Some AI won't land.

[Guest josh0571]

Hello allJust wondering whether anyone can help with the following.Basically, some of my AI flights won't land. They just approach, retract gear & simply overfly the runway - then raise gear - & keep going; they're quite high too.I use my own TTools created AI flight plans with Chong Kezheng's 'Seven Overlay Heathrow Airport' plans (through AFCAD). I have plenty of vacant gates.Apologies to some of you who've just read something that you've dealt with before!ThanksJosh (in Sydney, Australia)

[Guest Joshieca]

Hi Josh...Which airport are you having this trouble at? If its Heathrow there shouldn't be a problem unless the overlay's are have conflicting. Try uninstalling them and reinstalling them. If it sitll happens, email the author of the AFCAD file for more help.If its another airport, you need see how long the runway length is. I know that at some airports some jets wont land because of the runway length.[br][br][div align=center][br][link:members.cox.net/fstimes/wetimage.html]Weather Image of the Day!

[raynuss 0]

There seems to be a problem in FS2k2 with some AI aircraft landing at airports if the airport is situated in a valley or just near an elevated area or mountain. The AI aircraft approach is too high at these airports and they simply fly over again and again until they disappear. This has been reported quite a few times here on this forum. Just another FS2k2 "bug". So far, I'm not aware that anyone has found a solution to the problem. Ray

[Guest josh0571]

Hi JoshiecaThanks for your response.Yes, it's Heathrow & obviously when using RWs 09L/27R & 09R/27L, length isn't an issue.As you suggested I'll uninstall/reinstall the particular overlay (for Terminal 4) & see what happens.CheersJosh

[Guest josh0571]

Hi RayThanks for the response.Given that it's Heathrow, would seem strange. Anyway, I'll try uninstalling/reinstalling the particular AFCAD overlay & see what happens.CheersJosh

[Guest]

I have the same problem on ENOV (Norway) :-(I made a new scenery/mesh to this airport and then I needed to move the taxilines/parkingspots.I used Afcad to add tower and move everything, but the airplanes disappear about 5-10Nm from the airport.I wonder if this is due to the "mountains to close to runway"-bug in FS?I think it works fine with standard scenery but that is much to flat.The problem is with my scenery (http://www.flightsim.no/cgi-bin/file/search.cgi?query=hovden) or Lago terramesh (15 or 16).Can someone please look at the attached afcad-file and see if there is something wrong?

[Guest Captain Barfbag]

Try reducing the altitude value in the flight plan. Another thing that might be a problem is aircraft speed. I put in an AI Concorde with appropriate values for both, and got fly-overs all the time. I had to make both more like subsonic heavies to get the plane to land.

[Misha_K 0]

To the best of my knowledge this problem has nothing to do with either the aircraft, the airport or the mesh or the flightplans or anything else 3d party related for that matter. It's quite simply a bug in the Microsoft code for the AI. This is at least the conclusion I have come to after extensive testing. Typically, this problem occurs only when you first load a situation or airport. The reason is that FS seems to load all the flights that should have departed/arrived in the past fifteen minutes. Many of those will be loaded at their cruising altitude, even though they are already very close to the airport. If you listen to ATC (the local Center, not Approach), you may hear ATC instructing a plane to CLIMB to FL310 and expect vectors to ILS. Go figure. I think what happens is ATC first wants to instruct all AI to get to their cruising altitued as assigned in the flightplans.txt, only then will it start vectoring them to finals. No AI aicrcaft will ever leave its assigned cruise altitude without specifically being instructed to do so by ATC. If a situation loads on a busy airport and ATC has to get a 15 minute backlog down onto the ground, the likelihood is that a considerable number of flights won't be vectored to approach until they are already very close to the airport, in which cas even with the wacky AI flight dynamics there is no way they will ever descend in time. In other words, at present I see nothing that you yourself could do to improve this behavior. I suggest simply waiting about 15-20 minutes until the initial 15 minute situation loading backlog has cleared the airspace. After that all other traffic should behave normally. I have never seen a high altitude flyover any later than 10-15 minutes after loading a situation. Use the time for your preflight or to program the FMC. :-)Misha

[Guest josh0571]

Hi MishaFrom my experience I'd say you're spot on. I've spent hrs trying just about everything including TTools/FS reinstalls, etc.The thing is now, and in relation to what you say above, with some of my airports chock-a-block full of AI, I have arrivals literally every 5 - 10 mins for hrs on end so whenever I start FS & want to see some decent AI (landing) action, I can't seem to avoid flyovers!! So the only real chance I have if I want to do some 'plane spotting' is to start up FS 'pre-peak period/post curfew' and wait out until it gets busy!Thanks for the reply - great info you wrote too! Josh

[Guest]

On ENOV its 3-4 landings a day so I dont think this is the problem :-(

[Guest]

Good eveningI think that Misha is right but only for 80% ,after a lot of hours testing ,also .I've planned a 30 miles flight with a Caravan between LFNA(where i live) and LFNC,area covered by Lago East France Mesh,afcad files added.I followed my AI plane with a Twin,heading North East.Before landing,the ai plane didn't change the main heading and flew towards Italy,altitude holding.I have nearly the same problem with a flight EHAM-MDPP,but not allways???Daniel(Sorry for my bad English)

[Guest]

I am picking up this thread again because i just discovered this topic recently, and I have been fighting this problem for a while now while making some real world AI traffic schedules for the South Pacific, and it seems to me that it is related to elevated areas near the runway. The first time i encountered this problem was when creating traffic landing at NSFI Fagalii airstrip in Samoa. I use AI Tactical Display (AIVIEW.DLL) to get a clue of what's happening to the ai-planes, and found out that the plane was climbing rather than descending due to a nearby hillside, The sollution was to change the patern so that the traffic flew over the ocean rather than near the hillside. I also had to set the airports possition in the aircraft.txt file a bit out in the ocean, a trick mentioned in the TT docs. Now I am adding a new airstrip to Niuafo'ou Island in Tonga, an attoll with a 3000 ft coneshaped mountain, and I'm having trouble again. The real airstrip is located quite close to the mountain, but even moving the airstrip to a fictious location on the opposite side of the attoll and the loacvtion in airports.txt out into the ocean has not prooved successfull. I am allmost about to give up on getting traffic to land there. I have also experienced some problems with getting traffic to land (just keeps on goin arround) if the "airport referrence point" in the AFCAD-file is not located at the center of the runway. This might be causing problems if there is no elevated areas nearby.I'm making complete kits with traffic, sceneries, paints and references to 3rd party resources for Royal Tongan, Polynesian, And Air Rarotonga. And was hoping to release them a while ago, but they are still beta due to the problem mentioned in this thread.They are available for the currious ones at http://www.home.no/thors/FS2002/.Bjorn