I've been having a blast!...

[petermcleland]

all this afternoon and evening, ever since I installed "Advanced AIBlast". I've been sitting at McLeland Field and Kai Tak, listening to my AI traffic winding up their powerful engines and absolutely roaring down the runway on take-off. Then one comes in with engines at flight idle, touches down and slams in reverse thrust and another mighty roar as the buckets extend and the revs wind up. I bought the "LITE" version as I didn't want a co-pilot rabbiting on at me...I just wanted my AI Traffic to sound like real aircraft...And by Golly! they do now

I haven't tuned a single thing...just installed it and left all settings at default. I notice that you can download plenty of free sounds for exact engine types from AVSIM but I've not really looked into that. You start by downloading the Free Demo from AVSIM...search for "FSHotSFX" and scroll past all the sound files to the actual demo application...The actual filename is "fshfx11.zip" but please Note that FSHotSFX does NOT work with FSX or Vista.

You run the demo within about 30 nms of Meigs...KORD is ideal. It won't work anywhere else unless you register by paying for it...Then it works everywhere. I'm sure I must have heard of it before but discounted it...Just love it now :flying:

EDIT...It works through FSUIPC so don't bother if you have not got that.

[Tweek]

Sounds good. Never liked how quiet AI/multiplayer aircraft are. Shame it's not for FSX too, but can't really complain, seeing as all the ported FS9 AI models run terribly - maybe worse than full, flyable FSX models. :o

[petermcleland]

Certainly makes McLeland Field a different place...Friday is a great day with 36 F-16s departing in full re-heat I also like how the various types have their own sounds now in this "Advanced" version...The Budgie going off sounds great :flying:

[johnhinson]

Yes - nice! Or so I thought.

I have just bought it but very quickly learnt a few things difficult to spot whilst working it as demo - as is often the case.

It fiddles with your aircraft.cfg files and seems to have a bit of a dislike to anything Boeing and removes that from the calls by replacing it with a random number. it does this with some other types too - especially anything with a space in it that is an EditVoicePack additional sound. It puts an underscore in place of the space and renders it useless - e.g HAWKER SIDDELEY becomes HAWKER_SIDDELEY.

The help file suggest you can change it back:
Commercial Aircraft - AI Traffic flown commercially never use the ATC_TYPE for routine calls, only for ident calls, so you can always use the correct ATC_MODEL and adjust the ATC_TYPE to your preference. A Boeing 737-400 would be ATC_MODEL=B734. If you enter ATC_TYPE=BOEING its ident would be "...type Boeing 737." Optionally, you can omit the ATC_TYPE completely (AAIB will automatically create a random, unspoken value) and it will be referred to as simply "...type 737..." which is sufficient for most pilots.

After spending about half an hour doing so, I started it up again and you can guess what happens . . . in a flash it changes them back again.

I was going to post a query on their forum about this but the signup system is broken. It is noticable that the majority of questions asked there do not get answered, so I wouldn't expect a lot there anyway.

Does anybody know if there is a way to fix this?

John

[petermcleland]

Strangely enough my editvoicepack calls my Hawker Siddeley 748 an "Aitch-Ess seven four eight"!! but yes it does change those ATC types, usually by making the odd letters into lower case. I will look into it further but it seems not to affect my airliners at all and they are ALL identified by ATC correctly.

I have now fitted all the special engine sounds so I have 747s with GE engines, PW engines and RR engines...and Airbusses that sound like Scarebusses...It is fiddly unless you are using WoA traffic files (WoA already have a folder for each engine type). With PAI for instance they put more than one model in a folder but an aircraft.cfg file can have only one set of specialist engine sound files for the Advanced AI Blast...so you have to manually split the folder into 2 or 3 folders (one for each engine type). I have done some and worked out a technique for the task so if you need to do it then let me know.

Also the touchdown screech is NOT synchronised with the actual touchdown and this sound is best stopped...I have a foolproof method of doing that as well so let me know if you need it. There are several effects that will provide a similar sound but used as an effect, it happens exactly as the wheels touch.

