Any Fix Yet For Disappearing Aircraft ?

[mrmertz 1]

With all the SDK's released, has anybody been able to figure out how to adjust the stupid "5 minutes waiting on the ground for departing is too long so we simply make you disappear here at MSFS software development group" stuff? It's rather anoying to be watching a heap of air traffic pile up for takeoff only to periodically see them just start to simply vanish off of the taxiways because MS decided to reduce the wait times from the earlier version...this is as real as it gets? Not.I'm running Ultimate Traffic and it's NOT very realistic to just have planes simply vanish and the others move up to fill in the slot!Thanks for any feedback. I saw numerous complaints about this earlier on.Jeff aka MrMertz

[Guest wathomas777]

Jeff,I really hope you are joking about this post, and are not as stupid or ignorant as you appear.The default .bgl for traffic in FS9 is roughly 13Megs. My UT .bgl WITHOUT GA is 5 times that amount.FS9's AI traffic algorithms were never designed to handle the density that Ultimate Traffic throws down in it's airports. Specifically the busier ones like KATL, KORD, or EGGL.If you are using the default traffic.bgl (traffic030528.bgl) I guarantee, you will not see planes vanish while waiting to takeoff.But to blame Microsoft because a third party addon that pushes the AI traffic engine to handle 10 times it's design load is just plain ludicrous.There are plenty of petty little criticisms to lodge at Flight Simulator 2004, but to blame it for not handling the traffic overload an Ultimate Traffic or My Traffic 2004 throws at it, is like me complaining that my Ford Fiesta can't tow a 5th wheel trailer rig.And really, can't you come up with something more original than to critique the "as real as it gets?" bit?.Show me a simulator that simulates more areas of the flight experience than FS9, and I'll buy it. X Plane doesn't do AI traffic, Flight Unlimited 3 doesn't do Global Airports. Pro Pilot did not do dynamic weather. Even multi-million dollar simulators do not cover the scope that Flight Simulator does. If there is another flight sim program that tackles more aspects of the flight experience than Microsoft does (and does rather well, despite the petty complaints of others), I have yet to see it. So I guess if you look at it, It IS as real as it gets.

[Guest tatfsn]

Hey, Dude-- As a third party to this exchange, I must say that while you make some valid points, I don't understand your need to be so aggressive and insulting. You pointed out that traffic030528.bgl, if used as the exclusive source file for AI traffic generation of FS9, will eliminate the "dissapearing aircraft" phenomenon. Given that, and given that FS9's default AI bgl file is larger than that of FS2002's, is it really THAT outrageous, as a simple matter of logic, to question why MS would reduce the "wheels up" time limit for the AI planes from that of the previous rendition of the program? My impression of these forums is that they are an environment where folks can freely, and with civility, express concerns or complaints about such issues. I love FS9 to death, warts and all, as I'm sure Jeff does--which is why he's taking the time to express his views--but I certainly don't feel that any criticism of it is akin to blasphemy, as you apparently do. Constructive critiques, from dedicated users, are among the reasons that Flight Simulator has evolved to the point that it has!! Gratuitous insults and name-calling really poison things for everybody, and defeat the purpose of the forum. Lighten up, brother!!!

[Guest OneTinSoldier]

Now now men. I would think there are better ways to release your testosterone. :(I can understand where both of you are coming from. Jeff would like to see better handling of traffic, albiet even for more copius amounts of traffic than Flight Simulator shipped with, which it already does. I'm not trying to say it couldn't stand some improvement. Will reacted to a post that certainly could have been put a little more nicely than 'knocking' Flight Simulator 2004 with what is seemingly, to Will at at least, a petty complaint.Jeff,Will has a good point. MSFS is only 'designed' to handle so much. I believe that a major reason waiting aircraft were made to timeout after 5 minutes is that in FS2002, in which aircraft would wait forever, some serious log jams occured. Making an airport become nothing but one big parking lot full of planes with no one able to go anywhere. Not even take-off or land, as eventually one of the waiting aircraft would be waiting on the runway(s). With the 5 minute timeout that problem, which was a serious one, has been solved. Believe or not this actually helps Flight Simulator handle more traffic than ever before. Food for thought.Although I'm not an admin here so it may not be my place to say this, I'll say it anyway. I enjoy some mud-slinging }( as much as the next guy, nevertheless, I'm hoping further posts in this thread will be more congenial. ;)Cheers, :-beerchugJim

