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bmaik

AI flightplans in version 7.42?

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Hi to all,

so far I've refrained from updating Vox 6.52 to Vox 7 for two reasons: First I never managed to get the correct arrival ATIS in V7 (winds always calm) which version 6.52 does right as soon as you get closer than, say, 100 nm to your destination, and hence I'm usually cleared for the right in-the-wind-runway. The second issue was parking-codes. If I reserve a gate for my airline in the AFCAD, Vox 6.52 respects this in two ways: First it does not park AI-aircraft there, so the gate is available to me when I arrive and second it assigns me correctly to the reserved gate. However, Vox 7 always assigns a random (unrealistic) parking spot. But since very recently VOX7 has become interesting to me again: If it's really true that Vox 7.42 respects AI-flightplans (correct flight number and times) from traffic.bgl-files instead of generating random traffic, this would add a lot of realism. So I'm tempted to update to V7 again. I use the FLAI aircraft library and also own the beta of Just Flight's Traffic Global. However, in Vox6.52 I mainly used the old MyTraffic6 aircraft since somehow I didn't manage to get FLAI and Traffic global to be recognised by VoxATC. I've seen posts saying that VoXATC can read the AIG flightplans, but since AI live traffic is out now, I see a chance of getting real traffic world traffic into VoxATC by making the VoxIndexer read them, a thing I've been dreaming about for more than 10 years. However, my first attempts generating AI Live Traffic.bgl files were unsuccessful. After analysing the AI live traffic flightplans, I noticed that the difference to AIG flightplans is minor. (both add-ons generate weekly plans, AIG just uses the @-character in front of weekdays:  eg. Monday in AIG is "@1/ "where AI Live Traffic only uses "/1", so I think if VoxATC can handle AIG, it should also be able to handle AI Live Traffic, no?  And here now my bunch of questions to all the VoxATC experts out there:

1. Can anybody confirm that Vox 7.42 gives correct arrival ATIS respecting current winds at destination if you approach it?

2. Does Vox 7.42 respect parking-codes set in the AFCAD?

3. Does Vox 7.42 use FLAI and / or Traffic Global aircraft without problems?

3. Can anybody confirm that Vox 7.42 correctly handles the weekly AIG flightplans? And if so, what is the role of the Vox Traffic Limiter? (I guess it should be set to 100% such that all aircraft in the AIG flightplans really do materialise in the Sim?)

4. Did anybody succeed im making Vox 7.42 handle AI Live Traffic flightplans correctly without modifying them?

 

I've read in the forum that somebody got Vox 7.42 to use the AI Live Traffic plans if he converts them to Hr24 (daily) - flightplans by simply stripping off the weekday information. This can easily be done by a batch job, but you run into problems there: if the flight arrives the next day and you ignore the weekday, arrival suddenly can happen before departure or imagine there are different legs, the second leg can suddenly happen before the first, which makes the flightplans invaild (at least non-standard according to SDK), so a correct modification is a litttle complicated (but certainly possible). But before I look into this in detail, I would like to know whether it's worth the effort.

 

Best regards

draci

 

Edited by bmaik

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11 hours ago, bmaik said:

1. Can anybody confirm that Vox 7.42 gives correct arrival ATIS respecting current winds at destination if you approach it?

some of my thoughts ......https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/550324-arrival-atis/

 

11 hours ago, bmaik said:

2. Does Vox 7.42 respect parking-codes set in the AFCAD?

yes, as best i use the same & include in my aircraft.cfg the "atc_parking_codes=XXX"


for now, cheers

john martin

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11 hours ago, bmaik said:

3. Can anybody confirm that Vox 7.42 correctly handles the weekly AIG flightplans? And if so, what is the role of the Vox Traffic Limiter? (I guess it should be set to 100% such that all aircraft in the AIG flightplans really do materialise in the Sim?)

yes again ........ & the slider along with some extra "limiters" in the VASettings.xml will reduce the spawn.


for now, cheers

john martin

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Thank you, vadriver, for your valuable info, it remains to check the AI Live Traffic Flightplans and the AI packages.

 

Edited by bmaik

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17 minutes ago, bmaik said:

it remains to check the AI Live Traffic Flightplans and the AI packages.

others should be able to help on these .... i solely use AIG (in historical mode so to speak).

Edited by vadriver

for now, cheers

john martin

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I've read your post about the arrival ATIS, vadriver, and I'm a little bit disappointed. If I understand your post correctly, the arrival ATIS still doesn't work! But can you confirm that Vox 7.42. still reads the arrival weather at the destination airport correctly once you get to TOD and therefore assigns correct in-the-wind-runways accordingly? This would be the same behaviour as in version 6.52, so you might get the wrong the STAR if if commences to far out but you would at least get the correct arrival runway all the time?

