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Parking facilities at military airports

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altena View Drop Down
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    Posted: 24 Mar 2009 at 2:30pm

I have noticed that TCC Airport information never shows parking facilities as "military combat". Even at strictly military airports which have only military combat parkings in AFX, airport information in the TCC shows them as ramps. The number of ramps in TCC is exactly the same as the number of military combat parkings in AFX, which, I guess, means that the airport is recognised.

Am I doing something wrong, or (hope not) could this be a bug in TrafficX?
 
Thanks for an answer or advice.
Henk
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Soaranden Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 24 Mar 2009 at 8:13pm
Traffic X does seem to see ramps as ramps...whether they are military or not. As a result, GA aircraft often occupy military parking spaces. I have been spending a lot of time at Edwards (KEDW). I found quite a few Cessnas at Edwards, so I disabled all Cessnas in Traffic X. At other military bases, I am getting other small GA aircraft. Part of the problem is that if a military base has parking for small-wingspan aircraft, small GA aircraft tend to show up. Traffic X does recognize a military airport as being military, so it does generate military aircraft for military bases. The problem is (and this is perhaps due to the way FSX operates), the presence of a military base doesn't restrict AI traffic to military aricraft. I found this frustrating, so I decided to do something about it...at Edwards (KEDW), at least.

I taught myself how to use the freeware Airport Design Editor. I modified the parking spaces at Edwards so that all of the parking spaces would accomodate large-wingspan aircraft. (Large parking spaces seem to have less of a chance of being occupied by small GA aircraft). I am allowing a small Grumman Goose in Navy livery to land at Edwards, but all of the other aircraft I see at Edwards now are large military aircraft. Since I own Just Flight's C-130 Hercules X, I set up a couple of C-130 flight plans, too. [See "Note"] Purely coincidentally, I uploaded my version of Edwards (KEDW), today. See my "Edwards (KEDW) Corrected" posting for the link to download the new Edwards bgl file. Give it a try.

Note:

By setting up flight plans for military aircraft where the flights originate at Edwards, go to Travis AFB or to MCAS El Toro, and return to Edwards after an hour layover, each flight plan's military aircraft is parked at Edwards the rest of the time. This assures those military aircraft are seen at Edwards, and it prevents non-military aircraft from occupying those parking spaces at Edwards, since it is impossible for a non-military aircraft to occupy a space where a military aircraft is already parked. ("Impossible" unless you are running more than one traffic bgl at a time--such as running the default Traffic.bgl plus another traffic bgl that you have compiled and given a different name). Incidentally, there is only one non-helicopter space available at El Toro, and since it is at a fuel station, I added another space to accommodate a C-130 so that the nose of the C-130 doesn't protrude into the fuel station's tank. Sorry, I haven't uploaded my El Toro modification, but you can use Traffic X's default El Toro as is as long as you only have one non-helicopter flight going in there at a time, and as long as some AI aircraft hasn't beat your flight plan's aircraft to the parking space.
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altena View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote altena Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25 Mar 2009 at 10:21am
Thanks for the answer Soaranden. I guess, you did a giant job to get everything proper at Edwards. But if you realise how many airbases there are in FSX, then it's certainly not the solution for a problem. I've red a number of threads at this forum, concerning problems with military AI and they all indicate in the same direction: military combat parkings become in TCC general parkings. This means: you'll see a lot of (forbidden) Cessna's at airbases. On the other hand: if a F18 or an Eurofighter have, in TCC, the specs to park  only at military combat (which is quite normal), they will never show up in FSX, simply while they have no parking possibilities. By the way, I made an airport dump in FSX. When I read the airports.dat file with the editor, then I see that the airbases do have militairy combat parkings. After importing those Airport.dat file in the TCC, those airports have ramps.
I guess,if the TrafficXTCC can read gates as gates, ramps as ramps, and cargo ramps as cargo ramps, all with the correct parking size, it should be possible to read military parkings (combat and cargo) as such. I will contact Technical Support to dicuss this further. However greatly appreciate to get feedback.
Thanks
Henk
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote freddy Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25 Mar 2009 at 8:49pm
An extremely interesting discussion.
 
