AI Seaplane slight problem.

I setup an ai flight plan for one of my ai seaplanes (Sandringham). I have used this aircraft before and it worked no problem.

So now I am using a new ai water base, the aircraft starts up, taxi to the hold short then stops and doesn't contact tower to announce it is there. The radio works OK because it contacted tower to get clearance to taxi.

At first I thought it was a fault with the water base, then I tried another seaplane I know that works and that taxi to the hold, announce it's there then gets clearance to take off, so it isn't a faulty water base.

I compared the two aircraft.cfg's to see if I could see if something was missing from the Sandringham and all seems fine, so any ideas please?

Col.

Hi,

Try making the apron paths a little wider at that point?

Hi Tom,

I'll have look, what I did was try it from the destination water base and it worked fine, so it might be as you said, I'll get to it.

Col.

No still no joy, the taxiways are not the normal ones but the green taxi links concrete set to 0ft, I changed the one joining the runway to 1ft but the aircraft still sat there.

The water base I tried before where it worked the taxiways on that were the green taxi links as well but they worked fine.

I may redo this using the normal blue taxiways, I've made water afcads before and always used them and they have worked.

These by the way are not ones I've made they came with some scenery and I was trying them out.

Col.

The taxiways directly leading up to all hold short points should be at least 50 feet wide because if these are any narrower you run the risk that the plane's reference point ends up outside your far to narrow taxiway when it stops there and is especially true when the hold short point is situated in a taxiway bend. It will cause your plane to be "lost" for your ATC system and any following planes will then also "pile up" on top of your first one.

This holds true for all airports and therefore not only for water ones.

Hope this helps.

Hans

@Hans Hmm, I've made lots of water acads and never had them that wide, I set them to 0ft and concrete and never had the problem you describe.

I just altered the problem afcad now and I have the taxiways concrete and 0ft, it works fine, I just added another ai floatplane and it took off OK, did a TnG at another airfield and returned.

Don't forget this is water we are talking about, if you have the taxiway a foot wide it shows on the water so I dread to see a 50 foot wide one.

Col.

hi, check your contact points ...

I had this TYPE of problem with a couple of planes which showed the same behavior as you describe.

WHEN you look closely, EVEN with WRONG contact points, in FS2004 for Seaplanes there must be to Program sections for AI programmed. One portion controls taxiing the plane up to that point and then the other section for Take Off takes over forthe rest of the flight in the traffic pattern and landing. the for taxi the same is true ..

every time it turned out to be the contact points.

Try to FLY the airplane , NOT in AI and observe whether the plane will take off !! Set the plane on the RWY Start Point.

I bet your plane will NOT Take OFF it will not even move an inch.

Sincerely

G. Kirschstein

Sounds weird BUT it was every time related to the contact points.

In aLL of my Seaplanes for AI I will use ONLY 3 Contact Points for the Fuselage and for the pontons 2 IF they are present.

Sincerely

G. Kirschstein

Hi and thanks, I think you are on to something there, the reason is I have used this aircraft before and it worked.

This time I was trying out an ai water airfield, when I went to view it the aircraft was above the water and it didn't look right so I altered the points so it sat right.

I will put the points back to what they were and try it but I won't use it at this airfield, I have tried a couple of float planes and they were OK, as you may know the Short Sandringham is more of a seaplane.

Col.

Col,

You are absolutely right because directly after posting my "50 ft wide" taxiway message I began doubting my wisdom and took a closer look at all my water airfields. Lo and behold, ALL my taxiways were green Afcad apron routes, zero feet wide and "water" textured.

Because of this nothing was visible on the water .... and .... all my AI water planes did their thing without problems. Oops !! Sorry.

However, I've never had any ATC problems either because all my water airfields are self made simple ones, have no underlying default versions and are therefore comparable to uncontrolled bush strips.

I now suddenly also remember (from years ago) that because the runway links and the runways themselves were all zero feet wide as well, it was very difficult to get them both positioned exactly on top of each other.

Regards

Hans

Hi Hans,

I've also seen some water afcads that are complicated, I sometimes alter them and make them simple.

I've watched the aircraft moving about all over the place just to get to the runway.

I always use the old AFCAD program as I find it easy but I made a water base this morning, I went in the sim and it worked fine except part of the runway went over a small piece of land, so that had to change.

I ended up scrapping it altogether and didn't feel like starting it again, I will do it but after playing about with it I got fed up, shame because it worked fine as well except for that.

One of the things I always find tricky is when making a water airfield on a lake I seem to get the altitude wrong and when I go in the sim to try, it is either in a hollow or up in the air, so I tend to do a lot in an estuary at sea level.

Col.

Hi Col,

Some of my lakes are situated in mountainous mesh scenery areas and can therefore have unpredictable surface elevations, even at different positions on the same lake. One or more flatten switches, each containing the four co-ordinates pertaining to each selected lake area and together with their same ASL elevations, have been added to my scenery.cfg file so that at least any visible elevation differences in the immediate area of my water airfield get ironed out.

I then, like you, use the nice old and simple Afcad program, to construct runway, parking positions, etc, at exactly the same elevation(s) as specified in my new flatten switch(es). Only after all that has been done do I enhance the field visibly with scenery objects via the Abacus EZ or RWY12 object placement programs.

Take care though because when creating AI flight plans for your new water airfield, you can only use real AI sea planes flying VFR between two uncontrolled water airfields. Amphibians will lower their gear during approach, which is not very realistic ...... and definitely unhealthy for their cyber pilots !!

Regards

Hans

What I do with amphibians if I want to use one is lower the contact points so they sit lower in the water when parked and taxi.