Thank you for your help vadriver, I really appreciate your valuable infos.

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On 9/8/2019 at 12:16 PM, bmaik said:

I've read in the forum that somebody got Vox 7.42 to use the AI Live Traffic plans if he converts them to Hr24 (daily) - flightplans by simply stripping off the weekday information. This can easily be done by a batch job, but you run into problems there: if the flight arrives the next day and you ignore the weekday, arrival suddenly can happen before departure or imagine there are different legs, the second leg can suddenly happen before the first, which makes the flightplans invaild (at least non-standard according to SDK), so a correct modification is a litttle complicated (but certainly possible). But before I look into this in detail, I would like to know whether it's worth the effort.

You have got me thinking again and I believe I have found a way of using AI Live Traffic with VoxATC. My previous attempts were probably flawed on account of the invalidity of departure slots which conflicted with arrival times. What I have found today (Monday) is that if you use AI Flight Planner (AIFP) to reduce the activity level of the AI Live Traffic files to 1% (as they should be) and recompile the modified bgl files in AIFP, then in the sim make sure you set the UTC time correctly but select the date as Sunday not as today (Monday), the AI Live Traffic bgl files are used correctly by VoxATC. Proof of the exercise is that I was tracking an Etihad A380 Flight 17 into Heathrow EGLL in the sim and the arrival of the aircraft pretty much matched the scheduled arrival time from an internet search. You cannot get more live than that! There may be some slight imperfections to iron out somewhere but what I have seen is a constant stream of arrivals into Heathrow matching the expected UTC times. I prefer this use of AI traffic to the RealTraffic option since it offers ATC contact with the aircraft and hence feels more immersive. Also, the behaviours of AI aircraft on the ground are not that refined with the current accuracies of ADS-B as well as the fact that a lot of aircraft switch off ADS-B transmissions once having landed and hence the ground movements are not very realistic.

As to why you have to set the day to Sunday in the sim and things do not seem to work by using the correct date may be a quirk of how VoxATC operates with bgl files which may well expect to begin with Sunday (or day 0): the AI Live Traffic files are specific to the date at which they were compiled which, for today, is day 1 (Monday). VoxATC may ignore the AI Live Traffic bgl files if they start on days 1 to 6 (Monday to Saturday) and may have to be fooled into thinking that they start on Sunday by setting the sim date to Sunday, irrespective of the date on which the bgl files were created. I shall have to confirm that this is the case for tomorrow also and I shall report back again with my findings. 

So, the only things you have to do are to change the activity levels to 1% in AIFP and set the sim to Sunday (but always use the correct UTC time) and then enjoy live traffic with VoxATC! 

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That is great news! Thank you so much! I'm going to try this tomorrow too, for sure. I've already written batch code to change weekdays, convert weekly flightplans into daily ones, convert AI Live Traffic plans into AIG-like ones etc, but all this effort now seems to be in vain if the solution is really that easy!  I'm eager to learn whether your conjectures can be confirmed tomorrow, I stay tuned.

By the way: I totally agree with you as far as live traffic add-ons (PSXseecon and similar) are concerned. They spoil the realism if you use them on the ground. If we get AI Live Traffic to work with Vox, I will probably use a mix of AI Live Traffic and PSXseecon: the AI Live traffic origin.bgl and departure.bgl files on the ground (while swiching off the PSXseecon ground traffic), but inflight I prefer the PSXseecon Live Traffic to a randomly made selection by the AI Live traffic SAT.bgl. So I will probably use both options simultaneously inflight (the SAT.bgl  traffic mainly to keep VOX controllers talking...)

Edited by bmaik

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9 hours ago, bmaik said:

But can you confirm that Vox 7.42. still reads the arrival weather at the destination airport correctly once you get to TOD and therefore assigns correct in-the-wind-runways accordingly?

Draci

unfortunately it is a tad confusing (to me at least) ..... given the vox logs don't record what weather is read & when.

that said, given TW's advice that arrival weather is read at about 30nm (& apparently no earlier & not more than the 60nm injection by ASP4 ), vox is thus assigning it seems (& more often than not incorrectly) a star (before its start / transition and as far as 120nm) on what i believe is updated departure's weather.

at 30nm, yes it "reads" arrival weather correctly,but by then having followed an incorrect star, you receive "unexpected / confusing vectors to final (requires restrings of your fmc, qnh etc at a busy time of any flight).

but as you wrote, you are landing "into the wind" appropriately but more often than not unnecessarily if it is still  a light wind (<10kt tailwind).

my wish ... to avoid such a "messy" arrival is at least (given vox's AI engine) that the assigned star leading to a "specific" runway is not changed at 30nm if runway wind remains better than a 10kt tailwind (alternatively one can achieve this 90% of the time by reviewing TAFS & closing runways preflight to suit).

