With the recent discussion about AIG it reminded me of a great companion utility - Ai Companion.

This is a freeware program that interrogates both BGL files and the newer AIGFP ones in P3D v4/5. The program then gives you many options on how to display the resultant data.

Live Traffic displays all Ai aircraft in P3D but this can be so overwhelming there are filters provided to limit the aircraft to those moving. The user is free to display what suits them.

The Airport View switches to the nearest airport both with your aircraft on the ground and when airborne. Departure and Arrival options are available.

One of the most useful features is Flight Finder. Suppose you want to know what countries have A380 flights departing on a Thursday. Set the parameters and hit Search. The results show 34 countries! Wow! 😲

The program can be run on the same computer as P3D or on a network. You'll need WideFS from Pete and John Dowson for a network but it allows you to run AIC on a separate screen. On the Live Traffic screen you can double-click any aircraft and the P3D view switches to it. You can also delete any aircraft such as those ahead of you on finals.

Attached is a screenshot showing the situation at Heathrow on a Thursday lunchtime.

The author (koala) refuses any donations. It's a labour of love of which he should be justifiably proud. When running AIC for the first time you can safely ignore any anti-virus warning. The exe is clean. You can download it from here.

https://www.alpha-india.net/forums/index.php?topic=29651.0

There is a version for MSFS but as I don't have that sim I can't comment on how well AIG and AIC work with it. For P3D owners this is a highly polished program no AIG user should be without.

I second this recommendation, and will add that its AI limiter is also very useful - I use it to limit AI to my arrival/destination airports so I get good AI density where I want it.

14 minutes ago, Chapstick said:

I second this recommendation, and will add that its AI limiter is also very useful - I use it to limit AI to my arrival/destination airports so I get good AI density where I want it.

Yes, that is a very handy feature

@Chapstick, I tried it a while back but it couldn't cope with AIGFP injected traffic and the program would replace them as quick as they were deleted. I use FSUIPC instead but AIC has improved in this respect.

lovely little program running along side AIG ( thanks again ray for steering me towards AIG )

I notice that AIG traffic sometimes lands & departs in the opposite direction from what ActiveSky is reporting as”runways in use” and/or the logical runway selection based on RW winds as reported at my destination.    Is there a setting that corrects this, forcing AI to land or depart into the wind ?  

16 minutes ago, joby33y said:

I notice that AIG traffic sometimes lands & departs in the opposite direction from what ActiveSky is reporting as”runways in use” and/or the logical runway selection based on RW winds as reported at my destination.    Is there a setting that corrects this, forcing AI to land or depart into the wind ?  

I noticed this today at Zurich with winds from 270/06. My planner used Rwy 28 but Ai traffic was using 10 and 16. Weird.

But it’s nothing to do with it being AIG. P3D just sees traffic and decides to use the most appropriate runway. It it persists it’s worth pointing it out to LM.

2 hours ago, joby33y said:

I notice that AIG traffic sometimes lands & departs in the opposite direction from what ActiveSky is reporting as”runways in use” and/or the logical runway selection based on RW winds as reported at my destination.    Is there a setting that corrects this, forcing AI to land or depart into the wind ?  

ATCAPI is hands down one of the most useful tools for P3D. It lets you setup the arrival and departure runways at your leisure. 
 

Also @Ray Proudfoot, thanks for the link to AICompanion, I’ve yet to try it out, but definitely will now. 

Edited December 30, 20214 yr by alex86

6 hours ago, joby33y said:

I notice that AIG traffic sometimes lands & departs in the opposite direction from what ActiveSky is reporting as”runways in use” and/or the logical runway selection based on RW winds as reported at my destination.    Is there a setting that corrects this, forcing AI to land or depart into the wind ?  

As Ray said, external programs like AIG  or AS cannot force the AI runway selection, and it cannot even read it from P3D (really an oversight from LM). I recommend checking "Force wind lock" in AS, that will set a minimum wind of 6 kts (if Metar reports less) for the active runway (according to AS), which basically forces P3D to make that runway active (if winds are <6kts P3D basically chooses any random runway, and - even worse - frequently switches that back and forth... total chaos).
However if there are crosswind runways it's possible P3D still chooses a crosswind runway and not the one predicted by AS... but at least you won't have AI traffic taking off right into your approach.
Wind lock works pretty well and drastically reduces those immersion breaking moments. It's mandatory for any airliner flying with AI traffic.

Edited December 30, 20214 yr by Fiorentoni

My main use of the "brilliant" AIC is to review & subsequently tweak afcad parking codes to match sufficiently & comprehensively all AI expected with my AI Inventory.

AI Companion is fantastic. The traffic limiter options are why I would recommend this add on, even if there were no other options. As Ray above said you can use it for other handy features as well. One of the things I enjoy is seeing the status of the AI planes and then clicking them in AI finder and P3D goes right to that aircraft. I know it isn't a big deal to right click, then click traffic, then go through all the AI. However the ONE CLICK (sorry i couldn't resist) method of viewing the AI you've installed is very convenient!

thank you for bringing this up. 

Cool tool 🙂 Only thing I couldn't figure out was the FPDatabase.xml file.  I pointed it to AIGAIM - OCI\Traffic Files\scenery but still when i want to download it says that it couldn't find the FPDatabse.xml file ?

 

Although I see it there in the folder ?

 

🙂 Found the error: I have to point it direclty to the file 🙂 Now it works 🙂

Edited December 31, 20214 yr by 331BK

Hello Everybody,

first of all i'am sorry if my question has already been answered.

My Problem is that the Traffic Limiter in AI Companion is not working with TC injected Traffic. AI Traffic is immediately re-spawned in the Sim. For example, i have TC startet and let's say a total of 75 Aircraft's. Then i start AI Companion with a setting of maximum 50 Aircraft's to keep. Initially it it is going down to 50 but after some Seconds AI traffic reappears until AIC is deleting it again. I'am in a Loop. For the "standard BGL based" AI everything is working fine.

I have the newest Versions of everything and all on the same PC. What i'am doing wrong?

Greetings
Michael

@Binford, a question for koala I think as you have the latest versions. I don’t use that feature.

Hi Ray,

i also asked in the AIG Forum but i thought somebody here maybe experienced the same issue and found a solution ;-)

Greetings

Michael