AI FLIGHT PLANNER
…
a comprehensive, fully integrated AI flight planning tool for FS9 and FSX
INDEX
1. GENERAL
1.1 AI Flight
Planner Release 2
1.2 The AI Flight
Planner "System"
1.3 What
You Need to Know
2. INSTALLING / UNINSTALLING / UPDATING
AI FLIGHT PLANNER
2.1 Installing
2.2 Updates
2.3 Uninstalling
2.4 Regional Settings
2.5 Saving Flight Plan and Traffic Files
3. THE AI FLIGHT PLANNER MAIN WINDOW
3.1 Airports
3.2 Aircraft
3.3 Flight Plans
4. OTHER AI CONSIDERATIONS
4.1 Traffic File Compilers
4.2 Compiled-for-FS9 Traffic Files in FSX
4.3 Day-of-Week Encoding
4.4 The
@ Symbol (User-Specified Arrival Times)
4.5 The “37-Minute Problem” when Using @
5. A GUIDED TOUR OF AI THE FLIGHT PLAN
EDITING WINDOW
6. FLIGHT PLAN OPERATIONS
6.1 Loading Flight Plan Data
6.2 Appending/Merging Flight Plan/Traffic
Data
6.3 Saving/Compiling Flight Plan Data
6.4 Validating Flight Plans and Traffic Files
6.5 Finding FS9 Traffic
Files on FSX Systems
6.6 Converting FS9
Flight Plans for Use with FSX
6.7 Creating Flight Plan Subsets
6.8 Displaying
Arrival/Departure Information
6.9 Adjusting
Flight Plans for Summer/Standard Time
6.10 Adjust Activity Levels
6.11 Adjust ETAs to Reflect Cruise Speeds
6.12 Adjust ETDs for Standard
"Sit-Time"
7. EDITING FLIGHT PLANS
7.1 Arrival and Departure Times
7.2 Airport Designators
7.3 Flight Plan Editor
7.4
7.5 New Flight Plans from “Scratch”
7.6 Built-In Text Editor
7.7 Find/Replace Functions
7.8 Departure Time Functions
7.9 "Global" Changes to Leg Data
8. MANAGING AIRCRAFT DATA
8.1 Loading and Saving Aircraft Data
8.2 Creating a New Aircraft List from
Aircraft Folders
8.3 Aircraft Editor
8.4 Adding an Aircraft to the Aircraft List
8.5 Editing an Aircraft Already in the
Aircraft List
8.6 Checking for Used or Missing Aircraft and
Texture Folders
8.7 Restoring Cruise Speeds
8.8 Deleting Aircraft
8.9 Finding Duplicate Aircraft
8.10 Other Aircraft-Related Functions
9. AIRPORT AND RELATED DATA
9.1 Displaying Airport Information
9.2
9.3 Customizing the Airport List
9.4 Airport Editor
9.5 Editing and Adding New Airports
9.6 Airport Data Bulk Update
9.7
9.8 Entering/Editing Time Zone Data
9.9 Updates to Base Time Zone Data
10. TROUBLE-SHOOTING AI DIFFICULTIES
10.1 Traffic
Analyzers
10.2 Converting
Prepared FS9 Traffic Files for Use with FSX
10.3 Don’t Mix FS9
and FSX Traffic Files
10.4 Prerequisites
for an AI Flight Plan
10.5 Troubleshooting a Traffic File
10.6 Summary
11. SUPPORT
12. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
13. END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT
AI Flight Planner provides all the facilities necessary to install, create,
edit and compile AI traffic flight plans for both FS9 and FSX versions of
Microsoft Flight Simulator (MSFS). Either TTools-format .txt files (zipped or unzipped) or compiled MSFS traffic .bgl files may be used as “source code”
– or you may create your flight plans “from scratch”.
1.1 AI Flight Planner Release 2 - AI
Flight Planner Release 2, usually referred to as "AIFP2", adds a
flight plan and repaint installation capability to AI Flight Planner as well as
a number of other lesser flight planning functions. The major new functionality is preparatory to
the activities normally undertaken with AI Flight Planner Version 1.6) and is
controlled by a separate dialog.
Therefore it is documented separately in an addendum to this manual
entitled AI
FLIGHT PLANNER (Version 2) Flight Plan and Repaint Installer. The additional functionality associated with
the usual flight plan editing activities is, however, documented in the
appropriate sections of this manual.
As well, Version 2 incorporates a
number of "behind-the-scenes" improvements to the editor and other
tools. So, even though you may not
intend to use the installer, you may find some of its functions, particularly
the new facilities for managing the Aircraft List useful.
Users
may select whether AIFP2 opens with the new dialog or the familiar flight plan
editing dialog.
1.2 The AI Flight Planner
"System" - In addition to the features expected in any flight
planning tool, AI Flight Planner:
·
has a leg-oriented flight plan editor that can handle
daily and weekly traffic in an identical manner;
·
permits entry of arrival and departure times based on
any time zone or using local times;
·
permits designation of airports with either ICAO or
IATA codes;
·
displays in airline schedule format all the arrivals
and departures for any airport in a flight plan/traffic file;
·
allows partitioning of the default traffic file (or,
indeed any traffic or flight plan file) and creation of flight plan subsets
based on any combination of aircraft types, specific aircraft, country, region,
city or airport);
·
allows data from either TTools or compiled traffic
files to be merged with previously-loaded flight plan and aircraft data;
·
includes in the compiled traffic file only the airport
and aircraft information used by the included flight plans, reducing system
overhead;
·
finds FS9 traffic files on your system and converts
them for use with FSX.
1.3 What You Need to Know - Successful
AI flight planning with AI Flight Planner (and indeed, with any other utility) requires
familiarity with not only the use of each flight plan and aircraft data field,
but also some knowledge of how that data interacts with the MSFS “AI engine”. Without this knowledge, AI flight planning is
likely to be a rather tedious and unsatisfying experience. So, it is strongly recommended that “newbies”
to AI flight planning download TTools (available from popular download sites)
and study its user manual, the most comprehensive source of basic flight
planning information available.
2. INSTALLING
/ UNINSTALLING / UPDATING AI FLIGHT PLANNER
2.1 Installing - AI Flight Planner is
installed simply by unzipping or copying the files from the downloaded archive
(“.zip” file) to the folder into/from which AI Flight Planner is to be installed/run.
All the files must reside in the same
folder. Do not attempt to run AI Flight Planner from the zipped archive,
since Windows will place the executable in a temporary system folder –
separated from the rest of the (zipped) files, resulting in an exception being
thrown.
The complete set of files includes:
·
AIPF2.exe
·
AirportList_Base.dat
·
Timezone_Base.dat
·
ICAO-IATA.dat
·
FS9Chg_AIFP.txt
·
FS9Del_AIFP.txt
·
TimeZones.txt
·
Ionic.Zip.Reduced.dll
·
and several information files including AI Flight Planner.pdf and AI Flight Planner.htm (this manual in two formats).
The archive file for some earlier
versions of AI Flight Planner contained additional .dat and .exe files which
are no longer required.
AI Flight Planner does not affect
the system registry.
AI Flight Planner is a VB
NET.Framework 3.5 application. If NET.Framework 3.5 is not already installed on your
computer, the “redistributable” can be downloaded from the Microsoft website at
no charge.
Vista and Windows 7 users may need full
administrative privileges to install AI Flight Planner and use some of the its features,
in particular Collect Airports and Convert FS9 Traffic Files for FSX.
2.2 Updates - AI Flight Planner checks
for updates each time it is started. If
an update is available, you are asked if you wish to download it. It will be saved to your AI Flight Planner
folder. For security reasons, the new
version will not automatically install itself.
To install the update, simply close AI Flight Planner (if running) and unzip
the new archive to the same folder, overwriting the earlier version.
If your Internet connection is
unreliable or intermittent, you may turn off automatic update checking by
clicking Options / No Check for Updates
at Startup. A checkmark beside the
menu item indicates whether or not checking for updates is disabled.
When you later click this menu item -
re-enabling checking for updates at startup - AI Flight Planner immediately
looks for an update. So, if you have
disabled the check for updates at startup and wish to continue in that mode,
you may check for an update at any time by momentarily turning back on the
update checking with that Options menu item and then turning it off again.
You may also check for updates at
any time using the Help / Check for Update function.
2.3 Uninstalling - To uninstall AI
Flight Planner, simply delete the folder in which it is installed.
2.4 Regional Settings - AI Flight Planner has been
“internationalized” to the extent reasonably possible. A comma (",") may be used as a
decimal separator; time separators may be any non-numeric character, etc.
However there are (at least) two situations which are not addressed.
·
Use of a space as a decimal separator – AI Flight Planner
may "hang" (i.e., enter an endless loop) or otherwise not respond
properly when using a Windows regional option that uses a space as a decimal
separator (such as Finnish). AI Flight
Planner expects degrees, minutes and seconds in latitude and longitude entries to
be separated using spaces. So, a space used
also as a decimal separator will be misinterpreted.
·
With certain regional settings, two or more characters
are considered equivalent. The Windows
implementation of some Scandinavian languages, for example, handle Vs and Ws as
if they were the same character. Hence,
in a sorted list, you’ll find Vs and Ws intermixed. A case on point is AirportList.dat which, if
sorted using the Norwegian Regional Option, has
There seems no way internal to AI
Flight Planner around such situations.
So, if you normally use a regional setting other than English, you may
have to switch to English (or another language that doesn't exhibit the
observed problems) while using AI Flight Planner.
2.5 Saving Flight Plan and Traffic Files
- Flight plan text and traffic files may be saved anywhere convenient. AI Flight Planner's installed folder
structure includes two folders named Flight
Plans and Traffic Files. These
are default folders and will only be used if you do not specify storage
elsewhere.
Compiled
traffic files (.bgl) are treated by MSFS as a scenery file and, accordingly, when
intended to be "seen" by MSFS, may be saved to any location where
MSFS expects to find scenery files.
Practically, however, this means one of two locations:
·
the FS9 or FSX
\Scenery\World\Scenery folder, or
·
an add-on scenery folder.
Purists will tell you that traffic
files must be loaded prior to stock scenery files and, hence, should be saved
to the former location. However, I have
not experienced any difficulties using a folder in Flightsim's \Addon Scenery folder enabled in the
Scenery Library. Using this latter
approach has the added benefit that the traffic can be turned on or off
independently, thus reducing system overhead, without deleting or disabling
files. Bottom line, it's your choice.
AI flight planning for MSFS makes
use of three types of data:
·
airports – the name, geographic position and elevation
of the airports between which the AI operates
·
aircraft – the identification and cruise speed of the
aircraft involved, and
·
flight plans – the schedule and other information
controlling aircraft movement.
AI Flight Planner provides the “tools” to manage these three data sets
and compile them into MSFS traffic files.
3.1 Airports – Generally, AI Flight
Planner derives the airport information required for the generation of traffic
files from a file named AirportList.dat.
