RFields5421

Welcome home.A very well flown race with just one 'glitch'

Same airport - SB2F is FS2004 designator for that airport.Earlier Avsim landed at SCAT which is a new airport in FSX, not in FS2004.The more years we continue, the more we will see these type things.

I ran FS for over an hour at the default SEQU. All landings were set for Rwy 35. The AIA B737 from the Aerogal and Icaro World of AI packages landed just fine. Of the GA type aircraft, a couple of King Air and Lear 45 landed well, and some single engine Cessna's from the HTAI pack. A couple King Air went around and did not complete a new approach. A VIP Peru D328-100 turboprop (JBAI Model & FD) from the WoA V.I.P. package hit the runway too hard and did not successfully land. A UPS AIA B752 flew into a mountain about 35 miles southeast of the airport - which put it into the ground mode - so it taxied the rest of the distance to the runway. All in all, I'd call it a fair performance for a mountain valley airport.

The default FSX SEQU airport has 8 Gate Small, 4 Ramp GA Large, 1 Gate Medium and 1 Gate Heavy parking spots. That should give you some AI traffic. However landing might always be an issue. It basically relates to elevation, of the airport and the surrounding terrain. The ILS Rwy 35 approach has an approach altitude of 12,000 feet at the CF35 waypoint - 8 miles from the runway. AI aircraft should be able to make the descent easily in that distance. However, the approach has a Missed Approach altitude of 14,001 feet at that waypoint. The problem is that the coarse grid system which FS uses to decide the MSA (Minimum Safe Altitude) will keep most AI traffic above 15,000 feet and maybe as high as 17,000 feet until the plane is turned over to the approach system. Only then may the aircraft descend below the MSA. I would expect AI aircraft to be more likely to land on Rwy 35 than those given Rwy 17 for landing - due to the lack of any instrument approaches for Rwy 17. That can often be too close to the runway for a plane to make a successful descent to runway altitude. This occurs in many airports around the FS world located in mountain areas and there is not much we can do about it. At some airports, AI aircraft will be successful only on a second or third approach to landing, at some airports, they will never land. There will be plenty of AI for takeoff at the airport, just no successful landings.

Found this on a local funeral home web site. David and I had talked on the phone several times but our schedules never worked out for us to get together.

A great job of flying this year.

Hi everyone,It is 1630 UTC and the 2010 Around-The-World Race is now officially underway. As per the provisions of the Special Rules, you may begin to flights from Manston - EGMH - for your journey around the world and back to Manston.Please remember to have the rest your Duenna to the proper event selected - RTW 2010You also need to use Baton-Carrier and Wingman check box if flying in that role.Congratulations to all the teams for the bonuses earned in the Kick-Off Event. We hope it was interesting and challenging to coordinate the flights.Best of luck to all the teams and pilots in this year's race!GoMatt SmithIan DaleMike MacKuenReggie FieldsRob IbeyMake your first post as a reply to this thread and have fun !!!

Hi everyone,It is 1400 UTC and the 2010 Around-The-World Race Kick-off Event "Operation Dynamo" is now officially underway. As per the provisions of the Special Rules, you may begin to fly from Rochester - EGTO, pick up your transport partner at Lydd - EGMD for the run to Dunkirk and to ferry troops back to Manston - EGMDPlease remember to have the proper event selected in Duenna for RTW 2010 Operation DynamoThe Executive Committee will post Official Baton Thread #1 on your forum at 1630 UTC to notify teams they may begin the RTW portion of the race.Best of luck to all the teams and pilots in this year's race!GoMatt SmithIan DaleMike MacKuenReggie FieldsRob Ibey

Duenna and the race tracker site are setup for two events.----------------------------------------Open Duenna and click on the Settings button and Pick your team and Pick the Kickoff Event:RTW 2010 Operation DynamoFor the opening event. Make sure Duenna is set to send data to the server and it is NOT set to Keep flight-tracking private.During the Kickoff Event - NO ONE flies with Baton-carrier or wingman checked.Both the JPG and the .TXT file are required to be attached to your flight completion post for the Kickoff event this year.-----------------------------------------For the actual race which starts from EGMH - click on the Settings button and Pick your team and Pick the race event:RTW 2010 RaceFor the opening event. Make sure Duenna is set to send data to the server and it is NOT set to Keep flight-tracking private.Remind folks to not check the Baton-carrier or wingman unless they are actually flying in that role. Participating pilots in Team Flights do not check that box, only the Baton- carrier and Wingman.

