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FSX Make ai use a certain runway

C

Chris75

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unitedkingdom
Hi there.
I am creating ai helicopter traffic for Sumburgh EGPB in the Shetland Island’s to try and make it as busy as it was in the late 70’s.
My question is
Can I force a helicopter to use a certain runway for take off and landing.
Sumburgh has a helicopter runway 06/24 specially to ease congestion.

Look forward to hearing from you.

Rgd
Cj75s
 
I’ve never been able to get that to work. Instead, I create a different airport with only the helicopter runway present. It would need a different ICAO code – your main airport is EGPB, so I make the code for the helicopter airport something like EGPH, as long as that’s not used by any other airport. Then schedule all your helicopters into EGPH instead.

Make sure that the airport reference points are far away from each other, otherwise you may have issues with planes swapping airports. If that happens, the sim will crash.
 
Don't use EGPH - that's Edinburgh!

I always use a combination of the main airfield's ICAO with a number - EGP1, for example. You will need to ensure that the taxi routes don't follow the main airfield's links too closely (and delete all the main airfield links that access the helo-only runway in any capacity), as AI can 'jump the tracks' from one airfield to the other. It often takes a good bit of experimentation to get the two AFCADs to play together nicely.
 
Ah right I'm with you Tim.
I can cut off the heli parking area and only link them to the heli runway.
Wonder if they would land on it though. I do have spots dedicated to e.g. BHL and BIH so they don't park on general ramp area.
I'd have to re route taxi ways from the hangers. Will let you know how I get on.

Thanks guys for you're thoughts.
Chris
 
Hi Chris. Just to make clear you have to create a brand new AFCAD using ADE. Start from whatever Sumburgh AFCAD you’re already using and delete anything not relevant to heli ops. Rename it as described above. Make sure the taxi routes work, and you might want to use a separate ground frequency if you want to fully deconflict helo and fixed wing ground traffic. It’s probably worth moving the airfield datum point too so that you can clearly see the two AFCADs in LittleNavMap or within the in-sim map.

On the original AFCAD (which you should back up and save somewhere safe!), delete the parts that would be under the helicopter operating areas. Make sure the taxi routes to the fixed wing runways make sense. Save that under the original ICAO. When you compile the two airfields, you won’t need any new ground (CVX) for the helicopter airfield - it’ll just overlay the fixed-wing airfield.

When you test run the airfields, if you get any issues with aircraft jumping from one AFCAD to the other, try moving the nodes further apart so that no node on one AFCAD is close to a node on the other one.

Good luck!
 
Tim Collins said:
Hi Chris. Just to make clear you have to create a brand new AFCAD using ADE. Start from whatever Sumburgh AFCAD you’re already using and delete anything not relevant to heli ops. Rename it as described above. Make sure the taxi routes work, and you might want to use a separate ground frequency if you want to fully deconflict helo and fixed wing ground traffic. It’s probably worth moving the airfield datum point too so that you can clearly see the two AFCADs in LittleNavMap or within the in-sim map.

On the original AFCAD (which you should back up and save somewhere safe!), delete the parts that would be under the helicopter operating areas. Make sure the taxi routes to the fixed wing runways make sense. Save that under the original ICAO. When you compile the two airfields, you won’t need any new ground (CVX) for the helicopter airfield - it’ll just overlay the fixed-wing airfield.

When you test run the airfields, if you get any issues with aircraft jumping from one AFCAD to the other, try moving the nodes further apart so that no node on one AFCAD is close to a node on the other one.

Good luck!
Click to expand...
So, basically I have to make my helli side a separate airport. I dhalm try this tomorrow gmt time that is from 0900hrs zulu. Will let you know how it goes. I will of course back up the original EGPB files.
 
I've just looked at the P3Dv5 stock EGPB. If you're starting from that you're going to have to get a little creative to make it work. I believe the helicopter parking is on the west side of the airfield, so your helo traffic will have to cross runway 33-15 to access the helicopter-only runway 06-24. It's not going to be possible to do that and deconflict from the fixed-wing traffic - if your traffic files are busy, you will have unrealistic conflicts. It may be easier to create a new helicopter runway using the alignment of the disused 04-22 to the west of runway 33-15. If that's a step too far, you may want to consider taking 33-15 'out of service' (remove the runway link) and have the fixed-wing traffic use only 27-09. That would leave 33-15 available to route your taxiing helo traffic to and from 06-24. On the fixed-wing AFCAD, the taxi pattern could use the northern part of 33-15 to access 09. AI traffic will always use the shortest route to their intended destination/runway, so any fixed-wing taxy routes on that runway south of the 22-04/33-15 intersection won't get used, so there's no real point in including them.
 