AI Flight Planner “ships” with a
file named AirportList_Base.dat that includes
every stock airport in FS9 and FSX and records which of those airports exist in
only one or the other MSFS version. Where
an airport exists in both FS9 and FSX, the FSX version is used. AirportList_Base.dat
is copied and renamed AirportList.dat
the first time AI Flight Planner is run after initial installation.
To update this data and add airports included in scenery add-ons, AI
Flight Planner provides:
·
an airport editor,
·
a bulk update facility which adds/updates airports
from TTools-format airport files, and
·
an airport collection facility that extracts airport
data from add-on scenery files.
Any changes to airport data you make
are saved to a file named AirportList_Updates.dat. Whenever you collect airport data, these
changes are re-applied automatically.
AirportList.dat includes
data for over 25,000 airports. If you
have a state-of-the-art computer system, the size of AirportList.dat should not present a problem. However, if you use an older system or have
limited RAM, you may experience unacceptable delays when accessing airport
data. So, AI Flight Planner allows you
to specify a subset of the available airports for inclusion in AirportList.dat
When AI Flight Planner encounters
(in a TTools airport file or a decompiled traffic file) an airport not included
in AirportList.dat, the data for that
airport is saved to a file named AirportList_Temp.dat. Should the airport subsequently be referenced
in a flight plan being compiled, its data from that file will be reused. Only the data for the most
recently-encountered version of such airports is saved. Airports are easily transferred from this
temporary list into AirportList.dat
under user control.
Using a “tree-view” style window, you
can quickly find the ICAO and IATA codes and other details of any airport in AirportList.dat.
The airports used by the currently
loaded set of flight plans are shown in AI Flight Planner’s Airport List.
3.2 Aircraft – AI Flight Planner maintains an aircraft
“database” for each set of flight plans.
This aircraft information may be derived from:
·
TTools-format aircraft .txt files,
·
compiled traffic .bgl
files, and/or
·
MSFS aircraft folders.
Data from all sources may be
combined and used simultaneously.
The aircraft used by the currently
loaded set of flight plans are shown in the Aircraft List.
AI-related parameters of any
aircraft existing on the user’s system, whether or not displayed in the
Aircraft List, may be viewed and updated using the Aircraft Editor. A new Aircraft List based on aircraft
existing on the user’s system may be generated at any time. Individual aircraft in the Aircraft List may
be updated using the Aircraft Editor, or the entire Aircraft List may be edited
using Notepad or another text editor and saved to a TTools-format text file.
3.3 Flight Plans – Flight plans may be:
·
created from scratch,
·
loaded from TTools-format flight plan files, or
·
retrieved from compiled traffic files,
and are displayed in the Flight Plan
List. Additional flight plans, whatever
their source, may be appended to/ merged with those already in the Flight Plan
List.
Individual flight plans may be edited with either:
§
the leg-oriented editor, or
§
the built-in plain-text editor.
A
Find/Replace function is also provided to allow similar changes to be
applied to several flight plans at once.
After editing of any kind, flight plans are error-checked for a variety
of conditions
There are several common misconceptions and other issues surrounding
MSFS AI that it may be helpful to clarify at this point.
4.1 Traffic File Compilers –Four different AI flight plan
compilers are in widespread use:
·
TTools, a compiler/decompiler for FS9 and earlier
versions of MSFS,
·
AIFPC, a TTools-compatible compiler/decompiler for FS9
and FSX, and
·
Traffic Data Base Builder (TDBB), Microsoft’s AI
traffic generation utility for FS9 and FSX
and AI Flight Planner.
There is a common misconception that
flight plans for FS9 must be in TTools format and those for FSX must be
developed using TDBB. And, often, you
hear “FS9 flight plans can’t be used with FSX”. But, the reality is, TTools flight plans are
compatible with FSX. And TDBB, to the
surprise of many, was available in FS9.
The source data formats and concepts
used by TDBB are very different from those used AI Flight Planner and are not
discussed further.
4.2 Compiled-for-FS9 Traffic Files in FSX
– FSX
accepts and displays AI from traffic files compiled for FS9. However, if you attempt to mix compiled-for-FS9
traffic files with those compiled for FSX, the compiled-for-FSX traffic is
suppressed. This has nothing to do with
the different day-of-week encoding schemes (discussed below). Rather, data formats of the two types of traffic
files are different and, apparently, incompatible in the “AI engine”. Surprisingly, FSX gives priority to the
compiled-for-FS9 traffic files.
So, each compiled-for-FS9 traffic file on
your system that will be “seen” by FSX should be re-compiled for use with FSX –
particularly if you wish to see the FSX default AI traffic.
To help you find those files needing to
be recompiled, AI Flight Planner provides a capability to locate FS9 traffic
files anywhere on your system.
To help you recognize which files have
been compiled for FS9 and which for FSX, AI Flight Planner - if you wish - adds
a "_FS9" or _FSX" suffix to the compiled traffic file name.
4.3 Day-of-Week Encoding – In FS9,
the day-of-week encoding scheme for weekly flight plans uses 0 for Sunday, 1
for Monday and so on to 6 for Saturday.
In FSX, Microsoft changed the day-encoding to 0 for Monday and 6 for
Sunday.
To avoid confusion, AI Flight
Planner uses the FS9 scheme irrespective of the target MSFS version, letting
the compiler handle any required conversions. In any case, except in the Flight
Plan List, day-encoding is transparent; AI Flight Planner’s editor provides
checkboxes for entry of day-of-week by name.
Should the day-encoding of a TTools flight
plan file have previously been adjusted for FSX, the only consequence should
that file be compiled for FS9 is that the AI will operate a day early. To avoid having to correct each flight plan
in a file individually, AI Flight Planner provides the Flight Plans / Adjust Day Encoding menu item, which advances or
retards the day-encoding of all flight plans in the currently-loaded flight
plan file by one day.
4.4 Some Insight into How the “AI Engine”
Works – While the MSFS “AI engine” can handle thousands of flight plans by
way of compiled traffic files, only those AI aircraft in the proximity of the
user aircraft are actually being processed at any point in time.
For AI purposes, the earth is divided
into 256 bands north-south and 384 bands east- west, for a total of nearly
100,000 sectors about 30 nm high and an average (depending on latitude) of
about 40 nm wide. Other than for flight
plan legs that originate and terminate in the same or adjacent sectors, the compiler
determines the entry and exit times of the AI aircraft for every sector lying
along the great-circle route between the departure and destination airports and
records those times in the sector transition table in the traffic file. The AI engine makes active only those AI
aircraft that are scheduled to be in the sector holding the user aircraft and
the eight sectors surrounding it at the simulated time. For legs which involve only a single or
adjacent sector, the AI is always active.
It is important to note that, with
the exception noted below, the aircraft and airport data in the traffic file is
used only to determine the time at which each AI aircraft arrives at its entry
point into each sector along its route. (Aircraft
and airport data is saved in the traffic file primarily to allow de-compilers
to reconstruct the flight plans.) The
performance of an active AI aircraft is always controlled by the data in the
relevant MSFS aircraft file. The
location and other characteristics of airports are always determined from the
information in the relevant stock airport or add-on scenery files. It should follow, then, that irrespective of
any arrival time specified in the flight plan, the actual arrival time of an AI
at a given airport is governed by aircraft performance, weather and other
traffic (including the “user” aircraft).
4.5 The
@ Symbol (User-Specified Arrival Times) – While AI Flight Planner does
not use the “@” symbol with arrival times, an understanding of why its use in
TTools was problematic is helpful when considering AI Flight Planner’s two
compile modes (discussed later).
TTools allowed estimated times of arrival
to be specified by prefixing such times with a “@” symbol. Alternately,
the arrival time could be left blank, in which case it would be computed by the
compiler based on the distance to be travelled and the specified cruise speed
of the aircraft used.
TDBB has no equivalent feature; with
TDBB, arrival times are always based on distance and aircraft cruise speed. So, not surprisingly, the “@’ symbol was not
“understood” by the AI engine. Thus, its
use in TTools-format flight plan files involved some “trickery”. When arrival time was preceded by the “@”
symbol, the TTools compiler subtracted 15 minutes - a nominal amount to allow
for approach, landing and taxiing - from the specified arrival time and used
that earlier time to recalculate aircraft cruise speed for that leg of the flight
plan. Unfortunately (as will be seen in
the next section), there is no place to save this revised cruise speed in the
traffic file. (Changing the specified
cruise speed of the AI aircraft itself would affect all flight plans using that
particular aircraft.)
4.5 The “37-Minute Problem” when Using @
–
The MSFS AI/ATC engine doesn’t “like” tardy AI.
If an AI aircraft is delayed on departure due to, for example, runway
congestion or a long queue at the hold-short point such that the aircraft has
not taken-off within about twenty minutes of the scheduled departure time, it
simply disappears from the taxiway. Likewise,
if an AI is forced to perform several missed approaches making it very late for
landing, it disappears.
There seems to be a similar
condition applied to enroute AI. In
particular, if an AI is scheduled to be activated more than about twenty
minutes later than calculated by the AI/ATC engine using the distance travelled
from departure to destination at the cruise speed specified in the traffic file
(the exception noted above), that AI will not materialize for landing. Instead, it will spawn in a
parking spot at the destination airport some time later in preparation for the
next leg.
AI is activated one
sector away from the user aircraft at the entry time specified in the sector
transition table. Where the entry time is
based on the specified cruise speed, AI activation will occur “on-time” (i.e.,
at the time calculated by the AI/ATC engine) and all is well. But, if the arrival time was specified using
“@”, the cruise speed used by the compiler to calculate the sector entry time may
have been significantly different from that specified for the AI. When “@” is used to specify a later arrival
time (as it usually is), the AI will be activated “late” relative to the time
calculated by the AI/ATC engine. If it
is more than about 20 minutes late, it is discarded. From extensive testing (by others), it
has been determined that the critical time difference is 22 minutes. Given the 15 minute allowance for approach,
landing and taxiing, the 22 minute interval equates to 37 minutes later that a
user-specified arrival time. Hence, the
name “37-minute problem”.
One might question why this “lateness”
check is necessary, given that the activation time is dictated in the sector
transition table. First, an enroute AI
may be late for other reasons. Secondly,
no sector entry/exit times are given in the sector transition table for
short-haul (originating and terminating in the same or adjacent sector); they
are always active but may, nonetheless, be late. So, the only uniform check that can be
applied is distance times cruise speed specified in the traffic file.
The 37-minute problem is most likely to
occur when simulating scheduled airline long-haul operations where the
user-specified arrival time is often substantially later than the simply-calculated
(distance/speed) next-to-final-sector arrival time plus the fifteen minute
approach and landing allowance.
Apparently, the AI engine doesn’t “care”
about AI activating arriving early. So,
to overcome the 37-minute problem, some suppliers of freeware AI flight plan
data, such as WoAI, MAIW and, until recently, AIG Alpha-India
Group, specify a cruise speed in aircraft text files in the order of 200 kts
for all aircraft. This ensures that AI
activation time for any AI having a reasonable user-specified arrival will not be “late” - since the cruise speed then specified in
the traffic file will be less than the cruise speed calculated by the compiler
to accommodate the user-specified arrival time.