I will say that sitting at Kai Tak beside the runway and listening to all these reallistic actual engine type sounds and the very busy traffic comes in and out, is an awe inspiring experience...Now I know why they were so keen to stuff the new airport way out on an island away from dense habitation...I reckon we should have done it years ago! :flying:

[johnhinson]

Thanks, Peter, I think I've worked out why it make the changes and I've found a way round the problem. I reckon the changes of case so that they say BOeiNg and things like that are to identify every aircraft type individually for some reason. With a short word like that they will quickly run out of permutations for the large numbers of Boeings, so random numbers are allocated to the rest. What I have done is sat down for half an hour and made about forty different Boeing call signs in EditVoicePack for the random numbers. And also made extras for the words with underscores inserted. It is a clumsy bodge but it gets my system to work as it did.

I like the sounds and thanks for the original tip-off - I just wish software developers would find ways to make things work without messing about with your carefully set up system without warning. I was pretty miffed but having found a work-around I feel a bit happier.

No word yet from their email support address, as expected.

John

[petermcleland]

John,

I have yet to find an ATC error when referring to an aircraft...They correctly identify ALL my Boeings and Airbussus and all the other types that go in and out of my Kai Tak. However, ALL my Kai Tak traffic is WoA, so today I will watch and listen at McLeland Field, where the traffic is very mixed and I am familiar with what ATC called everything before I added AI Blast. I will report back later :flying:

[petermcleland]

And also made extras for the words with underscores inserted. It is a clumsy bodge but it gets my system to work as it did.

I like the sounds and thanks for the original tip-off - I just wish software developers would find ways to make things work without messing about with your carefully set up system without warning. I was pretty miffed but having found a work-around I feel a bit happier.

No word yet from their email support address, as expected.

John,

I don't seem to have any problems with anything but the TWO words joined by an UNDERSCORE...I made a bodge which works well in EditVoicepack...Not exactly user friendly, that program, but I simply made a "Copy" from a right click of the "HAWKER SIDDELEY" and then edited its name to "HAWKER_SIDDELEY" and finally updated and saved. This works fine and my Trident is now back to being referred to as a "Hawker Siddeley".

Some time ago, I'm certain that I had it calling my Trident "Hawker Siddeley Trident" but I think that last word vanished eventually and it just uses "Hawker Siddely".

The business of the case of the letters does not seem to affect things and the names are still pronounced correctly provided the spelling is the same...As you say the insertion of an underscore between two words prevents that pair of words being recognised.

I now have all the special engine sounds downloaded and they are all working great GE, PW, RR, CFM...All sounding great! I am finding a lot of fresh enjoyment while Traffic Watching :flying:

BTW here is what I have in the Trident:-

[General]
performance=AI operation only
atc_type=HAwKEr_SidDELEY
atc_model=HS121 //TRIDENT

and the type line works well, but neither item on the model line seems to work...Do you have EditVoicepack calling your Trident a Trident?

[johnhinson]

Trident? What's that? Is that one of those funny jet things without propellers?

Seriously, yes it should if I had one - I made the same bodge as you for the underscored words for my 748s. I also made copies for the ones it changed to numbers. As I said, I felt a lot less grumpy having got that working as the sounds really are tasty.

Although I've solved things myself, their support have never replied which I think is a poor show when you have paid for something. I'm getting far better support here!

I know I'm odd (in a number of respects, people say) but I fly my classic props in a modern environment. However, I'm not too fussy about specific engine types and I don't spend much time watching but it is great to hear something screaming past as you taxi out/in. Even the tiddlers sound much better. It really is a spectacular improvement on the default sounds, thanks for the tip on that.

Try atc_model=TRID for the Trident, I thank that will make it work as it should.

Best wishes,

John

[tgibson]

Hi,

I love AI Blast too. But don't expect ANY support, other than clearing your reg number (so you can reinstall). The authors haven't posted in their forum in years, and no one gets any email response for support issues. I asked for them to allow piston airliners to have reverse, and got a "we are looking into it" message. Then they stopped responding to everyone, and that was that. I have now converted all my piston models to turboprop flight models (and turboprops to jet FM) so I can have my DC-6B's reversing on landing. But now my jets taxi by sounding like turboprops - oh well, can't have everything.

BTW, you don't need it for FSX, since it has the soundai folder and the soundai.cfg file, which does the same thing - custom sounds for each AI aircraft.