Hi folks,i got very heavy raffic down there yesterday in the morning! My Traffic slider is set at 70%.Well i have two questions for you:1) how do you get airborne in such traffic? i had at least ten aircraft ahead waiting clearance to rwy 26 and from time to time one of them disappeared :-( and tenth of aircraft cleared to land (i'm using default AFCAD from Simflyers installation).Is there somewhere a better AFCAD?2) sometimes landing planes declared missed approach!?! I remember 2 maybe 3 "CACTUS is going missed"How can this happen? There's plenty of parking spots at KPHX :-coolThanks in advance for helpingLuigi ;-)

1) Taxi to a different hold point than all the AI planes, there should usually be plenty of runway anyway. Then you can obtain takeoff clearance ahead of everyone waiting in line...-

First of all, ATC AI is simply incapable of handling that much traffic.Real ATC would have inbounds run in a holding pattern and then individually clear incoming aircraft to land. They would also alternate between arrivals and departures (if only one runway was active).In AI traffic, the "flight plan" generated says the plane must arrive at time "x", so each plane will attempt to be on the ground at exactly that time. FS ATC does not implement any sort of "traffic control" except for the actual landing. So planes often bunch up on approach. If FS ATC see's another plane on the runway, it will tell the landing plane to "go around" right before it lands. This often occurs because ATC does not enforce proper separation on approach, nor does it use holding patterns to create that seperation.Also, FS ATC gives landing planes priority, so often it will clear anyone on final and wait until the arrivals have finished before granting a plane departure status.As far as planes "disappearing" on the ground, this is Flight Simulators method for clearing "jams". In the past, (FS2002) the planes would just sit there and cause a jam. In FS2004 if a plane has "sat" around for more than 10 minutes past it's departure time, FS2004 will perform housekeeping and delete the plane. On arrival, if a plane has no place to park, it will disappear on the runways as soon as it's finished it's landing run.AFCAD's help in that they give more parking places so less planes disappear on landing, but the additional planes on the ground can also increase the frequency of long queuesAnother thing that often causes this is the "jam" that occurs when you first start a flight. When you start a flight at time "x", all the planes that are supposed to leave from time "x" to 10 minutes prior to time "x" all head out immediately from the gate. Same is true for arrivals, so you often see very hectic traffic within the first 10 minutes of starting a flight due to the "bunching" that takes place. Let the sim run for 10 minutes to clear some of the "backlog" and it will seem more realistic. Pretend the first 10 minutes are your pre-flight and such, or grab a coke and watch the traffic for the first 10 minutes, and after that you will see a more "realistic" pattern, as AI traffic gets more stable. Also the new edit voice pack will speed up comms between the planes and ATC which allows ATC to handle more traffic, so you can try that.

Hi Will,and thanks a lot for your suggestions.I have two more questions though:1) proven that planes a)disappear if there are no free parking spots at an airport b)go around if a plane is still on the runway, can you please tell me why an AI pilot should ask for a missed approach :-madI'm pretty sure several "CACTUS" missed their approach while i was taxiing to the active at KPHX.>Also the new edit voice pack will speed up comms between the planes >and ATC which allows ATC to handle more traffic, so you can try >that.2) what is "the new Edit Voice Pack" you're talking about? And how does it speed up comms? I have v.3.0.1322 but i only use it to update voice pack+ airlines.cfg.Thanks againLuigi ;-)

Hi, Luigi:There are two "dirty" tricks you can pull to get AI congestion out of the way on an idividual as needed basis:If you go into the World Time menu choice from the menu bar while a flight is loaded and advance the time by one minute and exit the menu, the AI will reload to a lighter state including in back of you at the take-off queued line getting rid of those in front.The other trick is if you have FSUIPC fully registered you can assign a hot key combination to toggle AI between on and off. If you are crowded in you toggle it off, taxi near the runway, and toggle it back on. This gets rid of the AI that built up while you were doing all that preflight stuff before you start to taxi.As a bonus ATIS gets updated with current info and ATC starts using the correct runways to catch up with any external weather programs with the AI refresh.

Bottom line, ATC and AI is really crappy in MSFS. My hope is that the next MSFS really improves on these areas the most. I have my traffic slider much lower since my computer is slower, and I still get irritated by not being able to break into ATC to respond to hand-offs and such. I don't know how some of the people you use 100% traffic do it.By the way, "Cactus" is America West's callsign. ;)