AI Aircraft SID and STAR Controller

[Andiehuk1 0]

 

 

Good to hear, thanks!  Are you using AImaxspawndistancefromstar=70?  Just curious.
 
-Roland

 

Indeed I am

 

Andy

[Clipper Ocean Spray 189]

 

But when I watch the aircraft departures from top down (KLAX), every plane suddenly moves very rapidly once it clears the end of the runway (slews?). Is this correct behaviour?

 

I've seen this before too and it is a pain.  Did you open up a second window for the top-down view?  There's some problem in FSX with the interaction of overlayed windows and Simconnect.  Here's some more info. from the NOTAM in the readme file:

 

AISIDSTAR and Overlayed Windows (e.g., Map Windows). Oddly, one situation that can cause AISIDSTAR to control the AI aircraft erratically (e.g., AI aircraft flying extremely fast, descending too quickly, banking too steeply) is overlaying a second window (e.g., a “top-down” map window in FSX (i.e., “shift-]”) or a window to view another aircraft). For some reason internal to FSX, this may cause my program to receive bad data via the SimConnect link. It should be OK to view the map or another aircraft in the second window briefly, but if you keep the second window on indefinitely, AISIDSTAR may start experiencing problems. If this condition occurs, simply remove the second window (e.g., map (“]”) and stop/restart AISIDSTAR (the program can be stopped and restarted at any time during a FSX session).

 

If you want a high-level view of AI traffic in the area, the free Traffic Toolbox Map in the FSX SDK works pretty.  There are some excellent payware tools out there too, like Electronic Flight Bag using the approach map view with AI traffic displayed in realtime.

 

-Roland

 

-Roland

[Clipper Ocean Spray 189]

Clipper, I have only just discovered this thread, and it looks excellent, I have been searching a long time for an improvement over AI Smooth. Many thanks for this great work,

Downloading videos to learn how to use this!

 

Keith

 

Works VERY WELL!.

This is fun, and lets hope it evolves to even more.

Good job Roland.

 

 

Thanks guys.

 

BTW here's a link to the fixed AIConv.exe utility (thanks for testing it Jambo) (I'll include it in the library version).  The only difference is the new version doesn't prompt you about "airports not found in the database" during large conversion jobs, which can be time-consuming.  Just replace your old file:  http://www.mediafire.com/download/zbhig5rioa46i80/AIConv.zip

 

-Roland.

[mike2060 4]

Hi,

 

I just used AISIDSTAR for the first time today. I am using UT2 and have UT2 compatibility set in the .ini. I used PMDG Airac files to create STARs for CYHZ and after watching some AI traffic I noticed some problems. The first waypoint has an altitude of 10,000 feet and when the AI starts descending the ATC keeps telling them to climb back up to 15,000. The final waypoint is right at the beginning of the ILS so once the AI plane gets to the final waypoint (3400 feet) it suddenly starts climbing back up to 15,000 and heads away from the airport since it does not have vectors to land. Are there any options I can change to fix this?

[antonmorse 9]

 

I've seen this before too and it is a pain.  Did you open up a second window for the top-down view?  There's some problem in FSX with the interaction of overlayed windows and Simconnect.  Here's some more info. from the NOTAM in the readme file:

 

 

-Roland

 

 

Thanks Roland, I'll try one of the other traffic view programs as you suggest.

 

Just one other question - do you know why AIConv crashes when I try to convert some sidstar files? I downloaded some from Navdata, and I successfully converted KLAS, but many others cause the program to stop working (giving a msvcr100.dll error).

 

Thanks again for this great program,

Keith

[mike2060 4]

I think they have to be PMDG format files.

[antonmorse 9]

Thanks Mike, they are the ones I am trying to use at navdata.at/index.php , there is a long list of pmdg sidstar files, but so far only KLAS has converted for me.

 

EDIT: I've now had some more success by converting some of the older versions in the list, in case anyone should have the same trouble.

[antonmorse 9]

Unfortunately the files I have managed to convert do not work, they just cause the AISidStar program to crash.

Roland, for those of us that do not have a PMDG aircraft, do you know of any other source of the correct format files that I can convert, I'd really like to get KLAS, KRNO and others working, sorry to be a pain, I am just struggling to find a suitable source.

 

 

Regards

Keith

[jambo50 15]

Unfortunately the files I have managed to convert do not work, they just cause the AISidStar program to crash.

Roland, for those of us that do not have a PMDG aircraft, do you know of any other source of the correct format files that I can convert, I'd really like to get KLAS, KRNO and others working, sorry to be a pain, I am just struggling to find a suitable source.

