Prepar3d v5 Flying Online without scenery?

[stayyn 2]

Hello there!

I recently asked myself, if the airports in Prepar3dv5 are more accuratly placed then in v4. What I mean by this, is if it's possible to fly online (i.e. Vatsim) in Prepar3dv5 without having an expensive scenery to buy. 

I'm currently using Prepar3d v4.5, where flying online without scenery isn't really possible, because the placement accuracy of Taxiways, Gates and Airport Buildings is very different to the "real". 

So my question: Is it possible to fly online in v5 (like in XPlane 11) without having a scenery and without hinder others simulation experience?

Edited April 28, 2020 by stayyn

[pgde 571]

No.

[anden145 2,285]

16 minutes ago, stayyn said:

Hello there!

I thought about upgrading my P3dv4.5 to v5. Just wanted to know, if it's now possible to fly online without having a scenery, like in XPlane 11? 

What I mean by this is, if the Geographical Data in v5 updated that I'm on the right taxi ways when flying online and not sticking in the grass on the ATC-Screen, while I'm at the Apron in my Sim. 

Thanks for response! 🙂

Maybe I'm tired or slow today, but I've, so far, read your question about 5 times, and I still have no idea of what you're asking...?

Could you perhaps - for the sake of the less fortunate - please rephrase? 🙂

Thanks.

[rayharris108 259]

If I understood you correctly, you were asking if you could go to a default airport in V5 and it would be reasonably accurate for when you are flying online. Not sure though, reading your message

If by that you mean can you use that aiport without neeeding to buy an add-on scenery and it would have the right taxiways - to that extent I think mostly yes. You would have to check which airports you wanted to go to though. It might not always be he case.

In v5 LM has updated and upgraded a lot of the geographical vector data (eg roads, streams, coastlines and rivers) and many default aiports. So for example where there may have been just a runway in a grass field with no taxiways in v4, now the taxiways have been added. I noticed that in SKMD for example, taxiways have been added and generic buildings added and also improved.

Hope this helps. Apologies if you were not asking about this at all of course. :-)

Ray

[stayyn 2]

1 hour ago, rayharris108 said:

If I understood you correctly, you were asking if you could go to a default airport in V5 and it would be reasonably accurate for when you are flying online. Not sure though, reading your message

If by that you mean can you use that aiport without neeeding to buy an add-on scenery and it would have the right taxiways - to that extent I think mostly yes. You would have to check which airports you wanted to go to though. It might not always be he case.

In v5 LM has updated and upgraded a lot of the geographical vector data (eg roads, streams, coastlines and rivers) and many default aiports. So for example where there may have been just a runway in a grass field with no taxiways in v4, now the taxiways have been added. I noticed that in SKMD for example, taxiways have been added and generic buildings added and also improved.

Hope this helps. Apologies if you were not asking about this at all of course. 🙂

Ray

Thanks for your answer and sorry for the bad formulation of my question (maybe I should have read it again), but you got me right. 

My main problem is that I'm currently student, so I don't earn much money, which makes it difficult for me to finance Flightsim for me. That's why I asked for the correct placement of the Airports in P3dv5, which would make my (online-) flightsim experience a lot more inexpensive. 

Thanks for the help so far!

[JasonPC 173]

I believe some VATSIM artcc’s post a list of some compatible airport sceneries and some of them are free afcad files. There are tons of free afcads out there that match current runway/taxiway configurations.

[JRBarrett 3,099]

I own the ForeFlight app for my iPad, which is primarily a flight planning, charting and navigation program for real-world flying, but which works very well with flight simulation as well. It has the ability to link to both P3D and X-Plane, and display the aircraft’s position on it’s moving map. When taxiing, it will overlay the aircraft position on the official FAA taxi chart for the airport (for US airports).

I haven’t tried every updated V5 airport by any means, but in general the V5 default airports taxiway layout vs. real-world layout in ForeFlight has been very close at KDTW, KCLT, KJFK, KORD and KTEB just to name a few.

I’m sure there are probably exceptions, but in general, I think you’ll probably perfectly safe using default V5 airports when flying online. Certainly the default airports in V5 are much more accurate for 2020 conditions than would have been the case with Version 4, where many major airports would have required payware add-ons to have accurate runways and taxiways.

[stayyn 2]

44 minutes ago, JasonPC said:

I believe some VATSIM artcc’s post a list of some compatible airport sceneries and some of them are free afcad files. There are tons of free afcads out there that match current runway/taxiway configurations.

So you say I only need to get those afcads and my airport problem is also solved in v4? 

If yes, it would be great if you have a link for some more informations. Thanks so far! 🙂

[stayyn 2]

18 minutes ago, JRBarrett said:

I own the ForeFlight app for my iPad, which is primarily a flight planning, charting and navigation program for real-world flying, but which works very well with flight simulation as well. It has the ability to link to both P3D and X-Plane, and display the aircraft’s position on it’s moving map. When taxiing, it will overlay the aircraft position on the official FAA taxi chart for the airport (for US airports).

I haven’t tried every updated V5 airport by any means, but in general the V5 default airports taxiway layout vs. real-world layout in ForeFlight has been very close at KDTW, KCLT, KJFK, KORD and KTEB just to name a few.

I’m sure there are probably exceptions, but in general, I think you’ll probably perfectly safe using default V5 airports when flying online. Certainly the default airports in V5 are much more accurate for 2020 conditions than would have been the case with Version 4, where many major airports would have required payware add-ons to have accurate runways and taxiways.

Alright thank you that was very informativ and helped me a lot! Thanks! 🙂

[JasonPC 173]

5 minutes ago, stayyn said:

So you say I only need to get those afcads and my airport problem is also solved in v4? 

