A few problems

[Misha_K]

Hi guys,

In my work on my Eastern European packages I have run into a few problems that I can't seem to be able to solve:

1. At LYBT there are two parallel runways. I want to close one for takeoffs and one for landings. But no matter what I do in the AFCAD, the AI insist on using only one runway for takeoffs and landings.

2. Rainer Mehlin's MiG-21 has serious problems aligning itself with the runway on final. It usually lands in the grass. This is not an AFCAD issue, as all other aircraft land properly.

3. The Simlandmarks Yak-40 obstinately refuses to go to the right parking spot. It is coded in the aircraft.cfg as MIL_CARGO and YAK as airline, but keeps going to the MIL_COMBAT spots, even though the radius of the latter is smaller. Makes no sense.

4. For my Serbian package I had to create one airfield from scratch (LYKV - Ladjevci) and had to expand one which was only a runway, no apron in default FS9 (LY0A - Kovin). How do I get rid of intruding autogen? How do you create an exclude? Also, how do you create a flatten?

5. Is there a way to create a completely invisible runway for helicopters?

Thanks in advance.

[btaylo24]

Hello

I am sure I had the same problem with that Mig21, and resolved it by using the HTAI F16 Air file and making sure all flights were IFR

I was going to do a package for MAIW of all Mig21 users, but as we officially dont have permission I decided not to proceed.

I will see if I still have the Mig on PC Home and if so wll send u what I did to get it working (not sure 100% if I still have it, but will check)

Cheers

Barry

[mikewmac]

Hi guys,

In my work on my Eastern European packages I have run into a few problems that I can't seem to be able to solve:

1. At LYBT there are two parallel runways. I want to close one for takeoffs and one for landings. But no matter what I do in the AFCAD, the AI insist on using only one runway for takeoffs and landings.

2. Rainer Mehlin's MiG-21 has serious problems aligning itself with the runway on final. It usually lands in the grass. This is not an AFCAD issue, as all other aircraft land properly.

3. The Simlandmarks Yak-40 obstinately refuses to go to the right parking spot. It is coded in the aircraft.cfg as MIL_CARGO and YAK as airline, but keeps going to the MIL_COMBAT spots, even though the radius of the latter is smaller. Makes no sense.

4. For my Serbian package I had to create one airfield from scratch (LYKV - Ladjevci) and had to expand one which was only a runway, no apron in default FS9 (LY0A - Kovin). How do I get rid of intruding autogen? How do you create an exclude? Also, how do you create a flatten?

5. Is there a way to create a completely invisible runway for helicopters?

Thanks in advance.

Misha_K,

Here is what I think based on my experience:

1. Despite what the user interface for AFCAD2 would indicate, you can usually close one or both ends of a runway to both takeoffs and landings, but you cannot close one end of a runway to just takeoffs or just landings. Supposedly you can close both ends of a runway to either takeoffs or to landings, but that hasn't always worked reliably for me for some unknown reason.

AI will always use the completely open runway of sufficient length for their engine type and/or empty weight whose extended centerline runs closest to their parking spot.

2. Yes, that is a classic case of an FDE not optimized for AI use. It is very poor for VFR landings and gets worse the higher the elevation of the airport is. Maybe if I get a chance I will make an AI FDE set for it that overcomes this problem.

3. In section 35. of his AFCAD version 2.11 User Manual, Lee Swordy states:

"FS uses the following criteria to decide where to park an AI aircraft. These criteria are in order from most important to least important:
1. Parking Codes (KLM, AAL, etc.)
2. Parking Types (Gate, Ramp, Cargo, etc.)
3. Parking Areas ( Parking, Gate 1, Gate A 1)
4. Parking Radius (31m, 38m, etc.)
5. Parking List order (first, second, third parking spots listed etc).

The lower level criteria are only used as tie-breakers if there are two or more parking spots that meet the higher criteria, otherwise the lower level criteria do not come into play."

