Title of this post might be slightly misleading however I have been doing a lot of flying in and out of Gatwick (EGKK) which was once (not sure if it still is) the busiest single runway airport in the world.

 

Something occurred to me: not once on final, arriving at various periods of the day, has there been ai queuing at the hold short point to take off once I have landed. This struck me as odd.

 

I fly using Radar Contact and AI Smooth, along with Active Sky. AI moves normally when I am taking off, and a little while after I have landed.

 

My question is this – is AI Smooth, or Radar Contact preventing movement on the ground whilst I am on the approach? Is there anyway to lessen the effect of this if so? Or is something else affecting ai departures? I'd love to see a queue of departing AI when I am landing.

 

I am sure someone out there must have an idea?

 

Thanks in advance

Not sure about the 2 programmes but there are quiet periods during the day, maybe you are landing during one of them

Not sure about the 2 programmes but there are quiet periods during the day, maybe you are landing during one of them

 

Thanks Craig - I thought that could be the case however I have tried at times throughout the day from early morning to late at night.

 

Also the problem is not distinct to Gatwick - I just thought that I'd use Gatwick as a test bed knowing how busy it is.

I also use Radar Contact, AI Smooth, and Active Sky. I am noticing the same thing you are. Not at gatwick but here in the states. I did a flight into and out of Seattle the other day. Absolutely no AI at all. Not even at the gates. Flew back to KSFO and KLAX over a period of a couple days and nothing lining up for TO or to land. I did have AI on the ground. This problem is new to me and I haven't changed anything at all with my system. I've seen other people report the same problem and I sure would like to find a fix. Or even find out which program the problem lies with.

RC4 only freezes ground traffic during your short final approach. This is to prevent FS ai ground runway encroachment. I believe it is only within a certain angle of the your approaching aircraft or from your assigned runway distance. It does not prevent ai from showing up.

 

AI Smooth can prevent ai from landing if your settings are incorrect. Be sure you are at version 1.2 for FS9 and FSX and is in the FSX Utilties library hear. Version 1.2 comes with documentation. In 1.1 if Respond To User Aircraft was set, and you were parked for spotting near the runway, it would prevent ai landing aircraft for that runway (by placing them in holding). AFAIK ground aircraft are not affected. Test AI Smooth with Respond to User aircraft disabled just to insure it has no effect. On the distance settings insure they are not too liberal so with Respond to User Aircraft set they are encompassing any areas of taxiing activity to prevent ai queing up for take-off. It should not affect ground AI.

 

Here are two things you can use for checking this:

 

Install the free traffic-look from:

http://forum.simflight.com/topic/66136-useful-additional-programs/

It will run in its own window outside of FS and you can alt-tab to it and back. It shows a table of ai with their IDs and state of action.

 

If your traffic program has a time table function check the schedules of problem airports for departures. You can search for one of the traffic board type applications - there might be a freeware one - that provides a schedule for departures and arrivals within a window of your FS time and displayable from within FS.

 

Also be sure FSUIPC is up to date from:

http://forum.simflight.com/topic/66136-useful-additional-programs/

 

and makerwys is current from:

http://forum.simflight.com/topic/66136-useful-additional-programs/

and then run RC's scenery rebuild again using the correct path to FS to insure it has the correct scenery data. It will then get the correct scenery data by using the paths in your FS scenery.cfg file. This is to insure when RC get your aircraft location from FSUIPC it properly relates to loctions of airport elements.

I also use Radar Contact, AI Smooth, and Active Sky. I am noticing the same thing you are. Not at gatwick but here in the states. I did a flight into and out of Seattle the other day. Absolutely no AI at all. Not even at the gates. Flew back to KSFO and KLAX over a period of a couple days and nothing lining up for TO or to land. I did have AI on the ground. This problem is new to me and I haven't changed anything at all with my system. I've seen other people report the same problem and I sure would like to find a fix. Or even find out which program the problem lies with.

 

I have never had airports with no ai at all. Not sure what might be causing that, My problem is that ai traffic movements on the ground seem to be paused when I am in the vicinity of the airport and only restart once I have taxied away from the active.

 

If you find a solution, please reply on here though.

 

Good luck!

 

RC4 only freezes ground traffic during your short final approach. This is to prevent FS ai ground runway encroachment. I believe it is only within a certain angle of the your approaching aircraft or from your assigned runway distance. It does not prevent ai from showing up.

 

AI Smooth can prevent ai from landing if your settings are incorrect. Be sure you are at version 1.2 for FS9 and FSX and is in the FSX Utilties library hear. Version 1.2 comes with documentation. In 1.1 if Respond To User Aircraft was set, and you were parked for spotting near the runway, it would prevent ai landing aircraft for that runway (by placing them in holding). AFAIK ground aircraft are not affected. Test AI Smooth with Respond to User aircraft disabled just to insure it has no effect. On the distance settings insure they are not too liberal so with Respond to User Aircraft set they are encompassing any areas of taxiing activity to prevent ai queing up for take-off. It should not affect ground AI.

 

Here are two things you can use for checking this:

 

Install the free traffic-look from:

http://forum.simflig...ional-programs/

It will run in its own window outside of FS and you can alt-tab to it and back. It shows a table of ai with their IDs and state of action.

 

If your traffic program has a time table function check the schedules of problem airports for departures. You can search for one of the traffic board type applications - there might be a freeware one - that provides a schedule for departures and arrivals within a window of your FS time and displayable from within FS.

 

Also be sure FSUIPC is up to date from:

http://forum.simflig...ional-programs/

 

and makerwys is current from:

http://forum.simflig...ional-programs/

and then run RC's scenery rebuild again using the correct path to FS to insure it has the correct scenery data. It will then get the correct scenery data by using the paths in your FS scenery.cfg file. This is to insure when RC get your aircraft location from FSUIPC it properly relates to loctions of airport elements.

 

Thank you Ron! I will try these out when I am at home tonight (UK time) and report back here...

I only mentioned the no AI at Seattle because the problem cropped up at the same time. Seattle used to have a lot of AI but all of a sudden nothing. And it's the only airport I have this problem. Like I said before I have changed nothing at all on my computer. Frustrating. I'll try some of the suggestions listed in this post but I don't have much hope. I haven't added anything nor have I uninstalled anything on my computer. I haven't even played with any settings. The problem just showed up out of the blue.

I decided to follow Ron's advice, but so as not to make too many changes at one time I began with downloading a new version of AISmooth.

 

Upon reading the manual I noticed that the authors advice was to start the program before anything else. Before now I had alway started it once positioned at the gate during pre-flight.

 

I tested it out by flying between Glasgow and Gatwick, and low and behold there was traffic waiting for me to land at the hold short for 26L.

 

I'm planning on doing the same flight this evening, at a different time of day, too see if it was just chance, but I wonder whether the fact I had been starting AISmooth after FS9 might have been having some affect on the formers ability to control traffic flow.

 

I will report back.