Update for 360

You make some interesting points, Mike. My thinking is that if a program that hasn't been on the market very long is suddenly offered at half price, the offer should raise red flags in the minds of prospective buyers of the current version of the product. I do think, though, that, in making the half-price offer prior to the release of the update, Just Flight is possibly being fair to individuals who decide to purchase Traffic 360 prior to the update release. The real measure of fairness will come when buyers determine whether the update fixes all of Traffic 360's problems. It the update fails to do so, then those who paid half price may have paid too much.

Dan

Well said both of you. I just wonder what the response would be if JF advertised the programme as in need of an update, particularly as they don't seem to be able to provide an estimated delivery date!

I think I have got used to these problems over a number of years, I have seldom bought software that includes Scenery and flight plans without having to repair them. I check every AFCAD before flying to the airport and find many that have errors, broken taxiways and disconnected parking spaces and serious bottlenecks causing busy airports to come to a standstill, and aircraft not appearing because of errors in the flight plans. I actually spend more time checking and fixing than I do flying. good job I quite enjoy the fixing.

Mike

Hi,

We are currently looking for some Traffic 360 users to assist us with the final stage of testing for the service pack.

If you have Traffic 360 and would like to help test the service pack, please contact me: martyn@justflight.com

Thanks
Martyn

I think that should be wingeing

I certainly agree with freddy's appraisal of Heli Traffic 2009. Although Heli Traffic 2009 doesn't provide any helicopters, any collection of helicopters can be used with the program. In my case, I decided to create all Heli Traffic 2009 helicopter schedules, myself. This allowed me to schedule appropriate liveries for different countries, and it enabled me to keep civilian helicopters out of military bases (and military helicopters out of commercial airports).

I like to specify a difference in departure times of 5 seconds or so when I want to see helicopters fly in formation. Additionally, when helicopters are to fly in formation, I put one or more of the helicopters at a slightly different altitude.

In the screenshot, below, three default Acceleration AgustaWestland helicopters have taken off from my freeware version of Kandahar AFB. The second helicopter took off five seconds after the first helicopter, and the third helicopter took off five seconds after the second helicopter. The third helicopter is lagging behind slightly because it had not been parked next to the first two helicopters. The helicopters are climbing to slightly different altitudes on a flight to Bagram AFB. To keep the helicopters flying on the same schedule between Kandahar and Bagram, I set no differences among helicopters in their departure delays at Bagram (instead of the five-second differences in delays that I had set at Kandahar). Since the helicopters arrive in Bagram approximately five seconds apart, they will take off approximately five seconds apart as long as each helicopter has an equal delay at Bagram. The F-16 fighters shown in the screenshot will be flying Traffic X flight plans.



In the screenshot below, I had just started the engine of the helicopter in the foreground, when a helicopter under Heli Traffic 2009 control came in for a landing. As you can see, the AI helicopter is hovering quite nicely as it lands. The F-16 at the far right will be flying a Traffic X-created schedule.



Below is how another Heli Traffic 2009 three-helicopter formation appears as it arrives at Bagram AFB on a flight from Kandahar. (You can almost hear the rotors just from looking at the screenshot).

Nice screenshots Dan, as always. That's a great idea about how to get helicopters to fly in formation.

I should admit, Mike, that it was originally Dan who suggested HeliTraffic 2009 to me. I had seen the product on the web but wasn't sure whether I should purchase. Dan's comments and encouragement about how good it was eventually saw me make the decision to buy. I love it, and haven't looked back. It's one of the best products you can get for FSX, in my opinion.

Mike, here are a few things to keep in mind about Heli Traffic 2009 helicopter landing spots:

In addition to using existing helipads, landing spots can be created nearly anywhere. If you have a helicopter that has pontoons, you can land the helicopter on water, and tell Heli Traffic 2009 that the location is a helicopter landing spot.

I recommend using Airport Design Editor to add helipads to existing airports. The four types of helipads that are on the ADE menu (H, Square, Circle, Medical) are the only types of helipads that Heli Traffic 2009 will recognize. Additionally, a helipad "Start" should exist for each helipad when an airport has multiple helipads. I should add that a helipad "Start," alone, won't work. There should be both a helipad "Start" as well as one of the four recognized types of helipads. Incidentally, if you decide to add a lighted helipad to an airport, you will still have to place an H, Square, Circle, or Medical helipad beneath the lighted helipad, since a lighted helipad is just a scenery object rather than a true FSX helipad. Make the true helipad a bit smaller than the lighted helipad so that none of the true helipad is visible. The surface of the lighted helipad will automatically appear above (and, therefore, hide) the surface of the true helipad since the top surface of lighted helipads is above ground.

A number of freeware airports use custom helipads rather than one or more of the four recognized types of helipads mentioned above. When you encounter a custom helipad, you'll have to decide whether you want to put one of the recognized types of helipads on top of the custom helipad or use Heli Traffic 2009 to make the custom helipad a helicopter landing spot.

The combination of using Heli Traffic 2009 for helicopters and using Just Flight's traffic software for winged aircraft, makes for some pretty satisfying FSX AI traffic.

Dan

Dan I just created a few Helipads at EGHH which is my local airport and when I started FSX there was a lot of heli traffic parked and arriving and departing. I did nothing other than create the helipads, I did not use a runway start. Just to check I created some more at a nearby Naval base EGDY and same thing happened. So far it was only a quick try I haven't even adjusted any settings EGHH is an airport that has been tweaked a bit in previous traffic versions and quite a lot by me and EGDY was virtually redesigned by me to take a lot more naval and military traffic but the Helipads used were the round one and the H one from ADE library with no starts.
Mike

Thanks Freddy
In the next few days I will be replacing all my Heliports with Helitraffic ones, I have only spent a short time having a look, I did notice that the aircraft seem to come down vertically from several hundred feet, is this the norm or is the setting for this adjustable?

Mike