A heads up from our practice runs.Watch your weather and your pressure settings during the Kick-off event.FS has a weather zone boundary which you will fly across at least twice as you cross the channel. This almost always results is major changes in weather and the pressure setting.Be careful if you are flying low and using an autopilot.Reggie Fieldsfor Matt, Mike, Ian and Rob

John Mueller has updated Duenna to Rev 131 to add some additional features for this year's race.http://johannesmueller.com/fs/web/duenna/Reggie Fields, RTW CommitteeFor Matt, Mike, Ian and Rob

If you have not looked at the program - I recommend you download and examine Plan-G by Tim Arnot - http://www.taosoft.co.ukIt offers some very interesting options - works much like FS-Nav which is no longer available for new users - works with both FS2004 and FSX.Plan-G also can be run and flight plans created/ tweaked without starting up Flight Sim.

It was not the FlightSim.com MP folks who got grumpy..........EditHad to remove my comments, have to make sure I dont' upsed the thought police

You can use any aircraft as AI. How well it flies may be an issue. You must also consider the impact upon frame rates. AI aircraft are purposely designed to be less detailed. Frame rates are greatly impacted by the number of polygons used.A very detailed user aircraft can hit your machine at 10 nm from the aircraft on final with as much negative impact as 100 or more AI aircraft.You need to create a flightplan for the aircraft. For a static one like you describe wanting - we usually do a weekly plan to have the plane fly out to a nearby airport once a week in the middle of the night. Assign the aircraft a very unique parking code and it will be parked in the one specific spot always.Most folks use TTools format for such flight plans. Something likeAC#3,PT-OHD,11%,Week,IFR,0/02:50,@0/03:20,100,R,0,SBGR,0/04:05,@0/04:35,110,R,0,SBSPThis will put the plane on the ramp at SBSP for all the week except for that hour and 45 min early Sunday morning.All you need to do is adjust the times for the middle of the night, and the airports. A turnaround airport 30-50 nm from your main airport will do nicely.You of course need an aircraft.txt file and an airports.txt file to match your FP.If you have other FSX standard or converted AI traffic, you need to convert / compile this traffic file with a FSX compliant product like AI Flight Planner by Don Grovestine.Frankly, Don's program produces such good quality traffic files, I no longer use TTools for FS2004. Don's compliance with FS2004 and FSX SDK standards avoids many of the errors which Traffic Tools creates.I keep one set of source files and one traffic .BGL file for all my static aircraft world wide. I do have a very few User aircraft as AI in places where there is not extensive real world based AI.

I would suggest you go to the Aerosoft forums first.They designed an airport and left it incomplete by not providing a modified airport aircraft parking file.It has nothing to do with the WoA, or any other AI, aircraft - and everything to do with an incomplete scenery package.This has been addressed many times previously, and from my understanding Aerosoft has a patch/ fix for their scenery available.

Over a network - I don't know a question for their support forums.Parking - the program runs from schedules. Realistic schedules have always been UT's strongest point.Adding parking may show more aircraft on the airport, only if there was not sufficient parking for the traffic initially.I do not know how the GA is handled, but I do know that several airports which had no parking in the default FSX which I have added parking to like YCBG - do not have UT2 traffic. I have to figure out how to do that.

The Boeings, the Airbus aircraft, the Dash-8's, the Saabs, the MD narrow bodies, the E-Jets, the F70/100, DC-9, JS31, JS41, Metro, TU-204/214, are FSX rebuilds of the AIA and TFS models used by WoA - with textures by many of the same painters. To be FSX SP2/ DX10 compliant those models have to be updated and run through some new and very expensive modeling software - the professional updated version of gMax.The other models are the My Traffic X models by Burkhard Renk - DC10, MD11, CRJ, ERJ, BAe/Avro RJ, ATR, B1900, F28-4000, AN-24/26, IL-62,-76-86-96, TU-134/154, Yak-40/42, GA jets - Legacy, Challenger, Global Express, with the same repaints as My Traffic X.Without a doubt you will want to retain some WoA packages, especially cargo airlines and some charter airlines.Since UT2 uses published real world airline schedules, those operators who do not publish schedules in OAG are not included. The WoA traffic files exist just fine with the UT non-traffic file injection methodology. But any additional traffic files must be FSX compliant. I strongly recommend they be converted the freeware with AI Flight Planner.

