AFCAD - one runway for takeoff another one for landing only

[hawk_sh]

I have a question to the AFCAD gurus out there:

Is it possible in FS9 to have one AFCAD file with two separate runways and use one runway for takeoffs and the other one for landings exclusively?

What I am trying to achieve is to let the AI takeoff on the land based catapult track and land on the runway 32?

The "catapult" runway is closed for landings.
RWY32 is closed for takeoffs but open for landings.
Because of the heading difference between the "catapult" runway (heading 306,0°) and RWY32 (heading 326,8°) I have applied the "crosswind runway technique" and inserted two completely closed runways in between with headings 313.8° and 320.6°.

I have managed to let the AI take off on the "catapult" runway.

However it will also always land on the "catapult" runway but not on RWY32.

Any ideas how I can force the AI to land on RWY32?

[JohnTenn]

Hartwig

Using the edit object function for each runway.

There is a tab for pattern.

In the menu options you can choose yes or no for take-off or landing. Primary and secondary refer to the runway ends.

John

[hawk_sh]

Hartwig

Using the edit object function for each runway.

There is a tab for pattern.

In the menu options you can choose yes or no for take-off or landing. Primary and secondary refer to the runway ends.

John

Thanks, but as written in my opening post this is what I already tried.

The "catapult" runway is closed for landings.
RWY32 is closed for takeoffs but open for landings.

But it does not work. AI will land on the closed runway anyway.

[swp53]

Check for another afcad for the same location

[Fokket50]

Did you use VFR or IFR flightplans for the AI? With VFR, they stay with the take off runway for landing. With IFR they should switch to the designated landing runway.

[Firebird]

I must admit that I am curious about this solution.
I remember that we tried, unsuccessfully, to get the twin 10/19 runways at NAS Meridian to work that way but no matter we did they took off and landed on the same runway.

Is it a fact that VFR aircraft ignore the 'closed for landing' parm if they took off from there?

I can remember that we had a mix of IFR and VFR flights there but we never twigged that only the VFR ones were wrong.

[bismarck]

Hartwig, where are located the dummy runways?
If I'm not wrong, it seems that the dummy runways must be far away from the location of the airport to avoid confusion to the AI.
I'm quite sure to have read this here around, but I'm not sure this is the reason...

Giorgio

[hawk_sh]

Thanks for the input so far regarding the flightplans (VFR vs. IFR) and the location of the dummy runways.

I will do a few test when I will get home in the evening. I will report back the results here.

[mikewmac]

Hartwig,

I think the simplest way to go would be to create a separate invisible overlay AFCAD named AXXX with an invisible runway on your visible KXXX catapult runway with its own invisible AI parking, taxiways, etc. Then flight plan the AI to takeoff from AXXX and land at KXXX.

I've done this at many FS9 airports for AI helicopters where they can takeoff on an invisible AI helicopter runway on a visible runway, parking ramp or taxiway and either land back on this AI helicopter runway or on the main visible runway dependent on their flightplan.

[hawk_sh]

Ok gents, I spent the last three hours trying to make the AI land on the runway after taking off from the catapult.

So far without any success. The AI keeps landing on the catapult track

I tried the following:

- IFR vs. VFR flightplans --> does not make any difference

- location of dummy runways --> moved the dummy runways to the north pole as described in the crosswind runway tutorial

- played with the sorting order of the runways back and forth

- runway length
When I make the desired runway for landing longer than the takeoff runway (catapult track)
then the AI will use the landing runway for takeoff even when this is closed for takeoff.

- strong wind in weather settings to force the AI to the desired runway

- switched from AFCAD 2.21 to ADE and added an ILS approach to the airport


Mike, your idea of these two separate AFCAD files, one for takeoff on the catapult and the other one for landing on the runway was my backup plan that I will probably follow now.

The Patuxent River scenery already consists of seven or eight additional "invisible" AFCADs above the main AFCAD file with the airport layout.I already use this to have helicopters and civilian traffic operate from different parts of the airport.

However the downside of this method is that I can only make a single cat launch and field arrested landing per day.
The return leg in the flightplan would be in the middle of the night so nobody would notice the AI landing on the wrong runway.

Or I could use multiple instances of the same aircraft, have them take off at different times during the day and let them all return during the night.
This way however I would need to hide the surplus aircraft somewhere in a hangar so that only one would be visible to the user at any time.

[mikewmac]

Hartwig,

I didn't realize that your objective for each AI was to have multiple land based cat launches and traps back on the main runway during a relatively short period of time. Sorry about that.

I ran into the same problem around 10 years ago when I was trying to simulate carrier flight operations on static FS9 carriers. To make a long story short, I had to go with different invisible overlay AFCAD's for the catapult runway, parking, etc and for the trap runway, parking, etc., where each of the individual parking spots in one AFCAD were located identically to its counterpart in the other AFCAD.

By flight planning the AI to fly morning, afternoon and evening sorties over a 24 hour period with a large time difference between the 3 time periods, I was able to get 3 sorties for each AI per day. Of course this made every day's carrier flight operations identical, but at least there were realistic simulated flight operations for the 3 separate periods of carrier flight operations per day.

I then saved flights for each of the 3 carrier flight operations time periods and always loaded a different one when I wanted to change from one to another, so I never ran into a situation where the AI were still parked on the trap AFCAD parking spots when their next takeoff from the cat runway AFCAD were due.

I hope this makes sense and is of some help.

Good luck.

[hawk_sh]

Mike, thank you for your explanations.

Now that you write about this I remember that the Charles de Gaulle carrier traffic in the MAIW Rafale package is done that way.

So I will also do it that way and use separate AFCADs for takeoff and landing.

[mikewmac]

Mike, thank you for your explanations.

Now that you write about this I remember that the Charles de Gaulle carrier traffic in the MAIW Rafale package is done that way.

So I will also do it that way and use separate AFCADs for takeoff and landing.

You're welcome Hartwig and yes, that is the way I did the CDG and all my other static carriers in FS9. I found that to be the easiest and simplest way to go and it worked quite well even when I expanded to more than one active catapult.

Good luck with your prject and have a Merry Christmas.

[hawk_sh]

Thank you and Merry Christmas!