Edited by vadriver

for now, cheers

john martin

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8 hours ago, bmaik said:

That is great news! Thank you so much! I'm going to try this tomorrow too, for sure. I've already written batch code to change weekdays, convert weekly flightplans into daily ones, convert AI Live Traffic plans into AIG-like ones etc, but all this effort now seems to be in vain if the solution is really that easy!  I'm eager to learn whether your conjectures can be confirmed tomorrow, I stay tuned.

By the way: I totally agree with you as far as live traffic add-ons (PSXseecon and similar) are concerned. They spoil the realism if you use them on the ground. If we get AI Live Traffic to work with Vox, I will probably use a mix of AI Live Traffic and PSXseecon: the AI Live traffic origin.bgl and departure.bgl files on the ground (while swiching off the PSXseecon ground traffic), but inflight I prefer the PSXseecon Live Traffic to a randomly made selection by the AI Live traffic SAT.bgl. So I will probably use both options simultaneously inflight (the SAT.bgl  traffic mainly to keep VOX controllers talking...)

Draci,

Further testing today has revealed that you have to set the date in the sim to the day before the creation date of the AI Live Traffic bgl files. So there is not any connection with always setting the date to Sunday for VoxATC, but simply the day before the bgl files were created.

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Thank you, LecLightning56, this was really helpful. Can't wait to try this when I get home tonight.

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@vadriver: Thanks also to you. I suppress vectors anyway in the "Flight Plan Extras", so I don't care too much about this. What matters more for me, is the 30 nm!  In version 6.52. the weather update happens at TOD (some 100 nm out), so I might possibly get the wrong star, but approach finally clears me to the correct runway. I guess if the update only happens 30 nm before destination, you should already be on approach frequency by then, and approach will have assigned the wrong runway. Of course, I could request a different runway, but all AI Traffic would land opposite. Unrealistic, and a real deal breaker for me! Can you confirm that the update really happens so late?

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draci

firstly to mention i use V742 with P3D45 & ASP4 ..... and i guess you are "updating" in FSX & AS16, or are you using V652 in P3D45 (??).

as before, my observations (after monitoring ASP4 metars at both departure and destination against the destination's atis) are:

  1. the destination atis until you are within 30nm or so does not match the destination ASP4 metar (injected to the sim at about 60nm).
  2. before 30nm, the star assigned seems a guess by vox (and often seems to be based on the departure wind & qnh)
  3. a lot of my thinking is founded on these 5yo posts you may remember

https://hifisimtech.com/forums/showthread.php?3230-ASN-and-VoxATC&highlight=voxatc

https://hifisimtech.com/forums/showthread.php?2497-Both-ASNext-and-Real-Weather-in-FSX-for-VoxATC&highlight=voxatc


for now, cheers

john martin

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On 9/10/2019 at 8:00 AM, LecLightning56 said:

Draci,

Further testing today has revealed that you have to set the date in the sim to the day before the creation date of the AI Live Traffic bgl files. So there is not any connection with always setting the date to Sunday for VoxATC, but simply the day before the bgl files were created.

The solution to the problem we have with AI Live Traffic bgl files is actually extremely simple. There is NO requirement to set the date in the sim to the day before the creation date of the AI Live Traffic bgl files. If you download AI Flight Planner (AIFP) and save the bgl file as a text (txt) file, you will note at the top of the txt file the following:

//FSXDAYS=False

If you change the above to:

//FSXDAYS=True

and compile the bgl fies in AIFP, when enabling VoxATC in the sim, the AI aircraft will appear in the sim: no need whatsoever to change the date in the sim but make sure the UTC time is appropriate for the files created by AI Live Traffic.

I believe that what we are dealing with here is that if the traffic bgl files adhere to FS9 encoding, then Sunday is taken as Day 0, whereas if the bgl files adhere to FSX (or P3D) encoding, Monday is taken as Day 0. Hence, the change above is effectively fooling VoxATC into thinking that the AI Live Traffic bgl files actually apply to a day "earlier" (i.e. Monday changes from Day 1 (FS9) to Day 0 (FSX or P3D) and is consequently a day "earlier"): this negates the requirement to change the date in the sim.

This is a far neater solution than messing around changing the date in the sim which could itself cause issues elsewhere. So, a few minor changes to make in AIFP, but the net result is worth it!

Hope this helps and I do apologise for the long-winded approach to discovering a solution to the problem we have, but in the end very simple indeed! Only a bit of hard-core experimentation can provide the results in the end!

Edited by LecLightning56

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That makes sense. BTW, there are few issues with VOXATC that don't result in a long-winded explanation. It's easily the most programmatically complex add-on for any flightsim. It also appeals to my innate interest in puzzle solving.

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