Long line at the runway... is this common?

[Allen_M]

Hello,

I found this site from google and it seems pretty good.

I am new to Flight Simulator and flying in general, so this may seem like a stupid question to a lot of you.

I apoligize if this has been asked before.

I filed an IFR Flight Plan from Seattle Tacoma to Portland, and I set Traffic to 100% (I need something to keep me company in the sky).

Seattle Ground told me to taxi and hold short of Runway 32R (or was it 34?). When I got there, ATC told me to hold short of the runway. Pretty soon, there were about eight airplanes lined up short of the runway, none of them cleared to take off, and one of them disappearing every now and then. There was one airplane after another landing, and I sat there for about 45 minutes and I never got a takeoff clearance.

Is this common in real life at busy airports? Will I ever get a clearance? Do you sometimes have to wait an hour before you are cleared to take off? I don't mind waiting; I just need to know if I'm wasting time or not.

Thanks.

[F3Hadlow]

If theres enough traffic to cause that much delay then yes it's likely to happen.
The problem in FS i find is that an aircraft is cleared to land (therefore nothing can takeoff until it's clear of runway) when it is still miles out or on downwind leg on finals whilst in reality busy airports keep aircraft taking off even when others are on finals, only halting when there close to the runway.
There is a program out there that increases Ai waiting times from default 5 minutes to 17 or so but I can't find it now

[garymbuska]

another problem that can cause AI aircraft to sit at a ruyway and never take off is the hold short for that runway is in the wrong place. A good example of this is at KGEG SPOKANE WASHINGTON the one runway (27 i think) has a thresh hold and the taxiway goes to the end of the thresh hold and not the end of the runway and the hold short is at the place where the taxi way and thresh hold meet not at the start of the runway where it should be. I solved this problem by using afcad and editing the taxiway to go to the end of the runway and moved the hold short accordingly and now AI planes take off like they are suppossed to.

[casino]

lol try heathrow in the morning....once counted about 20 aircraft in 2 lines waiting . no worries tho...just wait your turn  ;D

[n_richardson05]

i had a simular problem with kmia miami the taxiway is at the end of the runway and is in the sane direction so traffic insted of entring from the side they are parked on the end of the runway so the aicanot take off while i am comming in but because they are so close to the end of the runway i am told to go around this happed to me and i went around like 5 times untill i landed agenst the controllers command edleast you can get away with things in the sim world somtimes i just do things to my best judgement dont always rely on the contrlller its just the computer and has some short commings  :)

[highfive]

You can try AISmooth (I though I got this on Simviation but I cannot find it) email: support@sg-flightware.de - I tried the email and I could not make the connection . Use a search engine Yahoo or Google it is not hard to find (new version 1.11a).

AI Traffic manager with optional voice output
AISmooth will reduce the number of go-arounds of AI traffic at your airport drastically (their words not mine) . If two planes are landing at the same time it sends one of the planes into a holding pattern. I only got to use it a couple of times because I am in the process of reloading FS2004. It seemed to help things on the ground move a little better. Was there a direct link I'm not sure but I think so and I plan on installing it again.

Another feature is the auto-expanding airport database with 13,000+ airports included optional voice output for ATC instructions (needs Microsoft Speech Engine (standard in Windows(TM) XP)) - I did not use this feature, just a little cut in' paste from the AISmooth readme.txt. I will be the first to admit my AI expertice is not great. My AI traffic all came from projectAI. Their auto-installer is excellent . It is also bad for I need to learn more about editing files for AI .

Good Luck,

Highfive