Swedflight AFCADs

[martinlest2 58]

Does anyone have a set of FS9 AFCAD files for Swedflight airports they could upload? Nice that Swedflight released the sceneries as freeware (long ago!), but without AFCADs the sceneries are a bit pointless.

 

I have made one or two myself, but it's a long process for airports that I probably won't fly into more than once or twice a year, if that. Googling only leads to dead ends and broken links...

 

Personally, I am looking especially for ESGP & ESNN...

 

Thanks.

[vector 7]

Swedflight has a few AFCADs included in their downloads but AFAIK that's all there is.  I am not aware that there are any other AFCADs out there that you can doanload.  If I need to make any amendments and I don't have a Swedflight AFCAD then I copy over the FS9 default AFCAD and use that.

 

Dijvid

[martinlest2 58]

Hi. That's what I am doing (editing FS9 defaults), but as I said, it takes quite some time to line taxiways, gates, runways etc. A labour of love, perhaps?

 

So how did the original Swedflight airports work without AFCADs, given that the layout is not the same as the FS9 airports? AI traffic must have gone all over the place...

[graemeb 14]

I have all the Swedflight products (from when they were payware), and the AFCAD files do indeed exist. They were released as a separate package, I think they were created by Project AI (PAI).

[martinlest2 58]

Hi. Yes, that's what I have read, but links to them all lead nowhere. Too old, I guess..

 

I do have several AFCADs for these airports, all in the format SWFL_AF2_ES**.bgl: is that the same as yours? I haven't tested them all before posting here, but I assume that they are OK. There are one or two blanks in my 'collection' though - I wonder why I have some but not all. In particular I don't have official AFCADs for ESGP (the ESGP.bgl file, as I said above, has airport and runway data, but it's not an AFCAD as such and a/c are not being placed properly in the Swedflight scenery), ESNN, ESNU (I made my own for that), ESPA (ditto - I made a basic one), ESSV (ditto again) & ESUH.. It's possible that one or two of those are not Swedflight sceneries but others downloaded from the AVSIM library, I can't check on that at the moment (sorry). Were AFCADs issued by Swedflight for those airports? I suppose it's possible I have all that were ever issued (not sure where they came from at this stage!), but there again, why would a few airports have been left 'AFCADless'?

 

I don't know whether you'd consider uploading yours to AVSIM - I don't think there are any copyright issues: the sceneries are of course all freely available as freeware and have been for many years. I am sure someone will step in here though and say, if there are any legal concerns!

 

Thanks anyway....

[3Green 80]

Hi Martin

 

See if these AFCAD's work.

 

RJ

[martinlest2 58]

I am a lousy Googler - why can I never find stuff like this? I'll try them and report back.

 

Many thanks

[martinlest2 58]

OK, I tested one, ESGP, and there are problems still.

 

First, I checked I had no other AFCADs... then loaded FS9 at runway 04. In AFCAD2 the a/c is shown in the right position, but in the sim, it is stands quite some way from that, off to the left of the runway:

 

 

It is the file ESGP.bgl that is doing this: if you remove it, the runways are covered in trees, but the a/c is in the correct position.

 

I tried putting the PAI AFCAD file into a folder with a higher priority than the ESGP.bgl file, but that changed nothing.

 

Unfortunately ESGP.bgl defines a lot of the airport scenery (and includes excludes, so to speak), so you can't just disable it. The only thing to do is to decompile it and remove all the objects that are over-riding the AFCAD. Then I'd need to create an exclude file, to get rid of the trees on the runway. OR, though not as neat but MUCH quicker, in AFCAD2 I could just drag the starting positions so that they match the scenery. That won't help with AI traffic, which will presumably taxi across the grass, but there isn't much traffic at these small airports anyway.

 

And finally, I'd need to rename all the gates in the Swedflight AFCAD file, as though they seem to be in the correct position (ESGP.bgl has no gate information, thankfully), the numbering doesn't match at all with the labels on the ground in FS9.

 

Then I will probably have to do the same for a number of other airports. That will all take a while: slightly annoying, as these are hardly airports I fly to every day (or even every year), but I suppose (sadly) I have nothing better to do today!

 

What I don't understand is why, if I have this problem, no one else does (I assume)?? I have no other ESGP scenery installed.

[3Green 80]

Hi Martin.

 

First I don't have SwedFlight scenery installed.... so

 

I downloaded ESGP from here.

I then ran the "swe_pack_4.exe" installer pointing it to a dummy folder.

I found folder "esgp" and moved it to my "Default" FS9 folder and activated.

I can confirm that I'm seeing the same problem you mention.

(When starting at ESGP and selecting rwy 4, I'm placed at the same location as your photo.

 

If I remove file "ESGP.bgl" from the "esgp" scenery folder, then you are placed in the correction location.

 

With the file "ESGP.bgl" removed, the starting location works OK with the default AFCAD.

With the file "ESGP.bgl" removed, and when using the AFCAD file "SWFL_AF2_ESGP.bgl" which I downloaded from here it works ok as well.

 

I don't have any trees on any runways, so those must be coming from a another BGL file from the "swe_pack_4.exe" installer.

A landclass file maybe?

 

I didn't test much to see how the scenery is affected by removing file "ESGP.bgl".  You mention it's an exclude file?

Maybe make a new exclude file and remove "ESGP.bgl".

 

RJ

[martinlest2 58]

Thanks for testing. As I said though, if you remove the ESGP.bgl file, you will lose a lot of airport scenery, buildings and so on, which are coded into the file (decompile to sca and you'll see what I mean). Yes, it must contain an exclusion too, which is clearing the runway of trees.

 

For now, given that this is an airport I am unlikely to go to very often, I have just moved the start locations in the AFCAD file, so that at least if you select to start from a runway (not that I ever do), the plane is in the right location.

[3Green 80]

 

 

What I don't understand is why, if I have this problem, no one else does (I assume)??

 

RJ  :wink:

 

[martinlest2 58]

God, I LOVE STtNG!!!!!

[vector 7]

What I don't understand is why, if I have this problem, no one else does (I assume)?? I have no other ESGP scenery installed.

 

Well, I do have the problem myself but I didn't know until you pointed it out and I did a test myself.  Before then I had never flown to ESGP.

 

I do have this sort of problem at a small handful of other airports but it doesn't bother me as I always start a flight from a gate or ramp, not a runway, and I use the slew keys, if necessary, to re-position my aircraft.

 

Djvid

[martinlest2 58]

I never start at a runway either, but AI traffic will land in odd places with the setup as it is.

 

As I say though, to start dragging all the runways and taxiways to their correct positions (using AFCAD2) is just not worth it for airports I will hardly ever fly to. In this case, I just moved the start positions to match where the a/c are actually lined up for take-off, which took no time at all. Better than nothing...

 

Did people, I wonder, never complain to Swedflight about this, when the airports were payware. As freeware of course, we take what we're given, with gratitude...  :smile:

[vector 7]

I never start at a runway either, but AI traffic will land in odd places with the setup as it is.

 

Ah!  AI traffic didn't occur to me as I have never used it.  All those planes buzzing around would, I'm sure, add to the immersion factor but I wouldn't like them slowing down my PC!

 

Dijvid