[JSkorna 137]

Back to the question at hand. No, the 5 minute wait has not been expanded.Hope this helps,JimActiveSky Supporthttp://www.hifisim.com/images/as2004proudsupporter.jpg

[Guest wathomas777]

I apologize for the curtness of my previous post. The author of this thread bore the brunt of my frustration.It seems, in many cases, that every little scenery tick, or perceived bug regardless of the cause is somehow "Microsoft's Fault".In a recent review of MegaScenery New York, the author of the review blasted how the GW bridge was half buried in the scenery blasted Microsoft, wondering how "that got through the beta test process".What Mr. Reviewer didn't understand is that with the default mesh installed, The GW bridge looks perfectly normal. It is patently unfair to criticize Microsoft for things it has absolutely no control of, like the addition of massive amounts of AI traffic, or the inclusion of mesh.I run FSGenesis mesh throughout North America and Europe, and many of my airports and lakes are on Mesa's or craters. However, I also understand that there is nothing really to be done about them. Microsoft can't really be held accountable, because they designed the global scenery around THEIR mesh, and had to do things to blend in scenery elements to that mesh.I can't blame Justin Tyme, because he is simply working with the SRTM data that he has.So what do I do? I put up or shut up. For me, the enhanced fidelity that I see from the air, is worth the occasional "mesa" airport or sunken lake. The wonderful thing about Flight Simulator, is that each one of us has the option to place as much detail and "money" into our hobby as we please. If we want, we can stick to defaults and have an enjoyable flight experience. If we want additional traffic or more accurate mesh, third party developers are more than happy to fill that need. I would hate to think that we as a Flight Sim community would "require" that Microsoft incorporate a program such as UT, as well as redo mesh to have global 38m coverage. That would raise the price of the base product to well above what I can afford.I like things the way they are. A solid, but imperfect, simulator that has an an enormous scope, but is still open for third party developers to improve the product, and allow me to embelish the base product to my personal budget and preference.And should there be an occasional "glitch" between the product and the addon, I'll live with it. It certainly beats paying $500 or more for the program.

[Guest OneTinSoldier]

Hi Will,Well put, and I'll say thanks for that considerate post. If you ask me one who apologizes has a good heart in the right place.I thought of something else to add when it comes to disappearing aircraft caused by a third party addon.I use MyTraffic 2004. It comes with it's own unique Traffic Generator, which is a part of the MyTraffic Editor. It is written in fortran. It is pretty intelligent. It actually analyzes the capacity capabilities of the MSFS airports.-------------------------------------------------------I could be slightly incorrect about the following info.This includes any AFCADS that you have installed! This also means that if you installed MyTraffic 2004 on a clean FS2004 and then over time install a bunch of AFCADS that you have to pull up the editor and rengerate/recompile the traffic for it to analyze those AFCADS. This process of regenerating and recompiling takes quite a few hours though. It is only necessary if the AFCADS change the capacity of the airport and you want MyTraffic 2004 to take advantage of the new capacities. In other words, if you install an AFCAD and don't recompile the AFCAD file still works just as you would expect.-------------------------------------------------------Anyway, my point is that if MyTraffic determines that a generated flight cannot be handled due to lack of capacity, then the flight is not compiled into the traffic.bgl file. Burkhard, the maker of MyTraffic, made it with the limitations of Flight Simulator in mind. Therefore, I only see a disappearing aircraft on an extremely rare basis. Like Will said, UT is a third party addon. MSFS is actually made with third party development in mind, but those third party developers have to keep in mind the limitations of Flight Simulator.Lastly, in the past I have made a few complaints myself! I wish I could say I was a perfect angel that is perfectly satisfied with FS2004, but I know I'm not. What's one of my complaints? That they don't patch! Unless they themselves deem the problem to be a 'showstopper'. And there were one or two things I stated that I really would have liked to have seen patched. Nevertheless over time I have come to realize a few things. I think they have made a heck of sim. We all know that it could use some improvement in many areas, to be sure. But sometimes you just have to be thankful for what you have. I think they did the best they could, within limitations. Some limitations to keep in mind are... it's made by human beings(we all have our good days and our bad days), they are relegated to a certain budget, they have a deadline to meet, home PC's have limited capabilities/capacities and are made up of a wide array of differing hardware, ect. And I think we are probably lucky that MSFS is as open to tweaking and addons as it is. I don't think other flight sims, such as LOMAC, X-Plane or IL-2 FB, can be added on to nearly to the exent that that MSFS can be(and I am very thankful for the addons that are available). All in all I think the MSFS Team is to be commended! And hey, The MSFS Team are aviation enthuiasts themselves!Ok, I think I've carried on enough here and will now say 'nuff said on my part. I just hope I've put forth some more good food for thought.Take care,Jim