AI Flight Planner uses a similar approach. It halves the aircraft cruise speeds before
saving them in the traffic file. But,
when it decompiles a traffic file that it has previously compiled, it then doubles
the saved cruise speeds. Thus, this
“evasive action” is invisible to the user – unless he/she happens to notice that
a cruise speed originally being an odd number is returned after de-compilation
one knot lower. Other than this possible slight changes, there are no known
side-effects of this scheme.
Should you decompile an AI Flight Planner-generated
traffic file other than with AI Flight Planner, you will find an
unusually-named airport as the first entry in the airports.txt file. This airport is a “flag” used by AI Flight
Planner to indicate that special measures to address the “37-minute problem” have
been taken and that cruise speeds derived from the traffic file should be
doubled.
There may be situations where you wish
the compiled traffic file to reflect exactly the specified aircraft cruise
speeds. In such cases, AI Flight Planner’s
“raw” compile mode should be used – but the “37-minute problem” may be
experienced if the system-calculated arrival time is overridden.
If you are using any of the many
“prepared flight plan” packages available from various download sites, you
should confirm that the cruise speeds for the aircraft are realistic
(i.e., they have not been reduced to
about 200 kts.) If speeds have been
adjusted, you should allow AI Flight Planner to restore then to their usual
values as described in Section 8.6 of this manual before compiling/re-compiling.
5. A
GUIDED TOUR OF AI THE FLIGHT PLAN EDITING WINDOW
AI Flight Planner may be directed to
open at startup either the Flight Plan and Repaint Installation panel
(sometimes referred to as the "Main Panel") using the Options / Show Main Panel at Startup
menu item on the Flight Plan Editing dialog, or the familiar Flight Plan
Editing dialog (Options / Open FP Editor at
Startup from the Main Panel). As
well you may switch between these two dialogs using the Flight Plans / Edit Flight Plan List menu item on the Main Panel
and Options / Show Main Panel from
the FP Editor. Finally, AI Flight
Planner will always close when the Main Panel is closed. You may direct that AI Flight Planner close
also when the Flight Plan Editing dialog is closed using the Options / Close AIFP from Editor menu
item from either dialog
AI Flight Planner’s flight plan
editing window is partitioned as follows.
Located at the top near mid-screen is a pair of checkboxes labelled
Target Version(s): FS9 and FSX. These checkboxes are used by AI Flight Planner
to determine from which MSFS installed version to retrieve data (when both FS9
and FSX are installed) as well as when to issue certain error messages. If only one is checked, that version will be
given priority. If both or neither are
checked, FSX is given priority if it is installed.
Whenever a change is made to the Flight Plan List, the Aircraft List or
the Leg List, a red ### indicator appears to the
right of the list name to remind you to save the list.
As a general rule, only those menu items, buttons and data entry fields
valid for use in the current context of AI Flight Planner are enabled. In particular, all the fields of the editor
are disabled unless a flight plan is being edited. All the fields of the Flight Plan Base Data
must be completed before the fields and buttons applicable to the Leg List Editor
are enabled. All leg fields except Override
ETA (which may be left blank) must be completed before the buttons involved in
placing the edited leg data (back) into the Leg List are enabled. Buttons pertaining to the insertion of data
into or deletion of data from any list are enabled only when an item in the
relevant list is selected. And, finally,
the buttons for moving a completed flight plan from the editor (back) into the
Flight Plan List are enabled only when there has been a change to the leg data.
So, at any time, if a button, menu item or field data-entry field is disabled,
it is because that button, menu item or field is not useable in the current
context of AI Flight Planner – probably because some required data is missing.
Many buttons and menu items have keyboard shortcuts. If you don’t see the shortcuts, it is because
Windows is preventing them from being displayed until you press the <Alt>
key. You may override this feature of
Windows using Control Panel. In Windows
XP, the control to do so is found at Display – Appearance – Effects. In other versions of Windows it may be
elsewhere.
Finally, many of AI Flight Planner’s functions rely on you selecting
files, folders or airports from a “treeview” display. The airport tree is organized geographically,
i.e., country/region/city. The
directory/folder tree is very similar to that displayed by Windows Explorer
(not Windows Internet Explorer) with one significant exception. Folders known not to contain files/folders of
interest are dimmed and not expandable.
Files other than those of interest are also dimmed. For example, if the purpose of the tree is
for you to select traffic files, bottom level folders that do not contain
traffic files and files other than traffic files are shown dimmed. Similarly, if the tree is for identification
of aircraft folders, once you reach an expansion level such that no lower-level
folder could be an aircraft folder, no further expansion is permitted. System, hidden and non-accessible files and
folders are not displayed in directory/folder trees – irrespective of Windows
settings – since they are of no relevance to AI Flight Planner.
This section describes the main flight plan file-handling
operations.
Several of these operations and other lengthy AI Flight Planner tasks
display a progress bar which includes an “Abort” button. As the name implies, if the Abort button is
used, the operation is immediately terminated.
This will result in only partial data being available. Generally, it is
not possible to resume an aborted function. After an operation is aborted, you should reload
the last-known good data.
AI Flight Planner performs extensive error checks when files are
loaded, saved and compiled, and during editing operations. While not every possible error condition is
detected, most will be.
In general, any error that prevents a flight plan from being
compiled or that, if compiled, would cause difficulty for MSFS, e.g., a missing
airport or invalid aircraft number, must be corrected. While you are permitted to save a file with
such errors in text format, it can not be compiled. Numerous other, non-catastrophic errors,
e.g., departure time earlier than arrival time, total flight time exceeds
repeat period, will also be noted but will not prevent compilation. While the AI traffic generated by MSFS when
the traffic file contains such data may not behave as intended, its presence
should not create other difficulties. In
each instance, however, you will be asked to confirm that the file is to be
compiled/saved with errors. At any time,
you may suppress the error/warning messages for the latter category of problems
using the Options / Suppress Validation
Warnings menu item. (This menu item
is reset when AI Flight Planner is started.)
Messages alerting you to potentially catastrophic errors are always
output.
When an error message is lengthy, it is output to a separate
window so that it may be preserved while you work to correct the errors.
6.1 Loading Flight Plan Data – Flight plan data may be
loaded either:
·
from TTools-formatted text files (zipped or un-zipped)
or compiled traffic files using the Files
/ Load File (.txt,.bgl or .zip) menu item; or
·
by reloading the last loaded or saved file – click Files / Reload Previous File which discards
all changes since the last load or save/compile operation.
Flight plans are loaded into the Flight Plan List after the associated
aircraft data (if any) has been loaded into the Aircraft List. Since AI
Flight Planner maintains its own airport database (AirportList.dat), companion airport data is not routinely used by
AI Flight Planner. However, if a flight
plan refers to an airport not in
AirportList.dat and the data for that airport is contained in companion
data, AI Flight Planner saves and uses that data – and will issue an advisory
message telling you so.
At the completion of the file
loading activity, a summary of any missing airports or aircraft and any other
errors is provided. In the case of missing
airports, you are asked if you wish to update AirportList.dat. If you elect to do so, the Airport Editor opens
with all available data shown.
FS9 and FSX flight plans in .txt
format are identical save for day-of week encoding. As discussed earlier, in FS9, Sunday is encoded
as 0, while FSX uses 0 for Monday. AI
Flight Planner always uses the FS9 day-encoding scheme in its displayed
data.
When flight plan data is derived
from compiled traffic files, AI Flight Planner “knows” which encoding scheme is
used. And, when AI Flight Planner saves
a flight plan file in text format, it adds a line at the top of the file
indicating that the FS9 day-encoding scheme is used. However, there is no way for AI Flight
Planner to determine automatically the day-encoding scheme used in text flight
plan files not previously saved by it.
So, when such flight plan files are loaded, AI Flight Planner will issue
a message advising you of the problem.
The Flight Plans / Adjust Day Encoding menu item provides a mechanism
to adjust the day-encoding in the flight plan after opening a TTools-format
flight plan file that has FSX day encoding.
Please be aware that the times in
the flight plan information returned by the Files
/ Open Traffic .bgl function may not match exactly the times originally
specified by you in the flight plan file.
This is because of the way times are stored in the traffic file. The “consolidated” mode of operation of the
Leg List may be affected (even though AI Flight Planner treats arrival times
within two minutes of each other as being the same). This problem is less of an issue with FSX
which uses a more precise traffic file storage format. As well, the solution to the “37-minute
problem” may result in aircraft cruise speed returned by the de-compiler being
in error by 1 knot.
6.2 Appending/Merging Flight Plan/Traffic
Data – Previously-loaded flight plan and aircraft data may be supplemented
at any time by appending data from or merging it with other files using the Files / Merge function. Appended/merged
data need not be from the same type of files as the original data, i.e.,
compiled traffic file data may be append to/merged with data original loaded
from text-format file sets, and vice versa. Any number of files may be
merged/appended.
If an aircraft reference number in
the data being appended or merged is a duplicate of an aircraft reference
number already in use, a new, unique reference number will be assigned to the
new aircraft and its flight plan references adjusted accordingly. If the title of an aircraft in the new data
duplicates a title already in use, you will be asked if you want to consolidate
the references to that second aircraft under the reference number of the
first. Your response to this question
will apply to all subsequent instances of this situation until a new file is
loaded. Upon completion of the
append/merge, a list of all such changes is displayed.
Before appending/merging a
text-format flight plan file, if its day-encoding scheme cannot be determined,
AI Flight Planner asks for confirmation that the day-encoding is for FS9. If it’s not for FS9, it will be necessary to
load the second file by itself, adjust its day-encoding and save before it can
be appended/merged.
6.3 Saving/Compiling Flight Plan Data – Flight plan data
may be saved either:
·
in TTools-format plain text (.txt) format – click Files /
Save File Set (or Save File Set As
. . . if you wish to specify a new file name), or
·
as a compiled traffic (.bgl) file – click Files /
Compile Traffic File and Save or Files
/ Compile Again.
In all cases, the full flight plan
file is first checked for errors. If
errors are found, you are asked if you wish to save/compile anyway. Please note that if you elect to compile with
errors, depending on the nature of the error, the compile operation many not
succeed, in which case you must either correct the error or save in plain-text
format.
For file saves, if there are any
unused aircraft in the Aircraft List, you’ll be asked if you want to save them.
For compiles, the unused airports are simply ignored.
AI Flight Planner has two compile modes:
·
“normal”, where the data is pre-processed to avoid the
“37-minute” problem discussed earlier, and
·
“raw”, where the data is passed to the compiler
exactly as entered.
The “raw” mode is selected by
checking the Options / Compile In “Raw”
Mode menu item prior to compiling the files. Unless you have reason to do otherwise, it is
recommended you use the “normal” compile mode.
Once selected, the “raw” mode remains in effect until deselected.