ALL AI traffic, either traditional .BGL files or the UT2 method, is only generated for a set radius around the user aircraft - about 120nm or less. Once the UT2 traffic is generated, it flies according to normal FSX ai_player.dll instructions.The reason you see aircraft flying in airways rather than great circle routes is how UT2 maintains the grid database of where aircraft should be. When a UT2 aircraft is landing or taking off, it flies according to normal AI standards, though the UT2 program can have additional waypoints to vary the course. This would apply to takeoff AI rather than landing AI. Once the landing AI aircraft is assigned an approach, its flightplan is no longer used and only the ai_player.dll coding controls the vectors.Transiting AI aircraft from traditional .bgl files will be generated on the edges if the active AI zone with a target exit point on the great circle route.UT2 apparently generates the aircraft based upon the flight plan which looks a lot like a user FP - and the aircraft will be flying between two waypoints, not between two airports. Those waypoints should put the UT2 AI aircraft on an airway.This is how a traditional flight plan looks in the database This is how a grid looks in a traditional flight plan. I would think the UT2 interface provides basically the same information. But the coordinates in that FP from KSUS to KADS are based upon great circle routing in a traditional AI flight plan.It is not difficult to imaging that UT2 uses different coordinates based upon a user type .PLN file, which would put the UT2 aircraft on airways.So, I would expect addons like Radar Contact and such to work the same - unless they have some specific coding which interacts directly with the AI aircraft. Then it would be a case of having to experiment and see what works and does not work.

Be sure you are choosing an appropriately sized parking spot. Don't put a heavy into a medium spot or a medium into a small spot.If you have FSX Deluxe with the SDK installed - Airport Design Editor is the best program to look at your airport before selecting your parking spot, including the relationship between the spot and any nearby buildings or objects. Since I always fly with crash detection on - I try to start my flights are remote spots out on the ramp.But if you have a large aircraft, beware of starting it out in a small spot out on the ramp. If you start an A321 out in a GA_Medium parking spot - when the fuel truck comes it will close in based upon the parking spot size, not the aircraft - and cause a crash.Also beware of parking too small an aircraft in a large spot. If you start the CRJ in a GATE_HEAVY spot - the fuel truck will be too far away from the aircraft to fuel it.

In FSX the yellow line is a property of the parking spot.The default distances for GATE spots are:26.0 ft - Small26.0 & 40.0 ft - Medium26.0, 40.0 & 58.5 ft - HeavyThe distance from the center of the aircraft model which is parked at startup over the center of the parking spot varies from model to model.The distance from the aircraft reference point - which is not necessarily the center of the model to the nose wheel is:-25.0 ft - default B744 (89.0 ft between the nosewheel and the mains)75.5041 ft - AI-Aardvark B744 (90.594 ft betweeb the nosewheel and the mains)43.0 ft - default A321 (54.20 ft between the nosewheel and the mains)56.8 ft - DJC A321 (55.390 ft between the nosewheel and the mains)40.85 ft - default B738 (52.7 ft between the nosewheel and the mains)44.3 ft - AIA B738 (51.542 ft between the nosewheel and the mains)-9.20 ft - default MD83 (73.9 ft between the nosewheel and the mains)73.3066 ft - AIA MD8X (72.3066 ft between the nosewheel and the mains)Now ALL of these aircraft should use the 26.0 ft yellow T from the parking spot center - because they all park in GATE_SMALL parking spots.I have no idea what your user aircraft settings are. But I have found that for most models if the aircraft has a nosewheel setting in positive numbres and a main gear setting in negative numbers, using the nosewheel number to reset the yellow T line puts it pretty close.I would only recommend you worry about fixing your airport parking spot if you regularly start at one spot on one airport. And if you fly to only a few destinations - maybe those spots where you regularly park.If you fly like me - all over the world in all kinds of aircraft - it is not worth the trouble to try to fix every spot.(All of these numbers are based upon the contact points settings in the aircraft.cfg. They should be very close to the visual. Occasionally main gear contact points need to be moved aft of the visual gear because of how FS does weight and balance. But I do not think this is the case on any of these.)

