Public Airways

Cross-posted from the Linden Hotline, since it's read-only...

Much like in RL, I believe a potential solution to the problem of rampant overzealous security systems, smashing into undrawn or slow to rezz objects with the potential of being trapped and other such behaviors would be to implement a public airway system.

This could be implemented immediately as a ToS rule, to be followed sometime thereafter by an enforced limit within the software. What I have in mind is something along the order of a range, say 150-450m in height, in which NOTHING can be constructed. Under the current limitations of SL, this would result in a minimum flyable airway of about 100m in height even if landowners were to deploy 96m security systems at both the upper and lower borders.

There wll surely be the cry that "It's my land and I can do whatever I want with it" but that's not true in RL and it needn't be true here when it impacts the public good.

With the availability of altitude holding systems now, it is quite simple to fly about at a set altitude and it would be quite a treat knowing one could do so anywhere in the world unencumbered.

I like to have clear flyways, as I've slammed into stuff multiple times, or have had to jet WAYYY up and then come back down after the horizontal jaunt is over.

Problem I do see is: where does this put megatowers, skyscrapers, and certain types of art installations? Clearly, they'd be past the 150+ m mark.

Yes, and where does this put builds on top of mountains? Without using a vehicle, your av rarely stays at the same altitude. It's flight is affected by some sort of atmospheric condition, which is why the av usually dives after crossing a sim boundary.

There is already a network of protected airspace, the roadways system. The problems are that the road doesn't always rez quickly enough at low altitude, you can't see the roads at high altitudes and, if you fly using a map, the roads aren't always obvious.

What if you could enable an autonavigation feature that would work just as they do in cars today? The system would calculate the best route from a telehub to your destination using roadways. Another option would be to toss out the roadways and calculate a route based on obstructions between points A and B.

I'd be happy if we could toggle a roadmap overlay for the the big map. That way, I could open the map and fly along the roadways more easily... without needing to see into the 3D world until I'm as close as the road takes me to my destination.

Just fly above 768m

Search for a thing called "Defenserod" which can be had for L$1. and makes avatar flight at high altitudes quite pleasant. Doesn't help aginst broken security devices that tp you home the instant you pass over no matter how high you are, but it helps aginst the other complaints.

Works good aginst people with cageguns and watermelon shooters, too.

I thought it was a terrain following thing... Maybe something to do withe hoverhight? Any time the terrain below you dips, you go down too... It doesn't seem to push you back up on the uphills though. maybe hoverhight is resetting to a low number after crossing sim boundrys as well?

Racer P.

I tend to follow the roads when I fly.

I had read of a network of Non-Directional Beacons or VHF Omnidirectional Range emitters that could be used to denote clear airways much as NDBs and VORs are used in RL to denote airways. That is, if I have a big chunk of land without icky "defenses" I could host an NDB/VOR which would mark the area as safe-for-flight. I think this much more likely to happen than the "don't be a dick" free-fly zone proposed above. Now all we need is a couple hundred beacon hosts and the aircraft to listen to em and we're all set.

Was it Cubey, or Hank, or someone else that had constructed/imagined them?