Following successful error checking,
the compile dialog is opened – unless you selected Compile Again. In the
compile dialog window you may select the filename under which the data is to be
saved (which must start with “Traffic”), the MSFS version for which the file is
to be compiled and whether or not a file name suffix identifying the target
version is to be added to the file name.
To minimize the possibility of
parking intended for large aircraft at congested airports being
"commandeered" by smaller aircraft, AI Flight Planner, by default,
re-sequences the flight plans in the Flight Plan List based on the required parking spot size in
descending order. This happens just
prior to the files being compiled. Be
aware, however, should you later decompile a traffic file that holds
re-sequenced data, the order of the flight plans in the Flight Plan list may
not match the order prior to compile. If
you want to maintain the order (but increase the chances of small aircraft
occupying large-aircraft parking), you should uncheck the Sequence Flight Plans
for Best AI Performance checkbox.
If you change the target MSFS
version and the then-specified traffic file path "points" to a folder
in the previous target version, AI Flight Planner will attempt to construct a parallel
path to the newly selected target version.
However, if the parallel path does not exist or cannot be constructed
for some other reason, the default path (the \Addon Scenery\scenery for the new target version) will be
displayed. You may override the default
selection using the Select button.
If you did select Compile Again, the data is submitted
directly to the compiler using the same parameters as for the previous compile
without any opportunity to make changes.
If you have checked the Options / Identify Non-Stock Airports in FPs
menu item prior to saving/compiling,
AI Flight Planner will warn you if any non-stock airports are referenced by the
flight plans.
6.4 Validating Flight Plans and Traffic
Files – The integrity of every flight plan is automatically checked when a
flight plan is loaded into AI Flight Planner and prior to the flight plan being
saved or compiled. It is also verified
whenever an edited flight plan is returned to the Flight Plan List. But, for convenience, AI Flight Planner
permits flight plans containing errors to be saved. Consequently, you may wish to validate the
flight plans in the Flight Plan List at other times. To do so, simply click Flight Plans – Validate
You may also validate one or more
traffic files without loading them into AI Flight Planner by clicking the Files / Validate Traffic Files menu
item. This opens a directory-tree from which you may select any
combination of folders and files for validation. If you check the Eliminate unused airports
and aircraft checkbox at the bottom of the dialog where you select the traffic
files/folders, the traffic file will be re-compiled to its minimum size – which
may also speed-up MSFS startup.
In both cases, a summary of all warnings
and errors found is generated. You may
suppress warnings from the Options menu.
6.5 Finding FS9 Traffic Files on a FSX
System – When FSX “sees” both compiled-for-FS9 traffic files and
compiled-for-FSX traffic files, the FS9 traffic will be displayed normally;
however, the FSX traffic is suppressed.
This situation will exist until the very last FS9 traffic file has been
located and either disabled or converted for FSX operation (see next
section).
To locate FS9 traffic
files, click on the Files / Find FS9 Traffic
Files menu item. As in the previous
section, this opens a directory-tree from which you may select any
combination of folders and files to be searched.
Select the folders of interest and click
the Find Files button. You can select
entire logical disks, but the search time may be very long.
6.6 Converting FS9 Flight Plans for Use with
FSX – Conversion of FS9 flight plan and traffic files for use with
FSX addresses two main attributes:
·
Airports – The ICAO code designator of many FS9
airports changed between FS9 and FSX. AI
Flight Planner updates the designators for those airports to their FSX
equivalents. If an airport does not
exist in FSX and there is no equivalent, an error message is issued.
·
Day-Encoding in traffic files – updated to the
FSX scheme.
AI Flight Planner uses
FS9 day-encoding internally. If
text-based flight plan data with FSX day-encoding is loaded, the first thing AI
Flight Planner does is convert it to FS9 format. If the day-encoding scheme is not specified in
the text file, you are asked whether or not it is for FS9.
The compiler
automatically applies FSX day-encoding to traffic files when FSX is designated
as the target MSFS version. But, the
text files remain in FS9 format and retain FS9 airport ICAO designators for
airports that have a different designator in FSX. If you wish to save text-based flight plan
data using FSX replacement ICAO designators, you may update the airport ICAOs
prior to saving using the Flight Plans /
Convert Airports for FSX.
The FS9 traffic file
conversion function, which is sometimes referred to as “bulk-conversion”, allows
you to select any combination of folders and files for conversion using a “tree-view”
directory-tree. It is initiated from the
Files / Convert FS9 Traffic Files to FSX
menu item. Selected folders may contain
a mix of FSX and FS9 traffic files; only the FS9 files are affected. The names of the converted files are optionally
suffixed with “_FSX” and backed-up if they exist already.
Converted traffic files may be saved
to either FSX’s Scenery\World\Scenery
folder or to any other scenery folder you specify - which must be enabled in
the Scenery Library for the traffic to be active. Using the latter method
allows the traffic to be turned on and off from the Scenery Library
Following conversion, any missing
airports or other problems encountered are noted in a conversion report.
As mentioned in section 4.5, some
suppliers of prepared flight plan information, e.g., WoAI, MAIW and, until
recently, AIG, in an attempt to avoid the “37 minute” problem, reduce the
cruise speed of the aircraft as specified in the flight plan/traffic files to
something in the order of 200 kts.
Unfortunately, there is no indication in those files that this has been
done. (AI Flight Planner does something
similar during the compilation of traffic files but records this fact in the
traffic file so that it can restore the cruise speeds upon
de-compilation.) Thus, when such files
are converted by AI Flight Planner, the cruise speed of the aircraft involved
is further reduced to an unrealistically-low value.
While it is not known for certain that
this situation creates difficulty for the AI engine, there is some evidence
that it does. So, should no aircraft
cruise speed exceed 250 kts, this situation will be highlighted in the
conversion report. If the relevant
traffic file involves jet aircraft, it is recommended that you load the
converted traffic file back into AI Flight Planner, restore the cruise speeds
to their normal values (Aircraft/Restore
Cruise Speed menu item) and re-compile.
Alternately, if you know that all the aircraft in the files being
converted have had their cruise speeds reduced, you may direct the system to
compile in the “raw” mode – which will avoid the further reduction in cruise
speed (but will not restore the cruise speeds to their normal values).
Please note, however, that converting compiled-for-FS9 AI for use with
FSX involves more than simply converting the traffic file. In addition:
·
the required aircraft must be installed in the FSX\SimObjects\Airplanes (or other
designated aircraft folder) folder, and
·
if propeller aircraft are involved, you may wish to
update the propeller textures.
A detailed procedure for converting
MAIW FS9 packages for use with FSX can be found at The Owls Nest (http://www.interkultur.de/gossmann/fsx/maiw.php).
6.7 Creating Flight Plan Subsets – AI
Flight Planner allows the creation of subsets of the flight plans currently in
the Flight Plan List based on a selected set of airports or aircraft. Airports may be selected individually or by
country in a tree-view structure. Aircraft
may be selected individually or by type.
Subsets may be either inclusive or
exclusive. An inclusive subset includes
each flight plan that references any selected airport or aircraft, as applicable. For aircraft, an exclusive subset includes
every flight plan that does not reference any of the selected aircraft, i.e.
flight plans referencing any of the selected aircraft are excluded. For flight plans, exclusion is performed on a
per-leg basis. That is, individual legs
that designate any selected airport as the destination are deleted but the
balance of the flight plan remains intact – provided there are at least two
legs remaining.
Among other things, sub-setting allows:
·
generation of regional flight plans from a flight plan
file having broader coverage (airports, inclusive option);
·
exclusion of designated airports from the default
traffic files (airports, exclusive option); and
·
partitioning of the default traffic file into aircraft
categories, e.g., airline and GA (aircraft, either option)
To create a flight plan subset:
·
click on the Flight
Plans / Subset menu item; (the sub-setting dialog will be presented)
·
click on the Aircraft or Airports radio button; (the contents of the Aircraft List or Airport
List, as applicable, will be displayed in the dialog box); you may display the
list data in either of two formats;
·
select the airports or aircraft of interest;
·
click on the Inclusive or Exclusive radio button; and
then
·
click on the Continue button.
AI Flight Planner will seek
confirmation that you wish to generate the specified subset, whether or not you
wish aircraft not used in the subset purged from the Aircraft List and whether
comments in the Flight Plan list are to be preserved. The resulting flight plan
subset will be placed in the Flight Plan List subset and unused airports will
be purged from the Airport List. The Files / Save File Set menu item will be disabled to prevent an accidental
overwrite of the original file with the original file. If you intend to overwrite the original file,
use Save File Set As …
To avoid you having to re-select a
set of airports or aircraft, you may save the currently selected set of either in
a file of your choice by clicking on the Save Selections button. However, if you plan to save your selections,
do so before creating the subset since the Subset dialog box closes upon
successful subset generation. If you
wish to use a previously-created selection file, click on the Use Saved
Selection List button and designate the file of interest. The contents of that file will replace the
contents of list then in the dialog list box.
With current availability of AI flight plans for most airlines, it is
convenient to be able to exclude default airline AI traffic while preserving
default GA traffic at airports of interest.
For example, suppose you have system-wide AI flight plans for Air
·
load the Air Canada system-wide flight plans and
aircraft set; make an inclusive subset for the airports of interest;
save/compile the sub-setted flight plans to a new file (the new file will still
include some other Air Canada AI traffic, but any flight plans not naming any
of the selected airports as destinations will have been deleted); this subset is not strictly necessary but,
for performance reasons, you’ll probably want to exclude Air Canada traffic at
airports not of interest;
·
load the default traffic file; (it’s located in the Scenery/World/Scenery folder; for FS9,
it’s named traffic030528.bgl and for
FSX, trafficAircraft.bgl); make an
inclusive subset based on aircraft by selecting GA aircraft (individually or by
category), compile and save it back into the Scenery/World/Scenery folder under
a new name, say trafficDefault_GA,bgl; before creating the subset, save the selected
aircraft list;
·
reload the default traffic file and the saved aircraft
list and, this time, make an exclusive subset; compile and save it back into
the Scenery/World/Scenery folder under a new name, say trafficDefault_Airline,bgl;
·
further subset the Flight Plan List, exclusively,
based on the Western Canadian airports; compile and save it back into the
Scenery/World/Scenery folder under a new name, say trafficDefault_Airline_exWesternCanada.bgl;
·
disable the original default traffic file and trafficDefault_Airline,bgl.
Now, you’ll still get default GA AI
traffic at all airports, no default airline traffic at the airports of interest
and you won’t be overloading the system with a bunch of unwanted Air
6.8 Displaying Arrival/Departure
Information – A detailed listing of arrivals and departures at any airport
contained in the Flight Plan List may be obtained by clicking on Flight Plans / Time Table. This opens the Arrivals/Departures dialog
which lists all the airports referenced by the flight plans – essentially a
duplicate of the Airport List. Click on
any airport in the list and all the arrivals and departures at that airport are
displayed in time sequence. You may
display only those flight plans that operate on a particular day of the week
using one of the radio-buttons located immediately above the day-of-week
labels.
A hard-copy of the
arrivals and departures information can be obtained by clicking on the “dump to
Notepad” button and using Notepad’s Print function.
