Long wait for take-off

[Guest allblack]

Gudday.I have noticed recently that I can spend an inordinate amount of time in a queue behind other planes waiting to move onto the runway. The sim seems to 'lock', but given it finally works I'm guessing this is meant to be 'reality'.Couple of nights ago I was at Heathrow, about fourth in line to takeoff. Everything as per normal, couple of planes take-off, one or two land, and then nothing.No movement, no landings, no ATC chatter-nothing.I sped up the sim-rate to 4x, and watched the clock in the plane. 23 minutes later, ATC pipes up and the plane four ahead of me gets take-off clearance, and life continues on.Does anyone know of any reason for this twenty-three minutes of 'down-time'? I'm keen to hear any comments.CheersAllblack

[Guest]

Use AFCAD to add more points close to the hold short points.What happens is that once the AI aircraft hold short is cleard for takeoff the next AI aircraft cannot see the next taxi point so they remain too far from the hold short point to make contact with ATC to get takeoff clearance. After about 15 minutes or more, they will eventually disappear and the next aircaft behind it will move. This aircraft can get stuck too so you have to wait another 15-20 minutes before it disappears...and so on.What I have done is go to all of my major airports (to which I fly) and add a whole bunch of taxi points for about 100 feet leading up to the hold short point. This DOES slow down the AI aircraft taxi speed but now they never get stuck. Also make sure the points leading up to the active runway's hold short points are VERY close together. This way, once the lead AI aircaft moves, the aircraft behind can "see" that they can move up to the next point and will continue to do so until they get up to the runway and get takeoff clearance.HTH,Mike T.

[Guest allblack]

Outstanding Mike!I would never have known that....Time to play with AFCAD me thinks.CheersAllblack