My only problem with the program right now is that it cant handle many Airports at once.  I first converted all the airports I had Navigraph Navdata for and the program crashed.  Then i tried just my add-on airports and some major surrounding ones (ie, FSDT KJFK + KLGA and KEWR just to have traffic in the area move correctly) and it still crashed.  Im now being left with swapping files in and out for each flight.  Would be nice if i could have all my airports in there and just run it when FSX starts and forget it.

Hi, Guys - Ray L here.

 

Well, I think I figured out what was wrong - though I have no idea WHY the following fixed my prob.

 

I deleted my FSX.CFG (just on a chance), and guess what?

 

I have started 3 flights, and NO SLEWING!!

 

I don't know - go figure.

 

Will do much more testing, to see if indeed this is fixed for me - just thought I'd pass on this info (are you reading this, Roland? Grin)

 

 

Ok - that's it.

 

All best,

Ray L (Blackbird)

Has anyone had any issues with not seeing any AI land at their airports? I loaded up at Las Vegas and preflighted my aircraft for 30 minutes. I never heard a single aircraft ask to taxi to the gate. I checked AISIDSTAR and it showed it was recognizing aircraft and vectoring them. Taxiing to 25R and there wasn't a light in the sky on the approach. Aircraft took off but did not land. I made sure I had all my LAS files copied into my active AISIDSTAR folder with the active INI. I loaded AI Separation and it showed over 30 aircraft in the LAS area. None within 10 nm of the airport landing.

 

Is the program holding them all back for some reason? You would think at 9:30pm at LAS it would be a decent string on the arrival.

Turning off AI holding at STAR seems to have made them start landing again. What about the option for those who want it to have the separation of 5nm up until the runway? I think that by the time they are entering the approach they are pretty evenly spaced. But when the speeds slow and the distances close I think continuing the separation is important there as well. (I have bumped my separation from 5nm to 6nm) The goal here is to reduce likely go arounds. If so, separation on the final approach is an important factor over altitude and speed restraints. (Which for the most part the user can't really see until that phase is already over and AI are transitioning to the final approach, or from what I can tell)

Great to hear, thanks for passing along your results.  Do you happen to have a backup of the FSX.cfg that was causing problems that you could email me?

 

Hi, Guys - Ray L here.

Well, I think I figured out what was wrong - though I have no idea WHY the following fixed my prob.

I deleted my FSX.CFG (just on a chance), and guess what?

I have started 3 flights, and NO SLEWING!!

I don't know - go figure.

Will do much more testing, to see if indeed this is fixed for me - just thought I'd pass on this info (are you reading this, Roland? Grin)


Ok - that's it.

All best,
Ray L (Blackbird)

Good points, I'll look into adding holds at the exit point in addition to the entry.

 

Regarding the holding AI not landing at KLAS, they might have ran into a mountain.  The entry waypoint altitude for short STARs that catch AI spawned close to the airport is calculated (if there is no altitude specified in the STAR for that waypoint) based on a normal descent profile (or profile specified by the user when executing AIConv.exe), so if there is exceptional terrain in the area that could be a problem.  You might want to run AIConv again for KLAS with higher descent rates so the AI tends to stay higher longer.  

 

When I get home I'll also double check to see whether I'm taking into account airport elevation too when calculating short STAR entry altitudes, if not that is a bug and I'll get it fixed.

 

I'll also look into that turboprop/jet separation issue you mentioned earlier.  That might be a fairly easy feature to add.  Thanks for the suggestions. 

 

 

Turning off AI holding at STAR seems to have made them start landing again. What about the option for those who want it to have the separation of 5nm up until the runway? I think that by the time they are entering the approach they are pretty evenly spaced. But when the speeds slow and the distances close I think continuing the separation is important there as well. (I have bumped my separation from 5nm to 6nm) The goal here is to reduce likely go arounds. If so, separation on the final approach is an important factor over altitude and speed restraints. (Which for the most part the user can't really see until that phase is already over and AI are transitioning to the final approach, or from what I can tell)

I don't know without certainty, without checking, but in general for LAS since they are usually always landing to the west that the initial waypoint entry altitude for RWY25L is 8000 at PRINO. Here's the chart: http://155.178.201.160/d-tpp/1306/00662IL25L.PDF

 

I do think you are right with the mountain and terrain idea. When I was heading out to the departure runway there was an aircraft that was on a downwind and his altitude marker kept dropping and went to just a diamond and then slowly bounced back up. I think he was following this arrival: http://155.178.201.160/d-tpp/1306/00662SUNST.PDF or similar. As you can see it gives you a nice downwind of the airport but if AI are going below the altitude restrictions to meet their 3000ft pattern altitude limit then they are definitely in trouble at mountainous airpots.

