Reason of default Waterairports?

[Flattermann]

Hi friends,

one question disturbes me sometimes: What is the reason of the default FSX-Waterairports? You only can start from this airports with a wateraircraft. VFR landing is not possible because you can't see the runway. IFR I don't know.

For AI-traffic you have to change it. Why are they so enormous? For instance VI22 (Charlotte Amalie Harbour) runway length 10000feet, width 4000 feet nearby a square runway 4000x4000 feet!

Have somebody any idea?

[ColR1948]

+1 on that Flattermann, totally agree.

[mrzippy]

I have flown IFR into several of the FSX/waterairports. It is a little ambiguous as to the exact layout of the landing area but I've never had a problem with it. You are correct in the fact they are used for takeoffs and landings of the amphibious aircraft for those who want that over lowering the gear and using hard runways.

[ColR1948]

I like to have AI seaplanes and as Flattermann says if you want that you have to change them.

[StringBean]

RW water airports are VFR only.

 

They do not really have defined runways, land wherever you can.

 

They are in FS because they are registered with the FAA.

 

They were never intended for AI by Microsoft.

 

The great thing about seaplanes/floatplanes is that any water you can land on, and take off from, is a runway. :)

 

peace,

the Bean

[lnuss]

To enlarge on the Bean's comments:

Hi friends,

one question disturbes me sometimes: What is the reason of the default FSX-Waterairports?

 

Microsoft wanted to put almost all the real world airports in FS, and seaplane bases are part of that collection.

 

You only can start from this airports with a wateraircraft. VFR landing is not possible because you can't see the runway. IFR I don't know.

VFR landings are the only kind you can normally do at a seaplane base -- you most definitely can see the runway, though it's not well defined visually. The water is the runway, and though there are no painted lines, there is generally a huge area available to use at your descretion. As to only being able to use seaplanes there, certainly that's the case, just as you can't use seaplanes at a land airport (amphibians, of course, can use either one).

 

For AI-traffic you have to change it.

 

It is quite possible to use seaplanes as AI at a seaplane base -- it's been years since I messed with it, but with available software you can define runways and taxiways, even parking areas in the water for seaplanes.

 

Why are they so enormous? For instance VI22 (Charlotte Amalie Harbour) runway length 10000feet, width 4000 feet nearby a square runway 4000x4000 feet!

Have somebody any idea?

 

I expect that MS took those figures from the reported real world seaplane base. Here is the runway entry that Airnav has for the VI22 base:

 

Runway Information

Runway E/W

Dimensions: 10000 x 4000 ft. / 3048 x 1219 m

Surface: water

RUNWAY E RUNWAY W

Traffic pattern: left left

Runway N/S

Dimensions: 4000 x 4000 ft. / 1219 x 1219 m

Surface: water

RUNWAY N RUNWAY S

Traffic pattern: left left

 

You can see a similarity, I suspect. Seaplane operations on the surface are not like those on land. You don't have brakes, you are more at the mercy of the wind than on land and, as you mentioned, you can't actually see a well-defined runway, so they give you lots of room to takeoff, land and maneuver -- it's more like boating.

 

Of course if you don't like it you certainly are welcome to ignore it, but a little online research might find all kinds of interesting things for you to work with in the sim.

 

Hope this helps.

[Rupert]

I have to agree! Having made many RW water landings in a Marine chopper, I've never seen landing markings.

 

Water landings by their very definition isn't anything other than where your plane stops flying. Having said that, isn't that the same as an on land landing!!

 

Rupert

[lnuss]

isn't that the same as an on land landing!!

 

In one sense it is. But the seaplane becomes a boat when it touches down, and the landplane becomes an unstable car. So even though the aircraft handling in the air is much the same (a few differences in some cases) the surface handling is totally different. And that's just as true of an amphibian on land, compared to one on water -- same aircraft, different environment.