[tgibson 11]

It's interesting that this is one of the more common complaints about FS2004, since the 15 minute wait for a stuck aircraft to disappear in FS2002 was one of the things that was most requested to be changed!! Trust me, a few planes disappearing is far better than an entire airport jammed up due to a stuck plane.Ironically, MS did a pretty good job improving things so stuck aircraft are much less common in FS2004 and thus the decreased time probably was no longer required, but they went ahead and actually listened to us and now are getting reamed for it!! Can't win.Take care,--Tom GibsonCal Classic Propliner Page: http://www.calclassic.comFreeflight Design Shop: http://www.freeflightdesign.comDrop by! ___x_x_(")_x_x___

[Guest yarvelling]

Jim, (OneTinSoldier), what is it that you would have Microsoft patch?So many folks have so many 'gripes' with FS9; frame rates, autogen, ATC this, GPS that, etc...what would YOU have them patch? Out of interest? And as you've stated quite rightly, Microsoft develop the Flight Sim series with third-party developers in mind. It is a distinct possibility then that should they decide that a certain area is so flawed that they issue a patch to correct it that it could now render a whole slew of both payware and freeware add-ons as unusable as they maybe work ways around some of the deficiencies within the core program...not a good situation!In response to the original query, it would be nice maybe if you could have a variable scale, a slider maybe, to adjust the length of time that AI will wait before vanishing. Yes it does look unrealistic if the aircraft in front of you pops out of existance at the head of the runway, but then really the way that initialy at busy airports all AI with a flight in the time-frame that you start the thing going, all lung together to be first to the runway, leaving you to be 6 or 7 deep in a line. This then means that of course planes are going to dissapear or else you'd sit for an hour waiting to take off....there's so many flights trying to land as well as trying to depart. It's happened to me on numerous occassion at places like Heathrow where I'm 6th in line and there's a dozen planes trying to land too....I've sat for 45 minutes and more to actually take off!! So in some ways even the 5 minute limit on AI planes is not enough!! Unless Microsoft can fix the way that AI planes go for it the minute the sim starts I guess we'll have this sort of situation....and a patch to fix that could then louse-up other AI programming tools or Traffic add-ons...Seems almost like Catch22, so I guess it's prudent to just live with it and enjoy a bit of plane-spotting whilst waiting!!! :)

[Guest OneTinSoldier]

