Building your own customised AI flightplans with downloadable freeware aircraft models and repaints is a great way to create a convincing airport environment, but updates need to be done with care. Last year, I decided to remove most of my AIA and DJC models and repaints, and replace them with FAIB versions. A time consuming, but not particularly difficult task. However, I had noticed for some time that there seemed to be a lack of Aer Lingus aircraft at Dublin, and Virgin Atlantic aircraft at Heathrow, but for some reason I never bothered to investigate.....

.......until yesterday.

My decision to upgrade Aer Lingus and Virgin Atlantic flightplans to more recent versions made me realise what had happened. I had five repaints assigned to the Aer Lingus A320, and three of them were for the DJC model. Even worse, my entire fleet of Virgin Atlantic 747s was assigned to AIA models. In other words, over half of my Aer Lingus A320s, and all of my Virgin Atlantic 747s were missing from the simulator!

EDIT: I departed Manchester this morning, and noticed a Virgin Atlantic 747 at one of the gates

Edited September 15, 20187 yr by Christopher Low

1 hour ago, Christopher Low said:

A time consuming, but not particularly difficult task.

I feel your pain.

The misconception of not difficult is very widespread, so many think its not difficult, and then you prove how difficult it is to attempt to manage such a task for even a couple airports and a couple airlines. 

The UT live forum is filled with the same boasting of how easy it is to make ones own AI schedules. Developers make AI programs and sell it for premium prices and leave it to users to fill huge gaps, with the claim of how its easy to do.

Traffic Global (Global MY FOOT) is the same - way too many gaps in 2018.

The original Ultimate Traffic (2005!!) should have been the beginning of a product/service that got better as time went by, but laziness and greed increased instead, for only the UI has improved/changed. 

The problems you discovered would be just a drop in the ocean if you fly to many different places all the time like I do.

Maybe one day a company (no not me - I'm a pilot not a programmer) with integrity will come along and do it right with regular (monthly/quarterly) updates that totally fill the gaps even in Botswana or The Azores! 

The FS world is about to be ready for such a thing...https://www.fsaerodata.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=136

Yes, I am lucky that I generally only fly around the UK and Ireland, although I have expanded my range a bit with FlyTampa Amsterdam/Copenhagen/Corfu. To be fair, I make it even harder for myself, because I am only interested in those flightplans that include the airports that I visit, so every time that I decide that I want a different airport, I go through the process of downloading most of those flightplans again (plus the new ones that I do not have in my database), and scan through every flight looking for the ones that I can delete!! A time consuming task made ten times more difficult

On a side note.....is there a British Airways A320NEO repaint available for the FAIB model?

Edited September 15, 20187 yr by Christopher Low

13 minutes ago, Christopher Low said:

On a side note.....is there a British Airways A320NEO repaint available for the FAIB model?

Yup, there is. Search for atco-repaints a320neo and it's the first livery on the page.

2 hours ago, Christopher Low said:

My decision to upgrade Aer Lingus and Virgin Atlantic flightplans

chris

with what AI program may I ask .... 'tis not obvious from you post (though I suspect it's not the AIG Way)

Quote

Yup, there is. Search for atco-repaints a320neo and it's the first livery on the page.

Thanks!

Quote

with what AI program may I ask .... 'tis not obvious from you post (though I suspect it's not the AIG Way)

Most of my AI flightplans are AIG, but I also use UTT and other freeware flightplans. My latest Aer Lingus and Virgin Atlantic flightplans (both Summer 2018) are from UTT and AIG respectively.

Edited September 15, 20187 yr by Christopher Low

2 hours ago, pracines said:

Maybe one day a company (no not me - I'm a pilot not a programmer) with integrity will come along and do it right with regular (monthly/quarterly) updates that totally fill the gaps even in Botswana or The Azores! 

The FS world is about to be ready for such a thing...https://www.fsaerodata.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=136

In my opinion this already exists for a long, long time: MyTraffic 6 had a huge amount of traffic of every kind, everywhere! It was an absolutely wonderful piece of software that instantly populated my skies wherever I wanted to fly, featuring even the most obscure airlines and military planes. Of course it had its drawbacks, one of them outdated schedules, and the models were not... the best. Burkhard was in the process of updating some of the models that featured prominently, such as Boeing 737 and Airbus A320, but the lesser used ones still looked a little old. It's sad that it's unlikely that MT6 will be updated in the future, but one can always hope...

3 minutes ago, Benjamin J said:

In my opinion this already exists for a long, long time: MyTraffic 6 had a huge amount of traffic of every kind, everywhere! It was an absolutely wonderful piece of software that instantly populated my skies wherever I wanted to fly, featuring even the most obscure airlines and military planes. Of course it had its drawbacks, one of them outdated schedules, and the models were not... the best. Burkhard was in the process of updating some of the models that featured prominently, such as Boeing 737 and Airbus A320, but the lesser used ones still looked a little old. It's sad that it's unlikely that MT6 will be updated in the future, but one can always hope...

I agree MT6 populated the FS world greatly, but realistic schedules and traffic is more often best, because there are only so many parking spots in reality. With the upcoming product from FS Aerodata , it is said that we will have correct parking with correct airline gate assignments for every airport in the FS world, this coupled with correct RW airline traffic will be the cream of the crop. With a reasonable random set of GA and Military schedules I think that would suffice.  

