Forum,
I've created some AI flight plans (and AFCADs) for UH-60, CH-47, OH-58D, C-23, & C-130 traffic at Gray Army Airfield (KGRF) at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, WA. Unfortunately, none of the helicopter traffic will appear, only the C-23 and C-130 fixed-wing. I have taken the following steps to try and fix the issue:

1) Verified the Aircraft file is correct, based on the aircraft name.

2) Ensured there is at least one helipad located at each airport the helicopters fly to.

3) Configured AFCAD to ensure appropriate parking for aircraft.

4) Ensured AI Traffic level within FS is set above minimum required for the helicopters to appear.

I'd appreciate any assistance that you can lend. If there is someone that is interested in completing a package that is worthy of publishing, I will gladly donate my flightplan and AFCAD files, as they are based on three Aviation Battalions currently based at the Airfield.

Thanks for your help.

Madjack59

Have you changed the air file for the helos to an aeroplane-based version? Helo files don't work natively as AI.

#2 doesn't matter, the AI will not land at a helipad unless you are using an external heli traffic payware program.

Are there any .air FDEs that you recommend? Please send links.

Also, if you know the specific variable that needs to be changed, please pass it along. Thanks.

There are a heap of FDEs done by Holger Sandmann and myself several years ago. Grab them from the Hovercontrol downloads section. They all fly like aeroplanes, though. The proper AI helos developed by the guys here are different and behave as they should.

As Rob says start with those to get things working, and gain experience, before trying to look to make improvements.
As a consequence of the helos having aircraft flying characteristics that will taxi take off and land as aircraft. This means that they will also require an aircraft parking spot for each one, and connections for each spot to the taxiway system.

Finally, it will probably become a complete pain to try and integrate a helo traffic system with a standard aircraft traffic system. So it may necessitate you building a completely separate afcad with a different ICAO but at the same place.

It is not as easy as you first thought. I would suggest downloading a helo package of ours, the 1-130th Attack Helicopter Battalion from Raleigh-Durham perhaps, to see what we mean.

I figured from the start that this would be difficult. Of course, the FDE that I downloaded only works in 32-bit, whereas I'm running Win7 64bit!

I do have the 1-130th package, and I was going to use the aircraft from that (and other) packages to replace the non-plane-like helicopters in my project - only problem is that I can only find CH-47s. I will also need OH-58D and UH-60s. I checked out Hovercontrol and downloaded a few helicopters, but I am unable (and somewhat unsure) how to verify that they have plane-like flight dynamics.

I have already built the AFCADs to provide parking for the helicopters and planes that I've created flight plans for.

Thanks for your assistance.

There are no AI models for the Kiowa or Blackhawk. To my knowledge, an FDE will work 64 bit or not. I have a 64 system.

From where did you get your FDE? Please provide link. Thanks.

See Rob's post above. I actually don't use any non-AI aircraft in my setup anymore.

BadPvtDan wrote:There are no AI models for the Kiowa or Blackhawk. To my knowledge, an FDE will work 64 bit or not. I have a 64 system.

Danny,

You are correct about AI FDE's working on both 32 and 64 bit OS's. All of my AI FDE's, fixed or rotary wing, work equally well on my laptop with a Windows 7 64 bit OS as they do on my desktop with a Windows XP 32 bit OS.

Mike

Madjack,
No freeware AI H-60's, but you can find a few on HC download section based off J. Moore's flyable models, search for Bell209's versions. There is also a flyable 58D, low ploy enough for limited AI or just use the stock B206 or O Hewitt's better model, several Army repaints out and they are good enough for AI, I have them all over Ft. Rucker, AL in my sim.

Payware grab the Just Flight military pack which includes an out of scale H-60.

Also, look into the both the NCANG and Ft. Bragg packages and set up AI Helo only AFCADs (500' runways) if you haven't already done so, to separate your fixed and rotary wing traffic. Some packages already have this, like Nellis AFB, as I'm about to add some Pavehawks to the Jolly pads.

I downloaded the Owl's Nest AI-Aircraft Editor v1.5.1 and changed my UH-60, CH-47 and OH-58D helicopters to "Normal" and clicked the update button. I restarted FS9 and tried to go to Gray AAF (KGRF) and FS9 threw a fatal error when loading traffic at 82%. I then tried setting the helicopters to "AI" and updated the files, restarting FS9 and tried to open a flight at KGRF, with the same fatal error at 82%.

Is this something that is aircraft-related, whereas FS9 can't read those particular aircraft, or is it something to do with the AFCAD (which is modified to support parking for the number of helicopters programmed)? I looked at the 1-130th Package at 1RDU, and noticed that it was a special airport "attached" to KRDU, but I didn't see anything different in terms of AFCAD creation, just that it was a "seperate" airport. Another thought, that has not been attempted, is to re-compile the traffic.bgl file now that I have changed each helicopter's .air file.

Any thoughts/suggestions?

Firstly, you can rule one thing out. You do not need to re-compile because you change anything in an aircraft.cfg, with one massive exception. The only thing that a traffic bgl looks for from an aircraft.cfg is the title. If you look at the Aircraft_*.txt file of the the 3 components that make up the bgl you will see that it includes the title and nothing else. If the title matches one that exists in your Aircraft folder then it will try to load the aircraft, if not then it will simply skip it. No abends or crashes.

Now, whilst I would not rule out the traffic file causing the crash I would be surprised at this. I can't recall this happening before. The only thing that might happen is that you have duplicate aircraft titles and the system is confused.

Setting the aircraft to either aircraft or AI using Martin's tool is acceptable. the only difference is that AI aircraft do not show up in the aircraft menu and the less it has to load the quicker it is.

On the 1RDU afcad you are entirely correct. That is what I mentioned earlier about needing a separate afcad just for helo traffic at KRDU. This way you can have the AI helos take off and land on a strip of grass or a taxiway separate from the rest of KRDU traffic. No apache's mixing in with B737's. Of course the helo's have to have their flightplans set to use 1RDU and not KRDU.

Have you tried loading the game w/o the traffic file? Then load it w/o the afcad.
This will narrow done the offending item.

If need be I can take a look at your mods to see if i get the same on my system. It would mean packaging up the aircraft folders, traffic text files and afcad and sending it to me. PM me if you want to do this.

Thank you for the response. Unfortunately, I have tried the following methods, without success:

1) Removed the traffic file for KGRF, and no errors were found during reboot & reload of KGRF.
2) Verified the aircraft name was properly utilized in the aircraft traffic file.
3) Created a new airport (1GRF) with a grass runway and ample parking for specific helicopter types. I ensured that parking/runway from KGRF and 1GRF AFCADs did not overlap (although some taxiways do overlap)

I've tried to begin my flight at both KGRF and 1GRF; sometimes they load, sometimes it errors out at 82% (Loading Traffic...). It is hit-or-miss on whether it will actually load. If either airport does load, there is no helicopter traffic, only fixed-wing.

I'd greatly appreciate if you could take a look at my configs/afcads/etc. Please let me know how you want them sent.

Thanks!

pm sent.