I know when they take off you see the wheels but it's only for a few seconds.

You say only use AI sea planes for flying VFR, what happens if you use a flayable as AI?

The reason I ask is I've used flayables as AI mainly because I couldn't find an AI type and they have worked, well some have, others I've had to tweak the cfg but after that they work OK.

I've noticed that when AI fly VFR a lot of times as they go to make the final turn to approach they carry on flying straight and never turn, but if they are IFR they work OK, not sure why that is.

Col.

Col,

I'm one of those simmers who wants AI float planes around my flyable amphibians, to look and perform as realistically as possible and for me, seeing those approaching/taking off, etc, with their gear down, is just not acceptable.

There are still a few downloadable AI float planes around and I only use these between water airfields, all of which I have created myself.

AI planes flying VFR will in general not be able to land when there are, e.g. mountains in their way. They will make one or more approach attempts to the airfield and will then just disappear into the blue yonder. Others flying IFR, will in general fly straight through such mountains and land anyway.

In some cases changing the wind direction will help solve such problems but for AI planes flying VFR, a wide straight in and gradual final approach route remains necessary......but sadly not always possible in mountainous areas.

To change a wind direction you need to first open a flight at the target airfield. You then change the wind to the desired direction, followed by re-saving the flight. Only when that re-saved flight is re-opened, will AI planes respond to the new wind direction.

Using flyable planes as AI is in general not advisable because of their far more complex external textures, which negatively influence frame rates. They also carry frame rate crunching model, panel and sound folders with them. Moreover, such flyable textures are normally not mipped, something which is absolutely necessary for AI planes because of their strongly varying viewing distances.

Good luck.

Hans

Hi Hans, Are you sure about IFR flying through mountains? I have found that ATC generally guide them over and it is the VFR that fly though.

I have in the past purposely made an ai flight plan and set the altitude low, and when the aircraft get near and obstacles ATC tell it to climb if it an IFR, but they don't if its a VFR.

When I use a flayable as an AI I take out the panel, sound and if it has a VC I hex edit that out too then I tweak the cfg to take bits out that are not needed, so far I've not had much trouble.

Col.

Hi Col,

Concerning AI planes flying through mountains or not, your observations are most likely linked to the absence of extra third party mesh scenery in which the mesh mountains are visibly higher than the far more gradually undulating default hills/mountains. These visibly higher mesh mountains are not seen by ATC (or the AI engine) and which in many cases, will vector you in your flyable plane, straight towards some of those mesh peaks and will force you to take evasive action. On the other hand, AI planes following the same route will fly through them.

A very good developer named Jim Vile has even made special ILS approach routes for quite a number of airports around the world, for the specific purpose of getting AI and flyable planes to realistically dodge those higher mesh mountains during their approaches, instead of the AIs flying through them. E.g. Innsbruck in Austria and the old Kai Tak airport in Hong Kong. I even made my own more simple one for the Caribbean St. Barths airport, where it was necessary for VFR flying AI planes to approach over high mesh ground immediately preceding the short runway, which even has a lagoon at it's other end. This airport is ranked as one of the most dangerous in the world but all my light aircraft AIs land and take off there without problems.

Hans

Hi Hans,

This thread get more interesting by the day, I do remember Jim Vile and he helped many with his findings, I know I interacted with him a few times on things.

I found out a while ago when trying to do a water afcad for FSX that the FS9 ones work just fine without any modification. There was a guy posting at the time and he used ICE instead of Concrete for his taxiways and runways, I tried it but had no luck, just by chance I stuck one of my FS9 ones in and it worked.

I no longer use or have FSX now I removed it from my system, I just fly FS9 using Windows 7.

I did not too long ago upgrade to Windows 10 and regretted it, so I got rid and re-installed my Windows 7, plus I like Windows 7 as well lol, I have for a change just fly around Australia, New Zealand and the South Sea Islands. I used to mainly fly in the UK and counties in Europe but I got bored with and needed a change.

Col.

hi, did the plane behaved correctly after you changed the ontact Points ???

A lot of people do NOT observe the fact that the plane WITH ba Contact Points TAXIES out BUT does NOT move an inch.

MS uses two program Sections to do the AI Seaplane control.

I have VERY complicated AFCAD files, ONE is using 2 RWY's and MANY Taxi Ways in the South Pacific.

The best is an Aircraft Carrier Operation with T.O. at Catapults while the Landing is Performed on the Angled Deck

Pls let me know what the Corpus Delictei was.

Thanks

G. Kirschstein

 

A very good developer named Jim Vile has even made special ILS approach routes for quite a number of airports around the world, for the specific purpose of getting AI and flyable planes to realistically dodge those higher mesh mountains during their approaches, instead of the AIs flying through them. E.g. Innsbruck in Austria and the old Kai Tak airport in Hong Kong.

I know and use them too. At Innsbruck it indeed allows a nice curved approach. However, AI have to fly through mountains miles before to reach the airport. Furthermore curved approachs are one thing, starts from such airports are an other. AI taking off from deeper valleys will inevitably hurt nearby mountains.

In some cases I tried setting FP destinations almost straight ahead or placing waypoints to get AI out of valleys but it doesn't work.

Bernard

Hi Bernard,

I've not had too many problems with the AI and mountains, as I said earlier I always use IFR if in those areas as most times ATC will tell the aircraft to climb, but... If the mountain is very close to the end of the runway I will admit a lot of times the aircraft can't climb fast enough or ATC tell it to turn too late.

I watched a few climb out of KaiTak not long ago and ATC did guide them through a gap in the mountains, at first I thought they were going through but ATC told them to turn to avoid in time, I was impressed.

Col.