MAIW aircraft

Dolphinhog · Post by **Dolphinhog** » 29 Jan 2009, 01:55

Hi, I'm new to MIAW, but already am downloading as quickly as I can all the great aircraft and scenery. However, has anyone come across with F-15/T-38 AI's taking off, but slowly lose altitiude and air speed, basically stalling and crashing. I've seen B-2's from the same airbase take off, no problem. Even aircraft enroute slowly lose alt/As and crash

Anyone???

This was at Mountain Home and Holloman AFB, but it could be other AI's that I have not seen as of yet.

I am not a newbie - being doing this FS stuff for years.

MIKE JG · Post by **MIKE JG** » 29 Jan 2009, 02:01

Running out of gas...........

Seriously though, that's a new one to me. Are you using the AI in FS9 or FSX?

Jumpshot724 · Post by **Jumpshot724** » 29 Jan 2009, 02:25

Never saw that one either. Did you edit anything??

Ford Friendly · Post by **Ford Friendly** » 29 Jan 2009, 02:30

I've seen this semi-recently with a Helenic AF AI package I downloaded.

None of the models/fde's were MAIW ones or "up to current MAIW standards", however. I have no idea why only certain of the models/aircraft seemed to exhbit this behavior - nor have I found a solution other than replacing th emodels completely -- not just redownloading, but replacing entirely with other models.

Sorry that all I can do is confirm I've seen (the) similar behavior.

1st Shirt · Post by **1st Shirt** » 29 Jan 2009, 03:01

I saw this behavior with the F-117's at Holloman; but only with those that took off and did a circuit for TNGs. Some would seem to slow down, stall and crash; others would just slowly lose altitude and auger in.

All of these events occurred as the aircraft got close to the mountains east of the base near Alamogordo. I attributed it to mesh issues and since I removed the F-117 package I never bothered to research it further.

I don't recall seeing any other aircraft at Holloman exhibit this behavior and I've not seen it happen at any other location.

Dolphinhog · Post by **Dolphinhog** » 29 Jan 2009, 03:27

Thanks for the replies. I'm using Fs9, but also saw this happen with a CT155 Hawk (2) take off from CYQR , fly about 5 miles , lose altituide and finally crash. If I did any changes it would have bee to parking radius, but that should not affect actual flying. Other than that, they are installed from either MAIW .exe launching, or using WoAI's installer. I do keep all my traffic files separated (on their own) as opposed to a large .bgl file. Had some serious ntdd.dll crashes, but since then all is well. No crashes on FS9.

????

Post by **BadPvtDan** » 29 Jan 2009, 03:43

That sucks. I have never seen that problem in my sim...not that I can remember anyways. (for those of you who will search and find that I had this very issue two years ago!)

Jumpshot724 · Post by **Jumpshot724** » 29 Jan 2009, 04:38

That sucks. I have never seen that problem in my sim...not that I can remember anyways. (for those of you who will search and find that I had this very issue two years ago!)

Good one!!

Post by **Firebird** » 29 Jan 2009, 08:08

I must admit that I have not heard of this event, but it occurs at two places, so we must have something that is causing it.

I have, on occasion, planes just disappear for no apparent reason and believe that to be due to well overdue times for long flights. However to do this on takeoff is very strange.

If you have a particular flight, i.e. specific time/day in zulu and callsign I will have a closer look at that particular event.

Dolphinhog · Post by **Dolphinhog** » 29 Jan 2009, 20:58

Hi. I did go back to KMUO Mountain Home AFB, and a flight of 4 F-15's from PHNL, and all four disappear. If I return to Thursday, 19:15 GMT pm Jan 29/09 the flight of 4 Bengal F-15 from PHNL to KMUO reappear. But they never arrive??

Post by **Firebird** » 29 Jan 2009, 21:36

OK Lets break this down, the 4 a/c are scheduled to arrive but don't and then they just appear on the pan. Is this right?

If it is then that's a different problem. Without investigating its likely to be a time zone issue that we get quite often on long transits over the midnight period, the further the local airfield is removed GMT the larger the problem.

Interestingly, and spookily, I have just had an example of what you describe whilst working on some other AI stuff.
The circumstances are this. Firstly, its a VFR flight. Secondly, its a local TNG flight. In simple terms bashing the circuit at its base.
It happened as I loaded FS9 and the aircraft taxied and took off, but it was already into its scheduled flight time. It took off at the time that fell in the 3 minute gap that we have between the TNG and return to base leg. The aircraft canceled landing intentions, circuit leg over and went ballastic as the next leg had not started. The aircraft descended slowly in a straight line.

