Taxiway Accuracy

[jackdleach 11]

Hi - in my setup, I'm using ForeFlight on the iPad and streaming sim's GPS data to it.  Works great.  Except... most airports I've been in don't seem to have taxiways laid out correctly in the sim, and while they're sometimes close "physically", the names are way off.  E.g., Bravo might be on the south side in the Sim, but it's actually on the North side in real/on ForeFlight.

This is a bit of a letdown as I was really hoping to practice ground ops situational awareness with ForeFlight.  Further, there seems to be no way to find a taxiway diagram for the sim: all I can do is look at signs (which I guess is a good old-school way to do things, if my plate flew out the window on the flight there maybe, but not what I had in mind).

Is this a known issue (or has it never been expected and I was just blindly wishfully thinking)?  Is there some data I can upload to "fix" it?  Is there some way I can view a taxiway diagram the sim provides, in a worst case scenario?

Thanks

[micstatic 4,319]

It's a known issue.  They had to rely on AI to make these taxiways based on computer interpretation of aerial imagery.  I call this a big problem.  Payware airports won't have this problem.  But it pretty much makes vatsim flying a major challenge.  

[jackdleach 11]

Thanks for the confirmation.  Odd though, at least in the US, couldn't they have gotten digital (and marked!) images from the FAA?  Maybe there's some license/usage issue with getting it directly from there, but geez, they're way easier to interpret than aerial images, and it has all the info: https://www.faa.gov/airports/runway_safety/diagrams/

Anyway.. wish in one hand...

By chance, do other sims have the same issue? (I'm thinking of perhaps firing up XP-11 as I hear the flight model is slightly more realistic there)

[ripthejacker99 6]

Why didn't they use the runway and taxiway info from fsx?......

[micstatic 4,319]

3 hours ago, ripthejacker99 said:

Why didn't they use the runway and taxiway info from fsx?......

probably because it would have subtle conflicts with the bing generated scenery

[Christopher Low 5,352]

4 hours ago, ripthejacker99 said:

Why didn't they use the runway and taxiway info from fsx?......

It was a public service for the AVSIM membership, so that we would all have something to moan and whinge about

[atlflyer 138]

20 hours ago, micstatic said:

It's a known issue.  They had to rely on AI to make these taxiways based on computer interpretation of aerial imagery.  I call this a big problem.  Payware airports won't have this problem.  But it pretty much makes vatsim flying a major challenge.  

yes it does stink having them named wrong but vatsim/pilotedge I dont see much of an issue. As long as I know where im at on the airport, I can follow taxi instructions by the AFD rather than by the signs. I dont even look at the signs really. 

[andyjohnston.net 617]

5 hours ago, ripthejacker99 said:

Why didn't they use the runway and taxiway info from fsx?......

Because, as we've seen, the primary focus of MSFS was to make it pretty, not accurate.

[ryanbatc 12,832]

Even though I don't use in game ATC, having wrongly named taxiways is REDICULOUS!  We b*tched about this in alpha.  They went backwards with technology.  There's still plenty of airports without towers as well.  

Ugh!

[Ilari Kousa 116]

They probably thought it wasn't worth licensing the Jepp DB again, as most discerning users would resort to custom scenery anyway.

[andyjohnston.net 617]

1 minute ago, Ilari Kousa said:

They probably thought it wasn't worth licensing the Jepp DB again, as most discerning users would resort to custom scenery anyway.

You can't say they're going to have 40,000 airports, then also say people should replace them all with custom ones.