Which flightplans - WorldAI, PAI, or both?

[brynjames 0]

Everyone seems to agree that the PAI AI aircraft are the ones to use, especially with the ever increasing range of user repaints on the PAI site, but which set of flight plans do you recommend?The PAI plans have been "hand-optimised" for maximum aircraft usage I believe, but only cover a relatively small number of airlines. The WorldAI plans cover far more airlines, but may be less well optimised.I could also merge the PAI plans with those airlines from WorldAI which are not in the PAI set.I could even add some of the independently produced airline plans which are appearing in the file libraries, but I forsee lots of work in getting AC#'s to match correctly.I'd be interested to hear what other users are doing.

[Guest kyle]

Hi there. I spent all day yesterday doing just that. I first installed all available airline installers from PAI. I then went through their Repaint Files and any that had complete aircraft fleets, I would install and then use WorldAI for the flight plans. Lots of renaming things but pretty straight forward - just try to keep a clear head.There are little tricks that would probably make it easier - since some files will be missing from the fleet aircraft. For example, I downloaded the complete fleet for American Airlines. Some aircraft are missing compared to the WorldAI flight plans but you can just assign others or skip them and let them remain in the flight plans text file. Then, when an aircraft comes out, I will then assign it. Also, you will notice all aircraft names in in the PAI files have "PAI A737 ACA" as their Title - this is important since WorldAI will have "AI AC 737". If I found an airplane on the ProjectAI web site that matched a flight plan from the World AI - I would just rename it to match the other PAI files. It took some time to organize but basically, anything with a PAI is a keeper to me in the Aircraft text file, anything with AI - I am awaiting to find an aircraft and anything with "Replace" is a temporary aircraft I have found and will either make it final or replace it after testing.You can see below a sample of how the my aircraft.txt file is made.AC#175,430,"PAI MD80 AA" <--------- Good AircraftAC#176,270,"AI AA SF3" <--------- No Aircraft YetAC#177,440,"PAI A319 ACA" <--------- Good AircraftAC#178,440,"PAI A320 ACA" <--------- Good AircraftAC#179,440,"PAI A321 ACA"AC#180,460,"PAI A330GE ACA"AC#181,470,"PAI A340 ACA"AC#182,460,"PAI B732 ACA"AC#183,490,"PAI B744 ACA"AC#184,480,"PAI B763 ACA"AC#185,480,"PAI B763 ACAFS"AC#186,260,"Replace BEH ACA" <--------- Temporary AircraftAC#187,410,"Replace CRJ ACA" <--------- Temporary AircraftAC#188,460,"PAI B737 CO" <--------- Good AircraftFinally, I would back-up, back-up, back-up. Each time I added a new airline or group of flight plans. I would Compile it then Decompile it to make sure all is well then back up those decompiled files in a folder tagged by the number of flight plans. (This is shown when it is compiling.) Then, if there is a problem, you can go back to the highest numbered folder and start again.I would recommend not using AI Traffic Manager though until you are comfortable in your process. Only because it will rename all aircraft #'s and flight plans to match - this can kind of throw you off a bit - but then again, test it out as you go and you will see how it works too.Good luck! Here is a shot of CYYZ - I installed the overlays that were released here last weekend. It was a bit of a chore sorting out all the flights I have to make the proper carriers go to the right areas of the field, but well worth it.

[brynjames 0]

Thanks for the comprehensive reply - that really helps.So I guess you have chosen the WorldAI timetables over the PAI ones, even when the PAI exist. Presumably you will have to hide away your new traffic bgl file before autoinstalling any new PAI packages which emerge, or you may overwrite the WorldAI timetables, or at least add new unwanted legs for the new PAI airlines.I was just reading the Traffic Mover instructions on my second monitor before your message appeared (2 monitors are great for those with a limited attention span). It looks superb, but I agree I need to take it slowly :)Great pictures - worth adding to the screenshot forum.

[Guest kyle]

Thanks, actually I do prefer the PAI flight plans however some are really lacking on the number of flights. I actually used both PAI and AI flight plans for a couple of airlines and will delete on a per flight basis any conflicts.Take it slow, think it out. It can be as much fun as flying! ;)

[Guest]

Hi there my first go around with ttools I manually replaced all the default flight plans (read 23,000+) but then my system crashed and now I have to rebuild my AI dbase. where can I get World AI flight plans? Thanks.

[Guest kyle]

Do a search here at AvSim - Make sure you sort by Date for the mot recent version (#2).