Hi yarvelling,Well, I wrote the MSFS Team, at what is it? tell_fs@ms.com? I praised them for their work on FS2004. But I mentioned that I wasn't getting full enjoyment out of the sim until I implemented a work-around for the autogen bug that was discovered by users here on the Avsim forums. Mostly thanks to JimmiG and rhumbafloppy(sp? a.k.a. Dick). You probably know good and well what the autogen bug is about. But I'll describe it anyway. Apparently it has been determined that the distance at which autogen objects are viewable is too high, therefore they are retained in memory longer than they should be, resulting in a degraded performance under specific situations. Say I fly over my home city, Denver, in a helipcopter. During this trip my performance is great. When I get to the other side of town I end up crashing the copter when I try to land. The flight resets and I'm back at Denver International Airport. So I fly again in the same direction to the same spot I was trying to land at before. But this time around my performance is atrocious, right from the start. Or say I have to make a go-around over Denver after a long flight. Same thing happens. Why should it be like that? There is no good reason. IMO, that should have been fixed with a patch.The second thing that I think should have been fixed is the severe/abrupt change in winds aloft when using real-world weather. I didn't know about this one for quite a while because I didn't use real-world weather until quite a bit later.A third thing that I was originally saying should have been fixed, but now in retrospect I would say it would just be 'nice' if it were fixed rather than 'should be', is the issue of some missing and/or messy looking bridges. If you're flying VFR then hey, you might expect those bridges to be there for you to use as a landmark to guide your VFR navigation. Again, in retrospect this isn't a real big deal.About the waiting aircraft timeout being adjustable. Even though I didn't mention it, when I saw the first post, a slider to adjust this timeout period popped into my mind. Although this particualar slider would not have any effect on performance, it's kind of like... Oh boy! Yet another slider! I just remember when FS2004 was released all the debating about sliders. You know, it seemed like there were quite a few folks that wanted to be able to have all the sliders turned up all the way and were complaining their peformance was very poor when doing so. They were disappointed or didn't like being told they needed to turn them down. So they complained about what type of system was needed to really run FS2004. My generalization could be wrong, but it just kind of seems like how I recall quite a few threads on here back when FS2004 first came out. Maybe you could say there was just a lot of healthy debating. ;) I also recall of number of people that had been into MSFS for a very long time saying something to the effect of 'we go through this every time there is a new release of Flight Simulator'. Anyway, if they were to add a slider to control the timeout period for waiting aircraft I don't think it would be a bad thing. It'd be just fine with me.Bye-bye for now,Jim

[StoneC0ld 5]

The best solution I can think of: don't hardcode it, make it a fs10.cfg option, along with ai taxi speeds. Assuming AI landing procedures are improved to vacate the runway faster, provide separation and possibly allow position-and-holds and takeoffs between landings when there's enough separation; people can set the AI timeout setting to whatever they want, and there shouldn't be 30 planes in line for takeoff at once....I, myself, have taken a hex editor to several FS9 files, looking for clues how to change the AI timeout, but no success whatsoever....The upside: you don't have to wait 3 hours in line to takeoff like you might in the same situation in FS2002 where the timeout is like 15 minutes.... :-lol

[Guest]

