Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome AI Traffic Kit

[mick]

Just uploaded to AvSim and SOH:

This is a scheme to provide AI traffic at Joe Binka's Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome for FS9 and Golden Wings. It includes a modified AFCAD file for the airport and a traffic bgl with flight plans for thirteen aircraft. The expected mix is four early birds, five WW1, and four 1920s, but you can use any planes you want. Aircraft are not included!!! You supply the aircraft and title them so that the bgl will find and use them. Some assembly required: a basic understanding of AI traffic is necessary to build an AI package on the structure provided by these files.

As a bonus, texture files are included to paint a 1909 Curtiss Pusher and a 1907 Santos-Dumont Demoiselle in the colors of the examples that fly at Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome.

[Kofi]

Outstanding Mick!!!

[mick]

One point I forgot to mention in the ReadMe is that in the Traffic Tools aircraft file, and therefore also in the traffic bgl, I set all the planes Cruising Speed to 75 mph (or knots, I forget which units AI works in.) I figured that was probably a pretty good average for the kinds of planes we'll be using.

However, probably none of the planes actually has a cruising speed of 75 knots. The actual cruising speed is in the Reference Speeds section of the Aircraft.cfg file. Those who are compulsive about details might like to correct the cruising speed in the Traffic Tools Aircraft list (just change the "75" to whatever for the plane in question) and recompile the bgl.

I have no idea whether this makes any difference, and I suspect that it doesn't. All the flight plan legs depart from ORA, make a wide circuit and land back at ORA. It seems that circuits like that always take 16 minutes, regardless of the aircraft used, so the listed cruising speed may not matter.

I suppose the cruising speed determines the speed the plane will fly the curcuit, and therefore how wide the circuit is over the ground. If the aircraft list in the bgl says 75 mph and the aircraft.cfg file says something else, I have no idea which speed FS will use. If it uses the speed in the cfg fle, great, but if it uses 75mph from the bgl file instead, that's not too unrealistic for the planes involved. It's a bit too peppy for the early birds, but not outrageously so. And not so far off that you'd notice when you're watching an AI plane.

I wondered whether having different figures in the cfg file and the bgl might cause some kind of conflict and crash FS, but I don't think so. I hope not! If it does, I'm sure someone will let us know pretty quick! My guess is that FS takes the speed from one file and ignores the other, so it shouldn't matter if they don't match. I know that flight plans can override the speeds in the cfg file, because if you program a flight plan with a defined arrival time, the plane will cruise at whatever speed is required to reach its destination on time.

[Admin]

thanks Mick, It looks good. Don't worry about the cruising speed in TTools, that only affects the schedules in the flightplans.

[Slide]

The screenshot shown above is great!
That is what I was waiting for so urgently: Some quite authentic traffic round the ORA -but I do not know enough about AI-Traffic and I currently have not the time to learn more about it.
The Readme was very well done and partly enlightning, but I simply do not have a week for this.
Could someone be so kind and publish something ... idiot-proof?
What i mean is a package that includes everything needed without editing and compiling.
Or would that be too large/ too complicated/ too many hours to do?

I guess, a lot of average-editingidiot-users like me would be very happy about that.

[spad54]

I would also like something like that and I'm sure others would as well. I may be able to build them but know virtually nothing about scenery or developing AI traffic.

[mick]

slide said:

The screenshot shown above is great!
That is what I was waiting for so urgently: Some quite authentic traffic round the ORA -but I do not know enough about AI-Traffic and I currently have not the time to learn more about it.
The Readme was very well done and partly enlightning, but I simply do not have a week for this.
Could someone be so kind and publish something ... idiot-proof?
What i mean is a package that includes everything needed without editing and compiling.
Or would that be too large/ too complicated/ too many hours to do?

I guess, a lot of average-editingidiot-users like me would be very happy about that.

[mick]

I would've liked to do it that way, but I've been super busy lately, and I don't know when that will let up. The time factor kept me from just one simple but absolutely necessary step - getting permission to include their planes from about a dozen different modelers. I know a few of them, virtually speaking, and I'm sure they wouldn't object. But I don't know most of them and I don't even know if they can all be contacted now. I wrote to one of them a while ago about recoloring his model file and including it with some repaints, and he never got back to me...

It also occurs to me that there are probably a dozen more WW1 planes that should be included in the package as options, and a dozen or more 1920's planes (including everything you've released so far, Spad!) Only the early birds era offers limited choices. My selection of planes was somewhat arbitrary, and I might not even stay with it myself. I probably won't, and I expect to swap more planes in and out as time goes on. So it would be good to include additional models in the package, and that would mean getting even more permissions...

Adding planes introduces another issue - if I made it one package, ready to drop into your FS9 or GW3 installation, the file size would be huge - maybe too huge to upload. I could break it up into parts, but then we'd be back to "some assembly required."

None of this is insurmountable. My present thirteen planes zip up to a zip file just under 20 megabytes, which is not too big to upload, and it's not required that we include alternate planes. It would only take me a few minutes to make up the package, and not long to modify the ReadMe.

If someone else wants to do the legwork and obtain the necessary permissions, I'll be happy to compile and release the package.

[Slide]

I see ... thanks Mick, for the information. I did not think about the neccessary permissions. If there was a list of the authors, i could try to reach them for their okays - so, if you like, send something to [e-mail] and I will see, what I can do.

[mick]

OK, this evening after work I'll try to find a few minutes to gather the ReadMe files from the 13 models and send them to you for the contact information. I'll be getting home late this evening, so if I can't get to it then, I'll try tomorrow evening.

[mick]

Well, after over a hundred and fifty downloads, someone just pointed out to me tha there's an error in the ReadMe that directs the user to place the AFCAD file and the traffic blg file in the wrong folders.

The traffic file should go in Scenery/World/Scenery and the AFCAD goes in Addon Scenery/Scenery. I had them reversed in the ReadMe.

Oddly enough, the files work when placed in the wrong locations, but they don't work really well. The runway displays in an incorrect and unattractive way, and one of the start locations is right next to a tree, causing a crash if you try to load a flight starting in that spot.

If you followed my instructions, please take a moment and reverse the locations of those two files. You'll like ORA better after you do that.

I'll have to see if Douglas can substitute a corrected ReadMe in the library, or if I should upload a new archive with the corrected file.

Interesting that it took over 150 downloads before anyone tipped me off to the error. I can think of a few possible explanations...

1 - over 150 users picked up on the error, put the files where they belong, and didn't bother to mention it.

2 - everyone already knew where those kinds of files go, thought they saw what they expected to see in the ReadMe, and never noticed the error.

3 - Only one out of 150+ users even looked at the ReadMe.

[Admin]

I'll take Door #3

[mick]

Tom, that's my guess, too.

The corrected ReadMe file is being inserted into the download file in the SOH library as I type this.

Slide, I just sent you the contact information.

[Slide]

Message received. I´ll mail them later today.

[Slide]

Four authors have answered yet.