Should you wish to
modify any arrival or departure, double-click on it. The Arrivals/Departures dialog closes and the
corresponding flight plan is moved into the editor.
The arrival and
departure information for any individual flight plan can be viewed by
right-clicking on a selected item in the Flight Plan List and selecting
"Timetable". This information too
may be output to Notepad for printing or further manipulation.
6.9 Adjusting Flight Plans for
Summer/Standard Time – Flight plan arrival and departure times are always
saved using the UTC equivalents – even if originally specified or edited using
local times. Consequently, at airports
where daylight savings time is observed, the AI at those airports operates one
hour early or late in some seasons.
Rather than requiring re-specification
of arrival and departure times to allow for correct operation during the summer
season, AI Flight Planner’s menu item Flight
Plans / Advance to Summer Time advances all those times by one hour except
in the case of airports where it is known that daylight savings time is not
observed. This simple operation followed
by a re-compile of the file results in proper summertime operations.
But, of course, such
flight plans will then operate one hour late during the winter. Flight Plans / Retard to Standard Time
to the rescue! It reverses the effect of
the Advance to Summer Time feature.
6.10 Adjusting Activity Levels – The
activity level setting in a flight plan determines the traffic level setting in
the simulator at or above which the flight plan will operate. The editor allows this level to be set for an
individual flight plan. However, large
flight plan/traffic files, for example, those covering the complete schedule of
a major airline, may overload your system or result in the parking available at
certain airports, especially principle hubs, to be exhausted if all flight
plans have the same activity level. Sub-setting of the file will, of course,
provide a solution. But, sub-setting (which
will eliminate legs or entire flight plans) may not be necessary. The Flight
Plans / Adjust Activity Levels feature allows the activity level of all
flight plans to be adjusted at once to achieve a desired traffic distribution.
AI Flight Planner provides three types of traffic-based
activity level adjustment. You specify
the levels:
·
at or below which no traffic, and
·
at or above which all traffic
from the file is to operate and select whether,
between these two levels, a proportional amount of traffic is to be generated:
·
for each airport,
·
for each airport but with the most
frequently used airports being de-emphasized so traffic is more evenly
distributed across the other airports, or
·
for each aircraft.
AI Flight Planner will
then calculate and apply an appropriate activity level setting for each flight
plan in the Flight Plan List, thus allowing you to address the overload
situation to a certain extent using the traffic level setting in the simulator.
This feature will be
most useful with large, complex flight plan/traffic files. When used with small files or those where the
majority of the flight plans are for simple return flights between two airports,
you’ll likely find the majority of the adjusted activity levels ”clumped” near
either the low or high end.
6.11 Adjust ETAs to Reflect Cruise Speeds
- Should you make a change that affects the cruise speed of the aircraft,
(e.g., restoring all cruise speeds or adjusting aircraft data), you'll likely
want to adjust the ETAs of flight plans that make use of that/those aircraft.
When the cruise speed of
the aircraft in the Aircraft List is changed, if the flight plan then in the
editor uses that aircraft, ETA field of the leg editor will be updated to
reflect the new cruise speed. However, no
flight plan data is updated. You may, of
course, edit each affected flight plan leg individually to update their ETAs. But, the Flight Plans / Adjust ETAs to Reflect A/C Cruise Speeds function allows you to select one or more (or
all) flight plans in the Flight Plan List and will update all their ETAs to
reflect the cruise speeds then specified in the Aircraft List for the relevant
aircraft.
Prior to any changes
being made, you will be asked to confirm your intent. You may also specify that any existing ETAs
that are later than the newly-calculated value be preserved. This may be helpful, for example, if you are
simulating an actual airline schedule.
6.12 Adjust Departure Times for Standard
"Sit-Time" - Many flight plan packages available from popular
download sites schedule departures very close to the previous arrival. The
Flight Plans / Adjust Departure Times for Standard Sit-Time feature will
adjust the departure times of the flight plans selected in the Flight Plan List
to follow the previous arrival by not less than the standard sit-time you
specify (using the bottom function of Flight Plans menu). If the currently scheduled departure time for
a leg is later that it would be based on the standard sit-time, neither the departure
time or ETA is affected.
As in the previous
function, prior to any changes being made, you will be asked to confirm your
intent. You may also specify that any
existing ETAs that are later than the newly-calculated value be preserved.
Please recognize that
every such adjustment potentially extends the time required for the operation
of the flight plan. Consequently, some
flight plans may not lend themselves to successful adjusted with this
feature.
After all selected
flight plans have been processed, a
message will be issued that either confirms successful adjustment or identifies
the flight plans that were not adjusted and leaves them highlighted.
In the latter situation, there are several options
available to you:
·
if you elected initially to
preserve over-ridden ETAs, try again and let the system calculate all ETAs;
·
reduce the standard sit time;
·
examine the flight plan(s) looking for excessively-long sit-times
that, if shortened, may allow departure time adjustment using
standard parameters to be successful.
Then re-run the departure
time adjustment function for those flight plans.
It would, of course, have
been possible to have AI Flight Planner apply these `fixes` - with or without
user direction. But, it was felt that
such user-interaction may lead to confusion and that, since such problems are
unique, they require unique solutions.
AI Flight Planner offers three alternatives for
editing flight plan data:
·
the leg editor, which allows editing on a per-leg
basis (double-click on the flight plan in the Flight Plan List)
·
the built-in text editor, which allows plain-text
editing of a flight plan in TTools-like text format, and
·
the Find/Replace function (edits are made to the
flight plans in situ)
Use of each is described below.
But first, some generally-applicable information.
7.1 Arrival and Departure Times – Arrival
and departure times in all three editors may be specified in either UTC, a time
zone selected in the Time Zone combo box or, provided AirportList.dat contains full geographic information for all the
airports used in a flight plan, local time - which may be either standard or
daylight savings time. However, flight
plans are not date-specific, so arrivals and departures specified in local time
may be in error by an hour in the transition periods to and from daylight
savings time (where applicable).
When using local time, you should
appreciate that AI Flight Planner’s time zone database reflects real-world time
zones – which may not match exactly the time zone calculated by MSFS. MSFS uses a geographic approximation
technique to determine the time zone in the area where the user aircraft is
located. Hence, there may be
disagreement at airports close to the edge of time zones. Since MSFS’ calculation of time zones can be
affected by add-ons, such discrepancies cannot always be resolved by AI Flight
Planner. As well, while significant
efforts were expended in making AI Flight Planner’s time zone data base
complete and accurate, time zone data for smaller airports, especially in
developing countries, sometimes is not readily available and, hence, AI Flight
Planner’s data base may be in error (but, is correctable using the Time Zone Editor
– see Section 9.8).
Please
note that both FS9 and, at time of writing, also FSX use an incorrect UTC
offset for Hong Kong and much (if not all) of China. This situation may extend to other countries
in
Unlike TTools, AI Flight Planner does
not use “@” and “TNG” as prefixes for arrival times. The function performed by
the “@” symbol is automatic with AI Flight Planner. (Any arrival time that differs by more than
two minutes from the system-calculated arrival time is assumed to have been
specified by you. This tolerance is
necessary to accommodate “jitter” introduced by de-compilation.) Touch ‘n go
operation is specified using a checkbox.
Also unlike TTools, all arrival
times (not just user-specified ones) reflect nominal arrival at parking. While the actual arrival times will depend on
weather, traffic, aircraft performance, etc, the AI Flight Planner compiler
makes a 15-minute allowance for approach, landing and taxiing in all cases.
AI Flight Planner determines whether
the specified arrival time is for the day (repeat period) of departure or the
following day (repeat period) and applies an appropriate suffix where necessary. (Any arrival time in 24 hour format that is
earlier than departure time is assumed to refer to the following day (repeat
period). The suffix indicating a
following day/after midnight arrival is “+1” – a notation used in many airline
schedules. Where the flight crosses the
International Date Line, the suffix may also be “-1” (eastbound flights leaving
Asia just after midnight) or “+2” (westbound flight leaving
When a sub-daily repeat period is
selected, the hour value of the arrival and departure time entries must be less
than the repeat period. For example, for
a repeat period of 4 hours, the maximum acceptable arrival or departure time is
03:59. When the repeat period is changed
to a smaller value such that previously-entered arrival and departure times in
the editor are invalid, the arrival time and predicted ETA suffixes may become
what appears to be nonsensical. Such a
situation may not be detected and no error message issued until an attempt is
made to save the flight plan.
In weekly consolidate mode, the
departure times displayed in the Leg List
are in “day-time” configuration, i.e., d/HH:MM. This is to maintain proper sequencing of the
entries. Departure time entries in the
editor are always in HH:MM; AI Flight Planner derives its day-of-week
information from the day-of-week checkboxes in the Base Data area.
7.2 Airport Designators – There are (at least) two airport
designation systems in current use:
·
ICAO codes, which apply to every significant airport
worldwide, and
·
IATA codes, which generally apply only to airports
that handle airline traffic.
While MSFS “understands” only ICAO
codes, AI Flight Planner allows the use of either. This facilitates the creation/editing of
airline AI flight plans.
AI Flight Planner’s main panel
contains a checkbox labelled Display IATA Airport Codes. When unchecked, ICAO airport designators are
displayed. When checked, airports that
have IATA codes use their IATA designator; those that don’t have IATA
designators show their ICAO designator prefixed by “*”.
Lack of IATA codes for smaller
airports can be problematic. IATA codes
are all three characters long. But, the
ICAO code system uses both three- and four-character designators. Fortunately, the ICAO three-digit codes are usually
assigned to small airports. So while
there is some overlap between the two systems, the practical consequences in AI
Flight Planner are relatively minor since most ICAO codes are of the
four-character type.
AI Flight Planner allows entry of
airport designators using either system.
Airport codes entered as four characters are unambiguous and assumed to
be ICAO codes. Three-character codes
entered when the Display IATA Airport Codes is checked are assumed to be IATA
codes. However, if no IATA-match is
found but there is an ICAO-match, the ICAO airport will be “returned” (and
displayed with a prefixed *). If the
three-character ICAO code is entered with the * prefix, there will no
“indecision”. When Display IATA Airport
Codes is unchecked, three-character codes are assumed to be ICAO. But, if no ICAO-match but there is an IATA-match,
it will be accepted. With this scheme, Display
IATA Airport Codes must be checked in order to obtain an IATA-match on a
three-character code used in both systems.
When you enter or edit an airport
designator (either IATA or ICAO code), the newly-entered code is validated as
soon as you move the cursor to another field.
If the code is valid, the airport is entered into the Airport List if it
is not already there and the name of the city shown. If invalid, an error message is issued and
you are given an opportunity to enter the airport into the system.
If unsure of the ICAO/IATA code for the intended airport, you may enter
a “?” optionally preceded by a character string into either the originating or
destination airport field. If:
·
no character string is entered, i.e., just “?”, the Get Airport Information “airport
tree” dialog opened; locate the airport of interest, select (click on) it and
close the dialog box;
·
the character string contains “>”, a list of ICAO
and IATA codes where the city name or airport name contains the entered string
pops up; or
·
otherwise, a list of ICAO and IATA codes which start
with the entered string pops-up.
