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Eagle Field AI Traffic

falcon409

falcon409

Moderator
Staff member
Has anyone actually observed the AI traffic taxiing or taking off/landing? I have set the times for each airplane to depart, allowing enough time to set up and watch the aircraft taxi, but so far they appear to be nothing more than static.
 
Oh, Gods -- there's a very large can of worms here.

If nothing ever moves, you'd best open the airfield with ADE and use its built-in fault finder. That'll tell you if the parking spots are connected to the taxiways, if the taxiways are complete and connected to the runways......

I had this with the Skydesigners French Air bases. You'd be amazed at what I found -- and these are all commercial products.

It can all be fixed -- but it's all very long-winded.

Good luck.

Dave
 
Thanks Dave. I've actually had quite a few go-arounds with the ADE file while making adjustments to the scenery. However I never changed anything that came with the recent conversion which I checked both visually and then with the Fault Finder. . .nothing was amiss. The two AI airplanes are two liveries of the converted Stearman. They are ever present whenever I load the scenery, changing parking spots on each reload, but they never depart the airport.
 
Ed's efforts are certainly appreciated, as always. I recall this scenery from fs9 days and the scenery aircraft were not AI but just scenery that did sometimes vary in placement around the airfield. I downloaded the flyable Stearman that was modified with this scenery for FSX and found it to be well below average, even for freeware. The new GAS Stearmans would welcome an agricultural crop-dusting scenery, but it doesn't appear that this one will the answer.
 
Dumb question -
do the ai stearmans have [RADIOS] sections in the aircraft.cfg?
If that isn't there the AI will appear but just sit at their parking place.

Gavin
 
I canned the original Flight Plan and made two new AI_Stearmans and a new Flight Plan. Nothing fancy, just out and back from two local airports (30 minute flights). I remembered, as the first flight started to taxi, that I had a mess with the Stearman for my Corsicana Air Field scenery. Asking around I found that tail draggers are notorious for taking their own route to the runway due to poor turning radius.

This first AI left the parking spot on time and headed to the taxiway, then went past the taxiway headed for the hangar across the field. He went through the hangar, across the taxiway and runway, west beyond the airport boundary then began to parallel the runway headed north, continued to taxi about a half mile beyond the runway then turned south, crossed the south end of the runway headed back to it's parking spot, then initiated a perfect turn back to the runway, lined up and took off. That entire process took 25 minutes.

Any helpful suggestions? lol
 
This first AI left the parking spot on time and headed to the taxiway, then went past the taxiway headed for the hangar across the field. He went through the hangar, across the taxiway and runway, west beyond the airport boundary then began to parallel the runway headed north, continued to taxi about a half mile beyond the runway then turned south, crossed the south end of the runway headed back to it's parking spot, then initiated a perfect turn back to the runway, lined up and took off. That entire process took 25 minutes.
Click to expand...

Ed, this is exactly the behavior of some - not all - of my tail dragger AI aircraft. Not sure why some do and others don't do this.
 
Check the radius of the aircraft model that you are using. I have had this problem before and was able to correct it using MCX.
 
edakridge said:
Check the radius of the aircraft model that you are using. I have had this problem before and was able to correct it using MCX.
Click to expand...
MCX shows the radius to be 5.25

Update: I have tried increasing (by 1 whole number) and decreasing the aircraft radius and it has no effect. The airplanes come out of their parking spots and go wherever they want to, eventually finding the runway (never the taxiways) after about 25 minutes of wandering. I think I'll set a couple of Cessna's as AI and pretend their Stearmans, lol
 
Last edited:
Hello Ed,

I've just checked the FTX AI for taildraggers and found an FTX AU Cessna 120.
It seems it's crucial, that the aircraft.cfg for taildraggers has an
[Radios] entry
and that under

[contact_points]
the entries has to be

tailwheel_lock = 0
gear_system_type = 0

and the Steer Angle in
point.0 (the eighth number in order) has to be 90 degrees.

Ulrich
 
Thanks Ulrich! Made those changes, even completely redid the ADE. Loaded the sim and the airplane that was set to take off was aligned from the parking spot right onto the taxiway (to kinda give a hint that it was supposed to follow the taxiway, lol). Made no difference, it taxied directly across the taxiway and the runway and headed west across the farm fields, lol

It is my humble opinion that at least this airplane is not AI material unless someone can prove me wrong. I'm going to find some suitable AI aircraft (not tail draggers) and be done with it.
 
Two AI Cessna's. . . .no problem. I have a GAS Stearman and the Alabeo Waco. . .I may try those just for grins.
 
I setup one of my GAS Stearman as an AI to test. The results were much better although it still had problems turning. It did however beat the other AI's time from Taxi to takeoff by 21 minutes, lol
 
AI Tail Dragger Fix...

in the section [weight_and_balance] you must change the value of the entry empty_weight_yaw_MOI a bit.


You must multiply the existing original value by three
and then use the result as a new entry.


For example the AI C185...
original entry
empty_weight_yaw_MOI = 2131


2131 x 3 = 6393


new entry
empty_weight_yaw_MOI = 6393
 
Great, that works perfect. :encouragement:

I have set the empty_weight_yaw_MOI to 6654

and the Stearman follows the taxiways.
You never stop learning. :smile:
 
Brilliant work everyone. I applied the fixes by Bluebear which seemed to make some corrections but this last one worked to perfection. I applied the MOI fix to the two most persnickety Stearman. . .those free spirited bi-planes that would rather track the furrows than the taxiways, lol. While the turns gave them a bit of a problem they still never went off the taxiway and always recovered in the straightaways.

Well done Ulrich and very well done dexthom!!
 
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