Got a small problem with some AI I am trying to work into a scenery Im doing. I downloaded Holger's wonderful Bella Coola valley scenery the other day and decided to enhance the airport there with some more accurate details and buildings. So far that is going great. I had some API static aircraft in the scenery but decided to use my AIFD birds which look much better than the API's for static aircraft. I copied some flightplans and just changed the airports for around the immediate area of CYBD (Bella Coola)I used AFCAD to beef up surrounding airports parking so the traffic would show up and it has worked great. I have a full ramp of decent aircraft now and they taxi out and takeoff nicely on my tailored AFCAD for the scenery. My problem is two fold I think. First the planes takeoff but cant seem to negotiate the valley most of the time and just fly into the terrain. Thats no big deal because by the time this happens they are usually just about out of site anyway. Its worth the realistic airport movement. Second big problem seems to be the fact that aircraft coming in cant get down, and if they do they usually fly a large pattern ending up dissapearing in the terrain. Can this be fixed or is it just a quirk of the AI. Seems they can fly through the terrain for a moment or two and not dissappear, but if its longer than a few seconds, they dont seem to come back once they would be clear of terrain. IS there something I can do to help the aircraft descend faster due to the high surrounding terrain, or is it impossible? I would like to see a few touch and goes, but the valley is pretty narrow and dont believe the AI can fly a tight enough pattern to do it. For now, Ill just have planes and takeoffs I guess hoping for some of the aircraft to approach from the direction of the valley and be able to get down to land. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. Hornit

Not sure...But makes me wonder if maybe the default AIuse published approaches, departures, etc...IE: the sameprocedures you would have using an ATC flight...Seems to me,the default AI aircraft must be able to fly around mountains, etc, as I see them in "valley" type airports, with tricky approaches, etc..Maybe since these are add-on AI, they are not set up to use the published flight plans..Seems to me, thiswould be an airport/afcad related thing, rather than the AI aircraft itself..But like I said, I'm not sure...Just ruminating...I'm using only default AI...Seems to me, they can handle weird flightplans..I haven't seen any plow into mountains yet..Maybe I'm just not in the right place/time...:/ I had a lear nearly plow me at FL 43.0 early this AM...I was VFR tho...Yes, I know that's not legal at 43k, but I didn't want to have to respondto ATC during the flight.Not even flight followings.."ATC had him do the course change that nearly ruinated me...But I mean, he came so close across my 12, it was like ATC had directed him to hit me..."I was gritting my teeth waiting for the crash...:( But he missed by mere feet, and then followed me me in all the way to KMKC..Yep, he was even heading to the same airport..But it was a lear I had added to the traffic file myself...So I only have myself to blame...:/MK

Heh, well I'm thinking right now it has something to do with Holger's mesh. It is far more rugged and tall than the default. I guess I should disable it and see what happens at the airport. I really don't mind the lack of AI movement, at least the AFCAD has populated the airport with non API aircraft, that frankly look a whole lot better too. Helps on frame rates. I need to see what type of flight plans I copied, I guess changing them to VFR could help, cant hurt at this point. Also I guess I could put an ILS to the runway in also to help, there are no approaches there.Hornit

Another quick question, I installed an ILS and tower at the airport with AFCAD, should all the flight plans be IFR now or does it matter?? Gave the ILS a steep path and aligned it with the valley slightly to see if that would help.Hornit

Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?Hornit

Hi Hornit,Try this. I believe that if you change the default climb/descent rate in the autopilot section of the AI plane's aircraft/cfg file that you can affect how steeply they climb or descend. Try it and see if I'm correct. I had an AI 747 that would climb like a rocket and I fixed it in the cfg file; I just don't remember how. R-