In the latter two cases,
double-click on the airport of interest in the pop-up list. This closes the list and places the selected
ICAO or IATA code in the relevant airport field in the editor.
7.3 Flight Plan Editor – A flight plan
in the Flight Plan File is moved into the Flight Plan Editor by double clicking
on it (the flight plan). The Aircraft
List combo box highlights the aircraft used by the flight plan (if it is in the
Aircraft List), the other base data of the flight plan is displayed in the base
data area across the top of the main window, the flight plan legs are inserted
into the Leg List and, lastly, the top item in the Leg List is selected, parsed
and displayed in the editor. In
addition, if the selected aircraft is available on the user’s system and the
flight plan does not contain a tail/registration number, the default number for
that aircraft will be displayed in the Reg. textbox.
Except when the consolidation option
for weekly flight plans is selected (see below), flight plan legs are listed in
chronological order, commencing with the leg having the earliest departure based
the selected time zone. For easy
reference, each leg is numbered, that number appearing at the left-most end of
the leg data line.
While flight plans in TTools-format text
files also have their legs ordered chronologically, there is no requirement
that the first leg be the one with the earliest departure. Indeed, often it is not. This creates a potential problem with error
reporting. Flight plan error messages
report the sequence number of the faulty leg.
But, the sequence number of a leg in the text file may not be the same
as that assigned when the flight plan is displayed in the editor. Consequently, a file-leg reference number is
shown at the right-hand side of the leg data display when it is applicable.
Error reports relating to file data will reference this latter number
Flight plan data editing is
straightforward. Nonetheless, a brief
summary of each required field follows.
For a fuller description, you may wish to download Lee Swordy’s TTools
and refer to its user documentation.
A flight plan contains two types of
data:
·
base data, which governs the overall operation of the
flight plan, including:
·
a reference to the aircraft used to perform the flight
plan (i.e., the aircraft selected in the Aircraft List),
·
a tail/registration number of up to 7 characters (only
required if one or more legs specify ATC Callsign as the registration number
(“Reg.”)),
·
activity level (1-100%), which determines the MSFS
Settings/Display/Traffic activity level slider setting above which the flight
plan will operate,
·
a repeat period (being one of 1hr, 2hr, 4hr, 6hr, 8hr,
12hr, 24hr or weekly), and
·
a flight rules selection (either IFR or VFR) which
determines how ATC will handle the flight and, in some instances, how the
aircraft will be routed for approach; and
·
leg data, including:
·
day(s) of the week on which the flight operates
(weekly flight plans only)
·
a touch ‘n go (TNG) selection which, if checked,
causes the aircraft to perform TNGs from the time it initially arrives in the
vicinity of the destination airport until its scheduled arrival time
·
a flight number (0-65535)(only required if the ATC
Callsign selection for the leg is FN),
·
departure time (in 24 hr format),
·
departure airport (ICAO or IATA code, as discussed
above)(only required for the first leg of a new flight plan; automatically
updated thereafter),
·
destination airport (ICAO or IATA code, as discussed
above),
·
flight level (100s of feet),
·
ATC Callsign selection, and
·
optionally, Override ETA (in 24 hr format), which
allows you to override the system-calculated arrival time.
Flight plan legs are displayed in the Leg List time sequenced. For weekly flight plans, a leg which is flown
on two or more days may be shown in either of two ways:
·
“individual”, i.e., each leg in the flight plan shown
individually, or
·
“consolidated”, i.e., legs that operate on more than
one day of the week but are otherwise identical consolidated into a single list
item.
In “individual” mode, the legs are
entered/displayed in operational sequence.
The destination airport of one leg becomes the departure airport for the
next, with the destination airport of the last leg being the departure airport
for the first. In “consolidated” mode, the position in the Leg List at which a
new leg is entered determines the departure airport for that leg – but only for
the purpose of calculating distance, duration and ETA. When the data for a new leg is entered into
the Leg List or when edited data is saved, AI Flight Planner automatically
positions the edited leg based on departure time and day of week. The
Consolidate Weekly FPs checkbox located in the bottom right-hand corner of the main
window controls this mode.
An individual leg is moved into the
leg editor by double-clicking on it in the Leg List. At that time, AI Flight Planner identifies the
departure airport and calculates the distance between it and the destination
airport, as well as the expected duration of the flight (based on the cruising
speed of the selected aircraft) and anticipated arrival time. Of course, if AI Flight Planner picks the wrong
departure airport in a complex weekly flight plan (see next section), these
calculations are of little use. Should
that be the case, you should enter the proper departure airport for the leg in
the editor. (If this problem occurs at
all, it likely will occur every time a leg is moved into the editor until
sufficient data has been entered for AI flight Planner to correctly determine
the originating airport. Please be
tolerant.)
In general, error checking of leg
data, where applicable, is performed when you move the cursor away from an edited
text box. Error checking of the leg as a
whole is performed when the edited data is saved back to the Leg List. If a flight plan is intended to for only one
version of MSFS, you can avoid AI Flight Planner generating extraneous error
messages by designating the target version using the Target Version checkboxes.
When editing weekly flight plans in
the normal (un-consolidated), you will load into the editor the leg for one day
only. However, you may direct the editor
to apply the change to the same leg that operates on other days of the week by
clicking the appropriate day-of-week checkboxes. As you do, the relevant leg(s) in the Leg
List will automatically be selected. At the
completion of the edit, all selected items will be deleted and new,
revised items for the checked days created.
When all intended edits have been
applied to the leg, use the Save Edits button to update the item to which the
edits apply in the Leg List.
New legs may be inserted into or
added to the Leg List as necessary. To
insert a new leg, select the leg in the Leg List above which the new leg
is to be inserted and click on the Insert Leg button. A blank leg is inserted into the Leg List at
that point as a ”place-holder”. To add a
new leg at the bottom of the Leg List, click on the Add Leg button.
Please note, however, the sole
reason for selecting a location in the Leg List for the new leg is to identify
the departure airport for the purpose of computing the leg
distance/duration/ETA (i.e., the destination airport of the leg immediately
previous to where you placed the new leg.)
When you later save the leg, it will be placed in the Leg List based on
its departure time, irrespective of where you initially put it.
When a new leg is added to/inserted
in a weekly flight plan, there is no day of the week information available. So initially, AI Flight Planner assumes that
the leg originates at the destination of the leg immediately above it in the
Leg List. However, once the days of
operation are specified, AI Flight Planner attempts to refine its earlier
choice by selecting a departure airport from an earlier leg that operates on
the same day(s).
When all edits have been made to a
flight plan, the edited flight plan may update the original copy of the flight
plan in the Flight Plan List or be added to the bottom of, or inserted
immediately above the selected flight plan in, the list using the Update FP in
List, Insert FP in List or Add FP to List button, as applicable.
When starting a new flight plan, you
must enter a departure airport for the first leg, AI Flight Planner continues
to report that airport as the departure airport for the first leg until the
flight plan is saved. When it comes time
to save the flight plan, if the destination of the final leg does not match
this airport, AI Flight Planner alerts you.
You then have the option to either save the flight plan as it exists,
with the destination airport of the last leg becoming the departure airport for
the first leg, or to further edit the flight plan.
7.4. Departure Airport in Consolidated Leg
Mode - When a flight plan leg is moved into the editor, AI Flight Planner must
determine the departure airport so as to be able to calculate the distance and
flight duration/ETA to the destination. For a daily (or more frequent) flight
plan, this is a simple task – as noted above, it is the destination of the leg
immediately previous in the Leg List
to the leg of interest. However, when in
the consolidated display mode, the previous leg is not necessarily the one
shown in the Leg List.
Consider, for example, the simple case of a flight plan that operates between
airports A and B from Monday to Friday but makes an intermediate stop at
airport C on Wednesday. Such a situation
requires three legs to be specified; A to B on M/T/T/F and A to C and then C to
B on Wednesday. In the Leg List, the
sequence of the legs is A to B, A to C and then C to B. So, there are two intervening legs between
the A to B leg and the ongoing leg from B.
in such cases, AI Flight Planner looks back up the Leg List to find an
earlier flight plan scheduled for the same day of the week.
Depending on the complexity of the
flight plan, AI Flight Planner may not correctly identify the departure
airport. (Fortunately, this is of little
consequence, since the departure airport is only used to calculate the distance
and duration and to predict the ETA of the flight – and you can always override
the system-calculated ETA.)
7.5 New Flight Plans from “Scratch” –
To start a new flight plan “from scratch”, click on the Start New FP
button. This clears the Leg List if
there is any data in it, places a blank entry in the Leg List and also clears
the editor fields. Initially, only the
fields for the base data are enabled.
Once all the base data for the flight plan has been entered and the
aircraft selected, the leg editor fields/controls are enabled. This sequence ensures that all required data
is available when needed. In the leg
editor, all fields must be completed except for Override ETA, which may be left
blank. When the required data for the
first leg has been entered, save it to the Leg List using the Save Edits button. Create additional legs as necessary using
either the Add Leg or Insert Leg buttons.
(In all cases, please note that the Save Edits button is not enabled
until all fields except arrival time have been entered.)
Before attempting to enter flight
plan leg data, it is recommended to confirm that the associated aircraft exist
in the Aircraft List. (The leg editor is
not enabled until an aircraft has been selected.)
Once all the legs of the new flight
plan have been entered, save the flight plan to the Flight Plan List using the
Add to FP List or Insert in FP List buttons as appropriate. These buttons are not enabled unless there are
at least two legs in the Leg List.
7.6 Built-In Text Editor – TTools
formatting supports embedded comments.
AI Flight Planner provides a simple text editor to allow insertion of
comments into, and editing of comments already in, the Flight Plan List.
To open the text editor, double
click on a comment line in the Flight Plan List. The text editor supports both single-line and
multi-line comments. Each comment line
must commence with either “;” or “//”.
Each line in a multi-line comment except for the last must be terminated
using the keyboard <Enter>
key.
This text editor also supports
editing of flight plans in a TTools-like format. For simple changes to flight plans, it may be
more convenient to use the text editor rather than the leg-oriented
editor. To edit a flight plan in the
text editor, select the flight plan in the Flight Plan List and either right
click over the Flight Plan List and select Open Text Editor in the menu
presented or click on Flight Plans /
Selected FP to Text Editor. The data
is formatted with line numbers to make each leg readily identifiable. However,
if you enter a new leg or an entirely new flight plan, you need not enter the
line number(s)
New/edited flight plans must comply
with TTools formatting “rules”. Users
not familiar with TTools formatting rules may wish to download TTools
(ttools202.zip - available from popular MSFS download sites) and refer to the “Source
Files and Formats” section of its user manual (ReadMe.htm). Multiple flight
plan legs may be entered on a single line.
The flight plan, including valid
edits, may be re-formatted at any time with the Format button. If re-formatting is not successful (due to
incomplete or erroneous edits), the Undo Format button with restore the edit
window to its prior state.
