Disabling RWs for AI Landing?

[dlm9000 10]

With a fresh FSX build (no scenery or module add-ons yet) I am installed Ultimate Traffic Live for some testing. I have come across and off situation and though I would fish some some thoughts.

I did a fresh build to eliminate any add-ons from the equation.  I am testing at LOWI.  (No, I have not put ORBX LOWI back in yet.)

UTL AI traffic arrives and departs on schedule. I am using the status boards to check the times. Departing traffic takes off from RW08R as expected. Arriving UTL AI Traffic, such as a 737-800, flies over the airport at about 4000ft, goes missed, and then circles all the way around and lands on the 2nd attempt.  However, they land on RW08L.  The short grass runway.  They roll out through the hangar, fence and into the highway.  Then they taxi to the gate.  Strange... default AI traffic lands on RW08R.   I a pretty sure there is something up with Ultimate Traffic Live. 

I used ADE to check the default LOWI airport and both RW08C and RW08L are marked NO for Primary take off and landing, and NO for Secondary take off and landing.  Yet, they just keep landing on the short grass runway.   Is there anything else I can do in ADE that would "disable AI from using the two grass runways?  I am reluctant to remove them because I like landing on them once in a while.  (But I will consider it).

IF anyone is using Ultimate Traffic Live and wants to try this experiment, here are the specifics.   Airport: LOWI   Set the day of the week to Monday and the time to 13:50 local for a 14:05 arrival of the a Transavia 737-800. 

[dlm9000 10]

Follow up:  I listen to ATIS, and it Reports that RW08, RW08C, and RW08L in use when the runways are set to "NO" for Primary and Secondary landing and takeoff.  That does not seem right.

[Dave_YVR 973]

 You could just remove the grass runways from the ADE file. That is what I've done and it works fine.

[dlm9000 10]

Well I did not want to do that, but I did.  After removing the grass runways, UTL traffic is assigned the paved runway, yet they overfly the airport at 4000ft and go missed, three times around and the disappear.  Default AI lands just fine. 

[Dave_YVR 973]

 Default being jet AI or the little GA stuff? UTL has no control over the AI engine thats part of the sim, the traffic can't get low enough to conduct a normal ILS type of straight in approach. It's been like that since AI was introduced to MSFS.

[dlm9000 10]

Default jet and GA traffic land fine.  Nice approach.   UTL traffic flies over at 4000ft.  I know it injects the traffic into the FSX AI engine, but something is different. I can figure it out.  I go to Munich, and it works fine.  Something to do with LOWI,

[Dave_YVR 973]

6 hours ago, dlm9000 said:

 I go to Munich, and it works fine.  Something to do with LOWI,

 

 Munich works fine just like most other airports as it has minimal terrain around and actual 3 degree approaches for the AI to fly. It's not a UTL thing at all, BGL traffic behaves the same way and has done so for 15 years there. It's the same at any airport with terrain and no precision approach. There are other airports where traffic behaves very similarly as well. Short of doing what Jim Vile did with re coding the specific approaches there's nothing to really do at this point.

[dlm9000 10]

Thanks Dave, that stopped me from chasing a phantom problem.  I focused on the airport bgl and GOT IT WOKRING!  Yay. 

I researched the way FSX assigns runways and there are several factors.  One factor is an AI plane approaching gets the nearest runway if it is open. (there are a lot of other factors, but on a calm day, this is a big one).  With the LOWI default airport and the ORBX LOWI, the grass runways are set to NO for Primary and Secondary landing and take off, so, it is reasonable to think that this would over ride the direction of approach, but in airports with terrain, this does not seem to work well.   The UTL jets were approaching from the West and RW08L Visual was assigned.  Once I deleted the two grass runways in ADE, RW08R VISUAL was assigned and they over flew the airport.  It seems that UTL Jets assigned "visual" never landed.  (I think this conflicts with the IFR flight plan they had maybe?)  I have no idea what was going on there, but....

My Fix:  Do this at your own risk.  I installed ORBX LOWI. I made a second airport file to go in the ORBX LOWI folder. I used ADE to open the Airport Placement BGL, deleted the grass runways and compiled it with a different name (the default ADEX ADE name it gives it.)  I placed this file in the ORBX LOWI directory.  I left the original, as you need it to load ORBX library objects around the airport that the ADE one will not. I tried this in the add-on scenery directory, but it excludes the libray objects (buildings) beneath it.  When I put it in the ORBX LOWI folder, I get all the objects, without RW08C and RW08L.  This does not affect the way the grass area looks because of the great textures in ORBX LOWI.

NOW all traffic lands.  Default and UTL AI arriving from the west approach at the right altitude and land RW08 (no more grass runway landings, no more high fly overs)  In fact, IFR traffic fly down the high side of the valley (south side) descending out 6000ft and turn for short final at about 3000.

For the orginal problem, I can't figure out why default AI was landing on the primary when arriving from the same direction, but the UTL AI behaved differently. It must have been in the flight planning. BUT, I have it working very nicely now, and just want to get back to flying.  Thanks for everyone's help.