So I installed all of the world of ai packages to flight simulator x and have gotten what I though to to be good results. However I noticed that the amount of planes at my local airport almost doubles when it is dark outside. For example at midnight the airport is completely full while during the day there is about 1/3 as much traffic

 

What is going on?

A lot of the flights park at night and leave in the morning, especially domestic flights. Nothing unusual going on.

 

If you have the SDK installed you can use the traffic viewer tool to see when they are scheduled to start taking off in the morning.

 

The majority of traffic in the late night hours is usually cargo traffic or international departures and arrivals, however some airport like regional get pretty quiet at night. As an example, I live right next to KDAL and after 11pm you rarely hear any planes taking off or landing, but around 5am they get started.

A lot of the flights park at night and leave in the morning, especially domestic flights. Nothing unusual going on.

 

 

The problem the OP is having, appears to be the opposite little traffic in day and a lot at night, that is very unusual. Maybe a timezone.bgl issue.

 

The problem the OP is having, appears to be the opposite little traffic in day and a lot at night, that is very unusual. Maybe a timezone.bgl issue.

Yeah, that's what I'm saying in my reply.

 

He said "For example at midnight the airport is completely full while during the day there is about 1/3 as much traffic."

 

And what I'm telling him is the reason it's full at night is because a lot of the traffic, probably mostly domestic flights, are parked at the airport over night waiting for early morning departures. Hence the reason the airport is "full" at night, assuming he means that there are planes parked at all the gates, and only sees by his estimation 1/3 during the day, because as I told him they are flying during the day and not continously parked at the gates.

 

FWIW, I used to notice the same thing when I ran exclusively WOAI traffic. If I went to say KDFW, almost every parking spot would be full at night, while during the day time there were a lot of open spaces since planes would land, taxi to the gate and park, then in a short time, take off again. But, late in the day, some planes would land and be parked over night until the next scheduled flight in the moring.

 

I don't think it's a timezone.bgl issue. The only issue I could see is that he didn't convert the flight plan bgls to FSX format, but that would only cause them to run a day off schedule and no FSX native traffic would appear.

disable aircraft and ground shadows. The old models do not support this and are invisible if these options are checked.

I think cmpbellsjc is right. It's just the fact that a lot of overnight aircraft are parked making the airport appear full at night but less dense during the day. I've noticed the same at most airports.

 

 

disable aircraft and ground shadows. The old models do not support this and are invisible if these options are checked.

While that's true in most cases, he said he does have traffic during the day so I don't think that's the issue, otherwise he wouldn't have any traffic visible in the day.

I think cmpbellsjc is right. It's just the fact that a lot of overnight aircraft are parked making the airport appear full at night but less dense during the day. I've noticed the same at most airports.

 

 

 

While that's true in most cases, he said he does have traffic during the day so I don't think that's the issue, otherwise he wouldn't have any traffic visible in the day.

 

Because not all AI models have that problem of shadows during the day

Because not all AI models have that problem of shadows during the day

Nor do all airports depending on the materials used. Some FSX airports will work with FS9 AI models and shadows on and not disappear while others wont.

 

If the OP ever returns to the thread perhaps he can give some more information.

So I dug into the flight plan files and found that the one of the above posters was right the aircraft were all parked and not scheduled to leave until the morning. Is this how real world airports operate planes parking at the gate overnight until the morning?

So I dug into the flight plan files and found that the one of the above posters was right the aircraft were all parked and not scheduled to leave until the morning.

Yeah that's what I though but glad you were able to verify that to be the case. Since most of the WOAI flight plans are based on real world schedules, you'll notice that some regional airports will have a lot of overnight parked aircraft since a lot of those type of flights are conducted between early morning and midnight.

 

One thing to mention also is that if the airport doesn't have enough parking spaces and all the parking is full but flights are still arriving, you may notice that aircraft will land and disappear if they don't have anywhere to park. Just thought I would mention that in case your traffic spotting and see planes land and vanish.

Is this how real world airports operate planes parking at the gate overnight until the morning?

Sometime at the gate or in overflow parking. Just depends on the airport and what's scheduled to come in at night or leave early morning, or how many gates at the airport the airline has. If you go into Google Earth or and map with a satellite view and zoom in on an airport, you'll be able to find overflow parking away from the gates where the airline may tow an aircraft to park it for the night to open up a gate.