In addition to replacing the Flight
Plan List item selected when the text editor was opened, the contents of the
text editor may be added at the end if the Flight Plan List or inserted
immediately above the selected item.
Full validation of a flight plan edited in the text editor is performed
when an attempt is made to place it (back) into the Flight Plan List.
7.7 Find/Replace Functions – The Flight Plans / Find/Replace function
allows flight plans to be selected based on the contents of one of their fields
and to have similar changes applied to those flight plans.
Select the field of interest in the
Field combobox and the comparator as: less than (<), less than or equal to
(<=), equal to (=), greater than or equal to (=>) or greater than (>). Then, enter the value to be found/replaced in
the Find text box. You should always
select the Field first since, to ensure a proper match, AI Flight Planner may
apply a prefix of suffix based after you enter the “find” or “replace” value –
allowing you to make abbreviated entries.
To select the top-most flight plan
meeting this criteria, click on the “First” button. Subsequent flight plans may be selected using
the “Next” button. To select all flight
plans meeting the criteria, click on the “All” button. The "find"
functions operate on the entire Flight Plan List, irrespective of the selected
set of flight plans when First or All is clicked.
To change the value in the designated
field of the selected flight plans, enter the replacement value in the “Replace
with” textbox and click on the Replace In Selected FPs button.
The Replace function may also be
used independently of the "find" function by selecting the field of
interest, entering the replacement value and manually selecting the flight
plan(s) where the replacement is to occur prior to clicking on the “Replace In
Selected FPs” button.
7.8 Departure Time Functions - Two menu items affect how
departure times are established/managed, namely:
·
Flight Plans / Minimum Time Arr->Dep (min.) - sets
the minimum time in minutes between arrivals and departures for warning
purposes; and
·
Flight Plans / ETD Preset Interval (min.) - sets the
interval following the ETA of the previous leg used to preset the ETD of a new
leg.
Both items are of the checked type. When unchecked, the function is
disabled. In the case of the first item,
no warnings about departure times close to or earlier than the previous arrival
will be issued.
7.9 Global Changes to Leg Data - To
make identical changes to two or more legs simultaneously, select the legs of
interest. Upon selection of the second
leg, the leg data text boxes will be cleared.
Enter the new data in the
appropriate fields and click the Update Selected button. The newly entered data will appear in the
corresponding fields of each selected leg. Only the fields corresponding to
those into which data is entered will be affected. Two or more fields may be edited
simultaneously. Bear in mind, however,
it is up to you to ensure (or to make further changes as may be necessary to
ensure) the validity of the flight plan as a whole.
If, for example, you wish to change
the day(s) of the week on which certain legs operate, select the legs in the
leg list, check all the days on which you want those legs to operate (not
just the additional ones) and then click Update Selected. the legs corresponding to the days on which
the legs no longer operate, if any, will disappear from the Leg List and legs
for any new days will be added.
When a flight plan file-set or a compiled traffic file is loaded into AI
Flight Planner, the “companion” aircraft data (if it exists) is also loaded. You may modify, replace or supplement this
data with data from other sources.
Please note, whenever you make a modification that affects the cruise
speed of the currently-selected aircraft, the ETA data in the leg editor is
updated. However, other flight
plans/legs that use the selected aircraft are not affected. If you wish to have other flight plans/legs
reflect the new cruise speed, you must either edit them in the normal way or
use Flight Plans / Adjust ETAs to Reflect
A/C Cruise Speeds.
8.1 Loading and Saving Aircraft Data – Loading and saving
of aircraft files individually is handled in an identical manner to flight
plans. The corresponding items in the Aircraft
main menu are:
·
Load New Aircraft List (.txt or .bgl)
·
Merge with Aircraft List "
·
Save Aircraft List
·
Save Aircraft List As …
Of course, when you Save/Save As a
flight plan file, the associated aircraft data is saved as well to its own
file.
8.2 Creating a New Aircraft List from Aircraft Folders – The
contents of the Aircraft List may be replaced at any time with a list of
aircraft based on the aircraft installed on your system. To initiate this action, click on click Aircraft / Clear Aircraft List (if there
are any items in the list to be cleared) and then on Aircraft / Bulk-Add Aircraft to List. The Collect Aircraft dialog will be displayed.
The list may be based on one of:
·
the aircraft
available to FS9 (if FS9 is installed),
·
the aircraft
available to FSX (if FSX is installed), or
·
the aircraft contained in a set of aircraft folders
you select.
If you choose the latter, you will
be presented with a directory tree so you can select the aircraft folders of
interest.
Once that choice is made, the Scan
button will be enabled. Clicking it
causes the applicable set of folders to be scanned for AI aircraft. All the AI aircraft found will be displayed
in the large list box. The list is in
alphabetical order by title. You then
have the opportunity to “massage” that list by deleting items from it and
moving items up or down.
You may save the entire list or only
the selected items. Click on the applicable “save” button to replace the items
in the Aircraft List. Reference numbers will be assigned sequentially,
beginning with the number you may have entered in the First Ref. No. field (or
1 if you didn’t enter a starting number).
Since no aircraft data is
overwritten until you click one of the “save” buttons, you may also use this
feature to explore the aircraft available on your system.
8.3 Aircraft Editor – AI Flight
Planner includes a comprehensive aircraft editor that allows you to adjust all
the aircraft parameters relevant to AI operation. This includes the model radius for FS9
aircraft.
The Aircraft Editor is opened by
clicking on Aircraft / Open Aircraft Editor
The Aircraft Editor dialog is divided into three main sections:
·
selection of the aircraft folder,
·
selection of the particular AI variant of the aircraft
and Aircraft List maintenance, and
·
display/editing of aircraft AI parameters.
MSFS aircraft have a very specific
folder arrangement. The various data for
each aircraft is spread among several files and folders collected into a single
folder which, for this purpose, is referred to as an “aircraft folder”. Each “aircraft folder” contains only one
aircraft but there may be several AI variants of that aircraft.
The first step in using the Aircraft
Editor is to select the aircraft folder of
interest. This is done using the
Aircraft Folder field and the associated Select button.
Once the aircraft folder is
selected, the titles of all the AI variants in that folder are listed in the
Aircraft Title combobox. If there is
more than one variant, you must select the one of interest. Upon selecting the title of interest (or
automatically if there is only one variant), if that variant is in the Aircraft
List, its reference number and cruise speed (as set out in the Aircraft List)
will be displayed in the Aircraft List Data section of the dialog box. Also, if there is thumbnail of the aircraft
in the applicable \Texture folder, it
can be displayed
As well, the AI parameters of the selected AI variant are displayed in
the bottom section of the dialog box.
The data displayed includes:
·
default Tail/Registration number.
·
a checkbox indicating whether or not the aircraft is
regarded as a “heavy”,
·
cruise speed used for aircraft flight,
·
airline name,
·
list of MSFS types of airport parking spots that the
aircraft may use,
·
list of the parking codes the aircraft may use (these
correspond to the parking codes assigned to aircraft parking spots by an
airport editor)
·
ATC Type and model, which control how ATC refers to
the aircraft
·
for FS9 aircraft, the model radius (in meters) or for
FSX aircraft, the wingspan (in feet), and
·
the minimum radius of a parking spot in which this
aircraft will park.
The “heavy” indicator, cruise speed, ATC model and type and aircraft
size apply to all AI variants of the aircraft; the remainder apply to only the
selected variant.
The FS9 and FSX radio buttons will
indicate which MSFS version of the aircraft is currently being viewed. If the path to the aircraft folder does not
match the path to either FS9 or FSX (assuming they are installed) neither will
be indicated. If (under circumstances
described below), the FSX version of the aircraft is displayed and it is the
FS9 version that is of interest, or vice versa, clicking on the radio button of
the other version will bring up the desired data - assuming the other version
is installed and the selected AI aircraft variant title is available to it.
All displayed Aircraft Data fields save
for the FS9 and FSX radio button status may be edited and the modified data
saved back to the aircraft folder by clicking on the Update “aircraft.cfg”/"sim.cfg"
File button. No error checking is
performed (nor is there much that could be), so be careful.
For adding new AI variants to your
AI aircraft “stable”, please refer to the Flight Plan and Repaint Installer
manual.
When editing the Parking Types
field, a list-box containing the allowable types is displayed. Click on a type
and it will be added to the field or enter it directly. Delete from the field directly any unneeded
type(s)
The Airport Editor remains open
until you close it.
8.4 Adding New Aircraft to the Aircraft List – You may add
new aircraft to the current Aircraft List in either of two ways:
·
Individually - Click on the Aircraft / Add Single Aircraft to List menu item. Then, select and edit as necessary the
desired AI aircraft using the Aircraft Editor (as described in the previous
section). FInally, click on the Add To/Update Aircraft List button. (The data must represent a valid AI aircraft).
If there is more than one AI variant in
the selected aircraft folder and you want to add them all, use the Add All to
Aircraft List button instead.
·
Bulk-Add – Some or all of the AI aircraft contained in
a user-selected set of folders may be added by clicking on Aircraft / Bulk-Add Aircraft to List. The process is similar to
Creating a New Aircraft List from Aircraft Folders (see Section 8.2), except
that only those aircraft not already in the Aircraft List are displayed.
·
Substitute -You may substitute an installed aircraft
for any title in the Aircraft List - installed or not. The Substitute function works as described in
the Flight Plan and Installer manual.
8.5 Editing an Aircraft Already in the
Aircraft List – To edit the data of an aircraft in the Aircraft List,
select the aircraft and click on Aircraft
/ Modify Selected Aircraft. This
action opens the Aircraft Editor and displays the aircraft data for the
preferred MSFS version (See Section 5). If that’s not the version of interest, you may
access the other using the FS9/FSX radio buttons – assuming it exists on your
system
Edit the Aircraft Title, A/C Ref No.
and/or Cruise Speed fields as necessary, bearing in mind that if either the
title or reference number is changed, the new value must be unique in the Aircraft List. If the cruise speed from the Aircraft List
does not agree with that in the aircraft data, you may use the latter by
clicking on Use Cruise Speed from Aircraft Data.
When ready, click on the Add
To/Update Aircraft List button. If you have
changed the A/C Ref No., AI Flight Planner offers to update all references to
the old number.
You may also edit and save the
aircraft data. Indeed, if you edit the
aircraft title, you will probably want to save the new title back into the
aircraft data.
8.6 Checking for Used, Unused or Missing Aircraft and Texture
Folders – Since AI Flight Planner may be used to prepare flight
plans/traffic files to be run on other systems, it does not automatically check
for missing aircraft. However, you may
check for used, unused or missing aircraft and texture folders at any time in
several ways:
·
Aircraft / Check
for Missing Aircraft and Texture Folders - missing aircraft or textures
required for the currently loaded flight plans;
·
Files / Identify
Missing Aircraft in Traffic Files - missing aircraft required for a
set of traffic files you select;
·
Files /
Check In which Traffic Files Aircraft Used - the aircraft (from the set
you select) used in each of a set of traffic files; and
·
Files /
Check If Aircraft Used In Traffic Files - the traffic files (in the set you
select) that use one or more of the selected aircraft;
·
Files / Identify
Aircraft Not Used in Traffic Files - the aircraft (in the set you
select) that are not used in any of the selected traffic files;
Unless
the list is very short, the report may be printed.
