Using AI Waypoints Question

[col1948]

I remember a good few years ago I got good at this, I have had a few goes trying them out again and not having much luck, I wish I could remember what I used to do.

I downloaded an aircraft not long ago and there was a TNG flight plan included using a way point, it did have an invisible airport just the long-lat entry and it works great.
I seem to remember that you have to have them at a certain height as well for them to work, can anyone enlighten me please?

I have some way points on a disk I saved from ages ago, I think they were done by the lads on here if my memory serves me right, I installed them and tried a flight plan using them but what I got was the AI flying to it and then flying in endless loops or flying off to nowhere and not returning.

Also should they be IFR or VFR?

[Firebird]

The waypoint airfield should be no more than 1800' above the arrival airfield, if I remember correctly, otherwise when it approaches it's destination it will disappear. It is always best to use a sea level waypoint if you can.

The flights must be IFR. If they are VFR the aircraft will land with obvious potential consequences. An IFR TNG will always overshoot.

If you are using a simple flightplan you program it to fly to the waypoint and it will continually fly approaches there until the arrival time. Then you must have a second leg that flys to it's final destination.
HOWEVER, you must have the start time of the second leg greater than one minute and less than 5 minutes after the end of the TNG leg. We use 3 minutes as a standard to allow for compiling time adjustments.
If you do not have the second leg as described then you will get the effects that you saw.

Hope this helps.

[Joecoastie]

Can the second leg be another waypoint ? Then on to final destination ?

[bismarck]

Can the second leg be another waypoint ? Then on to final destination ?

Yes, it's possible. Have a look here:
http://www.militaryaiworks.com/forums/75/16047#p166993

Giorgio

[Firebird]

For most consistent results it was considered better to only use one waypoint before a destination. If you use more then you may have to do quite a bit of testing, i.e. following the aircraft, to see if you get any adverse responses.

When we were doing full packages the testing part was invariably a painstaking and time consuming part of the process and most people probably won't have the patience to do this part.

The other thing is that most people will only see the aircraft depart or arrive at base or happen to come into contact with something whilst flying something else. How many real life missions are there where you would you go to more than one waypoint? I can think of them but there are not that many and how many people will follow a whole mission from start to finish to watch all the steps?

Sometimes it is better to keep things simple when you can, especially when you are starting out producing flightplans. Once you get more experience with them and the pitfalls that can happen then feel free to make them as complicated as you like but if you are making them available to others then you can end up spending more time debugging.

I am not saying don't do it or that it will not work. I hope this makes sense.