Tim Collins said:
I've just looked at the P3Dv5 stock EGPB. If you're starting from that you're going to have to get a little creative to make it work. I believe the helicopter parking is on the west side of the airfield, so your helo traffic will have to cross runway 33-15 to access the helicopter-only runway 06-24. It's not going to be possible to do that and deconflict from the fixed-wing traffic - if your traffic files are busy, you will have unrealistic conflicts. It may be easier to create a new helicopter runway using the alignment of the disused 04-22 to the west of runway 33-15. If that's a step too far, you may want to consider taking 33-15 'out of service' (remove the runway link) and have the fixed-wing traffic use only 27-09. That would leave 33-15 available to route your taxiing helo traffic to and from 06-24. On the fixed-wing AFCAD, the taxi pattern could use the northern part of 33-15 to access 09. AI traffic will always use the shortest route to their intended destination/runway, so any fixed-wing taxy routes on that runway south of the 22-04/33-15 intersection won't get used, so there's no real point in including them.
Click to expand...
Hi Tim

Actually I am using the ramp area to the north of 06/24 as that is where heli’s taxi to for pickup and loading prior to departure. So I have dedicated Bhl, Bih and Bond spots there.

I began by isolating that ramp area from other runways hoping the heli’s would use 06/24 but the jyst disappeared at push back.
So I deleted that area and created a new airport called HELI with said spots for parking. Made a small flightplan but nothing appears at it.
I have fuel, atc frequencies runway links, hold points but no aircraft. I am going to make a ga spot and see if I can get an ordinary small cessna or something to appear and use runways.
I even tried a MAIW SEAKING but no joy!
Will let you know.
Pity there isn’t some code to use in the aircraft cfg file to have them only yse a certain runway. Maybe tho I should try looking at the atc file or files? Do you know anything about where the “brains” for the atc may be found?

Rgd
Chris
 
Chris, I had a quick go at it this evening. It works fine, though I had to rename the helo AFCAD EGP4 to deconflict from MAIW waypoints.

The screenshots below are from my modified stock EGPF with the new EGP4. As you can see, traffic is present on both airfields (I quickly knocked up a test traffic file for the helicopters; the fixed-wing traffic is from Ultimate Live 2). I created a phototile for the airfield background as I needed to use photo reference to get the layout correct.


Screenshot 2024-10-12 191221.png
Screenshot 2024-10-12 192005.png
Screenshot 2024-10-12 192056.png
 
Hi Tim

I tried making 2 airports here but it never worked right in FSX. Will attempt at cutting any taxi links with 15/33 and 09/27 runways to see if this forces heli's to use 06/24. have marked the parking spots for relevant heli companies so hopefully it will work. Let you know as soon as. got lots on even tho retired and FSX is way down my list of (our list) of duties.
chris
 
Well guys I really tried. Made an airport EGP1, right on the heli parking area. Deleted it from EGPB first. then gave it comms and re-aligned 06/24 to about 1800ft long. set up taxi ways with hold shorts etc. Made sure I had runway taxi line as well. Then set up parking spots to suit as per old EGPB.
Then using AIFP 3 set up a chopper to be there, take off to EGPW (unst) with a spot it can park in, and return again. it appeared in Unst, but not at EGP1 prior to departure. Got fuel set up as well.
all seems ok. taxi links good etc, no faults found in ADE.

compiled said airport in ADE and compiled said flight plan in AIFP3.
Ran fsx
but nothing no chopper shows, can see the parking spots but no ai chopper.

Is it too close to EGPB and fsx can't handle it. I know you got it working in P3D Tim. Did you alter the range or keep it at default? I just wonder is fsx can handle this being so close.
when i use AIFP3 and check the bulk flight plans it tells me there no parking spots in EGP1 even though I know there are.

Been doing this for years and never come across a problem such as this.

any suggestions?
 
Last edited:
Hi Chris. I’ve been absent from flight sim stuff for most of the last year or so, as there are other priorities in my life just at the moment. I’d have to go back and look at what I did to be certain, but I didn’t change anything like ‘range’.

John Young and I have been using superimposed helicopter AFCADs on fixed-wing airfields for many years, in FS9, FSX and all versions of P3D. The only consistent factor you have to be careful about is the airfield reference point. If they are too close then you sometimes get problems with the sim being unable to distinguish between the two (or more) separate layouts.

If I remember rightly I significantly altered the stock EGPB to get it to better represent the real airfield before I built the helo AFCAD, based on the revised layout. I don’t recall there being any issues with the flight plans I knocked up to test the system.

The computer I used for flight sim development has been retired, but I still have all of the files in the cloud. I’ll see if I can dig them out and let you have them in FSX format. It should be straightforward to convert them.
 
Thank you Tim, that would be helpful.

I tried moving the airport ID about 6000ft to the east so it didn't encompass EGPB's ID and still did encompass EGP1 but that still didn't cure it.

If I could try your files it might work but failing that I'll maybe have to go back to basics and start from the ground up with the stock airport.

Cheers
Chris
 
Tim Collins said:
Here you go Chris. I've left the photoreal background out as it's 85mb!
Click to expand...
Thanks Tim, Got it working. Only problem is I can't open your .bgl files in ADE as I think they are P3D ones as I would like to create airline parking. So also I have created a new heliport side and have managed to get that working fine. Don't know what went wrong with the first one. Maybe it was because I started out with the airport reference ID's too close together. This time I set my EGP3 ID about 6,000 ft away form EGPB's ID and its working quite well. Only problem is ATC release aircraft off 06 right into landing paths of aircraft for 27! But this I can live with.
Thanks for all your help.
 
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