[jethrom]

You can always open your FS map, (zoom in +), to see the general length and direction of the water runway you are intending to land upon or take off from. In some sceneries (visually at least) for the general area of ops they can be defined by marker buoys. The only thing I have not seen are wind socks (which would be helpful as a plane affected by wind quickly becomes a fast moving boat on touchdown, wave/swell indicators would also help a lot.

Take reference points from the map, like a headland or distinctive feature, bay beach or whatnot, as I would imagine RW seaplane pilots would do (with local knowledge and regular hops).

In the map the runway is defined same as on land as a pink line with bearing designators each end.

 

If you want to put your aircraft right on the water runway startpoint after landing or heading out from a jetty, just open the map and hold the left mouse button on the black aircraft and drag it across the map to the water runway startpoint, then change the heading degree value until the aircraft is pointing in the right direction for takeoff, click the OK button and prepare for takeoff, flip those water rudders up now, "We won't be needing them where we're headed" (to quote: Doc in Back to the future).

[ATTACH=CONFIG]202234[/ATTACH]

 

Cheers Jethro

[ColR1948]

As I said in my earlier post, these things are OK if flying but I also like AI seaplanes, I had a fair few flying in FS9 to and from water afcads that I made.

I'm still struggling with doing FSX water afcads, some say flight sim wasn't designed to have AI aircraft, but with the many AI type programs that have been made for FS9 you would think Microsoft would have made a few for FSX.

I see there are many water bases in the USA plus two I think in Germany in FSX so simmers in other counties have to make their own.

I know you can drag your aircraft on to the water and set it to 0 altitude and take off, I do that with some ships, but for AI it is a different story.

[COBS]

If you have the Water airports ICAO ident such as VI22 you can add it to a Flight Plan or create a DTO (Direct To ) that will enable you to navigate to the locality of that Waterairport and land .

 

All the usual airport data relating to Water airports is contained in the FSX database , with the right instrument you can access it .

 

The attached shots shows an instrument that I created .

Initially I enter the ICAO VI22 into page 1 ,

then at page 2 , I select which of the runways that I wish to use ,

then at page 3 , I select which runway end that I wish to use .

It then provides full data for that Runway , and it includes a full high precision Synthetic ILS guidance using the normal standard ILS deviation bars to a Touchdown ( ILS aimpoint) that is calculated at 6% in from the end of the runway length .

The accuracy of the Touchdown spot is better than +/- 1 foot .

 

You can see it gives Distance and Bearing to the entered Water Airport from any distance enabling easy navigation to it .

 

The instrument does not show page 4 which was created to replicate the F-111 AILA and is irrelevant to this topic .

 

While it can be used Day or Night including in zero visibility , in real life you would want VFR with reasonable visibility to see water obstacles and the sea state .

 

Given the right instrumentation you can do almost anything .

 

Cheers

Karol

 

EDIT ;

During the approach all you will see is an expanse of water , but as you can see in the shots the instrument can see the runway and it provides that information to the pilot .

 

Click on shots 3 times to enlarge .

 

Shot 1 .

Shot 2 .

Provided to enable text to be read more easily

[jmbiii]

Cobs,

Have you uploaded your instrument anywhere ?

[COBS]

Cobs,

Have you uploaded your instrument anywhere ?

 

No .

That instrument is imbedded as 4 pages within an MFD , it's a complex beast , I have no intention of extracting it to create a stand alone instrument .

I created quick rough notes of 16 pages covering some of it's functions , not adequate for release .

I no longer upload individual instruments , as there is no longer the interest in that sort of thing .

Today most wouldn't know how to install a Pop Up window instrument .

Also have modified it a little to support my recent Bomb Nav System , so notes are not current .

 

Today we live in the eye candy age , there would definitely be no interest in something that requires an effort to learn and come to terms with , and that instrument is definitely not eye candy by any means.

You put a lot of effort and work in preparing an upload only to find no interest .

 

Sorry, but any upload would only be sub standard .

 

Cheers

Karol

[Rupert]

No .