2 hours ago, Christopher Low said:

I generally only fly around the UK and Ireland (...) I am only interested in those flightplans that include the airports that I visit

Christopher, it only seems to be 'ONLY'. 😉
Since you fly in the UK, the Heathrow airport itself generates most international airlines of the world. So you have a tedious task to do, sir.

As I am mostly a heavymetal flightsimmer, most of my flights originate and/or end at large airports (80-90% of time in Europe). One of the basic things I need to feel immersion (sim-wise) is realistic traffic around.
One of the things VATSIM never gave me, as much as I love the real and diversified human interaction it is based on. So nowadays I'd rather fly offline (I don't believe I wrote it, lol).

As for traffic, I have been for years on custom AI traffic. I started compiling my own traffic in FS9, then FSX and now P3Dv4.
Maybe someone will find it valuable, so let me share some basics of my traffic creation workflow.

1. I regularly check the best AI repaint sites to download the latest repaints. Those sites are mainly juergenbaumbusch.de and jcai.dk, but also atco-repaints.com, kyles-ai-works.com and, yes, the AVSIM library (flyingcarpet75 used to be nice too).
2. I regularly check the best AI flightplan databases to download the latest flightplans. This is mainly unitedtrafficteam.com/index.php/ai-flight-plans (updated daily) but also AIG and, again, the AVSIM library.
3. Each flightplan set consists of 3 essential text format files: Aircraft.txt, Airports.txt. and Flightplans.txt. I edit the Aircraft.txt file with NotePad to replace the aircraft names with the ones I have in my Prepar3D_4\SimObjects\Airplanes folder and just save it.
4. Then I compile the flighplan using AIFPC (AI FP Compiler) - it's a very easy automated thing to do. And it ready!
5. I also often check my created traffic files (the bgl's from Scenery\World\Scenery - where they reside) with ACA2017 - if there are any errors, which happens from time to time, I correct them easily.

I don't know much about the payware traffic programmes but my custom traffic is very accurate and current. Most of my flightplans are now dated the summer 2018.
At this moment I have 354 airlines (just checked), pax, charter and cargo, mostly European but also some from all other continents. All the main players plus a number of regionals.
This way wherever I fly, I always have traffic buzzing around me. When/where possible, I sometimes play real world ATC from liveATC.net and - for me - the immersion is huge.

As for AI aircraft models I use a lot, currently it's 192 (!) of them, e.g. TFS, FAIB (a huge base of these!), FSP(XAI), UTT, AIA, AIG, AIM, OSP, HTAI, CIS, Raven, SBAI and others.
They have been improved with some nice freewae AI sounds available at the AVSIM library.

I am curious to read how others create their traffic.
If you have any questions about my way to do it, please feel free to ask.

1 hour ago, Rafal said:

I am curious to read how others create their traffic.

Like yourself, all of my AI is manually created using all the resources that you have mentioned, plus the payware FSPXAI models from Simmarket, which in my opinion, are just superb and the best available.

However, any new AI aircraft added are first loaded in the freeware AI-Aircraft Editor to ensure that there's no issues with any of their textures. Once this has been checked, the decompiled flightplan.txt file is then loaded into AI Flight Planner to check for any errors, for example, aircraft in the aircraft.txt file that can't be located - it does happen !

Once all of the above is done, I'm good to go !

It does sound like a lot of work, but once you get the hang of it, it takes no time at all. As an example, I recently purchased FlyTampa's EHAM and noticed that there wasn't a lot of cargo AI there. So I downloaded all of the necessary flightplans and repaints to add about 10 cargo airlines that use EHAM (as per the latest photos on Airliners.net). The whole job taking about 50mins. I also updated the entire KLM fleet to incorporate their updated colour scheme and special repaints. Once again, about 50mins.

The secret is to keep on top of things and update flightplans a little and often.

Edited September 15, 20187 yr by garydpoole

WoW, that is a whole hobby onto its own.  I can only envy what results you guys must have or taking such pain to get such pleasure.  🤯 I think all I did way back when was convert my World-of-AI into a P3D format and left it.  Plenty of beautiful AI all around but of course not adhering to any real world schedule.

It would be interesting to see a few screenies of your  labor of love.

9 minutes ago, Clutch Cargo said:

It would be interesting to see a few screenies of your  labor of love.

Will do when I'm back at my PC.

Bought My Traffic 6 when I got back into simming with P3D. Set it up, and haven't touched it since. Works great. 

I’ve also assembled a custom AI solution from AIG and others over more than 5 years. Unlike you, Rafał, I haven’t tried very hard to keep it up to date, I’m afraid...

For some people assembling AI is a hobby unto itself. And more power to them! For me, like building my own computer, I don’t do it because it’s fun. I do it because I don’t have other good options. The crazy thing is that —unlike computer-building, the work of which more money could take off my plate — there’s no way to buy a comprehensive, real-world schedule, worldwide AI solution (let alone get a legitimate free one).

I’ve said this many times on this forum, but this is a huge shame and an ongoing “market failure” in our hobby. While I understand the obstacles, similar obstacles haven’t stood in the way of other progress in addons. I wonder if it will ever change.

James

5 hours ago, Christopher Low said:

 

On a side note.....is there a British Airways A320NEO repaint available for the FAIB model?

 

Here you go.

 Sorry the make create link option wasn't working https://atco-repaints.com/category/british-airways/