Just saw a Comet land

[anthony31]

I was only just flying through Hells Canyon and had just pulled out when I saw a De Havilland Comet fly overhead at about 16000' so having never seen one flying in computer generated traffic before I decided to follow it to see where it was going. So I stuck it into slew mode and followed it to airport Q99 where I saw it land at runway 32 (the computer pilot bounced it once before settling onto the runway).

Now here is the fun part. I turned on time accelaration to see if it would takeoff again but managed to crash the program. So I restart and put in the date and time when the comet landed and select airport Q99 and there he is sitting on the apron. So I put it forward a few minutes and then he is not there so I wait and sure enough in he comes to land again. So I exit FS, turn off the computer, turn it back on, run FS and enter the same time and date and airport and there he is again.

Which makes me wonder. If anyone else out there running FS2004 Century of flight sets the same date and time and airport as I did will they also see a red de havilland comet land? Why not try it and tell me what you see. Here are my settings:

Weather : none (might affect the flight time if he is flying into a headwind)
Time : 12:20:00 PM (he lands at exactly 12:26:21 PM but if you enter that time in he will already be parked.)
Date : 24 Dec 2006 (merry christmas for tomorrow)
Airport : Q99 (He approaches from the east heading towards the airport before turning south and then heading back north to land on Runway 32 so make sure you are not on it)

you can tune your radio into Q99 traffic and hear him as he announces his downwind, base and final legs.

[anthony31]

PS. Traffic is at 100% and the time is 12:20 local time

[moth01]

Hi,
Ummm yeah, it's there all right. It landed on the opposite runway for me and at 12:25 PM. Must have been because of the wind setting being different.

There is probably nothing unusual about this in the AI scheme of things. If you use Trafic Tools, you can find that flight plan in the files. I don't know what Aircraft number it has assigned to it.

Routinely we hear ATC asking an old aircraft like the Tri Motor to "Expidite your climb to flight level 250." Yeah right, the Tri-Motor going to 25,000 ft. There are things in FS9 that just aren't right, but hey for the price, I can live with it.
Actually, you can go in and edit those flight plans to reflect true altitudes that the aircraft is capable of.

I wonder where the De Havilland flight originated from? If you watched long enough, it might make the return flight.
Well hope this clears things up for you.
Happy flying!
Gary Rabbitt

[EngEd]

Hello, Anthony,
Thanks for the Christmas present.
What fun to see the De Havilland where you least expect it.
Here's a happy snap of my Zeppelin-Staaken waiting patiently while the De Havilland passes by on final.

All in good fun.
Dennis

[CorkyNM]

This Comet took off from Oshkosh over 8 hours earlier. That must be some tired AI_Guy.
Corky

[anthony31]

Thanks for the info about traffic tools gary. I just assumed that the traffic was randomly generated but I guess there must be something going on. Maybe it is still randomly generated but with an algorithm of some kind. I would hate to be the guy who had to enter all the flight plans one by one.

Nice picture Dennis. I loaded in the black comet and parked it near the red one which looked nice but I didn't take a picture.

Corky, I traced him back to Oshkosh too (I must have too much time on my hands) but I never get to see him takeoff. I only pick him up a few miles out and at about 4000'. If I move the clock any earlier he's not there. How odd.

By the way he leaves Q99 at 8:00 am the next day (25 Dec 2006) and hops over the hills to the east to land at KWVI at 8:17am. I think I might have to keep him under surveillance incase he's running drugs or something.

Thanks everyone

[Phantoms]

All AI traffic is defined in a trafficXXXXX.bgl file. There are no randomly generated flights, though the progammers may have used software that randomly created the flights in the first place. There is a similar program called GA Traffic here in the file library that will let you create a trafficXXXX.BGL file of randomly generated GA traffic flights. However, once that file is generated, those flights happen on the same schedule and will behave the same day after day.

[CorkyNM]

Actually I made 925 military jets to 90 bases by hand and it wasn't all that bad. I used Excel, sorted, copied, pasted, changed some times, saved, used a Textpad macro to clean up the file, compiled it with TTools and Viola! It worked like a charm.
The hard part is figuring out which planes can go how far realistically, that takes some figuring. I don't know that a real Comet can go 8 hours without refueling. Does anyone here know? He had to fly at 191 knots for over 8 hours to make it to Q99 from KOSH, the math works out. Is this realistic? Dunno.
You wouldn't want to program a Piper Cub to do that as he would have to land for fuel at least once to make it 1500+ miles.
Corky

[anthony31]

Thanks for the info about the traffic files. I have been poking about in the files lately looking to see what I can find (I should really get a binary/hex editor though) which is how I ended up in the canyon in the first place. You see I found all these texture files in the scenery folder for the bridges, leaning tower, weather balloon, the dams, etc. So I looked on the internet and found simtours.net which led me to fly down the canyon (I think it might have been Yosemite canyon I was in instead of Hells canyon as I originally said).

Anyway I have seen most of the sites mentioned but there is one texture file that has me stumped. It is for "reno_raceway". I can find a website for a Reno raceway which is south of Tiger airfield in Nevada but I can't find it in FS2004. Maybe someone knows of a different Reno raceway or maybe it wasn't put into the program.

There is also two files in the vehicles textures. One for the Queen Mary which I just looked up on google and the real one (not the Queen Mary 2 which is still cruising the oceans) is berthed at Long Beach CA so I am going to go and have a look at that tonight. The other is for an "east coast carrier". Simtours.net says there is only one carrier in FS2004 which is in San Francisco. If the data for the carrier in San Francisco is in the San Francisco folder then I wonder if there is another carrier on the east coast as the file name suggests? Anyone seen it?

[EngEd]

Hello, All,
In response to Corky's question, standard sources list the De Havilland DH-88 Comet as having a range of 2900 miles. At its cruising speed of 220 mph, that's 13 hr 11 min.
This plane was designed for the 1934 England-Australia race. It carried two, with dual controls.
Hence an 8-hr stint was a piece of cake.
Regards to all. (And Merry Christmas!)
Dennis