That instrument is imbedded as 4 pages within an MFD , it's a complex beast , I have no intention of extracting it to create a stand alone instrument .

I created quick rough notes of 16 pages covering some of it's functions , not adequate for release .

I no longer upload individual instruments , as there is no longer the interest in that sort of thing .

Today most wouldn't know how to install a Pop Up window instrument .

Also have modified it a little to support my recent Bomb Nav System , so notes are not current .

 

Today we live in the eye candy age , there would definitely be no interest in something that requires an effort to learn and come to terms with , and that instrument is definitely not eye candy by any means.

You put a lot of effort and work in preparing an upload only to find no interest .

 

Sorry, but any upload would only be sub standard .

 

Cheers

Karol

 

Nice piece of Bragware Karol!! ;) Lots of "eye candy" that only you have!! You must be truly proud!!

 

Having said that, even the default airplanes and the default GPS will show you the expected landing area for water-landings. See below.

 

 

Rupert

[Flattermann]

Inuss said:

 

Microsoft wanted to put almost all the real world airports in FS, and seaplane bases are part of that collection.

I expect that MS took those figures from the reported real world seaplane base. Here is the runway entry that Airnav has for the VI22 base: .....

Hi guys, thank you very much for all your answers!

I have to say that my question was a bit wrong made or inexact. It would be better to ask why the dimensions of the waterairport runways are enormous in that way and why constructed as "water". Now thank Inuss I am informed.

I am very happy there are much waterairports. I have made a lot of such waterairports for AI traffic. In every case I had to delete the default runways because water surface doesn't fit for AI-traffic. So I have made my question.

Now I am informed and be content.:cool:

[lnuss]

Glad to be of help.

[il88pp]

Cool instrument cobs. (Even though it's not a looker.;) )

i understand your hesitation quite well. I too have about 4 or 5 that are working, usable, but not ready for upload. Plus uploading gauges can be ungrateful work unfortunately.:(

[StringBean]

A final note, y'all are thinking of the default water "runways" in the same terms as land runways. Think of them more as areas of operation than specific runways. Even then, nothing wrong with landing outside of those areas as long as you do not run aground.

 

On land you try to nail the center line when landing.

 

On the water it is different because you have to deal with boats, logs, swimmers, kayakers, etc. and you land where you can.

 

As for AI, try making your AI seaports with Afcad2.21 and use them in FSX. They should work. The issue with ADE, as best as my memory allows, is that it uses the FSX compiler which will not allow for zero width runways. Afcad has no such limitations.

 

peace,

the Bean

[PhantomTweak]

Hi COBS,

Just so you know, I've been watching your progress on those gauges, and especially your bombing gauge on the FSDev forums, and if you ever decide to publish that cockpit, or even just the gauge to add to the Pighud project, v8, I would jump on it.

Looks very enjoyable, even if there is a steep learning curve on it. I would be more than willing to put in the time and effort to learn it.

 

Just a HU for you :)

Pat☺

[ColR1948]

@StringBean:

with reference to your post above about the AI and afcads, I was in a discussion here:

 

https://www.flightsim.com/vbfs/showthread.php?310453-Converting-FS9-water-AFCADS-to-FSX-problem

 

I tried using some afcads I had made and worked in FS9 using the old afcad program but they didn't seem to work. Any help you can provide in most welcome.

 

Col.

[Flattermann]

A final note, y'all are thinking of the default water "runways" in the same terms as land runways. Think of them more as areas of operation than specific runways. Even then, nothing wrong with landing outside of those areas as long as you do not run aground.

 

On land you try to nail the center line when landing.

 

On the water it is different because you have to deal with boats, logs, swimmers, kayakers, etc. and you land where you can.

 

As for AI, try making your AI seaports with Afcad2.21 and use them in FSX. They should work. The issue with ADE, as best as my memory allows, is that it uses the FSX compiler which will not allow for zero width runways. Afcad has no such limitations.