If yes, it would be great if you have a link for some more informations. Thanks so far! 🙂

You'd have to refer to each individual artcc website (If they have one), but most of the afcad's I've seen published by them are ones that are on this handy website https://www.freewarescenery.com/fsx/us.html.

Most of these files are on the avsim library.

NOTE: not all of these files are compatible with P3D. Some may work but require tweaking in ADE or a similar program to correct problems such as elevation issues.

Edited April 28, 2020 by JasonPC

[rayharris108 259]

Hi

Just a possible note of caution; AFCADS may not work the same way in V5 as they did in v4.

I am not an expert here, but I believe that as v5 allows for sloped runways, you might have to check whether v4 AFCADS would still work for you and be usable. It can't hurt to try one out.

Sloped runwasy are still problematic in v5 by the way. I read in a post on the P3D forum that the 'brick wall' crashes peope are reporting in v5 are possibly due to buggy sloped runway code, where if you are going from a higher elevation to a lower elevation airport that's when the crash is likely to occur. I would vouch for that in every case when I have experienced it. That would be a bit of a killer if you were online. So good to check first.

Just a thought...

Ray

[JasonPC 173]

6 hours ago, rayharris108 said:

Hi

Just a possible note of caution; AFCADS may not work the same way in V5 as they did in v4.

I am not an expert here, but I believe that as v5 allows for sloped runways, you might have to check whether v4 AFCADS would still work for you and be usable. It can't hurt to try one out.

Sloped runwasy are still problematic in v5 by the way. I read in a post on the P3D forum that the 'brick wall' crashes peope are reporting in v5 are possibly due to buggy sloped runway code, where if you are going from a higher elevation to a lower elevation airport that's when the crash is likely to occur. I would vouch for that in every case when I have experienced it. That would be a bit of a killer if you were online. So good to check first.

Just a thought...

Ray

More than likely people are going to have to make new afcads using the p3dv5 sdk. From what I understand it should still be possible to flatten ground elevation. Now what I would like to know is how compatible are v4 afcads with v5. It seems like most payware sceneries made for v4 work fine in v5.

So maybe this is more of a problem with older afcads made for fsx and p3dv3 and earlier.

[cwburnett 1,809]

On 4/28/2020 at 10:10 AM, stayyn said:

My main problem is that I'm currently student, so I don't earn much money, which makes it difficult for me to finance Flightsim for me. That's why I asked for the correct placement of the Airports in P3dv5, which would make my (online-) flightsim experience a lot more inexpensive. 

LM did say that they updated the airports, but I haven't tested to what degree they now represent real world enough to use effectively for online flying.  As others have said you can hunt for accurate afcads and there are some good resources already mentioned, including the AVSIM library.

Another easy option is http://www.drzewiecki-design.net/ has free demos of all their airports (and cities) that give you updated airport layouts without all the fancy textures and objects. These can be useful and there are quite a lot of airports covered here. Special mention to their Miami City X which is totally free and has three airports with (mostly) updated airport layouts. http://www.drzewiecki-design.net/prodARCHIVE.htm They have NYC airports, Chicago airports, Seattle Airports and many more...

Keep an eye on the bargain hunters forum here, because, especially during these crazy times, there have been a lot of giveaways... https://www.avsim.com/forums/forum/514-the-bargain-hunters-shack/

Simmarket has been giving away something free every day in April - some great airports and aircraft were available.  You still have a couple days!  Their 'gratis' section, available from their home page, has a few free airports available now.  ORBX has a handful of free airports also, though mostly smaller GA fields.  Virtualcol has a pretty good SKBO Bogota for free. There's really a lot of great stuff available for free if you hunt for it!

A few honorable mentions in freeware land...

Hawaii Photoreal is stunning and includes a big airport pack: https://hawaii-photoreal.com/downloads-fsx-p3d/

I've been quite happy with Mark Aldridge's EDDF v8 in Prepar3d v4.5 - haven't tried it in v5, available on the Avsim library.

Sunskyjet https://www.sunskyjet.com/testing/betasite/downloads/kphl-for-fsx has a KPHL that worked okay in v4.5 - also haven't tried in v5.

I found a pretty good freeware KDFW and a great freeware KRIC as well...

Hunt around, there are some gems.  As for whether these work well in v5, I can't say, but they worked well enough in v4.5.

[pizman82 1]

Hello

Hopefully it ok if i reopen that topic with a additional question!

I use P3Dv4 and not plan to swap to v5 at the moment.  I also have the same problem.  Most of Airports (stock P3D) are no longer useable correctly.  E.g. in EDDF Frankfurt the north Runway is not included..... In hundrets of Airports there was build new taxiways sinse Database was created....  And in subjective 90%+ Airports on the world the names of Taxiways and Stands have changed.

Now.... I not use Payware Airports.  Sure also Money is a factor BUT i basicly not like hundrets of MB Data on my HD.....  Specialy in case i not realy need the textures.  Not care about if a Gate looks like in real or like on every other stock Airport.  The only thing i need is a "optical" Standard Airport  BUT with Layout and names (signs) of Taxiway/Runway like currently in real.

My Problem:  

1. As i understnad the Afcad Files in the Web are mostly for FSX/P3D3.x and NOT work for v4

2. Overall there are no files for every Airport and also its a massive work to search download thousends of Airport files.  ( And finaly most of them are already Outdated again)

 

Question:   Does there exist a AddOn ( also payware is no problem)   that simply rework ALL or Most as possible Airports in the world to 2020 Status ( All Taxiways/Runways are exist and named correct)

Same way like we update every months the AIRAC and the NavAid Updater i looking for a tool that simply update all AFCAD Scenery by one click.

Does this exist.... And if not do anybody know why no Company build this..... Pretty sure most Users would pay a lot Dollars like for Airac every month to get there world UpTo Date.

Thank You !