This is what I wrote last year, explaining why NONE of the things people scream about requiring a patch do so.This is meant not just as a debunker for the patch demands in specific but as an explanation of what a patch and other levels of updates and upgrades are designed to address in any product.Repeated here as a learning experience for those not in the software development industry.What's a patch?Lately there has been a lot of calling for patches in the FS community (even more so than usual). A lot of these shouts/demands/requests are based on a sever misconception about what constitutes a patch and when one is/should be issued. To set the record straight I'll try to explain here the differences between patches, service packs, updates and upgrades in (where possible) terms that are familiar to people who don't work in the software industry. First a patch (also known as hotfix).When a piece of software is so fundamentally flawed (usually because of an oversight in testing or because conditions for use were not well known during testing leading to a realworld situation not being foreseen or being unable to reproduce in a testing lab) that the application fails to deliver core functionality to a large group (read, majority) of users, the software developer will (usually) drop everything and work fulltime (in my experience this can mean having people working 24 hours a day) until a solution is found. This solution is then released as quickly as possible (often without stringent testing because there is no time for that) in the form of a patch. A patch will never replace the need for a fully tested update later (possibly in the form of a service pack), it is an emergency procedure only to get customers working again on an otherwise broken system. A similar situation people might be familiar with is when a car manufacturer does a recall of a specific range because a part in it is found to be unsafe and replace it with a new model (or at least with an improved model) In the FS addon industry this might be an addon that causes FS to crash in combination with another addon the developer didn't have access to when they created their own. Service pack.During the course of the lifetime of a piece of software, a company might deliver one or more updates to fix bugs found and reported by end users or their own people. These might also include features that were planned for but did not make (due to not being ready in time) the initial release. These are called service packs. A service pack will be rigorously tested, replacing any patches and hotfixes released to the date of its release. Back to the car example. In your car the dealership would swap out an old part with a new one during regular maintenance that is found to work better and last longer. For FS this would be putting in missing scenery objects, maybe tweaking the flight dynamics a bit, etc. or making minor changes to get an addon to work in a new FS version (like changing some entries to display the new FS2004 GPS instead of the FS2002 one). UpgradeAn upgrade is a larger update that contains new functionality not originally envisioned for the product. An example might be making it work on a new platform that was not planned for in the initial release, or adding something new at the request of a customer that was not part of the original project specification/scope and takes significant time to create Because of the time involved in the creation and testing, an upgrade is usually not free but will be made available at a reduced cost to existing customers. Back to your car, the dealer might offer you a tradein for your old radio-casette player for a nice new radio-CD combination at a reduced price, or maybe a new model of tyre. For FS, you're talking about getting an addon for a previous version to work where the effort to make it work is non-trivial (like needing a complete rebuild of the visual model and underlying code for an FMC). Update.All of the above are updates, but the way the term is usually meant in the software industry is similar to "service pack". Where is the problem?The problem is that people are confusing a service pack with a patch (and many authors aren't helping by talking about "patching" their products for a new version instead of "updating" them. This causes customers to expect things from a patch that a patch is not meant for (like the screams for a patch to FS2004 to put in some missing bridges, or people demanding a patch to FS2002 because they didn't like the colour of the sky). Such demands are detrimental to the industry as a whole because they take up developers' time trying to weed out the requests for issues to be put into service packs from the true bugs that need immediate attention. When the volume of shouts gets as large as it sometimes does, the result can be that developers stop listening to all complaints and requests because they're taking up so much time as to prevent them from doing their real job which is to work on improving existing and building new products. Some developers might even decide based on such demands (often combined with expletives and sometimes even threats to the developers) to leave the market entirely. This happened several times to freeware developers during the lifecycle of FS2002 who got so disgusted with the attitude of the people using their work (and sometimes afraid for their lifes) that they withdrew from the community (at least the open community, several went on for a small circle of friends). To the best of my knowledge this has not YET happened to commercial addon companies, but I think it did come close at least once during 2001 and might happen again. Were this to happen to Microsoft themselves (as it may) it would of course mean the end of the entire FS community within a few short years.

[Guest]

What strikes me even more is that it seems to be pretty much the same people complaining this time around...One has to wonder whether they're just impossible to please or are complaining out of habit and just looking for a reason (maybe because they have some grudge against Microsoft brought on by reading too much /.).

[StoneC0ld 5]

>>Ironically, MS did a pretty good job improving things so stuck>aircraft are much less common in FS2004 and thus the decreased>time probably was no longer required, but they went ahead and>actually listened to us and now are getting reamed for it!! >Can't win.>Same with several other issues, like having the wing-leveller on in the autopilot with altitude hold on and heading/nav hold off; taildraggers that require differential throttle/brake because the rudder won't steer it; just to name 2 that I can think of right now that are common "fixes".. :(I applaud Microsoft for listening to us and using our suggestions to improve the sim (in cases of stuck aircraft), but I personally think that, in this case, the fix, combined with the other improvements, was too much in the opposite direction. However, my suggestion of making it a fs10.cfg variable setting (along with taxi speeds, and a separate taxi speed to use after landing and before taking a runway exit) is pretty much guaranteed to satisfy everybody because everyone can set it to whatever they want and be happy with it... :) With improved AI/ATC takeoff/landing procedures, this could be a winner... :(

[Guest yarvelling]

Perhaps another solution for FS10 would be to have a more flexible range for trafffic density; split over airport sizes/categories. To explain: large international airports such as London Heathrow, JFK, DFW etc being some of the largest and with the heaviest traffic could be turned down to perhaps 60% AI traffic density, whereas smaller airports; Gatwick, Stansted, Brussels, Munich etc. could be set to 85% density and small airbases and airfields could be left at 100%.That way, you could control traffic flow through the airports more than you can now....a large airport with a lower density of AI would still look good but be faster moving and less of a hit on the FPS and you'd easily eliminate most of the disapearing AI, whillst smaller airports would still have a good range of aircraft. Unlike the current system....drop AI to 50% and small airports become empty whillst large airports are more manageable.Just an idea.... ;)