I only really fly in Australia, so my main interest is purely with those airports. I personally edited all of my own AI traffic flight plans for Australia. Whilst there are many military airports and airbases here in Australia, FSX does not represent every single one of them. This made it quite easy for me to manually edit the flight plans and "remove" the cessnas and other GA aircraft from these airports. Although, here in Aus, some of the airfields are "shared" meaning that not only are they used by the military, they are also used for civilian purposes as well. At those airports it was OK to leave the cessnas and other GA aircraft alone.
 
Bottom line, for Australia, I was able to correct the issue by using TCC to manually edit the flight plans for military airbases and schedule only military aircraft to fly to/from those fields.
 
However, given the sheer number of military airports and bases that may exist in other countries, I am not sure this is a viable solution for everybody. Also considering that not everybody has the desire or the time (or, in some cases, the understanding) to edit all of their flight plans manually.
 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Soaranden Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26 Mar 2009 at 1:10am
I'm wondering if the problem with non-military aircraft showing up at military bases could be solved by creating and using two separate Traffic X compiles? We already know from others in this forum that two bgl traffic files can run simultaneously. What if a first bgl traffic file consists of only non-military aircraft and non-military airports, and a second bgl traffic file consists of only military aircraft and military airports? It would take some doing, but it seems like it might keep the civilian aircraft out of military bases and avoid the problems usually associated with running more than one traffic bgl at a time. Any additional thoughts from anyone?
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote freddy Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26 Mar 2009 at 4:23am
Hmmm.  That could work.  You can tick and untick the aircraft you want. So you tick only military aircraft and create flight plans. If military aircraft can't park in normal parking spots, then that would mean you should only get flight plans from the editor for airports that have military parking spots. In other words, flight plans for military planes for military airports. Easy. Name your traffic file "Military.bgl" (or similar).
 
The reverse should be true for GA aircraft. Tick only GA aircraft and create flight plans. However, here, your GA aircraft would still fly to military airports ... wouldn't they?
 
So, in theory, it sounds good ... but I am not sure if it will work ... Or maybe my thinking is flawed. Confused
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote altena Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26 Mar 2009 at 10:57am

Two or more traffic*.bgl files can work together, as long as they have the same structure, which is of course the case with TrafficX. I've worked with MyTrafficX, another traffic-generating program, and MyTrafficX makes 4 traffic.bgl files after compilation, including a separate trafficmil.bgl file.

If you make your own flightplans in TrafficX, then there is no problem, because you would let military traffic fly between military airports, and cessna's to and from civilian airports. I guess JustFlight did the same with the manually created flightplans they included in their program. Anyway you really can control the AI-movements.
 
The problem with a lot of cessna's (and other planes) at mil. airports has occurred for the first time since I have run the Traffic generator. There you can choose the VFR or Business planes for which you would like random generated flightplans. However there is no possibility to select airports in the Traffic generator.
 
But Soaranden, perhaps I did not fully understand your idea.
(sorry for my English, I'm Dutch, living in Switzerland)
 
Henk
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Soaranden Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26 Mar 2009 at 3:03pm
Hey, altena. There is certainly no need to apologize to an American for your English. Your English seems quite good to me. I could be wrong, though. While many Europeans speak at least two languages fluently, that is definitely not the case with most Americans. We are still working on English.

Since the Traffic X compiler uses an algorithm to generate traffic by using inputs from two databases (one for aircraft and one for airports), and since the contents of the aircraft database can be controlled from within Traffic X, the only thing missing (as you point out) is full control of the airport database. Although airports can be added to Traffic X from within Traffic X, there is no way to delete airports from within Traffic X. Here is what I am thinking could be done:

With an installed FSX SDK ("Software Developer Kit"), install the SDK's "Traffic Toolbox SDK" into FSX. With that done, follow the procedure described in the Traffic X Manual to obtain a list of airports:

"Run FSX, start the Traffic Toolbox SDK and generate a Dump Airport List (as described in the Traffic Toolbox SDK). Save this list with the file extension .dat (e. g. 'FSX Airports.dat')."

The resulting file can be edited in a text editor. Delete all military airports from the file, and save the file.

Before proceeding, current data relating to Traffic X airports should be backed up. I am uncertain as to exactly which files should be backed up. Although it would be backing up more than needed to be backed up, I suggest backing up the entire "Data" folder within the "Presets" folder of the "TrafficX" folder.

