by texspark » Tue Feb 18, 2003 12:12 am
Roger,
I found out a lot this weekend about how the AI traffic is controlled by Flightsim2002. It turns out that I was having the same problem with aircraft not taxiing to the correct overlay regardless of how many overlays you have. Turns out that if you are trying to have aircraft to taxi to the correct gate or even the correct terminal you are not going to accomplish it with just simple overlays. The reference point (pink cross) located in the center of the airport on the afcad file is what the ground controller references for telling a/c to taxi to the gate. I went as far as even having more than one reference point (one for each overlay) and it does not matter as when the A/C turns off the runway and contacts ground which ever reference point it is closest too it is going to taxi to the closest terminal. I have found the only way to control the proper way to get your a/c to taxi to the correct gate is by using RAFCAD files. We can control where the A/C start up by AFCAD but not by where they go after they land. RAFCAD is AFCAD that uses radius sizing for sending an aircarft to a gate only with that radius setting. For example my American Domestic planes use a radius steeing of 28 meters or 92 feet. I can modify all of my American domestic gates for a radius setting of 92 and moidfy my American domestic model file to read a radius of 28m and that American domestic (737,727,757) will always load at the correct gate and upon landing it will only taxi to the gate with a radius setting of 92ft. There is a great FAQ at project AI and they even have an upcoming section for RAFCAD files. It also has a standardized chart that tells the radius setting for most airlines Regional, Domestic and International Aircraft. It sounded really complicated but it is very smple when it is done once or twice. The great part about it is that you dont need overlays anymore unless you plan on using multiple runways. I am not sure if you are really into this type of realism but if you are it is definately worth looking into, if not it si good info to pass on to others. Thanks for all of the help.
Steve
Dell Pentium4 3.0Ghz w/ 800MB FSB 512MB DDR memory @400mhz, ATI Radeon 9800 128mb video card.