Military call Sign "0"

Hi Ray,
I'm a long long long long term simmer, from IBM PC XT days, and I'm a lapsed PPL/IMC; flight sim is the closest that I can get to flying, so the better we can all make it with our combined know-how and determination, the better it will become. And it is very good indeed, IMHO.
I remember Hercules monochrome (green on black) wire frame; simply compare that to what we have now!
Best wishes, and many thanks,
Fabio

FabioL wrote: If the principle issues and fixes were to be re-listed as bullets, what would they be, with a view to eliminating the dreaded ZERO call sign, and if we're to search for blank entries in cfg files, what is the best way if achieving this? Fabio

There seem to be two separate questions being asked here. The first question relates directly to flight numbers. The second question is more general in nature.

With regard to the first question, freddy and I have emphasized that it is an airline's tcc file or a country's VFR or armed forces tcc file that contains flight plan flight numbers. Examining a tcc file in a spreadsheet provides both the opportunity to spot missing flight numbers and the opportunity to add a unique flight number to any flight plan that has a missing or non-unique flight number.

Although the second question is unrelated to a tcc file's flight plan flight numbers, it's an interesting question, and I'll go ahead and provide an answer. Please understand that I am no longer discussing flight plan flight numbers. Per your second question, I am changing the discussion to blank entries in aircraft.cfg files (under the assumption that you were thinking "aircraft.cfg" when you mentioned "cfg" files...an assumption that I make because I had already shown how to spot blank flight numbers by opening a tcc file in a spreadsheet).

In all likelihood, the only blank or missing entries in aircraft.cfg files will be contained within the sections that describe each livery. Although a text editor could be used, I find AI-Aircraft Editor to be easier and faster...both to spot missing or incorrect data and to make changes to that data.

Here's a simple example:

Within AI-Aircraft Editor, I selected B737_800. (I use the default 737 as an AI aircraft, and I have 69 liveries for it). Selecting B737_800 within AI-Aircraft Editor opened the 737's aircraft.cfg file. I noticed that there were differences among liveries for the "ui_createdby" entry. Most liveries showed "Microsoft Corporation," but there were some liveries where "ui_createdby" was blank. There was also one livery that showed Microsoft Corporation plus the livery painter's name. I wanted to make "Microsoft Corporation," and only "Microsoft Corporation," show in the "ui_createdby" entry of all 737 liveries. I double-clicked one of the liveries in the AI-Aircraft Editor's upper window. This enabled me to edit the "ui_createdby" entry within the "General data" tab. With "Microsoft Corporation" present in the editable "ui_createdby" field, I clicked the "A" button to the right of the field, which, as the caption in the screenshot below indicates, updates "ui_createdby" entries for all liveries within the 737's aircraft.cfg file. The below screenshot shows the results immediately after updating. Of course, not everything is visible at the same time in the upper window. There are scrollbars that must be used to see everything.



Although I've read documentation stating that a backup of the aircraft.cfg is made before AI-Aircraft Editor makes any changes to the file, I haven't been able to find the location of backup files after making changes. Therefore, I suggest manually backing up the aircraft.cfg file before making alterations to it with AI-Aircraft Editor.

After using AI-Aircraft Editor to modify the 737's aircraft.cfg file, examination of the file in a text editor showed that "ui_createdby" entries showed "Microsoft Corporation" in the data for each and every livery. In cases where there had been no "ui_createdby" line for a livery, a "ui_createdby=Microsoft Corporation" line was appended to the end of the livery's data.

The latest version of Martin Grossman's AI-Aircraft Editor can be downloaded from:

The Owl's Nest - AI-Aircraft Editor

Dan

Many thanks; I was, some time ago, the thread OP.
Whenever I hear flight numbers without airline names, or the call sign zero, I fire up Super Traffic Board to get a handle on the aircraft in question, with a view to providing me with an airline name that does not confirm to EditVoicePak's airline names text file (thus, with a made up example, "Thomson Old Colours" would be easy to find and adjust, but zero does not define anything searchable. I will post a screenshot to show what I mean).
Populating all flight numbers is a never-ending Herculean task, especially if one then recompiles the T360 traffic BGL when adjustments are made, which essentially means adjusting textual data within the T360 database data files as opposed to the simobjects T360 installed data?
I have already forwarded the screenshot to Martyn at JF.
Basically, if JF are still following this thread, could you populate the fields according to the findings of this thread in the SP, and please post your thoughts on this issue?
Thanks,
Fabio

Thanks, this is all very useful.
I must confess that I've not kept up with the discussion as it went slightly above my capacity.
If the principle issues and fixes were to be re-listed as bullets, what would they be, with a view to eliminating the dreaded ZERO call sign, and if we're to search for blank entries in cfg files, what is the best way if achieving this?
Fabio

freddy wrote: Nice work RayM.