It appears to me that you are trying to control where the Yak-40 parks by the parking type and radius and not the parking code. Try a unique parking code for the Yak-40 in both its aircraft.cfg file and in the desired parking spot in your AFCAD and it should park where you want it to.

BTW..The airline=YAK entry in the aircraft.cfg file has nothing to do with parking and will only determine the callsign used by the YAK if indeed you have the callsign YAK available.

4. I use Exclude Builder v2 (excbuilderv2.zip at Avsim) and FSTFlatten, which is no longer available, but there is an all in one utility called FlattEx v.1.0.1 available at the following link at Avsim that will probably work fine for you:

http://library.avsim.net/search.php?Sea ... &Go=Search

5. Invisible helicopter runways are made by setting both the runway width and runway taxi link width to 1 foot with no visible elememts such as markings, lines, lights, etc.

I hope this helps and if I can be of further help, just let me know.

Mike

[Misha_K]

Mike,

Thanks for your response.

1. Despite what the user interface for AFCAD2 would indicate, you can close one or both ends of a runway to both takeoffs and landings, but you cannot close one or both ends of a runway to just takeoffs or just landings.

AI will always use the completely open runway of sufficient length for their engine type and/or empty weight whose extended centerline runs closest to their parking spot.

Why then do they keep using the farther runway? I have in the past only worked on AFCADs for major international airports. In civilian places with parallel runways like KSEA, KEWR or EDDF it was never a problem closing a runway to landings and using it for takeoffs only. The situation at LYBT is a little different. It has a typical Eastern European dual runway militrary layout which has a central apron, from which two runways extend in opposite directions.

See here: http://www.airliners.net/open.file/1103739/L/

You can see the closer runway which starts in the middle of the picture and goes off to the right (12R/30L) and the farther runway in the background which goes off to the left (12L/30R). (this can also be seen nicely in google earth - google's pictures still show bomb damage from 1999 Operation "Allied Force" on 30L/12R)

Are you saying it's impossible to have takeoffs from 30R and 12R only and landings on 12L and 30L only? The idea is to have the takoff start closer to the apron and the landing roll end at the apron. Right now AI are completely ignoring 12R/30L even though it's closer to the apron.

3. In section 35. of his AFCAD version 2.11 User Manual, Lee Swordy states:

"FS uses the following criteria to decide where to park an AI aircraft. These criteria are in order from most important to least important:
1. Parking Codes (KLM, AAL, etc.)
2. Parking Types (Gate, Ramp, Cargo, etc.)
3. Parking Areas ( Parking, Gate 1, Gate A 1)
4. Parking Radius (31m, 38m, etc.)
5. Parking List order (first, second, third parking spots listed etc).

The lower level criteria are only used as tie-breakers if there are two or more parking spots that meet the higher criteria, otherwise the lower level criteria do not come into play."

It appears to me that you are trying to control where the Yak-40 parks by the parking type and radius and not the parking code. Try a unique parking code for the Yak-40 in both its aircraft.cfg file and in the desired parking spot in your AFCAD and it should park where you want it to.

BTW..The airline=YAK entry in the aircraft.cfg file has nothing to do with parking and will only determine the callsign used by the YAK if indeed you have the callsign YAK available.

I misspoke. I wasn't talking about the airline= entry. I have atc_parking_type set at MIL_CARGO and atc_parking_code set at YAK in the aircraft.cfg. This matches exactly the codes in the AFCAD parking spots. Yet, the Yak keeps going to spots coded MIL_COMBAT and M21 (parking code for the MiG21). I have not altered the radii at all. I merely observed that the radius for the combat parking spots is smaller than for the cargo. Maybe I will try a plain old RAMP spot and see what happens.

4. I use Exclude Builder v2 (excbuilderv2.zip at Avsim) and FSTFlatten, which is no longer available, but there is an all in one utility called FlattEx v.1.0.1 available at the following link at Avsim that will probably work fine for you:

http://library.avsim.net/search.php?Sea ... &Go=Search

Thanks much! Exactly what I need.