 

Other than that, last night at Phoenix I had a Delta heavy and a Southwest 737 land one after the other with no problems. Bumping the separation from 5 to 6 gave it a bit more spacing. Looked like a go around might of happened but seeing two lights behind one another doesn't allow to calculate that distance, was good separation even though it looked closer than it was.

 

Looking forward to future improvements.

I've just skimmed over the thread, so excuse these dumb questions:

 

- Does this tool also read from the default MSFS nav database or any add-on airport AFX files?

 

- Does anyone have experience with this and RC4?

 

- Are the SIDs/STARs selected by active runways?

 

- Any experiences with crosswind-runway equipped airports?

 

 

In any case, it's an awfully promising tool and a good incentive to finally ditch AISmooth.

I'd love to have it in action over NYC. Should make AI approaches and departures to and from LGA, JFK and EWR so much better!

#1: The program reads from whatever the available txt files are in the active folder which is laid out in the INI file that is along with the AISIDSTAR.EXE (Which makes that INI file active and the program reads from that file and processes the txt files from the directory listed in that INI file). I converted my PMDG airport files into AISIDSTAR formats.

 

#2:Don't use RC4.

#3: There is an option in the INI to have the SID/STAR selection decided by the active runways or whichever fits where the AI choose to go.

#4:Crosswind runway operations are tricky in FS. Again, it is dependent upon the active runways (if you choose that option). I have my Vegas set up to run 25L and 19R for landing. I don't see why it shouldn't work since my AI use that configuration even before this program.

 

All comes down to how you have your airports configured. It SHOULD do the rest.

#1: The program reads from whatever the available txt files are in the active folder which is laid out in the INI file that is along with the AISIDSTAR.EXE (Which makes that INI file active and the program reads from that file and processes the txt files from the directory listed in that INI file). I converted my PMDG airport files into AISIDSTAR formats.

 

#2:Don't use RC4.

#3: There is an option in the INI to have the SID/STAR selection decided by the active runways or whichever fits where the AI choose to go.

#4:Crosswind runway operations are tricky in FS. Again, it is dependent upon the active runways (if you choose that option). I have my Vegas set up to run 25L and 19R for landing. I don't see why it shouldn't work since my AI use that configuration even before this program.

 

All comes down to how you have your airports configured. It SHOULD do the rest.

 

I think somebody in this thread mentioned he was using S&S Controller with RC4.

 

Dirk.

#1: The program reads from whatever the available txt files are in the active folder which is laid out in the INI file that is along with the AISIDSTAR.EXE (Which makes that INI file active and the program reads from that file and processes the txt files from the directory listed in that INI file). I converted my PMDG airport files into AISIDSTAR formats.

 

#2:Don't use RC4.

#3: There is an option in the INI to have the SID/STAR selection decided by the active runways or whichever fits where the AI choose to go.

#4:Crosswind runway operations are tricky in FS. Again, it is dependent upon the active runways (if you choose that option). I have my Vegas set up to run 25L and 19R for landing. I don't see why it shouldn't work since my AI use that configuration even before this program.

 

All comes down to how you have your airports configured. It SHOULD do the rest.

 

#1: Well, I was thinking more about a generic solution. While having text files is all fine and dandy, setting them up is a major endeavour.

 

#3: Does that include multiple SIDs/STARs, i.e. will planes eparting to, say the north use SID x while planes departing to the south use SID y?

 

#4: Okay, good to hear.

 

 

Thanks for the anwers!

Yes, I'm using RC4 with AISIDSTAR.  

 

I think somebody in this thread mentioned he was using S&S Controller with RC4.

 

Dirk.

Yes, I'm using RC4 with AISIDSTAR.  

 

I take from your short answer that there aren't any (major) problems with that, right?

I take from your short answer that there aren't any (major) problems with that, right?

There's no reason RC4 and AISidStar can't work together. RC doesn't touch AI in flight, and AISidStar doesn't touch them on the ground, so they complement each other, no conflicts.

 

Pete

I converted some files using your program for the airport that I normally use.

 

The minute the AI reach the first waypoint of a STAR the plane slows down to about 52kts. I noticed the same for all the outgoing AI as well.

 

The files were converted using the default settings. I compared the output files with the ones you included and I cannot see any obvious errors.