Military AI Works

Wow. I so want to have 55, 57, 543 and of course 232 represented on my system. Awesome.

You are making the rest of us look bad! LOL!

Can't wait to put that one in my sim!

Thanks for your kind comments guys.

I really love the creativity that comes through flight simulation. I have designed scenery for over 15 years now but tended to fight shy of complex curvy models. It wasn't until I built half of Duxford, that I took the plunge and built a few static aircraft for the scenery and surprised myself. That led to curiosity to make one of them fly and from then on, it became more and more fun as I learned more. It's a different ball game really, although having Gmax skills really helped of course. I find building scenery a long slog with a lot of repetition over many months, if not a couple of years. Building AI aircraft involves more processes, particularly when designing for both FS9 and FSX. It's more intense over a much shorter project period and therefore gives much more variety. The research is much easier and intertesting too. I really like the change.

Being retired, it's a great way to exercise the brain. I still get "senior moments" though when, with brain not in gear, I can spend and hour or two trying to apply an FSX technique to an FS9 model or vice versa and wondering why it doesn't work! Retirement gives me time to spend on the hobby of course. I always got up early to travel to work and could never get out of the habbit. I find the two hours between 06.00 and 08.00 very productive because it is so quiet and peaceful.

It has always been important to me to build for a "customer", which is why your feedback and encouragement is so valuable. Thank you for that.

John

You will have plenty of satisfied customers around here, John

The 7-LOD models in alternative FSX code are all done.

I have also just finished testing the xml code successfully, that will deploy the refuelling hoses and baskets on the K2 at an altitude of 10,000ft or more so that users can simulate inflight refuelling. What I would like to achieve is a 4- hourly flight plan that will enable the aircraft to depart Marham (EGYM) and fly up the east coast at 12,000ft to say Leuchars (EGQL), do an overshoot or touch and go without actually landing there and return to Marham. I think that is something like the way the MAIW flight plans work out to the ranges and back.

If I can do that, I can then plot the times and positions of the tanker that will help users find it, particularly with the help of a radar gauge on the panel. I don't really want the Victor to land at Leuchars, because for most users, the airfield will be in a modern setting and the Victor will look out of place.

Could anyone in the know possibly let me have a line of flight plan text that will do the job please?

John

I can do that John, just need to know the cruise speed of the model.

Mark

Thank you Mark, that's very kind of you.

I don't make a lot of traffic files and I only really know the basics from my "Traffic Tools" days. I have it in the back of my mind that AI crusing speeds should be limited to 250 knots (did Lee Swordy say that or is it a myth?) and have set the Victor cruise speed accordingly. If you think it can go higher, by all means do that and let me know the value.

John

John Young wrote:Thank you Mark, that's very kind of you.

I don't make a lot of traffic files and I only really know the basics from my "Traffic Tools" days. I have it in the back of my mind that AI crusing speeds should be limited to 250 knots (did Lee Swordy say that or is it a myth?) and have set the Victor cruise speed accordingly. If you think it can go higher, by all means do that and let me know the value.

John

Hey John,

You only need to use that method with fixed arrival FP ie when using the @ sign in the FP. We do not use that method at MAIW, we use the cruise speed set in the FDE. So if that's what's in the cfg that's what I will use.

I got a busy couple of days and RIAT on Saturday, so I can get done on Sunday.

Mark

One other thing to consider is that your AI tanker will be flying at its cruise speed this whole time. Speaking from experience this makes it very dificult to keep up with the model and even more difficult to catch the model from behind.

The options are to limit the flight plan to 10,000 ft. or to slow rhe model's cruise speed down via FDE modification.

The "@" sign and 250 KTAS cruise speed limit are apparently remnants from FS8 and the former should not be used with FS9 and the latter is not a limit in FS9. I have routinely created AI FDE's with cruise speeds of 500 to 600 KTAS and they work fine in FS9 at altitudes above FL100, since FS9 limits the cruise speed below FL100 to 250 KIAS.

Mike M.

Understood, thank you.

The Victor's cruise speed was 500 knots apparently. My FDE has it set at 250knots. If the user is intercepting with say a Lightning and knows where the tanker is going to be at a given time, I was hoping that the lower cruise speed would enable the pursuer to catch up and maintain station. Does that sound workable? I can test that of course when I have a flight plan.

John

That should work just fine. You might watch the model in game to verify it's actual true air speed. Mike M. knows better than I about the difference between set cruise speed and the actual TAS that the model achieves.

Thanks Mike. When I have the flight plan from Marham to Leuchars and back I was intending to follow the tanker all the way, noting down position, heading, speed and altitude every 5 minutes or so. From that I would try a practice interception from, say, Binbrook and see if it works. If it does I was thinking of producing a chart of the route to include in the pack. New territory for me because I rarely fly but it should be an interesting challenge!

John

Well that worked very well.

I set up a simple flight plan for the Victor from Marham to Leuchars. The first test was to depart Marham with it and to follow it to see if the hoses deployed at 10,000ft and to see how the aircraft behaved generally. All went well (excuse the panel, it's one I threw together a while ago with some useful gauges for messing around with).

The second test was to try and intercept the Victor with me flying a Phantom from Coningsby. I found the Victor quite easily with the radar (the one visible contact obviously made that easier) and it was exactly at 12,000ft crusing at 250 knots, as per the flight plan and FDE:



The second test worked just as well, this time intercepting from Binbrook:



I think I can run with that. The 250 Knot Victor cruise speed allows a good margin for catching up. When I have Mark's flight plan, I'll do another exercise to capture the position data along the route and make a chart to help users find the target at various points up and down the east coast.

John

Looks good!

John
If you want it tanking over the North Sea just send it to a waypoint instead of Leuchars

EGY0 is way up towards Iceland
Or EGZ5 East of Shetland

I will Zip and send
Gary

Thanks for the zip Gary, EGZ5 will give plenty of refuelling opportunities from Marham and is a much better arrangement. Mark has kindly offered to do the flight plan.

John

If you want, I could make up some waypoints to represent the standard refuelling areas in the UK. These areas are quite large, so I could either put a waypoint at each end of the AARA or just one in the middle. How does that sound?

John another thing to consider, and probably something I'll do with the KC-135, is to make the model multi-player and FSRecorder friendly. That means stripping all the preflight banners, etc. and all the stuff that needs a light to trigger them and compiling it as a separate model for that purpose only.

The MP community loves the models but hates the fact that the wheel chocks, banners, etc show up on the model in game while it's being flown. Same goes for using the model with the Recorder module.

With that module, you can record actual refueling tracks and then load them up and play them any time you want. It's a pretty neat little proggy and one that I've used for this exact purpose in the past. In fact, I set one up northeast of the Nellis ranges a while back, and now I can't remember where to find that tanker track at!

As long as the refueling animations are triggered off of inflight variables, everything still works like it should.

To add realism I can remember that normally AAR would take place between FL220-240 in most ARA's. I think there was one exception and that was the Staxton Wold controlled one, which if I remember correctly was normally FL080, I think.

I should say that this was the case for the Phantom days.

It is amazing what you retain in your head!