Also, I rant a lot, and I know it. If you don't want to read a wall of text rant, don't then. I promise not to hold it against you in the least. Life is short, as they say. But, please, refrain from posting just to tell me you don't like reading long posts. That really has little to do with the subject and just makes me more grumpy a person than I normally am. ;) If you like reading long tales of FS woe and virtual ATC antics, then by all means, please, keep reading.
So, here is the scenario:
I have been wanting to work up to more endurance oriented flights; that is, flying over longer distances and for longer periods of time in real time while at the controls. So, to prepare myself, I have been acclimating myself to different things that might be required to do such a thing.
One of the things I have been working on is being used to monitoring FS for longer and longer stretches of time without a break. To that end, I have been making long flights in airliners, and today I was flying a 747-400 from Seattle-Tacoma Int'l (KSEA) to New Tokyo Int'l in Narita, Japan (RJAA). This is a roughly 10 hour flight (depending on the winds). In real time.
I did take a couple of breaks (paused the simulation, that is), but I did do at least one stretch of six hours solid. OK, I am using A/P which is going to reduce the workload immeasurably, especially with the flight director on. But, I sat by my computer for all those hours responding to ATC calls, checking my flight plan, checking fuel (not that anything interesting every really happens there in FS), and so on. Thank goodness for my laptop so I could watch videos in between checking on my flight (set up right next to my main computer).
Finally, after a long flight and a strong desire to get up and move around, I was on final approach for 16L at RJAA. While still about 30 miles out, I turned on the flight recorder, figuring I could later relax and enjoy watching my approach and landing. The weather wasn't too bad. There were some low clouds but the wind was fairly calm. Good day for flying. Also, because I timed my departure and arrival well, I was arriving in daylight hours. Visibility was great.
Having filed an IFR flight plan, ATC guided me in during my entire approach. First I was given approach vectors and then given directions to line up with the localizer. Somewhere around 10 miles out, I received my final ATC clearance to land. Clearance to land! At about 400 feet and less than two miles from the runway, ATC all of a sudden clears another 747 onto the runway for takeoff. Moments later I get the command to go around.
:o >:(
W. T. F.
I myself only became aware of the aircraft in front of me when I switched cockpit views at the last second to get a better view of the runway for landing. I had to hurriedly switch cockpit views back and try to change umpteen different settings for a go-around. Unfortunately, I was unable to regain enough airspeed and elevation while also veering off from the aircraft taking off in front of me (747's can be slow to maneuver at times!). Just past the runway, I stalled and crashed.
:-/ 
All. That. Time. *BOOM* And what is great, after I crashed, ATC was still asking me if I copied their last instructions. I do realize that a pilot should be prepared to execute a go-around at any time during approach and landing. So, sadly, I have to take some of the burden for the crash on my own shoulders. But, in that wonderful human tradition of shifting blame, I am soooo pointing the finger at ATC for this one.
While it is reasonable to expect that pilots should be prepared for a go-around, I am not sure it is reasonable to expect that pilots should be prepared to dodge other traffic taxiing on the runway while trying to land an aircraft that weighs over 400,000 pounds!What is eerie about this whole mess is that is closely resembles what happened in real life with USAir Flight 1493 and SkyWest Airlines Flight 5569 at LAX in 1991, a collision incident I myself only learned of recently. There, too, ATC first cleared one aircraft for landing and then proceeded to clear a second aircraft onto the same runway for take-off.
OK, weird, coincidental similarities aside, I have noticed before that FS ATC can call it pretty close with traffic. This is not the first time I have been told to go-around because of conflict commands given to traffic by ATC (those other times, though, it was easier to execute a go-around as I was piloting more responsive light aircraft). Is this a FS ATC issue, or is real life ATC as hectic as this, too? I mean, real world ATC has thousands and thousands of flights it handles every day, so the few incidences over the years of collisions or such caused or aggravated by ATC commands seems like a fractionally small percentage. FS has the benefit of controlling the entire environment in the simulation, and so you would think there would be no incidents of this sort.
Thoughts?
Going back to short hops in small planes for awhile,
~Darrin
Intel i7 960 quad 3.2G LGA 1366, Asus P6X58D Premium, 750W Corsair, 6 gig 1600 DDR3, Spinpoint 1TB 720
) is whether or not anyone has experienced ATC giving out commands that are exceedingly dangerous, such as I experienced. I can trail aircraft that are landing ahead of me, but there is little I can do about aircraft that suddenly pull out onto the runway in front of me and stop. ;)
Another example of how simming teaches and/or stimulates that piloting frame of mind. Think about it... the fact that you were striving for realism had you at the controls for the whole flight; sometimes entertained; sometimes enthusiastic; sometimes fatigued; sometimes aggravated, and of course the proverbial, "hours of boredom punctuated by a few seconds of terror"...
