New AIFP feature

[Firebird]

Gents,
Noticed by accident, i.e. I read the latest version history, that AIFP seemingly has a new feature.

Although it is not included in the manual yet a feature has been added to "Adapt Compiler/Decompiler and Text Editor for multi-week operation".

Now it maybe that this adds a feature that has been requested for some time in that you can have multiple week flightplans. The latest Flight Plan Editor window adds flightplan options for 2 wk, 5 week and 8 week.

I haven't tried it yet but for all those that wanted to add in a sqn detachment to Red Flag, for instance, it seems like your dream has come true. As I read it you could program 1 week of operations from your home base and one week at Nellis, or even more realistically use the 8 week option with the first seven weeks at home base and the 8th at Nellis.

If somebody wants to test it out and let us know whether it works as it sounds then maybe we can start to set a set of guidelines for detachments, i.e. Nellis only in week 8.

It could make your flightplans a lot easier to build if you detach aircraft.

Please let us know of your findings as you test so we can all share the knowledge. I have posted to developers only at the moment to give you all time to investigate before the general population starts to clamour for changes.

[Greg]

Note that this is for FSX format only.

Multi-week plans have always been possible since FSX, it's just that none of the mainstream compilers gave the option until AIG released their AIG Traffic Tools a couple of months ago. AIFP is now simply following the trend on request of AIG.

[RKE]

To be fair, it wasn't really uncovered until relatively recently either. It was always just assumed that it only worked for boat traffic, until someone dug into the sdk and realised that normal AI traffic could utilise it as well.

I was thinking of playing around with it for the some of the smaller (tail wise) squadrons, as the 8 week gives much more flexibility in terms what you can do. Trying to pack everything into a 1-week schedule was always a nightmare, especially if you wanted to take an aircraft further afield than normal.

One problem to note, however, is that if you set aside week 8 for Red Flag at Nellis, is there even parking for all the AI that could potentially show up?

[DaleRFU]

Defiantly an interesting feature and opens up a lot more options when it comes to flight plans as you will be able to include exercises that don't just last a day or two as Steve mentioned. I will certainly have to give it a go. Wish I had known about it before I have just made a load of flight plans for my set up of the RAF Typhoons, Hercs, Hawks, F-35s and more haha.

[Firebird]

Well that is new info and immediately throws a spanner in the works.
At this moment in time it would mean that you would need two sets of plans, one lot for FS9 and one lot for FSX.

As for the Nellis question, surely it can't be as bad as the situation currently is, with everything going at the same time every week.
This is one of the things that we need to work on, for example you could build weeks 4 and 8 for Nellis and split the participants. You could have another week for Maple Flag, another week for Iraq/Aghanistan/Syria deployments.
This is the potential that the facility has, we just need to lay down some guidelines to utilise it properly.

Once we have proved it works.

[Victory103]

Nice read guys I was hoping someone else had the same idea I had (Red Flag, BAP), although I knew about the multi-week option, just did not know if it truly worked or not.

[Greg]

AIG is already using it succesfully. Some of their flightplans for this season are mulit-week, which gave incentive to Don to implement it in AIFP.

[DaleRFU]

Well I have been playing around with it for most of the day and it seems to work pretty well from what I've seen. I have literally just finished painting up a new package now so the flight plans I will make for that will be multi week (sorry fs9 users). It really has thrown a whole load of ideas up of what can be done to simulate the real world.

Out of curiosity, can AI models be coded so that their load out changes during the week? So for example on Sunday the aircraft could be in a transit configuration with just tanks, Monday it has bombs on, Tuesday just rocket and so on?
Also can a model be coded to react to a flight plan? For example if an aircraft is doing a T&G at a cap waypoint the wheels don't come down?

Disclaimer - my "out of curiosity" part is not a request so please don't read as such.

Regards
Dale

[John Young]

No Dale, you can't trigger a visibility or animation condition in the model from a feature in a flight plan. Even if it were possible, the model would need to be tied to a specific flight plan. What happens if the model is used in another scenario?

John

[DaleRFU]

I don't know John, I was just curious.

[DaleRFU]

Just found out that you can only go up to 100 legs in a flightplan.

[Firebird]

So if you use an 8 Week plan that would be 6 round trips, or 12 legs a week. For larger long range aircraft that would be enough. One patrol a day for AWACS/MPs etc. However, probably not enough for fighter types. Maybe it would be better to limit plans to 4 weeks (2 flights round trips a day) and maybe even 2 weeks for trainers (4 round trips a day).

I think that we have all got used to traffic moving all the time for effect but maybe to utilise the facility we need to be more realistic in our usage rates.

What do you guys think?

[DaleRFU]

Well it doesn't give you the option for a 4 week period the closest is a 5 week period and that's what I have been using. I have only used 8 week flightplans for display aircraft such as red arrows that go around the country/world a lot more with many more places to visit than the normal fighter would.

For me a 5 week period would be enough, you can then simulate an aircraft having a week off for maintenance or to "keep it's flying hours down" like in real life.

[Firebird]

Yes of course you are correct, I got it into my head that it was a 4 week period.
It doesn't alter the factor a lot it still equates to 10 round trips a week, 2 a day average.

With having a week off I seem to remember that there was something about the aircraft disappearing if they weren't used for a while, so it might be worth watching to see what happens about that.