F-35 Variants (FS9, FSX and P3Dv4)

[petebramley]

I have just installed the afterburner for the F35 and the effect itself looks great. Just one small problem !

Whilst watching the AI for the first time at Eglin in P3Dv4 the afterburner started whilst the aircraft was still trying to position itself on the runway and stopped before the a/c had even taken off. I think the problem lies with the aircraft model itself as it appears to struggle to keep to the taxiway. I also get the same problem with the Pavehawks which I have installed into P3Dv4. I installed the FS9 version into my old PC and that model does not have any problems turning on the taxiways.

Is there something I can tweak to solve my problem, and does anybody else have the same problem ?

Regards

[Firebird]

Struggles in what sense, Pete?

[petebramley]

At every turn in a taxiway it leaves the centreline and shoots off towards the edge of the taxiway or even beyond the margins of the taxiway. if the turn is 90 degrees or greater then its even worse with an abrupt slowdown whilst it regains the taxiway centreline. On entering the runway which is usually a 90 degree turn onto the runway centreline, the turn takes the A/C way offline and then overcorrects to get back on-line creating an almost zig-zag run up the runway until it finally gets settled on the runway centreline then stops before commencing the takeoff run. The greater the acuteness of the change in angle of the taxiway the more pronounced the weaving is. Have just set up a test on my Bruntingthorpe test airport and am trialling all the JYAI models that have been released in FSX/P3D native models. So far the Avanti P-180 and the Kingairs showing the same problems on my system.

Currently on P3Dv4.2 without any taxispeed amendments.

Pete

[Firebird]

Well unfortunately I can't look into it personally, as I decided that I am not going down the P3D route until 75% of the aircraft are converted/available.
However, I do have a question that may well impact that behaviour and one thing that you can try.

Firstly the question. What speeds are the aircraft doing on the taxiway, and if you have the TrafficToolBox installed can you tell me the throttle % used whilst taxying, using the Map display?

Secondly, the test you can perform yourself - in your aircraft.cfg find your point.0 parm in your [contact_points] section.
The 8th parm in that line is 75.00, try two tests. Firstly alter it to 90.00 and test, the taxi. Secondly try altering to 45.00 and re-test.
Can you tell me what the results were in comparison to the 75.00 parm results.

[John Young]

The turns are a little bit off in my P3Dv4 Pete, but nothing like what you are reporting:



It might be due to the construction of the AFCAD. The junctions are all at right angles with no arcs and more points to smooth the way.

The other thing you can try is to move the main wheels closer together in the aircraft.cfg file to create a smaller turning circle, or you can move the nose wheel back a tad.

John

[petebramley]

Ok will give that a try

[mikewmac]

Guys,

Pete's experience is also inconsistent with my experience in P3D v4.1 as I have not seen any significant deviation from the taxiway center lines by the JYAI F-35C's in any of my 100's of afterburner tests performed primarily at Burlington IAP, but also at Eglin AFB. The only time the delay timing for the afterburner lighting caused premature afterburner lighting was when a JYAI F-35C was instructed to take the runway and hold in place, but that was just an issue with my overly aggressive AI flight plan timing and spacing.

However, there are probably some airbases and/or aircraft carriers with longer and/or shorter distances from the hold short lines to the runway start point where an AI stops before starting its takeoff roll whereby the constant afterburner delay timing may cause an early or late afterburner lighting.

I just ran quick tests at both John's Eglin AFB and Carrier_JY1_Gulf_of_Mexico. The JYAI F-35C's followed the taxiway center lines as smoothly as can be normally expected at Eglin AFB all the way to takeoff on either runway 12 or 30. They even made a nice smooth 135 degree turn when exiting their shelters. The only thing I did notice was that the afterburners normally didn't light until shortly after the takeoff rolls started, but due to the flight plans one JYAI F-35C had to hold and wait on the runway which caused a premature lighting of its afterburner.

On the Carrier_JY1_Gulf_of_Mexico there of course are no taxiway center lines, but all the taxi turns were smooth and no erratic behavior was observed. However, I did observe that the afterburner did light before the JYAI F-35C came to a complete stop prior to beginning its takeoff roll. In my experience this is not unusual on aircraft carriers and normally requires the delay timing for the afterburner lighting to be tuned to the particular carrier.

