Question regarding airports without AFCADS

[Bosshogg]

I noticed some flightplan packages that contain fictitious aiports, such as warning areas, MOAs, etc, but do not contain AFCADS for those airports. How does an AI aircraft behave in that case?

[Greg]

It depends actually. Normally the AI aircraft will disappear when approaching the waypoint, but only if the AI aircraft is less than 150NM away from the user aircraft. This is the so-called "AI Visual Zone". When you are following the AI aircraft all the way to the waypoint for example, the AI aircraft will always be within the AI Visual Zone and it will disappear and never come back.

If the waypoint is outside the AI Visual Zone, the AI aircraft will disappear at the boundary of that zone and reappear when it crosses the boundary again on the way to the next point.

I hope this makes sense.

[Bosshogg]

Thanks for replying. So if I am parked or orbiting in an aircraft at one of these points using lat/long, I will never see the AI aircraft approach? Or will an AI aircraft perform a TNG/LA as it does at AFCAD airports?

[kungfuman]

afaik you won't see anything if you are at the wpt location - provided there is no afcad for it.

HTH

[Greg]

Mr. Fuman is correct. If you're sitting on the waypoint and there's no AFD, the AI aircraft will disappear in mid-air when it is supposed to commence the approach.

[Bosshogg]

So what's the point of creating these waypoints without AFCADS? Is it just to have a location for AI to fly to between airports?

[kungfuman]

Well, that's certainly what I see them as.

For instance, I once wrote some flightplans for a fleet of Nimrod maritime patrol aircraft which leave the UK (and some European) airfields and head straight out to sea. But as there are no airfields to send them to for the purpose of the flightplan, I had to use fictional wpts in the "airfield.txt" TTools file.

If I had any intention of following them out to sea, I would have created some afcads to go with these fictional wpts - so I could get them to circle the wpt a few times (using the touch'n'go function) before heading off to another wpt or back to shore. However, I was only interested in what the plans looked like from the mainland, as exploring the oceans in FS doesn't float my boat. And if I'm transiting the ocean, I do occasionally see them patrolling, as they only disappear when approaching one of these wpts (afaik) - most of the time they are enroute, so they appear fine in FS.

[Bosshogg]

OK, thanks for the help. I was concerned that AI would not fly the leg including the waypoint w/o AFCAD.

[mikewmac]

OK, thanks for the help. I was concerned that AI would not fly the leg including the waypoint w/o AFCAD.

I call waypoints without AFCAD's virtual waypoints and use them all the time for creating AI formation flights over various airports and/or landmarks. For example all the arrivals, flybys and departures that I created for the MAIW Airshow used virtual waypoints.

I also use virtual waypoints for multi-leg FP's. For example I recently created an FP where an AI departs an actual airport, flies to a virtual waypoint ~100 miles directly south of a landmark, flies from this southern virtual waypoint over the landmark to a virtual waypoint about 100 miles directly north of the landmark, flies from the northern virtual waypoint back over the landmark to the southern virtual waypoint and finally flies from the southern virtual waypoint back to the actual airport of origin. The AI is visible during each leg of the flight, but disappears as it approaches the two virtual waypoints before reappearing for the next leg of the flight.

The advantage of virtual waypoints is that with appropriate virtual waypoints and FP's, AI will always complete the flight with any elevation that one uses for them and even with weekly FP's. The disadvantage is that one cannot use Traffic View Board (TVB) to follow the flights from start to finish.

Mike