Today over the North Atlantic

[Guest Matthias1975]

This is the reason why I love the long hauls over the North Atlantic with the MD11 and Ultimate taffic. It was from Stuttgart EDDS to New York KJFK with todays actual NAT tracks.This was on track B which was MALOT 5420N 5530N 5540N 5450N CARPE REDBY....UT brings really some more realism to long haul flights...all this aircrafts (Delta, Air France, BA etc.) were heading westbound on my track. This pictures were taken between MALOT and 5420N and beween 5420N and 5540N. Has anybody had more on his TCAS display over the North Atlantic? This is my regular longhaul (EDDS-KJFK) and I have often two or three with me but never had so many...its so nice.... As you can see I still had six hours to go :(

[Guest 413X3]

How does UT program the AI to fly routes? I believe the AI by default can only fly direct gps from airport 1 to airport 2

[Mace 1,902]

What a coincidence, my "Traffic" TCAS warning went off last night en route from KMIA --> MNMG. He was running the same route I was, only he was running odd thousands, thankfully.I have not yet seen that many over the North Atlantic.So where are you getting your current NAT track information? My source went offline last week and I am grasping at straws...

[downscc 1,327]

Here is my favorite: http://www.blackswan.ch/nat/I am surprised to that the UT has aircraft on routes. It is possible in FSX to program waypoints for the AI traffic but I was not aware that anyone was doing it yet. FS9 AI is point to point only I believe.

[Guest Matthias1975]

What a coincidence, my "Traffic" TCAS warning went off last night en route from KMIA --> MNMG. He was running the same route I was, only he was running odd thousands, thankfully.I have not yet seen that many over the North Atlantic.So where are you getting your current NAT track information? My source went offline last week and I am grasping at straws...

Well, the actual NATs are available at certain times only...most flight from Europe heading westbound go from 9am GMT to 1pm GMT....from the US heading eastbound at night arriving in Europe in the morning hours so they are mostly available at those times...This is where I get them from :https://www.notams.jcs.mil/dinsQueryWeb/

[Mace 1,902]

Here is my favorite: http://www.blackswan.ch/nat/I am surprised to that the UT has aircraft on routes. It is possible in FSX to program waypoints for the AI traffic but I was not aware that anyone was doing it yet. FS9 AI is point to point only I believe.

Hmm...not sure about that Dan, I have programmed a lot of AI and they all fly Great Circle routes between destinations. Maybe someone has discovered something? Where did you hear this, I would be interested in learning if it is possible? The TrafficToolBox SDK doesn't say anything about programming waypoints. ??thanks for the blackswan link.

[downscc 1,327]

Rhett, I could be wrong. I saw something in the SDK that made me think I could do it but never tried it. I haven't reinstalled and applied the SP to the SDK on the new system yet. I was always thinking in the back of my mind that it would be really cool to have AI arrivals on STAR routes and departures on SIDs, and even program some pseudo flights on the airways to add realism but it would be a major undertaking that I just don't have the talent or time to do... however, I did see something in the SDK that led to that presumption. It was in the documentation for the SDK buried in the long table of data descriptions.

[Mace 1,902]

Rhett, I could be wrong. I saw something in the SDK that made me think I could do it but never tried it. I haven't reinstalled and applied the SP to the SDK on the new system yet. I was always thinking in the back of my mind that it would be really cool to have AI arrivals on STAR routes and departures on SIDs, and even program some pseudo flights on the airways to add realism but it would be a major undertaking that I just don't have the talent or time to do... however, I did see something in the SDK that led to that presumption. It was in the documentation for the SDK buried in the long table of data descriptions.

I value your advice on flying so much, you made me second-guess myself on this :)You know, what is funny, is that BOAT ai traffic can indeed use waypoints. It is detailed using the /BoatRoutes switch (and you specify the waypoints). I did not know this, but this discussion made me find it in the SDK. But it appears that for aircraft AI, they do not have this luxury! (it says, "all routes between airports are direct"). You can do circuits at an airport though.So in essence the technology appears to be there but it just wasn't implemented for one reason or another for aircraft (probably time). I wish it were. That would be very neat to have them fly SIDs and STARs.

[Mace 1,902]

Well, the actual NATs are available at certain times only...most flight from Europe heading westbound go from 9am GMT to 1pm GMT....from the US heading eastbound at night arriving in Europe in the morning hours so they are mostly available at those times...

...which reminds me. Right now (about 5:00 GMT) I go to the NAT sites such as www.blackswan.ch/nat/ and it shows them all as INACTIVE, which I expect at this time. However, what do the cargo pilots do right now? Do they fly these NAT routes at night anyway, even though they are marked as INACTIVE?

[Wolfgang Lang 17]

I think they use custom NAT tracks from their dispatch