 

 

Regards

Keith

Have you subscribed to either Navigraph or NavDataPro cycles? If so you have access to the PMDG data. PMDG aircraft do not have to be installed for the programs to install the nav data (IIRC in the case of NavDataPro, the PMDG folder path must exist. Navigraph can be installed to any folder).

[antonmorse 9]

Thanks jambo, if they will definitely convert then I would be happy to subscribe, I did download some from navigraph and they were the ones I tried to convert and failed, so I am not convinced they will actually work.

[jambo50 15]

Thanks jambo, if they will definitely convert then I would be happy to subscribe, I did download some from navigraph and they were the ones I tried to convert and failed, so I am not convinced they will actually work.

Yes they do work. I used the new AIconv utility to successfully convert all of of the 1310 cycle. I haven't had a chance to use it in the sim yet, going to fire it up later to fully test it out.

 

Navigraph data will let you  extract the files to any folder you want, plus the subscription is slightly cheaper than the aerosoft data 

[Clipper Ocean Spray 189]

Unfortunately the files I have managed to convert do not work, they just cause the AISidStar program to crash.

Roland, for those of us that do not have a PMDG aircraft, do you know of any other source of the correct format files that I can convert, I'd really like to get KLAS, KRNO and others working, sorry to be a pain, I am just struggling to find a suitable source.

 

 

Regards

Keith

 

Anton, those are out of date "free" files using formats that are no longer current.

 

I understand that it is a difficult decision as to whether to buy a subscription if you haven't already and you're not even using a PMDG aircraft.  I believe Navigraph and NavDataPro have to purchase the data themselves and then they convert it to all the different formats used by the add-on makers and check it for errors.  I think they charge a fair price for the service.  

 

I would recommend just using the samples airports I provided until you are very sure AISIDSTAR is working well enough for your purposes that an investment in Navigraph/NavDataPro makes sense.  

 

You can also manually create the SID/STAR files for your select, favorite airports using free data (e.g., charts).  I posted some videos on that plus there's additional info. in the readme.  Once you know the pattern the hardest part entering the coordinate data.

[Clipper Ocean Spray 189]

Hi,

 

I just used AISIDSTAR for the first time today. I am using UT2 and have UT2 compatibility set in the .ini. I used PMDG Airac files to create STARs for CYHZ and after watching some AI traffic I noticed some problems. The first waypoint has an altitude of 10,000 feet and when the AI starts descending the ATC keeps telling them to climb back up to 15,000. The final waypoint is right at the beginning of the ILS so once the AI plane gets to the final waypoint (3400 feet) it suddenly starts climbing back up to 15,000 and heads away from the airport since it does not have vectors to land. Are there any options I can change to fix this?

 

Mike, did you change the AImaxspawndistancefromstar parameter to 70 in the .ini file (i.e., AImaxspawndistancefromstar=70)?  AImaxspawndistancefromstar can be further reduced to 40 or 50 if necessary. This parameter allows the AI to complete the UT2 jet routes before getting vectored onto a STAR.  If the AI is vectored to a STAR entry point (transition) too early (e.g., the default 200 nm away from the airport), it will likely miss an UT2 jet route waypoint.  Then when the AI gets released for final approach, it turns back and tries to hit the jet route waypoint anyway.

 

That being said, I agree with you that the final STAR exit waypoint being co-located with the beginning of the ILS is problematic.  In the readme I recommend about a minimum 7 nm separation between the STAR exit and the final approach fix, although it is case by case (e.g., at some airports a lower separation doesn't seem to have any negative effect).  I would recommend just deleting the exit waypoint from the STAR file, the AI will probably fly a similar approach without the deleted waypoint.

 

Regarding the ATC telling the AI to climb back to 15000, are you using stock FSX ATC?  I mention this in the NOTAM section of the readme file, but unfortunately stock FSX ATC and AISIDSTAR are at cross purposes.  AISIDSTAR is making the AI fly published STARs and the "voice" part of FSX ATC gets upset about that.  I recommend buying a more advanced ATC program, such as Radar Contact or Pro-ATC/X, but only if that's something that really interests you in and of itself.

 

-Roland

[Johan_Dees 84]

Your latest conversion utility crashes on EBBR.TXT Can I add it here or post it ?

Oh, and cant you include it in the exe ? so it does the job on the fly ?

Then we dont need a conversion :-)

[antonmorse 9]

Thanks jambo & Roland, I'll do as suggested and try the sample airports for a while before deciding to subscribe