I am making Kenai PAEN. While testing out some ai I watched a DC6 Everts Air taxi off the runway and stop after the hold short. For 5 minutes, and then POOF! gone. A Cessna 172 taxied off, stopped, then talked to Ground and taxied off to park. Runway is 150 feet wide, taxiways are 100 feet wide and there are no disconnects, parking spots are all as large or larger than spots used by the same planes before in other sceneries. A Dash 8-100 (or anything bigger) stops, does not talk to Ground, and then disappears. A King Air or anything smaller (and using the same taxiway exit from the runway) stops, talks to Ground, then goes and parks, including at the same gate that the Dash 8-100 never got to. If I change the time and then look again, all the planes that did not taxi are now sitting happily on their parking spots. All planes, big or small, have no problem taxiing out and taking off.

 

Ideas?

I am making Kenai PAEN. While testing out some ai I watched a DC6 Everts Air taxi off the runway and stop after the hold short. For 5 minutes, and then POOF! gone. A Cessna 172 taxied off, stopped, then talked to Ground and taxied off to park. Runway is 150 feet wide, taxiways are 100 feet wide and there are no disconnects, parking spots are all as large or larger than spots used by the same planes before in other sceneries. A Dash 8-100 (or anything bigger) stops, does not talk to Ground, and then disappears. A King Air or anything smaller (and using the same taxiway exit from the runway) stops, talks to Ground, then goes and parks, including at the same gate that the Dash 8-100 never got to. If I change the time and then look again, all the planes that did not taxi are now sitting happily on their parking spots. All planes, big or small, have no problem taxiing out and taking off.

 

Ideas?

 

Sorry to see that you have waited so long for any kind of reply.

 

Check the AFCAD file. Look at the hold short nodes and make sure they are close enough to the runway. ( but not to close, so the larger aircraft are completely clear of the runway ) I believe they should be no farther than 200 or maybe it is 250 scale feet.

 

The reason the larger planes won't work is because the center point of the aircraft is not close enough to the hold short node to trigger the communication portion of the AI control.

 

I use Airport Design Editor. On my version of PAEN all of the runway exits are ( from the center of the runway to the hold short node ) from 170 feet to 175 feet.

 

One curious thing I noticed you wrote "a DC6 Everts Air taxi off the runway and stop after the hold short." If that is correctly worded something other than what I've written is probably wrong.

 

Which airport editor are you using? If what I have suggested doesn't work you are welcome to PM me, I will send you my email address and you can then send me your copy of  the airport file so that I can take a first hand look at it.

 

Regards,

An aircraft stationary for five minutes and going "poof!" is usually caused by ATC telling them to wait owing to their route being blocked. If it is a stalemate situation and the other aircraft concerned also can't get where it is going then they will both go "poof". It is built into FS that aircraft delayed more than a certain length of time (which may be five minutes, i don't remember) as a way of dealing with unresolvable conflicts. So I would say in that respect things were working as designed.

 

John

I use SceneryGenX for making scenery. There are no faults when I check it in AFCAD, either regarding the distance of hold shorts from runways or anything else. There are no aircraft blocking taxiways or any other delays that stop larger planes continuing to their parking spots. I have now decided that it is a wonderful example of the FS9 gremlins that ambush scenery designers around 1% of the time for no apparent reason other than testing one's sense of humour. In three other forums I had some really intelligent suggestions, but nothing that solved "it", whatever "it" is. I have come to a working compromise so that now only the largest aircraft that use the whole length of the runway go POOF! and everything else that exits at the first intermediary exit (King Air for instance) or the second intermediary exit (Dash 8-100 etc) all work perfectly. C'est la vie said the old folks, it goes to show you never can tell. What song was that?

Are you sure that all of the parking spots that have enough radius to accommodate the DC-6 when landing are not taken? I say this that assuming you have flown the 6 some length of time before landing, ai have arrived and perhaps taken up all of the large enough spaces to accommodate the DC-6.

 

See what an overhead view shows especially of the large radius spaces when this occurs.

 

If you have fsuipc3 installed (won't need a paid registration) run FS and AFCAD in dual windows and lock AFCAD to your aircraft so you'll have a visual overhead and the afcad overhead giving you the synchronized views showing the parking properties from AFCAD and the visual overhead for ai placement.

 

I would also use ADE's fault finder as it uses strict FS9 Scenery SDK rules which were not known at the time of AFCAD's development. In ADE just do a file/open airport from bgl to get the afcad type view. The fault finder will give you cautions and then warnings which would cause possible app crashes.

I am very sure. I have watched the large planes land from a viewpoint that lets me see taxiways and parking spots; I am only talking about two DC6, one Electra, and one 737 per day, so it is not complicated. As for further checking for faults there is no need, given that I have watched small planes using all of the airport without a problem after landing, and in addition watched both big and small taxi from their parking spots to takeoff as normal (big planes unpoof! on their parking spots when nobody is looking). All taxiways are either 100 or 50 feet wide, and all planes have previously happily used 50 feet.