Farmingdale(KFRG) - Our home Office
Farmingdale-Republic has been chosen as our home base for many reasons.
First and foremost is that there are a great many real world pilots that live in the area that fly out of this airport. This will be a great benefit to fellow club members when it comes to understanding the airport and the airspace.
Second is the fantastic scenery available for it on AVSIM.com.
Third is that it is close enough to KJFK airport that there is a reasonably good chance there will be aircraft and air traffic control online with you at the same time.
Farmingdale is merely the home office, but that does not preclude you from using any other airport.
Interaction with ATC
The new Minor Facility rules enacted by VATSIM and implemented by NYARTCC.org has opened the doors to the towers of many smaller airports in the New York Tri-State area and Pennsylvania. The opening of Class C and D towers in this airspace has been a major change in how this airspace looks and feels online. There is a great amount of general aviation traffic in the New York ARTCC; soon we hope to bring that to the online experience as well. Allentown, PA (KABE) has been very well staffed lately and has been a great and realistic start for many a virtual Cessna Skyhawk.
Islip-MacArthur (KISP) has also been opened and controlled by Calverton Approach (CCC_APP). KISP is a great destination from KFRG in that it requires nearly the same sort of interaction with approach as you would en route to KJFK without all the airline traffic.
This is important. One of the principle rules of NYFC is that you may not start a single engine aircraft (other than one of our charter aircraft) from a class B airport. You can fly into a class B airport, but you cannot start there. This is not as bad as it seems.
JFK tower, Departure and Approach are all required to give KFRG ATC services as it is a satelite of KJFK.