 

peace,

the Bean

 

Thank you Bean for this answer. You are right for reflection about areas of operation. But I think runway is runway:cool:

 

I made my seaports with ADE without problems. You have to hide all visibilities in FS. So I use Ice as surface and give only 0.3 meters width for the taxilinks etc. And it works fine. Perhaps it would work with runway width 0 meter but I haven't tried it bevor:D

[COBS]

I agree that it's nice or ideal to have a runway defined as a typical runway , but you get the best of both worlds with the Water airport you have the broad expanse area , eg ; 4,000' x 4,000' , and you have the narrow defined runway heading running along the centre of that area .

As has been said you do have the problem of shared useage with watercraft , also obstacles such as large fish , logs and other debris , with a fenced land airport obstacles are excluded .

 

In WWII you had a similar arrangement , all over airports , basically a large square paddock used as a base for fighter aircraft , pilots could land in any direction depending on the wind .

 

il88pp

 

I quite like that instrument , I would like to upload it as it has features that would be handy to those interested , the Synthetic ILS can be used for all 24,491 airports , all the runways and at either end , that exist in the FS database , regardless of length , the default glideslope is the usual 3.00 degrees , but can be set at any value desired , most airports use 3.00 degrees or very close to that .

Examples of airports with ILS Glideslopes greater than 3.0° are ,

London City (EGLC) is 5.5°, Chambéry (LFLB) is 4.46°, Innsbruck (LOWI) 4.0°, Lugano (LSZA) 6.65°.

 

A feature not shown is Approach intercept , you can set a distance in nm to 1 decimal point , eg ; 7.2 nm on the approach axis prior to the touchdown spot , and it gives , distance , bearing , steering arrow and height above runway for that position for the currently set glidslope angle to enable that intercept to deliver you on glideslope .

EDIT : if you look at the very first post by the OP at this link ,

https://www.flightsim.com/vbfs/showthread.php?286946-Gauge-to-line-up-runway

you can see he could enter 10 nm and his problem is solved .

 

It can be run at the same time as the normal radio NAVAID ILS when a runway has an actual ILS , the beauty is that it will deliver you to the capture point of the radio ILS in an easy and fully informed manner . Ideal for those learning or having difficulty capturing the ILS .

 

But my current documentation is definitely sub standard .

 

PhantomTweak

Hi Pat

 

All of my stuff is freeware , and I will be uploading an updated F-111 Pig HUD panel with all of those new features .

I have been meaning to upload for past couple of years , but I keep getting sidetracked by some new instrument ideas , I enjoy creating the instruments , but do not enjoy writing the all important operating notes , it's a pain , I'm a one finger typist .

I will renew my efforts to complete the Flight Manual so that I can upload it .

By the way , the BNS (Bomb Nav System) is a heap of fun , I was surprised at how accurate it is considering they are the usual Dumb bombs , it does well for the drop heights in range from 300' up to 37,500' , much better than I expected , the auto release does a great job .

Thank you for being patient with me .

 

Cheers

Karol

[PhantomTweak]

I understand. I actually manage to use 2 fingers to type, on a good day. Pretty sad, considering I spent the last half of my working life as an IT tech/supervisor.

 

Your instruments/gauges are well worth waiting for. Don't worry. I wait with all the patience I can muster :D

 

Good fortune!

Pat☺

[inky160]

Someone has developed a chart of Waterways for FSX which I found to be useful.

http://aviation.allanville.com/misc/water_runways/

 

I've enjoyed using either FSX de Havilland Beaver or Grumman Goose to do short flights around Alaska. The Grumman works well on water or solid ground.

 

FSX flight plans for Waterways or Google Aviation Charts are fun to use for flights around the continent.

http://www.iflightplanner.com/AviationCharts/ and AirNav http://www.airnav.com/.

 

All part of how to keep FSX interesting I guess.

Ron

[Flattermann]

Hi Ron, thank you very much for these very useful links. I am on vacation now, but at home I will immediatly try the unknown seaports!