Does this match what you saw for the first problem?

Ford Friendly · Post by **Ford Friendly** » 29 Jan 2009, 23:09

There's another other relatively obvious possibility vis-a-vis the non-arrival/sudden appearance issue - the "37 minute" problem.

It seems that if the @ sign was used in the flightplans.txt file and/or the cruise speed listed in the aircraft.cfg &aircraft.txt files used to calculate the don't match, FSn can screw up the ai flight path/timing calculation. If the calculated arrival time differs from actuality by more than 37 minutes, this sudden appearance on the pan result can occur.

As Firebird said, this can be seen on long transit flights.

The solution here is:
0. DO NOT USE the @ sign in flightplans.txt
1. ensure that the cruise speeds match in the txt and cfg files
2. ensure that a "Straight line flight time calculation" at the cruise speed is reflected in the flightplan - plus/minus 15 minutes. This allows for departure delays and arrival delays (due to atc vectoring).

But that's just one possiblility.

Post by **BadPvtDan** » 30 Jan 2009, 01:26

I don't think we have ever used the @ symbol in our flightplans. At least, I never have.

Ford Friendly · Post by **Ford Friendly** » 30 Jan 2009, 01:36

The @ is a hold over from FS2002 days. Ttools 2.21 handles it well - generally - allowing one to create a plan without doing your own calculation for times. If a fp was created using the @ and then the .txt files aren't included, there's no way to tell that it was used originally AFAIK.

That's the reason I mentioned it.

Post by **BadPvtDan** » 30 Jan 2009, 02:10

Aha. Funny, I always had thought of the @ symbols as some kind of super-neat thing the commercial guys did.

CelticWarrior · Post by **CelticWarrior** » 30 Jan 2009, 09:20

It's quite spooky to watch an AI aircraft suddenly appear at a parking spot. No arrival, approach, taxi ... just pop up at the gate.

This is documented on a couple of forum posts (I think the pai forum, for one) on other sites and is down to the use of the @ symbol in flight plans, or possibly when the original flightplan had the @ and was subsequently removed and re-complied by the user. As FF points out, it's a hangover from FS2K2 and is not at all necessary in FS9, it's use results in this strange behaviour.

Designers often use it to make aircraft match realistic airline timetables, but the penalty is seen as I mention above. I find it easy to see when this is done because the aircraft speed in the aircraft.txt file is almost always set to 200kts in the mistaken belief that the AI aircraft will adjust speed to achieve the arrival time in the flightplans.txt file.

It comes down to what people want to see; aircraft departing on time but possibly not making an arrival, or seeing aircraft depart and subsequently make a full arrival at their destination but accept that the time of the arrival will not be realistic (sic).

I'm under the impression that if the aircraft arrives in the FS AI sector within the time it's expected at the airfield it will continue to make the full arrival, but if the time would put it outside the sector it will just PUOA (pop up on arrival).

Sorry if this rambles on a bit, and I'm happy to be proven wrong by anyone who knows better (which is entirely likely

).

Ford Friendly · Post by **Ford Friendly** » 30 Jan 2009, 10:17

CelticWarrior wrote:Designers often use it to make aircraft match realistic airline timetables, but the penalty is seen as I mention above. I find it easy to see when this is done because the aircraft speed in the aircraft.txt file is almost always set to 200kts in the mistaken belief that the AI aircraft will adjust speed to achieve the arrival time in the flightplans.txt file.

I hadn't thoguht of the "real world timetable" as the reason for the 200 knots speed. Interesting.

I'd attributed it to the max 250 knots speed allowed under 10,000 feet in the US - and somehow this being implemented in AI-ATC relations in FSn.

Anyway, I don't really worry about real world airline schedules, so if I see this happening, I do as I posted above - after checking for availablity and sufficiency of parking spaces, I check the cruise speed in the appropriate files and recompile if necessary.

Onward and upward as they say.

Dolphinhog · Post by **Dolphinhog** » 30 Jan 2009, 16:32

Sorry if the last post by me was confusing referring to the 4 aircraft, but the similarities are losing alt and As, resulting in a crash. I happened upon these 4 a/c as I was looking for a/c displaying the takeoff problem. I did go back to CYMJ, and 3 CT155 took off, and behaved normal. SO???

I'll do some more with tracking/panning, but it appears a tough nut to solve.

THX