AI aircraft land and taxi to gates ok, but later disappear

I have just completed a new airport and have to introduced AI aircraft. They arrive near enough on time and taxi ok to their respective gates. But when its time for them to leave ( even when turn around time is cut down to 15 minutes) they just disappear! As two in particular were due to leave for Manila and Hong Kong (which presumable had enough spaces) then I presume the problem is with my airport. One other "oddity" that may be linked is that when I am parked at a gate and request permission to taxi I am instructed to taxi to the runway without any reference to which taxiways to use.

I used ADE 9 to draw the layout and could someone please explain the difference between a taxi link, a runway link and an apron link? Would the misuse of these links be the cause of the problem?

My head is not really in trafficplans, ade, and airports a.t.m

First thought is: Maybe a taxiway is not correctly linked to the Runway. In that case AI does not taxi out.

If only that one runway is active, not AI would taxi out at all.

You could test, by changing the wind direction.

THat makes another runway active, and maybe the taxiway is connected properly there.

Also, ADE has a fault finder.

In the "TOOLS" menu.

Open your airport and click "Fault Finder" and it will locate things like missing links between different taxiway and runway sections.

Maybe quicker then changing wind direction and waiting.;)

Then, if the destination airport is faulty, that would also make the plane not fly. Again runway not connected perhaps. Or if it does not have parking spaces big enough. (I had that once with the huge Antonov 225.)

Instead of checking that airport with ADE, look if planes arrive there at all.

Runway link is for connecting the two opposite runway starts (the green large spots in ADE at each end of the runway.) It is just one long black line between the two green spots.

Then the runway starts are also connected to the taxiway. Make a bit of taxiway first, that gets close to the runway only. Then connect runway link with that bit of taxiway. (with a taxiway-link.)

You should see a runway hold short line (red dotted line or double line) appear across the taxiway.

That is where the planes hold for clearance to enter the runway.

One other "oddity" that may be linked is that when I am parked at a gate and request permission to taxi I am instructed to taxi to the runway without any reference to which taxiways to use.

That usually indicates there is no route from the gate to the runway.

Check your taxiways physically link to the gates and if sure of that, then check you haven't go an unintentional break in the taxiways.

The type of links are unlikely to be an issue.

John

could someone please explain the difference between a taxi link, a runway link and an apron link? Would the misuse of these links be the cause of the problem?

Okay, an apron link is the links used on the apron. Pretty much common sense. A taxi link is a link to use on the taxi path to the runway, and a runway link goes down the middle of the runway. I'm not too sure what the real difference between apron and taxi links are other than visible properties.

Also, when you create your links make sure they are at least 50' wide. If you fly ILS and contact ground and then follow progressive taxi all the way to the parking spot, the progressive taxi will never disappear and FS won't detect you parked. Meaning if you save your game then like I do and start off again you won't get the option for clearance or tower. The game has to detect you've parked.

Another thing to is that the flight plans have to be crafted in such a way to not cause discrepancies. I believe it was Lee Swordy's Ttools download for FS2004 that has a great manual about this. File name ttool202.zip here in the library.

Another thing to is that the flight plans have to be crafted in such a way to not cause discrepancies.

What is discrepancies? I'm currently using that tool for my flight plans addition.

@hippicorn, I use too ADE when editing airports and yes if you make new taxiways I think you need to name them. To do so I guess you just click on the link and name it to your choice that way when you or the AI want to taxi to runway the ATC should be saying taxiways names. And as the gentlemen have said, there must be unconnecting taxiways from parking spots to runways for your AI to disappear.

What is discrepancies? I'm currently using that tool for my flight plans addition.

You need to read the manual in Ttools. One discrepancy I remember was that an AI can't take off and land withen an hour or something. And there are other things like overlapping times, etc. It's all in the manual. Definitely read through it all. Then read it all again and understand it. Been a while since I have created AI plans.

Another thing. You may want to make alll your AI IFR. If they are VFR and the airport is in IFR only mode, then the AI will constantly circle the filed trying to land only to have tower tell them the field is operating in IFR conditions only. I've seen this happen a few times and it's really annoying to be on final tuned to tower constantly hearing the rejection and seeing that plane constantly circle.

VFR may work in Nevada or Arizona for the most part, but other places where there is the possibility of fog and what have you will go IFR mode. And that's like 95% of all airports around the world. Don't forget dust storms. Not too long ago there was one in Arizona and Dubai.

Thank you all for your replies. The problem was the non-usage of the runway link - after running that down the runway and connecting all taxiways to it the problem disappeared, but only when the primary end of the runway was being used. When I switched to "real weather" all aircraft were directed to the other end of the runway and on taxiing to the terminals they all stopped about 100 yards short of the apron (on the same taxiway that was ok for primary end landings). However, after some jiggling of the taxiways by changing a 4-way crossing and making it a T junction all is now fine!

Thanks again

P.S. I now notice that of my AI aircraft the Philippine Airways flights get called "Philippine " by ATC and others, for example Cebu Pacific and the King Air 350 only get called by their in the FlightPlans030528 file. ATC seems to ignore "atc_airline=whatever" in the .cfg file. How to correct this please?

The tail number is probably being used because of two possible reasons:

1) the flight plan is set as VFR

And/Or

2) There is no callsign in your sound file for that aircraft. Which means you need to use and/or create a callsign using Editvoicepack.

Another thing you should know about creating airports. Keep the start location and the hold node withen close proximity of each other otherwise the plane will just sit there waiting to take off. Ideally, both of these nodes should overlap. but sometimes that's hard to do and some sacrifices for realism and utility are in play.

for example Cebu Pacific and the King Air 350 only get called by their

Hi,

If ATC calls out just the flight number then that flag is set to F, otherwise ATC would just say the reg. number.

So the Cebu callsign (which is CEBU AIR) is not present in the sound file, as already mentioned.

Regards,

DDP.