I am at a loss as to why Pete's experience at Eglin AFB would be so different.

[gsnde]

P3dv4. 2 might be a factor maybe?

From mobile hence short

[mikewmac]

P3dv4. 2 might be a factor maybe?

From mobile hence short

Good point Martin. I haven't and won't be upgrading to a higher version than P3D v4.1 in order to avoid any more AI problems than I already have had to deal with.

[gsnde]

Then we are doing the same thing, Mike...

From mobile hence short

[petebramley]

It might then be something to do with my system then, although I had the same problem with v4.1. One question do either of you have the same sort of problems described above with the converted OSP ATR's

After much fiddling with parameters I have now got the F53C(Land) to taxi much better. will post my amended contact points after a bit more fiddling if John is happy.

Regards

[John Young]

PM me the revised contact points first Pete so I can check that they have no adverse effect on F-35's that are actually behaving themselves.

[petebramley]

Will do John

[mikewmac]

It might then be something to do with my system then, although I had the same problem with v4.1. One question do either of you have the same sort of problems described above with the converted OSP ATR's

After much fiddling with parameters I have now got the F53C(Land) to taxi much better. will post my amended contact points after a bit more fiddling if John is happy.

Regards

Pete,

I haven't had any problems other than with the P3D v4.1 dynamic scaling of light, afterburner and smoke effects with any converted AI that I am using so far, but I'm not familiar with the converted OSP ATR's and therefore haven't tried them.

The fact you have to adjust the contact points for John's JYAI F-35C to have it taxi normally is very puzzling to me.

[Foxbat]

I think some of the departures from taxi line has to do with many old AI aircraft still have the FS9 radius/bounding box. You can see this in AI Aircraft Editor or McX. After conversion, I think the bounding box has to be reduced. For example I have my updated TFS Dashes (the new ones with LUA script), taxiing through terminals here and there.

[John Young]

Andrew, my F-15C is not an old AI aircraft and it's not a converted FS9 one. It's compiled directly from Gmax in FSX native code. It has no radius value in AI Aircraft Editor.

Pete, I've tried your suggested contact values but they make no difference in my set up, the aircraft still follow the lines as in my screen shots.

I'm reluctant to see a fix published at this stage for something that isn't broken. Let's see if anyone else has a problem.

John

[Foxbat]

John, agreed regarding new "pure P3D" models. For older models (where some had to get reduced bounding boxes), known solutions is to put more nodes in the afcad turns, and for me at ENBO, give up the heading of the Dashes when parked, and align them to the taxiline. It is truly a battle to make the stone-age afcad stuff to work properly.

PS: Tested 5149 chute landing at ENOL, massively impressed

[Woogey]

I would just like to add that I do not have any of those problems in P3d4.1 or 4.2. The one issue I have with all Ai in P3d, is traffic will weave and Bob through parking, and sometimes even drive through a park aircraft. However I do believe this is a Scenery AFCAD issue. It baffles me though as to the logic, it would seem to me that an airplane should drive in a straight line down the taxiway, that is designated as such with blue transit lines in ADE X, And not through the parking lanes, that are designated as such with green path markers. Is there a article that would further educate me on the intricacies of Ai logic in our Sims?

-Woog

[John Young]

Glad you like the chute Andrew. I was hoping it would be the Norwegian flag design that we saw in the artist's impressions, but the plain colour looks OK.

I think you are right about the AFCAD nodes, as I mentioned in my reply to Pete. Eglin could do with a lot more of them, but I'm not going to get side-tracked into doing that, particularly when I have a couple of hundred anti-pushback nodes to add to the AFCAD for FSX/P3D. I'm just getting the 25 F-35A's there up and running at the moment, having finished the paints this morning.

John

[petebramley]

John I agree that this seems to be a problem with my system and not seen by any other users. It would be pointless to publish my amended contact point values if nobody else is suffering. My thanks to Steve and John for pointing me to the correct areas to make amendments on my system. I have also managed to get the OSP models to behave nicely instead of diving into terminals.

If anybody else does have the problems I have had I would like to hear about it so I can narrow down the cause.

Regards
Pete