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Turning Circles

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unitedkingdom
Not sure if this should be here, under Airport Design, but not clear where else it could go. I need to know if there's a way to make AI aircraft turn more tightly at the end of back-tracking, without heading out over the grass. Similarly when parking on a small apron area. I'm working on (and I'm sure there could be many other examples) BN-2s landing at Inishmore (EIIM) where the runway is necessarily quite narrow; and the apron is small, just enough room for two a/c on occasions. In the real world, of course, they spin round on one braked wheel.
Simply making the taxi-link line into a tighter curve doesn't help, as the a/c loses contact and heads out over the grass. Is there anywhere in aircraft.cfg, or even .air file, that could help? I've tried running the BN2 with a Beech Baron aircraft.cfg (ditto a B1900 and a PA34) but makes no difference.

Any ideas?
 
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germany
Take a look here!

Solutions may look different though:

ADE turning pad_01 CYQX.jpg ADE turning pad_02 WAJJ.jpg
 
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GHD

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12,243
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england
Look at parameter 8 of the contact points. However, tail-draggers are a nightmare.
 
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unitedkingdom
Look at parameter 8 of the contact points. However, tail-draggers are a nightmare.
Yes, I did try altering the steering angle (I'm assuming that's the one you mean) - seemed to make no odds. I think the AI software engine probably ignores some of those parameters. I set it to 90 degrees, but it was clear the nosewheel was not following that turning circle.
 
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unitedkingdom
Take a look here!

Solutions may look different though:

View attachment 29263 View attachment 29264
Thanks for those. I do, of course, have a taxi-path turning circle similar to those, but with a rather narrow runway, the a/c can't turn sharply enough, loses contact with the line, and sets off across country! It's necessary (but how to achieve it?) for the aircraft to turn round one braked wheel. The default turning circle is much too wide.
 

=rk=

Resource contributor
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4,450
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us-washington
The default turning circle is much too wide.
I took a look at the airport and countryside, George Keogh did a version in 2011. It seems like a very small place, extremely unlikely you would ever see more than one aircraft there, very few of the images showed even one aircraft there. The question wouldn't be, "why do you want to do this," as much as, "what are you trying to accomplish, given the realities of the simulator and real world schedules," because I don't think it was arbitrary or an oversight to not provide provision for AI planes to taxi at small airstrips. It is more a practical consideration that a person simulating flight would never see planes taxiing at a small airstrip like that. A person simulating flight would be in either the plane taxiing, in which case he would be practicing his spin turns, or he would be in the other plane that fly's there, over at the other end of the schedule.
Taxing traffic is a part of the simulation. At large airports you have to get in the pattern and cue up, AI traffic is required to represent reality in those areas. Try to extend that to Inisheer and what sort of situations arise, you have to wait in pattern while one of these islanders lifts? You can't start taxiing until he pulls up to the gate?

To me it seems like adding AI traffic routes is more an exercise of accomplishment and skill than it is a simulation of reality, which is fine; but I think you'd have more luck creating a specially designed scenery object that is animated to look like an airplane. It would be similar to this Z-10 helicopter I placed over another model of a Chinese Navy frigate, I believe I added a slight weave or bob to it's animation:
sendfile.php

Obviously I am using the other Z-10 to record the image. The ships were intended to be located in the sim using Lamont Clark's AI Ships, however another software by a French group, "FSX@WAR," called "Carrier Convoy Planner" has the ability to animate most models on land or water and could possibly be used to drive your Islander flying model around the taxi points to get it to the runway to take off.

Also, you write that you do have a taxi path that is too narrow so the planes disconnect. Why not widen it a bit? So the plane runs into the grass as it turns, aside from that, everything would work, right? I'd consider that a small compromise to achieve the goal..
 
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unitedkingdom
I took a look at the airport and countryside, George Keogh did a version in 2011. It seems like a very small place, extremely unlikely you would ever see more than one aircraft there, very few of the images showed even one aircraft there. The question wouldn't be, "why do you want to do this," as much as, "what are you trying to accomplish, given the realities of the simulator and real world schedules," because I don't think it was arbitrary or an oversight to not provide provision for AI planes to taxi at small airstrips. It is more a practical consideration that a person simulating flight would never see planes taxiing at a small airstrip like that. A person simulating flight would be in either the plane taxiing, in which case he would be practicing his spin turns, or he would be in the other plane that fly's there, over at the other end of the schedule.
Taxing traffic is a part of the simulation. At large airports you have to get in the pattern and cue up, AI traffic is required to represent reality in those areas. Try to extend that to Inisheer and what sort of situations arise, you have to wait in pattern while one of these islanders lifts? You can't start taxiing until he pulls up to the gate?