Yes, kudos to you, Ray, for doing the testing and for posting the results of your testing here.

freddy wrote: From this, obviously, it is important to make sure anything entered in the "ATC_airline=" filed DOES match the ATC database ... if you want to hear the airline name correctly called out (followed by the flight number (which you want to make sure is not 0)). Or, you can be inventive and have it NOT match the ATC database (you may, on purpose, decide you not want to hear it call out an airline name, but wish to use this field for your own other naming convention purposes) ... but in this case, make sure you DO have a flight number that is NOT zero.

Yes, I recently experienced an unusual (or, as you say, "inventive") use of the "atc_airline=" line. I recently downloaded some additional liveries for the FSX default Cessna 208B. (As many of you already know, nearly all of the aircraft I use for AI flights are either user aircraft that I have downloaded/purchased or user aircraft that came with FSX/Acceleration). Each of the new liveries that I downloaded for the 208B were created by the same person, and each of the new liveries included an aircraft.cfg "atc_airline=" entry that contained the aircraft's registration number rather than an airline name. (No "atc_id=" entry was present). After using Traffic X to set up some VFR flights for the new liveries and to assign flight numbers for each AI flight plan, I found ATC would call out only the flight number that I had assigned. The inventive "atc_airline=" line containing the registration number, was ignored by ATC.

Dan

Hi,
Yes, many thanks, this is most useful.
I'm hoping that JF are also listening in on this, as this is an area that needs addressing in the SP.
Thanks again,
Fabio

RayM wrote: there you are then - I think this topic has gone full circle!

I was thinking the same thing.

RayM wrote: I am in the middle of doing experimental plans using Traffic X and seeing what actually happens re VFR and IFR with and without flight numbers - this is a bit of a mess when you put it into FSX. I am going to repeat the same plans using AIFPC to see what FSX does then. If the results look interesting, I will post here later.

Careful, (he says sarcastically), that's the way I started the journey toward trying to understand all things AI - experimentation and testing. But it's a lot of fun.

RayM wrote: I hear (see) what you say about using the SDK methods but, as far as I am concerned, the AIFPC technique is much more user friendly and allows more flexibility.

Of that I have no doubt. The way I am doing it can be slow and frustrating, and you need to keep your wits about you. For me though, it's all I know because I was someone who really only got started with AI using the SDK methods. And I've not attempted the TTools way purely because FSX uses the SDK method by default, so I'll stick with it. Thankfully, I've become reasonably good at it and I'm quite comfortable with it now.

RayM wrote: For example, if you wanted to write a plan for one aircraft that consisted of a mixture of VFR and IFR sections, then using SDK you would need to write separate sections whereas AIFPC allows for this by the inclusion of the R and F codes. This may be something that the originator of Ttools (Lee?) added when he originally came up with these handy tools. I suspect the SDK compiler automatically creates inherent R and F codes without actually mentioning them. I haven't tried the SDK method but will do a test and see how it works.

Hmmm. You could be right.   It may indeed create inherent R and F codes without actually mentioning them. Although that said, it is my understanding that Microsoft (Aces) rewrote a lot of the AI code and a new SDK for the latest version of the sim (FSX). TTools was the "old" way of doing things (FS2004 and earlier). The "new" way uses the TrafficDatabaseBuilder.exe and takes the syntax and structure mentioned in the Microsoft ESP TRAFFIC TOOLBOX documentation/SDK. I'm not all fully up with the details and history of it ... but, perhaps the rewrite of the AI stuff that was done meant that they did away with the R and F codes. However, given that it is still possible to use TTools to create AI traffic files, and given that R and F codes are used for that, AND it all still works in FSX, I really have no idea.

RayM wrote: Re: Hint 1 - yes this what I do in my own way. Use Traffic X to create flightplans (remember that Traffic X works in 'local times'), decompile using AIFPC (times are now in UTC) and then edit (I use Excel) to 'correct' any anomalies. Finally I recompile using AIFPC.

Hehehe. And I suspect that there are other people out there who, like us, do it this way as well (use the Traffic X or Traffic 360 program to create files, but then manually edit those files before manually doing their compile).

RayM wrote: Re: Hint 2 - I have never understood why Traffic X asks you for an aircraft registration which it then completely ignores. Is it because, as I suspect, that all flights are considered as IFR types, in which case they think that the registration is not required, with ATC calling each aircraft by its flight number which does get included in the .bgl.

I too have no idea why they ask for a registration which they seemingly do not use. Well, it does kind of get used, just not correctly. THIS is probably the very crux of the original post. Depending on the flight setup, the registration may or may NOT be used by the ATC in the sim. And, when the registration is not used, the flight number (generally) is. Therefore, because Just Flight have not provided flight numbers for some flights, the result is that ATC ends up calling out "zero".

Good to have your input Ray. Hmmm, intriguing.

Traffic X (and therefore I will assume Traffic 360) use the tools and utilities from Microsoft's TRAFFIC TOOLBOX to create and compile the flight plans. The file SCHEDULES.DAT is created by the Traffic X program (and, again, I assume Traffic 360) which is then used to compile the AI traffic file.