With the backup completed, do the next step as described in the Traffic X Manual:

"In TCC press the "Import new" button. This will open a file selector box. Select the previously saved dump file and press OK."

Following the above two sentences in the Traffic X Manual is this sentence:

"TCC will load the airport list and get the data for any new airports."

This raises some question as to whether Traffic X will only take data for new airports from the dump list or will use the entire list to overwrite all pre-existing data in Traffic X's airport database. If the latter is the case, and if Traffic X not only overwrites and adds airports but uses the dumped airport list to delete airports that previously existed in the Traffic X airport database if they no longer exist in the dumped list, then a subsequent compile should produce a traffic bgl file that contains no references to military airports. Therefore there would be no civilian traffic flying into military airports. By adding a second and additional compile to this Traffic X traffic compile (after importing airports into Traffic X from a "Dump Airport List" file that includes military airports prior to doing the second compile) using only military aircraft (and with both compiles being used simultaneously by Traffic X) the result should be one compile with civilian aircraft (aircraft that know nothing about the existence of military airports) and one compile with only military aircraft (and no civilian aircraft that could become aware of military airports).

Sorry, I haven't tried the above, but it's a theory.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote altena Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 27 Mar 2009 at 5:40pm

Hi Soaranden,

Since your idea looked very good to me, I have given it a try and deleted military airbases from Switzerland and Holland from my airports.dat file. Since then I did get error messages again and again, if I started theTCC. However the Airport information from TCC seemed to be allright (no more airbases showing up). Finally I was not even able to edit flightplans. I guess somewhere along the way I got lost. Still I do believe in your idea, but I'm not able to carry it out. In the meantime, I informed the technical Support. Hope they can do something about it and certainly hope they have followed the thread at the forum.

Thanks anyway.

Henk

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Soaranden Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 27 Mar 2009 at 6:56pm
I still haven't tried my theory, myself. I'm sorry you encountered problems. Even so, I'm still going to give it a try, myself. The only reason I haven't done so, yet, is because I want to modify the airport list dumped from the Traffic Toolbox SDK within FSX so that the list contains no military airports whatsoever. So I've been spending some time to see if there might be a shortcut to identifying FSX military airports. There are a lot of military airports in the world.

I want to point out to other readers that I was suggesting they attempt only modification of the file that results from running "Dump Airport List" on the FSX "Tools" menu. This file has a dat extension, and after modifying the file in a text editor to remove military airports, the resulting file will have a text extension. At that point, the file needs to be renamed back to a file with a dat extension. The dumped airport list is used only as input to Traffic X. I was not suggesting directly modifying any Traffic X files, themselves. I should also point out that unless one of the SDK tools contained in the FSX SDK has been specifically installed into FSX, no "Tools" menu will show on the menu bar at the top of the screen within FSX when running a flight.

If your problem resulted from doing nothing more than editing the dumped file, you should be able to bring everything back to normal by creating a new dump from FSX. Just don't do any editing of the new file that results from clicking on "Dump Airport List." (Remember to update "Airport Information" in Traffic X after obtaining the new airport dump from the FSX "Tools" menu). If that doesn't work, you may have done something more, or you may not have all the latest FSX SDK updates installed. The tools within the FSX SDK (in this case, the Traffic Toolbox SDK within the FSX SDK) need to be installed correctly, too.

I'll see what problems and successes I have, myself, and report back later. It sure would be nice to have a user interface within Traffic X that could check and uncheck airports to enable or disable them.
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altena View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote altena Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 31 Mar 2009 at 4:24pm
Soaranden, I think: if one could make this, it is certainly you. Technical support does not seem interested in the problemCry . Anyway hope to hear from you.
 
Henk
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Soaranden Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01 Apr 2009 at 6:48am
I've been sidetracked for a couple of days, but I will get back to looking at the military airport problem. One thing I need to do is identify airports that have multiple functions. Some airports are not strictly military airports but serve commercial and GA traffic as well. I will leave those airports alone, since they should have all three types of traffic. Such airports will continue to have military and commercial/GA traffic intermingled. I'll concentrate on exclusively-military airports when I get back to the problem. I don't know if I will have success, partial success, or failure, but I will let you know which it is...and how I arrived at it.
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