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Need static aircraft for air base scenery

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crushnik
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Need static aircraft for air base scenery

Post by crushnik »

I have scoured the internet to learn how to place static F-18s at Naval air stations out west for a video series I am recording on Prepar3d (v5.2) and haven't made any progress. Someone at FSDeveloper pointed me here, and I'm trying to make sense out of what you have on this site. I don't necessarily need aircraft flying around, or even for the aircraft to look like the ones that are typically stationed at the particular field. Honestly, just a halfway decent F-18 I can park here and there with Airport Design Editor would be just fine for me, but I'm left with completely empty aprons since Lockheed stripped their scenery library objects of anything related to Boeing.

Does anyone here have an idea what I could do?

Thanks,
Chris
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Re: Need static aircraft for air base scenery

Post by Firebird »

There are two ways to achieve what you want.
One you already know about, placing a static mdl in various places. The second is to utilise normal AI. What you do is use a normal AI designed afcad and then create a flightplan for each aircraft for 10 mins past midnight LOCAL for a 15 min flight to the same place. Have the plan as a daily plan.

What this will do is have static aircraft all day at the location. The fact that you may have 60+aircraft all depart each at the same time for a circuit is not an issue as you won't be viewing the base at that time when you are in game.

The advantage that this method uses is that you can get multiple individual aircraft with different loads rather than the same model with the same schemes multiple times. The individual flightplan is so simple that it is easy to create it and copy multiple times and is applicable for any base that you care to use this on.

Have you tried this method?
Steve
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crushnik
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Re: Need static aircraft for air base scenery

Post by crushnik »

That's very interesting. Is there a way I could take files or data from this site and translate it into a format that P3Dv5.2 could use? If I'm just using it for a video at say China Lake NAWS then I imagine the workload wouldn't be too terrible. Also, would my military flightplans work together with the Alpha India airline traffic I currently run?

This seems like such a neat setup you have on this site. Thank you for responding - I've been stumped on this for months.
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Re: Need static aircraft for air base scenery

Post by crushnik »

Now that I know AI flightplans are a thing, I'm excited for the possibility of programming routes and if that is something doable, I could have fighters flying through "Star Wars Canyon" near China Lake that I would have to look out for or fly behind. I guess one of the biggest obstacles would be finding aircraft. But man, having aircraft on the ramps that could theoretically be conducting operations while I am shooting would look good on a video!

Thanks Steve!
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Re: Need static aircraft for air base scenery

Post by Firebird »

Lets see if we can answer some of this.
Firstly any flightplans that are compiled from Ttools format text files into bgl format and are kept, normally, in the Scenery\World\Scenery folder can be mixed and matched. It does not matter the source, so MAIW and AIG files will happily co-exist along with any that you create/compile or any others you come across.

A few guys here have been working for over 18 months now on the Matrix project that is converting FS9 aircraft. scenery and traffic for use in P3D. A lot of stuff has been done on this.
Now the project was for P£Dv4 but to be honest I can't see a reason why it won't work for v5. To give you an idea I just downloaded the North America package and it unpacked where I set it up to do. Now taking into account that I don't actually have P3D shows that you can download the structure and if need be copy files across to whether you want them as the Matrix addons are all controlled via an xml file.

Somebody who knows the difference between v4 and v5 can tell you what if anything you need to do.

Now it goes without saying that somebody who actually has P3D installed will be able to tell you what is available for each base you may want to have traffic at. In the case of China Lake if the worst comes to the worst you can simply download our China Lake FS9 package and convert the schemes from bmp to dds and the plans into FSX format yourself, if no else has done it. I think that you will find that most if not all models have been converted by now.

Does this help?
Steve
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crushnik
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Re: Need static aircraft for air base scenery

Post by crushnik »

You've certainly cleared a lot of things up for me! Now to see if I can make this happen.

Thanks again Steve!
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Re: Need static aircraft for air base scenery

Post by crushnik »

I flew around China Lake and didn't see anyone parked. But I did browse the local aircraft views and saw F-18s, 16s, B-2s, and a U-2. Interesting, and the installation was pretty easy. So far all I had to do was move the Matrix add-on folder from P3Dv4 Add-Ons to v5 Add-Ons and restart the sim.
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Re: Need static aircraft for air base scenery

Post by Firebird »

Sounds like you are on the right track.
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bvanhout
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Re: Need static aircraft for air base scenery

Post by bvanhout »

If you want just static aircraft there is/was a programme called SAMM which can take an aircraft and make a static model (scenery) of it. You could use this to place the default F18 aircraft in P3D as static aircraft.
I am not sure of it's compatibility with P3Dv5.
http://stuff4fs.com/newpage.asp?folder=SAMM
crushnik
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Re: Need static aircraft for air base scenery

Post by crushnik »

I have SAMM bookmarked just in case, thanks!

But after coming across all those different aircraft (I think I discovered Air Force Two yesterday), sometimes with "remove before flight" flags and engine covers on the apron I can't turn back to lame static aircraft.

What I would love to do is have enough time to go through the forums to find out how to add specific MAIW aircraft to my airports. Like I created the Marine Corps Mountain Warfare Center (Bridgeport) and it badly needs a CH-53 on the pad. If someone was interested in helping point me in the right direction I would greatly appreciate it!

That, and how to assign particular parking spaces to MAIW aircraft. For example, the C-130s at Reno, Nev. are parked at the gates instead of the military ramp.

Chris
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Re: Need static aircraft for air base scenery

Post by Firebird »

For specific aircraft to be parked at a specific spot. Two things need to be in sync. The first thing is in the fltsim entry of each aircraft entry. The two fields of interest here are atc_parking_types and atc_parking_codes.

The main one is atc_parking_codes. This you can use to set up to about four 4 character parms. The general idea here is to set the unit followed by the type. So for example, in my cfg for the Westland Wildcat I have got the aircraft for 847 NAS set to 847N and WILD.
So now I turn to the afcad file for their home base, Yeovilton, and find where they park and ensure that the parking spots have the codes 847N and WILD set. Now as long as the spot size can take the aircraft then the aircraft will park there.

On busy airfields/airports sometimes spots get used for other aircraft if there are no specific codes for those aircraft in which case the aircraft get parked according to the spot size and atc_parking_types code(s). The game will always park aircraft in the smallest spot that the aircraft will fit in, if there is no specific code.

So using the Reno specific I use 192A and C130 for the 192nd AS Herks.

How do you amend the afcads? For that you need a tool that can amend those files. ADE, Airport Design Editor, is freeware and can do so much more than this task but it will do for what you need.

So in essence set your aircraft codes, find the parking spot size of the aircraft model and ensure that you set the parking spots you want the aircraft to use correctly.
Steve
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crushnik
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Re: Need static aircraft for air base scenery

Post by crushnik »

This is so exciting... I can't wait to get off of work and try it out. As a bonus, it looks like I don't have to spend hours - if not days - learning learn an entirely new program (which is often the case with scenery design).

Thank you Steve!
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Re: Need static aircraft for air base scenery

Post by crushnik »

It worked! When I opened ADE I saw that I had stripped out all of China Lake's parking spots so all I had to do was add some combat and cargo military parking spots and there is Naval aircraft galore!
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Re: Need static aircraft for air base scenery

Post by Firebird »

Glad to have helped.
Steve
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