Interestingly, the SCHEDULES.DAT file does not contain any 'R' code or 'F' code in it. And Microsoft make no mention of an 'R' code and an 'F' code in their SDK and respective documentation which explains the various TRAFFIC TOOLBOX files, tools and utilities (link provided below). It therefore looks like the 'R' and 'F' codes are native only to the AIFPC program, and I'd guess they are therefore used by that program somehow just for its own coded internal purpose.

Here is a snippet taken from my SCHEDULES.DAT file showing two flights ... a daily scheduled IFR flight and a daily scheduled VFR flight. Note there's no 'R' code or 'F' code.


AC1113,083,20,ONE_DAY,VFR
{
2115,YBTL,250,83
0135,YPDN,250,83
0555,YBTL,250,83
1015,YPDN,250,83
}

AC1172,089,20,ONE_DAY,IFR
{
0030,YWLM,250,89
1235,YPDN,250,89
}


Information on the TRAFFIC TOOLBOX set of tools, including details on the syntax and structure of the SCHEDULES.DAT file, can be found here: Micorosoft ESP TRAFFIC TOOLBOX

Hint 1: It is possible to use Traffic X to create and modify flight plans (and respective files) for you, and then use ASCII based utilities such as Notepad to edit the files that get created. With an understanding of aircraft.cfg files, as well as a knowledge of the syntax and structure of the AI files which get generated by Traffic X, you can make appropriate edits to ensure you see individual flight plans you want to see ALL of the time, you can "fix" the random percentage value that is generated by the Traffic compiler every time you use it, you can fix tail registration numbers, you can configure things so that aircraft don't ask for IFR clearance before they start up their engines with ATC referring to them only by their respective tail registrations, or you can get aircraft to ask for IFR clearance before starting engines with ATC referring to them by the flight number.

This is how I use the Traffic X program ... first, get it to make or modify the files (which, depending on requirements, may or may not include getting Traffic X to do a compile so that appropriate entries get added to files such as SCHEDULES.DAT), then I edit the files, lastly followed by me MANUALLY compiling the AI traffic using the "_COMPILE.BAT" file found in the Traffic X "Compiler" folder (I do not compile them from within the Traffic X program because that would "undo" the file edits I've made). And, of course, ALWAYS MAKE BACKUPS before modifying and manipulating files.

Hint 2: Yes, you may observe that the aircraft tail registrations shown in that snippet of my SCHEDULES.DAT file above are indeed numbers as opposed to letters. The two flights shown are military flights and I've given them numbers as registrations, which incidentally match their flight number, on purpose.

Hehehe, the first computer I ever used only had an 8-digit display, similar to an extremely large calculator.

Ahh yes, I know what you're talking about. The first computer program I ever wrote was done by using a pencil to color in on special cards. The cards were then scanned and punched by a machine. Hundreds of punch cards were required to write only a handful of lines of code. Feed the cards in to the special reader, and thus the computer program was entered. CPM was a dream compared to that. 8 inch floppy disks, cassette tapes to load programs, acoustic coupler modems at 75 baud, and my first word processor: WordStar. Not to mention Lunar Lander and this pretty damn cool Flight Simulator program, both on the school's Apple II. Those were indeed the days.

I have fond memories of being connected to this thing called the "Internet", LONG BEFORE anyone else had even heard of it, using a coupler modem, and typing UNIX COMMANDS on a COMMAND LINE (no WWW back then) to download pictures of the moon directly from NASA. It took over two hours just to get a grainy, fairly small, black and white image. But my friend and I sat there, for the entire duration, simply fixated, staring at the monitor, and watching every line get drawn pixel by pixel, one after the other. We were getting this image, over the telephone line, through this strange coupler device thing, all the way from AMERICA, and we weren't even paying overseas dialing charges! I cannot even begin to describe how EXCITING that was! I even remember a time when it was VERY MUCH frowned upon if you tried to ADVERTISE or SELL something on the "Internet". Oh how you got "yelled at" on mIRC by the other folks who were lucky enough to have online connections back then. (I am sure today's Twitter is really just a slightly improved version of mIRC? Yes? My how things come full circle.)

Still, you sound like you've seen and done far more than I have. I lost my programming skills years ago (programming never really grabbed me). But I never lost my interest in being a user. These days I do IT customer support and software interface design. There's a little bit of programming on the side (scripting really; I write installers). I'm surrounded by computers and programmers. And what do I do when I come home from work? I sit at a computer and do flight sim stuff (which includes not only flying, but also working constantly on the AI stuff in my sim, as well as writing and editing XML code to fix and improve the gauges in my aircraft, etc, etc). Hehe, you'd think I'd be sick of computers after being at it all day at work ... so the last thing I'd want to do is come home and do it ... but, no, I love it.

But, we digress.