To me it seems like adding AI traffic routes is more an exercise of accomplishment and skill than it is a simulation of reality, which is fine; but I think you'd have more luck creating a specially designed scenery object that is animated to look like an airplane. It would be similar to this Z-10 helicopter I placed over another model of a Chinese Navy frigate, I believe I added a slight weave or bob to it's animation:
sendfile.php

Obviously I am using the other Z-10 to record the image. The ships were intended to be located in the sim using Lamont Clark's AI Ships, however another software by a French group, "FSX@WAR," called "Carrier Convoy Planner" has the ability to animate most models on land or water and could possibly be used to drive your Islander flying model around the taxi points to get it to the runway to take off.

Also, you write that you do have a taxi path that is too narrow so the planes disconnect. Why not widen it a bit? So the plane runs into the grass as it turns, aside from that, everything would work, right? I'd consider that a small compromise to achieve the goal..

Rick, thanks for your thoughts and, as you might say, philosophy for your FlightSimming hobby. I can certainly see your point of view. On the other hand, as with so many hobbies, there is a wide range of possible approaches. Over the years I've done a fair amount of sim-flying; but also spent time setting up the environment in which I fly. In the past it's been the commercial side, and I spent many happy hours downloading, creating from scratch, and regularly updating airline schedules/flightplans all over the world, even if I was unlikely to be flying there. I did once (over several months) do a complete world circuit, and it made all the difference stopping off at airports, from JFK to minor airports in Tanzania or Solomon Islands, that were authentically populated and reasonably realistic. More recently I've been doing a lot of VFR sim-flying in the UK and Ireland; and having by chance just spent a few days on Inishmore on real-life holiday I was able to visit and take note of the airport there. Aer Arran Islands flies BN2s there from Connemara EICA several times a day, as well as to Inishmaan and Inisheer. The runways are perched on one of the few level patches of ground on the islands, with quite narrow paved runways bordered by scrubby and rocky terrain. So, you might say, why not take some creative licence and allow the aircraft to run over the grass. What I'm saying is that, to my way of doing things, that's not how it is, so why recreate a true-life airport that is not true to life? It's not just the airport, of course. The BN2s, as I watched them, were perfectly capable of spinning round 180 degrees with one wheel almost stationary. So I'm keen to know if I can make this happen to my AI aircraft. Maybe I'm just a stickler for realism. But then, Flight Simulation has been heading more and more in that direction, and if I (and I expect I'm not alone here) can squeeze another ounce of realism out of it, then why not?!
 
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5,214
Take a look at some threads (some of which are mine, sorry, and I cannot find them back either:() about static aircraft carriers where AI has to manoeuver still more tightly without even any pushback.
But it boils down to this:
- Make sure you increase the turning radius of your wheels in the aircraft.cfg;
- Make sure that in your AFD your nodes are not too close together and do not make an angle between two nodes that your aircraft is incapable of making due to its size and contact point entries;
- Make sure that the width of your apron links (the green ones without texture) are wide enough so that they are slightly bigger than your side wheel settings as defined in the aircraft.cfg;
- and (as George said), forget about the tail draggers:).
 
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unitedkingdom
Take a look at some threads (some of which are mine, sorry, and I cannot find them back either:() about static aircraft carriers where AI has to manoeuver still more tightly without even any pushback.
But it boils down to this:
- Make sure you increase the turning radius of your wheels in the aircraft.cfg;
- Make sure that in your AFD your nodes are not too close together and do not make an angle between two nodes that your aircraft is incapable of making due to its size and contact point entries;
- Make sure that the width of your apron links (the green ones without texture) are wide enough so that they are slightly bigger than your side wheel settings as defined in the aircraft.cfg;
- and (as George said), forget about the tail draggers:).

Roby, many thanks for those tips, and I'll be looking to see if they might improve the situation. Just to clarify re the 'side wheel settings' - I imagine you mean the distance between the two side wheels, ie the sum of the lateral displacements for contact points 2 & 3. I wonder how far it's possible to reduce that displacement (obviously it'll have no effect visually on the texture) before the a/c becomes unstable when taxiing and might tend to fall over sideways! The narrower the notional wheel-span, the more likely it is to remain within the width of the apron links. Oh well, there goes another few hours of experimenting when I probably should be doing all sorts of other stuff....
 
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5,214
Yup. that is what I meant. But you do not reduce the distance between the left and right wheels of the aircraft in the cfg but make sure your link has more width than the lateral distance between the left wheel and the right wheel.
 
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unitedkingdom
Yup. that is what I meant. But you do not reduce the distance between the left and right wheels of the aircraft in the cfg but make sure your link has more width than the lateral distance between the left wheel and the right wheel.

Thanks. No, I realise it's not necessary to reduce the wheelspan, but I'm wondering (and will experiment) what happens if you do, so that there might be a better chance of the a/c remaining within the taxi path. So far, widening the taxi path to 8m. and setting the aircraft's wheel turning angle to 80 degrees, seems to have made no difference - it just remains sluggish on corners and almost always just drifts off and loses contact with the taxi-path.
 
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5,214
Set to 180 (=90º left and 90º right) and check whether the front wheels are not too far forward. Bring them closer to the center of the aircraft.
 
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