AI Aircraft and what Ive done to make them better for m

[ckukmale 27]

Hello everyone.Last night I was flying in my virtual world in the Mirage which is fab and I saw some aircraft lights in the sky and I thought about intercepting it to see what kind of plane it was so I climbed upto 33000 feet and started to chase it and chase it and chase it and I thought to myself, this is silly Im going at over mach1 and the plane isnt getting any closer, well it was but very very slowly so I looked down at my airspeed indicator and it was reading 470knots which I know at that altitude is fast and then I thought Id take a look in the Ai aircrafts config file, the Aircraft.cfg........Down there in the text was a line that said [Reference Speeds]flaps_up_stall_speed = 140.000full_flaps_stall_speed = 112.000cruise_speed = 477.000The cruising speed was 477 knots and then it dawned on me....Fs2002 must make those AI planes fly at that airspeed no matter the height so at 35000feet..thats way too fast so I slowed down to mach 80 and saw that the airspeed indicator said 300knots or so..so I changed it and I went through all my other project AI planes and changed it to roughly what it is.. Fs2002 AI planes must use the true airspeed for that instead of indicated which is why they are travelling at over mach 1 at altitude. Here is what I found to be ideal airspeeds to me.I flew in a plane...no winds..at 30 000 feetmach .74 =287knots 737-200/300/400/500 etcmach .80 =310knots Airbus A320s Md80s etc (rough guess)mach .84 =328knots 777s, 747s etcmach .84 at 35000feet is a lower speed number so I made some slight adjustments which worked well for me and now when I fly in a 747 at 35000feet I will slowly catch up with smaller planes and overtake them, still depends on how bad headwinds are though as the winds dont have any effect but for me it seems a whole lot realistic to me when Im flying....the AI planes dont whizz about like they used to in the sky, but what I want to know are two questions.1. Will me changing the speed mean that it will mess up the AI flight schedules now??2. Is there anyway I can make the AI planes climb slower as they still go up like rockets and Id like them to climb at 2000fpm or thereabouts instead of what seems like 10 000 feet a minute.This is something Ive just done for me, so Im not saying to you all..hey try it...if you do let me know how it goes for you as Id like to have some feedback good or bad.Thanks for reading.....Craig Kiltie

[Steve Dra 7,579]

Hey Craig,Thanks for the info! I too noticed that you can never keep up with AI aircraft (of the same type) in both cruise and climb.I'm not sure about the flight schedules, I'll have to do some testing on that. But I figure that if the AI tables are using real departure/arrival times, then the planes cruising as fast as they current are (i.e. 477 at FL330) would mess up the arrival times

[Guest]

Craig,You may run into difficulties with your modification as it relates to the AI aircraft.txt file. here's a line from the recent PAI release.AC#3787,477,"PAI B772 VRG"The second number is aircraft speed (TAS). You may well experience vanishing aircraft if you reduce speeds as much as you have. You could modify the AI aircraft.txt file to reflect the new speeds, but be aware that this changes all the arrival times and thus availability for susequent departures. I think you would discover that many aircraft would be unable to complete subsequent legs. You would probably have to rewrite many of your flight plans to make it work. I currently have 50,000 flight plans so I'll live with the "default" (unrealistic) speeds.I know what you guys mean about the unrealistic speeds and climb rates; I have to use an F16 to chase AI aircraft to see what their up to.

[ckukmale 27]

From what Ive read today from Stamatis is that there is a 80 mile radius area around your plane that activates planes coming into it.So if this is so...then its not really going to affect their schedules at all. If I sit at at the airport and wait for my jetblue flight to arrive its still going to arrive roughly on time.maybe 5 or ten minutes later due to the slower speed when it was activated in this 80 mile ATC bubble but then I dont think that makes much of a difference. Im not really interested anyway into the schedule as I just want to take off with other airlines taxiing around and landing, it doesnt bother me if a virgin flight is 2 hours later than its supposed to be but when Im flying I do like the AI planes to behave like real ones and not to fly at mach 1+ and have 737s whizzing past you in a 777.What I think of what Project AI has done so far is great, will be nice to see more airlines at the airports etc, I cant wait to see some AA and BA planes and also some more UK and Europe airlines, Im also hoping that lots of people will start making really good afcad files. Craig KiltieCraig

[Guest GabrielR]

I understand your point about being more important to see Crowded Terminals and flights between them than the fine details about what te Air speed at cruise would be. I noticed the Strange AI behavior about two months ago, and started to make changes in some config lines, that affected certain planes that I repaint and placed with custome flight plans in my home airport. The result: almost 80% of the Aircrat in the terminal dissapeared because they coudnt make the leg of the flight in time, to match to the time of its next departure. FS2002 is very intolerant with the AI delays, is not that you have to spect your AI traffic for 15 minutes, is that if the AI is not in the the place where it is supposed to be, the FS2002 simply "vanish" the plane and the subsequent legs of its trip. Conclusion: I had to restore the defaults.

[Guest]

I did a flight a while back with a UAL A320 out of KORD to KBWI. Coincidentally, another UAL 320 AI took off right behind me also going to KBWI. He basically was with me the entire time but he ended up landing about 10 minutes ahead of me. It was cool since he was above and slightly ahead of me most of the flight with the contrails.

[brynjames 0]

Now I'm really confused :)It seems we have 2 cruise speeds: one in the aircraft.cfg file and the other in the aircraft file that is disgorged by Traffic Tools.The first post here suggests it is the aircraft.cfg file which determines the speed at which the AI aircraft actually fly. So is the TTools speed only used to calculate journey time (and presumably time at which the AI craft appears at intermediate points on the route)?Can anyone confirm this?

[ckukmale 27]

Hehehehe dont confuse me any more..I only changed a tiny line in a text file....and now look what it did....But anyway it works for me.OH and even though my planes go slower they still turn up on time. I guess its because the Project AI flightplans allow you loads of time at the airport anyway. Ive had planes disappear on me on landing but once I put more gates in theyve not disappeared since.Just another thing to stir the pot I guess.....Craig Kiltie

[brynjames 0]

Thanks Craig, you have raised some important questions. I have opened this up in the TTools forum where the AI experts live!

[Minos 26]

Hi,The speed in the aircraft.txt doesn't affect at all the AI behaviour.It just help designers who make schedules to know approx. when their AI plane will land. So it will not put a mess in your flightplans.Normally if you change the speed in the aircraft.cfg, it may affect your AI aircraft velocity. But if you do so, it is to be more real. And if your flightplans are made with the help of real world timetable it shouldn't affect them a lot since AI aircraft don't need time to board passenger... :-) Minos