5. Invisible helicopter runways are made by setting both the runway width and runway taxi link width to 1 foot with no visible elememts such as markings, lines, lights, etc.

I will try that. But then, how do I get rid of the visible hold short lines automatically inserted by the hold short nodes?

I noticed that JustFlight in the AFCADs for their MilitaryPlus Pak uses runways that are 800x90 feet but have a surface that shows up blank in the AFCAD pull down menu. But when I try to create an airfield, blank isn't an option for runway surface. How did they do that?

[mikewmac]

Misha_K,

What I should have posted is now posted in my post above and directly below:

"Despite what the user interface for AFCAD2 would indicate, you can usually close one or both ends of a runway to both takeoffs and landings, but you cannot close one end of a runway to just takeoffs or just landings. Supposedly you can close both ends of a runway to either takeoffs or to landings, but that hasn't always worked reliably for me for some unknown reason."

Sorry for the confusion.

I am obviously not familiar with the details of how you have set up your LYBT AFCAD, so I can't really comment on why your AI are not using the runway that you want them to or that seems logical for them to use.

If you want to email me your AFCAD, I will take a look at it and see if a different pair of eyes might be able to figure it out.

Have you checked the aircraft radius for the Yak compared to the MIL_CARGO and MIL_COMBAT parking spots in question? Regardless of all other factors, many times AI seem to park in the parking spot with a radius equal too or just larger than their radius. In other words, if the MIL_COMBAT parking spot radius is at least as large or larger than and closer in size to the aircraft radius of the Yak than the MIL_CARGO parking spot radius is, it probably will always park in the MIL_COMBAT spot.

To make the hold short lines invisible give the apron links on both sides of them a width of 0 feet.

Someone must have created the blank transparent runway texture for that package, but it isn't really necessary if you use 1 foot widths with no visible markings, lines, lights, etc.

Mike

[Misha_K]

If you want to email me your AFCAD, I will take a look at it and see if a different pair of eyes might be able to figure it out.

Thanks. I will send it to you when I get home, though I suppose from reading your comment that I will just have to deal with odd runway choices.

Someone must have created the blank transparent runway texture for that package, but it isn't really necessary if you use 1 foot widths with no visible markings, lines, lights, etc.

No, there is no texture involved. The PlusPak installer doesn't install any textures. I checked that. It's in AFCAD that the runway surface shows up blank.

[VulcanDriver]

I noticed that JustFlight in the AFCADs for their MilitaryPlus Pak uses runways that are 800x90 feet but have a surface that shows up blank in the AFCAD pull down menu. But when I try to create an airfield, blank isn't an option for runway surface. How did they do that?

I suspect they have edited the actual AFCAD code to remove any textures then recompiled it as a BGL file. I did this for a seaplane base but I can't remember what tools I used now.

John

[Misha_K]

Exclude Builder requires bglcomp.exe, but the BGLComp SDK doesn't seem to be available from Microsoft anymore. Does anyone know where I can get this?

[Firebird]

Hi Misha,
If you look in the readme that comes with Excbuilder then it gives you the link.

[Misha_K]

Hi Misha,
If you look in the readme that comes with Excbuilder then it gives you the link.

Being literate, I am aware of that, thanks, but the link is dead. That SDK is no longer available from Microsoft. I searched their site. It seems the bglcomp.exe is now part of a new SDK for FSX. I have downloaded that but haven't installed yet.

[Firebird]

Misha,
Sorry, I wasn't implying that you couldn't read. I mentioned it only as I used it yesterday to follow Mike's instructions and it downloaded it ok.

Now, I can send it to you if you would like or when I searched on avsim for excbuilder there was a link for a tutorial on it and it's the proggy is included in that. Let me know if you would like it sent to you.