[Guest Stamatis]

I have decided to use the Worldai2 flight plans.Careful renaming of the title= line in the PAI aircraft.cfg files is all it takes, but you only need to do it once. After that, all it takes is keep downloading PAI texture repaints, installing the Textures manually (very quick and easy) and adding the appropriate entries in the appropriate PAI aircraft.cfg files.I have installed all the Worldai2 airlines, so every repaint I install is automatically used in AI Traffic."Presumably you will have to hide away your new traffic bgl file before autoinstalling any new PAI packages which emerge, or you may overwrite the WorldAI timetables, or at least add new unwanted legs for the new PAI airlines."No, I never use the autoinstallers any more, exactly in order to avoid what you describe above. I simply install the textures manually, as I describe above.The result is quite nice :-)Stamatis

[brynjames 0]

Thanks, Stamatis, I think I will go down the same route. We'll just have to hope that any new PAI airline packages released come with separately downloadable textures :) I really hate autoinstallers; I'd much rather have the freedom to screw it up myself.BTW, is DHL *really* a valid code for Lufthansa? - don't think I have ever come across that before.OT, I was hoping to get some comments from you on the LGAV thread on this forum, in particular respecting problems with the AFCAD file I first used. Which AFCAD file did you adopt?

[Guest kyle]

Just to add to my reply above, I will no longer use the auto-installers by PAI only because I have so many flights in place now with aircraft. Manually is a much better process so you know exactly what is happening however the auto-installers are a great way to get some initial traffic in place.

[Guest Martin]

>BTW, is DHL *really* a valid code for Lufthansa? - don't >think I have ever come across that before. No it isn't. The ICAO code is DLH, and the IATA code is of course LH. Where they got DHL from is beyond me... (as well as the callsign "British" for BA etc... should of course be Speedbird).Martin767 fetishistIt's a lot like life and that's what's appealing

[brynjames 0]

>>BTW, is DHL *really* a valid code for Lufthansa? - don't >>think I have ever come across that before. >No it isn't. The ICAO code is DLH, and the IATA code is of >course LH. Where they got DHL from is beyond me.Aaah, that makes sense>.. (as well as the callsign "British" for BA etc... should of >course be Speedbird). ...or even better, "Speed Bird" if you want the MS ATC to work!

[Guest Martin]

>...or even better, "Speed Bird" if you want the MS ATC to >work! I even think it has to be "SPEED BIRD" to work on my system. Nevertheless, the real callsign is Speedbird, without a space. LOLMartin767 fetishistIt's a lot like life and that's what's appealing

[Guest waltch]

HiThe subject of flightplans for AI is quite complicated. Here a summary of my experience:There are big differences in the quality of PAI-plans (31 airlines released till today). Some are very good, others need correction in my opinion. In a clean install of the basic package (GA-traffic) and the 31 airlines you have about 17'500 flightplans, where alone the basic installer (GA) accounts for about 15'300 plans.When running the new AITM tool (analyzing flightplans) you get about 1200 "incorrect" flightplans. I think only one GA-flightplan (from base installer) was listed as "incorrect" which means that more than 50% of the airlines-flightplans qualify as "incorrect". Incorrect also means stand times of less than 30 minutes or more than 24 hours.Many PAI-plans (namely European flights of Lufthansa and British Airways) are weekly plans that last only from Sunday morning (day 0) till Tuesday morning (day 2), which means that you have a big number of stand times of 5 (!) days and the effect that the hubs of these airlines (EGLL, EGKK, EDDF, EDDM) are filled with planes from Wednesday to Saturday (of course lousy FPS at these airports) and you do not see many BA and LH flights at European destinations for most of the week. This is of course highly unrealistic.With the WorldAI2-plans there are other problems. There I noted many plans for various airlines that show only one rotation per day (24h-plans). For short haul flights this means that these aircraft move maybe 2-3 hours per day and the rest of the time they also fill-up gates at various airports.I have done the following:I corrected all PAI-flightplans listed as "incorrect" first with the automatic correction tool of AITM which left about 550 plans to be corrected manually. I am now almost finished with this work and my 17'500 PAI plans (basic installer + 31 airlines) will be as follows (no rejects by AITM):- No stand time of less than 30 minutes or more than 24 hours for all plans and all legs- No incorrect plans (24h plans that last more than 24h or weekly plans that last more than 168 hours)- No departures at airports before the arrival time (there were quite many of these)- Corrected flight levels (can also be done by AITM)This will be my master-AI-file on which I base my additional traffic. I think the next PAI plans that are released will be of high quality (like the last ones for Swiss and Air Canada Tango), so not many corrections will be needed. I hope I can do my contribution to this (I am now a beta-tester at PAI).I will maybe add some other plans (like WorldAI2) for airlines that are not yet released by PAI but only if I have tested and corrected them according to the above mentioned rules. I figured this was the easiest way to get the AI-traffic as realistic as possible.I can only recommend to everybody working with AI the following tool: AITM Version 1.2 by Thomas Molitor (released a few days ago). A fantastic freeware product, thank you Thomas.RegardsWalter

[brynjames 0]

That sounds like a lot of work, Walter! It would be good if you were to post the correct flightplan.txt file in the user edits section of the PAI site (I don't think they would like you posting it here)

[Guest waltch]

HiYou are right. I am in contact with the people at PAI and maybe they are interested in using my "corrected" plans for an later update of the plans for airlines that have already been released.For the moment I just enjoy the much more realistic traffic (I am talking mainly about European airports) on my system as I am almost finished with the corrections (some BA plans are still to be done).Walter