General Release 3.3.1.0 which uses PV5 airports when the Target Version is PV5 is now available.
As I noted several weeks ago, a programmatic analysis revealed that the PV5 stock airports differ dramatically from those in FSX and earlier releases of P3D.
- 1914 have name changes (i.e., Country/Region/City/Airport name)
- 11018 have position changes, 193 of which were sufficient to change the AI sector in which they reside
- 2068 introduce new ICAO codes
- 2009 ICAOs have been deleted
Consequently, my only choice was to redevelop AIFPs airport collection and handling. The resulting changes were numerous. Fortunately, many were "mechanical"; nonetheless, many opportunities for de-stabilization existed. The new version has been "soaking" as a development release for a couple weeks. A few issues have been reported and fixed. It's now ready for the "big time".
The first thing you may notice with this new release is a new "Base Data" folder in your AFLT folder. It contains the stock airport and time zone data files, several of which used to "live" in the AFLT folder, cleaning up the latter. In addition to any of the files in Base Data, you may safely delete from your AIFP folder Airports_Base.dat and Airport_Stock.dat (but leaving them will do no harm other than consuming unnecessary disk space). The User manual has also been updated.
If you have previously collected add-on airport data and have selected the "Use Add-on Airport Data" option, on first running of AIFP 3.3.1.0 you will be advised that the data you have collected is not compatible with the new release and requested to re-collect it. When you choose to do so, please note that in this new release, add-on data is collected for each the Flightsim versions you nominate and only those add-ons existing in the Target Version you select will be "active". The procedure is described in the user manual. Delaying re-collection is not an issue; until you do, you will get the warning message and your previously collected add-ons will be ignored.
Two other difference may come to your attention.
- "Missing airport" messages due to differences in ICAO codes between PV5 and its predecessors should you select the Target Version as PV5 and attempt to use a traffic file or flight plan file set created for FSX or a P3D version prior to PV5, or vice versa. I could find no ICAO cross-reference data. Due to the nearly 2000 name changes, developing that data would require manual analysis of thousands of airports - and that's above my pay-grade. If someone wants to undertake that task, the mechanism to use the resulting data already exists in AIFP.
- AIFP "directs" AI by specifying the time of arrival at a point on the boundaries of the intervening sectors between the departure and destination airports - based on the data of the Target Version. It's up to Flightsim to "fly" the AI from the originating airport to the first such point and from the last such point to the destination airport. Without a great deal of experimentation, it's not clear how Flightsim will handle the nearly 200 position changes that result in PV5 airports being in a different AI sector than in predecessor data when a traffic file generated with, say, FSX as the Target Version is used with PV5, and vice versa. It does seem likely that, in such situations, AI may take unusual routes on departure or arrive very late.
Please report any anomalies in the operation of AIFP.
Enjoy,
Don