one of the first iPad games I had. I under-appreciated how much easier this game was with a finger than a trackball.
    by eddieroger
  • There’s an open source ATC sim called OpenScope that’s a bit more complex and is mostly keyboard based. I think HN would appreciate it.

    https://github.com/openscope/openscope

    by iron_albatross
  • United Airlines offers the game for entertainment while you're flying.

    https://liveandletsfly.com/united-airlines-air-traffic-contr...

    by Telemakhos
  • Mini Airways - ATC simulator comes close in base mechanics but adds some complexity

    https://store.steampowered.com/app/2289650/Mini_Airways__ATC...

    by jstummbillig
  • Heathrow ATC (for the ZX Spectrum) was one that I played extensively back in the day: https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/entry/10530 I wonder if there are earlier examples of popular ATC games? They're simpler than flight simulators so you'd think there would be more of them.

    Edit: playable version - https://archive.org/details/zx_Heathrow_International_Air_Tr...

    by rwmj
  • Flight Control was very closely remade as "Planes Control" [1] and gets regular updates with new levels, etc. Not sure if the developer acquired the assets of the original, but it's very close to what I remember playing as a kid

    [1] https://apps.apple.com/us/app/planes-control/id1015114550

    by bnc319
  • Flight Control was one of my favorite iOS games of all time. Simple, polished, quick to play. Sucks that there is no way to play it on iOS again, seems it is still available for purchase on Steam, but it was really well suited to the phone format, not really something I'd sit down to play at a desktop.
    by jclardy