Regarding airports and this also applies to GA and Military flights.UT2 does not include FSX AFD files to change airport parking, to add more parking to airports. FSX already had sufficient parking for most commercial airports.That means some airports which have GA traffic in MTX will not have traffic in UT.There is no military traffic because almost none of the military base airports in FSX have parking. Most to not even have taxiways and ramps. UT2 does not use traffic.bgl files of any fromatIf you are going to use additional .bgl AI traffic, they must be FSX compliant.UT2 is not AI traffic in the sense that we understand Traffic Database Builder, Traffic Tools or the even better AI Flight Planner. UT2 only loads traffic after the user aircraft is present and fully initialized in FS. You can change aircraft.cfg files entries, change aircraft assignments, adjust routes. Stop and Start UT2 traffic - and see the changes to your AI in your AI world - without shutting down FSX.UT2 aircraft are placed in the FSX world based on how it reads it's schedule files, determines which aircraft should be where within 120 nm of your aircraft and places them in the world at that point.Much like the early stages of building a traditional flight plan, but using the abilities we have known about since the FS2004 SDK was released for an external program to create AI traffic with a flight plan for that session only.There are at least two additional programs which have been out for quite a while which use a similar methodology. Neither tackles as large an AI world as UT2.Traditional TTools flight plans are more about fleet management than aircraft routing. UT takes each flight leg as itself. A lot we have to unlearn to understand this concept. No, GA AI is in broad catagories and the type of airports used is based upon the catagory. The major commercial airports to not get the slow prop aircraft. Even though real Cessna's do land at KJFK almost every day in the special hours they can request a slot. But they do move out quickly after getting that logbook entry. For both questions - I don't know.But I do know of two major databases of real world flights and routings. One is FlightAware in the US, another is FSBuild for Flight Simulator. Or UT may have created most routes with the FSX Flight Planner, as I did for an additional airline last night.The FlightAware and the FSBuild databases will use altitudes which the real world aircraft use - so most likely RVSM - though I would also imagine that the FSBuild database used the alternate North/South RVSM rules used in Europe.The FSX Flight Planner uses RVSM.Though I have never seen any of the three alter the altitude for RVSM for individual legs between waypoints such as real world aircraft do.FlightAware list the maximum altitude of the flight unless you look at the detailed profile of the route actually flown. (By FlightAware, I mean their database of scheduled flights with expected normal flightplan routes between airports, not the actual flight tracking where the routes vary quite a bit based upon weather, traffic delays, etc).FSBuild is setup for Flight Simulator which is not setup for alternating RVSM altitudes on different legs of the same flights.UT2 does have a few standard routes across the North Atlantic - which the FSX Flight Planner does not. This does tend to concentrate the across the pond flights into a few narrow corridors, but is one heck of a lot better than the FSX great circle routings.

Ultimate Traffic X is a modification of the FS2004 product to work in FSX.Ultimate Traffic 2 is a completely new from the ground up product - taking the lessons learned from UT and building.Where UTX has FS2004 aircraft models, UT2 has new or completely rebuilt models which are fully FSX SP2 compliant.That is the one warning I have - if you are not using FSX with SP2 (Acceleration counts as SP2) - this is not a product for you.

Kickoff1. Race Executive Committee will post an Official Thread for this event. Do not start your own thread or make posts on another thread for the Kickoff.2. No Baton or Wingman

Two more additions:FS2004 Piper PA31P-350 Mojave by Brett Henderson - Filename - pa31p_350.zip - at simviation.com - Page 133 - http://www.simviation.com/fs2004props133.htmH-295 Helio Courier - by Tim (Piglet) Conrad - Filename - H-295.zip - at Sim-Outhouse - http://www.sim-outhouse.com/index.php?lloc...mm=15&pap=6

The Routing and Special Rules requirements for the 2009 race have been posted on the Race Home Sitehttp://www.fsrtwrace.com/rules.htmOfficial Starting Time: 2:30 PM US Eastern Time (1930Z) Saturday, February 21, 2009 for the Optional Start Event.The Race portion will begin at 5:00 PM US Eastern Time (2200Z) Saturday, Feb 21, 2009.Special Rules and Routing Release Time: NOW OFFICIALLY RELEASED.