Classic British Flight Sim

Some more fantastic shots there Peter :dance:

James

petermcleland wrote:Whoops! I see that I didn't make it clear....I did none of the flying......

You programmed it to fly itself on that sequence while you sat back and took screenshots. And then you expect me to be less impressed than if you'd flown it? I think not, master! I'm way out of my league

Even more brilliant than I first thought, Peter!

Ian

IMPRESSIVE

No matter which way you look at it

Garry

Well, taking screenshots is what I do and I'm pleased with these sequences (more to post yet), but there are no flying skills involved. To make Papa Bravo fly around the World in a week just involved me in writing this:-

//B707
AC#19004,GAVPB,2%,WEEK,IFR
,1/07:00:00,1/08:03:11,290,F,0077,EDDF
,1/09:00:00,1/09:46:46,250,F,0077,EDDI
,2/08:00:00,2/18:57:49,350,F,0077,VHHH
,3/23:00:00,4/02:52:57,350,F,0077,RJAA
,4/13:45:00,4/21:30:04,350,F,0077,PAMA
,4/22:30:00,5/02:05:28,350,F,0077,KSFO
,5/16:00:00,6/02:48:56,350,F,0077,EGLL

That is all on one line but I broke it up to keep the forum width.

Then all I have to do is sit at an airport about 8 minutes before the planned arrival time and use Traffic Tools > Explorer to follow the approach in Spot View. I had to beef up the spoiler drag to stop going off the end at Tempelhof and juggle the Aircraft.cfg for reliability, but it is not like actually flying a sequence in the real user aircraft and getting screenshots at the same time.

My first post...this one:-

http://forum.fsscreenshots.com/dcboard. ... =full&page

...is flying. The second post (G-AVPB Round the World in 7 sectors...) is just Ttools work :redface:

Peter, do you think you could explain tp me what those numbers mean?
Id like to start adding my own ai flights to your field but so far none of my attempts show up

Here's a brilliant link:

http://www.flightsim.com/cgi/kds?$=main ... ai4beg.htm

(written by a Dane.. )

jonesey2k wrote:Peter, do you think you could explain tp me what those numbers mean?
Id like to start adding my own ai flights to your field but so far none of my attempts show up

OK Jonesey, I'll try to make this just as basic as I can...First I have to assume that you have Ttools and that it resides in a folder somewhere...If you run Ttools.exe then you will find two columns of stuff. In the right column are all the Traffic files that you have in this location:-

X:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Flight Simulator 9\Scenery\World\scenery

One of those files will be called TrafficMcLelandField.bgl and you probably know that if you select it in the right column and tell it to Decomplile then it will make three text files in the same folder that you keep Ttools.exe in.

Those three text files are what you use to build Traffic files or add to existing ones. In the case of the TrafficMcLelandField.bgl file, it decompiles into these three files:-

AircraftMcLelandField.txt
AirportsMcLelandField.txt
FlightPlansMcLelandField.txt

If you add bits of text to these files correctly,run Ttools.exe and then highlight that group of three files in the Left column, you can then tell it to compile and it will add the new Traffic and write the new enlarged TrafficMcLelandField.bgl back into FS, overwriting the old one.

OK now to your question about my FlightPlan text that I quoted above. That IS the text that I added to FlightPlansMcLelandField.txt Note that it is composed in one straight line in NotePad, but the FlightPlans file can be very cumbersome and is actually best read and serviced in WordPad (RightClick and "Open with"). So let us look at that text again here and I will explain what each bit means:-

//B707
AC#19004,GAVPB,2%,WEEK,IFR
,1/07:00:00,1/08:03:11,290,F,0077,EDDF
,1/09:00:00,1/09:46:46,250,F,0077,EDDI
,2/08:00:00,2/18:57:49,350,F,0077,VHHH
,3/23:00:00,4/02:52:57,350,F,0077,RJAA
,4/13:45:00,4/21:30:04,350,F,0077,PAMA
,4/22:30:00,5/02:05:28,350,F,0077,KSFO
,5/16:00:00,6/02:48:56,350,F,0077,EGLL

//B707...Just a Remark for my benefit and not actioned because of //

AC#19004, ...This is a direct reference to the Aircraft and it must be present as a line in the AircraftMcLelandField.txt file...here is how it looks in mine:-

AC#19004,440,"HJG B707-320C BOAC CARGO 1972 AI"

OK we have to digress here to explain that part in the quotes...It is copied and pasted directly from the Aircraft.cfg file and in my special AI version of this B707 that looks like this:-

