MIKE MOIR

Well, didn't quite achieve what I wanted to do with Sochi. Although ATC use r/w 24 for take offs (correct) they are hell-bent on using r/w 20 for landing, no alternative given, from whatever direction I or AI aircraft are coming from. There are no published STARs for 20 (or 24) and no published SIDs for 02 or 06. Crossing the Caucasus Mountains at 12,000ft then descending in 25nm to r/w 20 means a scary dive, flaps and gear down at too high a speed.... Anyhow, it's all good fun! This has been a learning experience, and even after 18 years flying FS2004 I'm still learning, and would never think of 'graduating' to later versions! As usual, thanks for your help. Maybe Sochi was a bad airport to try star/crosswind technique; somewhere like Tunis, far from high terrain would have been easier!

Thanks, John. I suspect AI aircraft will be sent to the nearest runway for landing? So far, I've only seen AI aircraft from Russia tumble down over the Caucasus to r/w 20. I'll check where aircraft from Dubai and Jeddah are directed! Cheers Mike

Thanks, Peter. I have an AIG star/crosswind AFCAD for Beirut (OLBA). The take-off runway used by ATC seems to depend also on where the aircraft is parked! I've witnessed one plane parked on the east side of the terminal cleared for take off on 03 at the same time as another, which was parked on the west side, cleared for take off on17 - on collision course - scary..... I've saved the Sochi AFCAD in ADE9, but it's saved as an ad4 file. It's ages since I used ADE9, and feel very ignorant - how do you save it as a bgl for copying into Addon Scenery\Scenery??? I see you must have added ILS to rwy 20 - I've done the same - 3.5 degree glide slope!

Thanks for your very useful comments, guys! I know I should have used ADE.... But I found guideless from FSDeveloper for using AFCAD. I constructed 4 fake runways between 02 and 20 and I think I got all the numbers right. I used the Fault Finder in AFCAD and was surprised that all the segments in 02/20 and 06/24 were labelled as BLANK. Soon sorted that, and lo and behold ATC are using different runways for landing and take-off. Rwy 24 for take-off, but 20 for landing, even though 20 is marked as closed for landing and take-off! I have added ILS to 02, but using AFCAD, and of course ATC don't recognise that. Do you think it would make any difference to open URSS in ADE and save it?

Sochi Airport, URSS, is in south-west Russia sandwiched between the Black Sea and the Caucasus Mountains which rapidly rise to over 10,000ft. It has two runways designated 02/20 and 06/24. By default, ATC use 02 for landings and take-offs. This is not good as there is no parallel taxiway to 02/20, so aircraft cleared for take-off have a long backtrack, which tends to screw up landing traffic. Anyhow, in real life they usually use 02 for landing and 24 for take-off. So both take-offs and landings are over the sea, because of the proximity of high terrain. I know that the closed for take-off and closed for landing using AFCAD only works when the two runways are parallel, or nearly so. But I know there is a 'star' technique in which a series of very short and very narrow fake runways are inserted, all closed for take-off and landing, between the two real runways, presumably to fool ATC into believing all the runways are nearly parallel, Do any of you clever guys know whether this could be used at Sochi? And what would the location of the fake runways be (AFCAD needs Lat/Long for each)? I just fancied the challenge of making Sochi as in real life.

Yes! Successfully flew the Embraer 190 Venice to Split with no issues! Thanks to all who responded with their suggestions and for their patience. Clearly a case of incorrectly installed scenery and confusion about priorities and scenery levels..... Leaving Split now for Morocco to continue a grand tour of Africa started in January. Will return to Split again, though!

Thanks hgschnell for the flatten - now no little hills! The current state of the scenery is Split Landscape = priority 26 (area 149 in the cfg) and Split Airport is priority 27 (area150). Hope this is correct (so confusing!). Will try the Venice - Split flight with the E190 tonight. Fingers crossed that the issues are all solved (except the PITA blue square!)

Well, I flew Venice to Split in an A319 this evening without any problems.... Will try the E190 again...

The Landclass folder was created a while ago to accommodate various files where the author says to put the landclass files (no Texture) in a separate folder. Currently Landclass is [Area.175] and SPLITAirport is [Area.150] in the Scenery cfg folder. They have been the other way round but no difference. I have always found it easier to add new sceneries to the scenery cfg folder, numbering in sequence than the other way. I managed to convert the png file to jpg but I may not have submitted it... Should be OK now. I'm planning to fly Venice to Split by either B737 or A320 this week to test for crahes to desktop. I must say that the Dreamwings Embraer 190 is my favourite passenger jet which I've flown all over Europe with no problems. Still strange...

The Landclass folder was created a while ago to accommodate various files where the author says to put the landclass files (no Texture) in a separate folder. Currently Landclass is [Area.175] and SPLITAirport is [Area.150] in the Scenery cfg folder. They have been the other way round but no difference. I have always found it easier to add new sceneries to the scenery cfg folder, numbering in sequence than the other way. I managed to convert the png file to jpg but I may not have submitted it... Should be OK now. I'm planning to fly Venice to Split by either B737 or A320 this week to test for crahes to desktop. I must say that the Dreamwings Embraer 190 is my favourite passenger jet which I've flown all over Europe with no problems. Still strange...

Here it is - hills behind the fire engines

Thanks, guys. Suspecting that there was something odd about the Split scenery, I disabled it and flew the E190 on the same Pisa - Dubrovnik flight with no problem.... I'll have to work on the Landscape issue. Again, thinking landclass files should all be in the same folder, I moved the Split landscape files into my Addon Scenery\Landclass folder. The green hills are still there. I have FS Global 2010 installed - maybe a glitch there? I would attach a picture, but it's a png file and I'm not sure how to convert it....

Thanks for that ( from one Scottish Mike to another!) I only experienced the CTD flying Pisa to Dubrovnik and Venice to Split at FL210 in an Embraer 190 at about the same place (90nm west of Split). I have no problems flying light aircraft along the coast or a Saab 340 at 9000ft from Pula or Dubrovnik to Split. Very strange. Yes, I've flown from Split through the blue rectangle and over the Krka NP with no visibility issues at all. We were on holiday in Trogir a couple of weeks ago and the scenery is a vast improvement on the default!

Many thanks, Nels, apologies for my ignorance..... I used Flightsim.com for many years until it changed format, and I could no longer find my way around! I did manage to find the files related to Split04 and installed them. They didn't solve the issues I had - strange green hills east of the terminal which don't exist in real life, the 'blueing' out of a large square of the GPS map north of the field, and a catastrophic CTD about 90nm west when coming in from Italy at FL210 with no error message. This could only be sorted by disabling the addon scenery. Thanks again for your help, I'll be using this excellent website in future! Mike

I haven't been in the Forums for several years now but returned to Split, Croatia to see the Split04 scenery by Davor Puljevic. As before, I found that the scenery of the Split area is basically good, but there are some serious display issues and noted that there are two fixes - SPLITFIX.ZIP and LDSPFIX2.ZIP which may sort the issues but I can't find them anywhere to download. Anyone know where to find them? They are referred to in the Flightsim.com file but there seems to be no way to download them.....