[fltsim.0]
title=HJG B707-320C BOAC CARGO 1972 AI

You can see that the "title" there is identical to the item in quotes above...It MUST be identical or the aircraft will not show. BTW I always just change the title of the original Flying User aircraft by adding "AI" on the end of it...so if I were to edit that "AI" off the end, then it would load the original flying user aircraft instead of my special version. CAUTION here because Titles MUST be unique in FS...if there are two identical titles then the first only will be loaded and the second will never be seen. Right, that deals with the Aircraft...Next:-

GAVPB, ...this is the registration number and will be used by ATC when referring to the aircraft ONLY if an item later in the line says "R"...However, in the case of my FlightPlan above, that item says "F" and that means that ATC will look for an Airline Callsign in the Aircraft,cfg file...in our case it says:-

atc_airline=SPEEDBIRD
atc_flight_number=703

So ATC will call us "SPEEDBIRD"...but they will use the number on the flightplan next to "F"...that is 0077 and they will NOT use that 703 in the Aircraft.cfg...So we will be called "Speedbird Seven Seven" on ALL legs in the FlightPlan above....Next:-

2%, ... this traffic will show with the traffic slider at or above 2%...Next:-

WEEK, ...this is a Weekly plan and will happen every week instead of every so many hours...Next:-

IFR, ...this is an IFR plan and the traffic will use full atc facilities and routing throughout the flight and make all the necessary calls and frequency changes. This flight will NEVER revert to VFR flight. If a T&G is coded then it will not actually Touch and Go, it will make continuous instrument radar assisted approaches and GO-AROUNDS. This is a bug requiring special treatment to break the cycle.

If this was VFR in the plan then the aircraft would merely get "Radar Following" and be entirely responsible for its own routing. It could be planned for T&Gs till a certain time and then it would do a full stop landing. However, if the weather deteriorates either before take-off or on route then the Aircraft will file an IFR plan and from that moment the plan is IFR and will never revert...Planned T&Gs will now behave as Approach and Go-Arounds and the aircraft will never land unless the cycle is broken as before.

Now the timings and routes...first a bit that it doesn't say (Where does the aircraft start from?)...It starts from that airport that is at the very end of the FlightPlan...In this case EGLL (Heathrow).

So looking at the line:-

,1/07:00:00,1/08:03:11,290,F,0077,EDDF

1/ is Monday (2 is Tuesday, 6 is Saturday and 0 is Sunday)

07:00:00 Our aircraft will call for clearance at 0700 GMT on Monday, bound for EDDF Frankfurt...It is scheduled to be in the close vicinity of Frankfurt at 0803 GMT and it will cruise at FL290. It will be called "Speedbird Seven Seven". As a guide to when to start looking for it with TrafficTools explorer from Frankfurt, subtract 8 minutes from that time...so look at 0755 GMT if it is not on the Explorer list then first check the Day of the week at the top of the list and you may well be a day out (An unknown BUG in FS...The Day of the week should really be GMT date but it is local date). Please note that ALL times in FlightPlans are GMT and all Days are GMT days...If you look in explorer at local time instead of GMT then Speedbird 77 will not be there and it will not be there if your day of the week at the top of the Explorer list is not the same as the day on the FlightPlan.

So that deals with the first line of times and the others are the same as we go on the EDDI Tempelhof, VHHH Hong Kong, RJAA Narita, PAMA McLeland Field, KSFO San Francisco and finally back to EGLL Heathrow.

Naturally all those airports MUST be in the file AirportsMcLelandField.txt and this is how they look in mine:-

EDDF,N50* 1.99',E8* 34.22',361
EDDI,N52* 28.38',E13* 24.07',161
VHHH,N22* 18.50',E113* 54.86',16
RJAA,N35* 45.85',E140* 23.15',135
PAMA,N59* 35.06',W139* 20.62',1
KSFO,N37* 37.10',W122* 22.46',13
EGLL,N51* 28.61',W0* 27.68',79

Hope this clears up any problems

Thanks for that, will give it a go later.

Everything you need is in my post above, except the Aircraft. Substitute an AI airliner that you have and it will fly the route...just copy and paste it's title into the quote marks instead of mine. I will make the finished package available when all tested and I will include Flight setups at all destinations to watch the arrivals and instructions and files to make the AI version of the aircraft from your original downloaded and installed user B707.

Thanks, Ive rigged up an Andover to fly from PAMA to PANC and it seems to work well