8.7 Restoring Cruise Speeds – As noted
in Section 4, if an AI aircraft is scheduled to arrive more than about 37
minutes later than it would based on distance/cruising speed (that specified in
the aircraft…txt file) , it will not materialize for landing. To address this problem, some suppliers of
complete AI add-on packages, specify a cruise speed of about 200 kts for all
aircraft.
This artificial cruise speed is problematic when used in conjunction
with AI Flight Planner.
·
For jet passenger aircraft, the calculated duration of
each flight plan leg will be much longer than (2-3 times) the real-world value
and, consequently, the calculated ETA will be very late. Hence, you’ll have to specify arrival time in
all cases.
·
As discussed in Section 4, AI Flight Planner has its
own solution to the 37-minute problem (i.e., halving the specified cruise
speed). This results in a cruise speed
in the traffic file being further reduced to only 100kts. Fortunately, with one exception, this does
not materially affect AI arrival times – provided you override
system-calculated arrival time.
So, when using such prepared flight
plan information, you should restore the aircraft cruise speed to the value in
the relevant aircraft.cfg/sim.cfg
file by clicking on Aircraft / Restore Cruise Speeds for Aircraft In List. If FSX is selected as a Target Version on
the main panel, the aircraft in the FSX aircraft folders will be used as
reference. Otherwise, FS9 aircraft will
be used.
You may also restore cruise speeds
in one or more traffic files without bringing the flight plans into the editor
using the Files / Restore A/C Cruise
Speeds in Traffic Files menu item.
8.8 Deleting Aircraft – To delete one
or more aircraft from the Aircraft List,
click on Aircraft / Delete Multiple Aircraft,
select the aircraft to be deleted and click on the Delete Selected Aircraft
button. As an alternative, if only a
single aircraft is to be deleted, select the aircraft in the Aircraft List and click
on the Aircraft / Delete Single (Selected)
Aircraft. All aircraft not used by
the flight plans in the Flight Plan List may be deleted by clicking on Aircraft / Delete Unused Aircraft.
All these actions may also be
initiated by right-clicking on the Aircraft List and selecting the applicable
menu item.
8.9 Finding Duplicate Aircraft – From
time to time as you add more AI, you may find that a given flight plan has been
duplicated in another traffic file. To
find which one, select the aircraft of interest in the Aircraft List and click
on Aircraft / Find Selected Aircraft in
Traffic Files. You’ll be presented
with a directory tree on which you may select the drives/folders to be
searched. Then click on the Find
Aircraft button. At the completion of
the search, a list of the traffic files that use the selected aircraft will be
displayed.
8.10 Other Aircraft-Related Functions - The following other
functions are available:
§
Re-Number Aircraft – After
several flight plan or traffic files have been merged, it is often convenient
to re-number the aircraft in the Aircraft List.
The Aircraft / Re-Number Aircraft
feature accomplishes this. You may
renumber all aircraft in the list or only the selected aircraft and those below
it. New numbers are assigned in the
sequence of the aircraft in the list.
Hence, if Sequence by: Title is checked, the aircraft will be renumbered
in the alphabetical sequence of their titles.
To leave gaps in the numbering, renumber several times starting
progressively lower in the list each time.
§
Check for Missing Aircraft and Textures - AI Flight
Planner checks that all aircraft required for the performance of the open
flight plans are installed on the user's system and that appropriately-named
texture folders exist in the relevant aircraft folders. (However, no check is made for the individual
texture files.)
§
Send Aircraft List to Text Editor - the
entire aircraft list is transferred to a Notepad window where it may be edited
manually and reloaded into the aircraft List
Whenever possible, AI Flight Planner uses its own internal airport
information – generally ignoring the companion airport data for the flight plan
file(s) loaded.
For your convenience, AI Flight Planner “ships” with:
·
the data for both FS9 and FSX stock airports already
collected in a file named AirportList_Base.dat,
·
time zone information (UTC offsets) for every country
and region where a stock airport exists in a file named Timezone_Base.dat.
For new installations, AI Flight Planner automatically creates AirportList.dat and Timezone.dat from these
files.
9.1 Displaying Airport Information – Information
on any airport known to the system is but a few mouse-clicks away. Clicking on Airports / Get Airport Information displays in tree-view form a
list of countries for which airport data exists. “Expanding” a country results in the
constituent state/provinces/regions (if any) or a list of cities to
appear. Expanding a city shows all its
airports, including IACO code, IATA code if it has one, position and UTC
offsets.
Double-clicking on an airport in the
Airport List will have a similar result, except that the displayed tree will be
opened to the airport of interest.
The Airport Editor (see Section 9.4)
may be opened for a specific airport by double-clicking on that airport in the “airport
tree”.
9.2 Finding Airports and Collecting Airport
Data - AI Flight Planner includes a function for collecting data for FS9
and or FSX stock airports, as well as identifying and collecting add-on
airports for both. The collected airport data is displayed in a standard list
box and saved to AirportList.dat
under user control. This function is
initiated using Airports / Find/Collect
Airports.
The scope of the collection process
is controlled by the four checkboxes located beneath the top-level folder path
displays. Data may be collected for any
combination of FS9 stock airports, FSX stock airports and add-on airports for
either version. Where the same stock
airport (ICAO code) exists in both FS9 and FSX and the data differs, the FSX
data takes precedence.
Unless you will only ever generate
AI flight plans for use with FS9, there seems little reason not to use the
provided base data which includes stock airports in both FS9 and FSX. Be aware, that, if you collect data on
airports for only one MSFS version and you attempt to compile flight plans for
the other version, a number of warnings about potentially-missing airports may
result. However, subject to the
potentially missing airports actually being installed on the end-user’s system,
the traffic files will generate the specified AI traffic.
For stock airport data, you may
specify use of the base data provided with AI Flight Planner, i.e., AirportList_Base.dat , (check Use
provided base data checkbox) – which will be much faster – or have AI Flight
Planner collect the stock airports from your system. You need only use the latter alternative if
you had modified your stock airport data or, for some reason, the file AirportList_Base.dat had been corrupted.
Where the same airport (ICAO code)
exists in both FS9 and FSX and the data differs, the FSX data takes precedence
When you check either of the add-on
airport checkboxes, a directory-tree is displayed. Check the folders that contain the airports
you want AI Flight Planner to collect.
If you want to collect only certain airports in a folder, expand that
folder in the directory-tree and check the airports you want collected. Only
airports checked individually or in the checked folders will be collected –
even if additional folders are enabled in the applicable Scenery Library.
If you want the positional data
(latitude, longitude and elevation) of your add-on airports to replace that of
the corresponding stock airports, also check the Update stock airports with
add-on data checkbox.
Please note, only those add-on
airports that have at least one runway or helipad are collected. (For a variety of reasons, add-on airport
developers often spread their airport definitions across several files, e.g.,
runways and taxiways in one, taxiway signs in another and boundary fences in
yet another. Each such file constitutes
an airport. Using the common ICAO code
as a guide, MSFS consolidates these individual files back into a single
airport. Since all runways, taxiways,
heliports and parking spots must be contained in the same file, AI Flight
Planner looks for this file and discards any others it encounters with the same
ICAO code.) So, if you attempt to
control AI routing by using “waypoints” in your flight plans, make sure your waypoint
definitions include a helipad.
AI Flight Planner relies on you to
differentiate between stock airports and add-on airports. Any airport found in the folders you check
for add-on airport collection will be treated as an add-on airport. So, while you could simply tell AI Flight
Planner to search your entire FS9 or FSX base folder for add-on airports, all
the stock airports would be found and re-designated as add-ons.
Each time stock airport data is
collected, any updates you have made previously (saved in the file AirportList_Updates.dat as described
below) are re-applied.
Because of the extent of control
over the collection process, you may find other uses for this airport data collection
feature. For example, if you wish to
know which airports are installed in a given add-on folder, the airport
collector will answer the question. Data
is not copied to AirportList.dat
until you click on the Save
“AirportList.dat” button, so you may safely experiment.
9.3 Customizing the Airport List – The
airport data included with AI Flight Planner includes every stock airport in
both FS9 and FSX – which number over 25,000.
Thus, the file AirportList.dat
is huge – over 2mb. For those with
state-of-the-art computer systems, this should not present a problem. However, if you have an older computer or
limited RAM, you may wish to work with only a subset of the available airports.
To generate a customized airport
list, prior to saving the collected airports to AirportList.dat in the previous section, click on the Subset button
and select the countries/regions/airports of interest. Once the smaller list is
generated you may delete entries from it, or you may further subset it
Since this customized list will be
named AirportList.dat, should you
wish to revert to the full set of airports you will have to re-collect all the
airports. Alternately, save the full set
under a different name and, when you want to use it, rename it to AirportList.dat prior to starting AI
Flight Planner, renaming the customized list first, if course.
9.4 Airport Editor – Once the airport
data has been collected (which should be an infrequent necessity), the Airport
Editor is the tool for maintaining that data. But, “Why”, you wonder, “does it
need maintenance?”
Errors have been noted in MSFS
airport data. As well, the original
airport data may not match that contained in add-on scenery installed on your
system. While small changes are unlikely
to have any noticeable effect on AI operation, you may wish to have AirportList.dat reflect the corrected
data. As well, since AI Flight Planner cannot
compile a flight plan file containing an airport for which it does have
positional information, any new airport created in add-on scenery must be added
to AirportList.dat before AI can be programmed
for that airport.
Save for the Bulk Update fields and
controls (which are described below), use of the Airport Editor is
straightforward – except for the Airport Exists for: section which contains two
checkboxes and a data field. The two
checkboxes are used to indicate for which version(s) of MSFS the airport is
available. The data field is used in the
case where an airport exists in both FS9 and FXS but uses a different ICAO code
in FSX. (There are many instances where the FS9 stock airport data specifies
the wrong ICAO code and this error is corrected in the FSX data. There are a few instances where, between the
release of FS9 and of FSX, an old airport was “retired” and a new one opened to
serve a particular city.) In those
cases, the FSX X-ref data field is used to identify the ICAO code assigned to
FSX airport.
An IATA code may be assigned to only
one airport – or, stated another way, to be cross-referenced to a single ICAO
airport code. There is one situation
where this becomes problematic. When a
FS9 airport has been re-designated and replaced in FSX, only one or the other
may be assigned the IATA code.
Whenever an airport is entered or
updated using the Airport Editor, the updated airport data is saved in a file
named AirportList_Updates.dat. If AirportList.dat ever needs to be
regenerated, these updates are re-applied automatically
To allow you to abort a series of
updates without affecting AirportList.dat
and AirportList – Updates.dat,
any changes you make do not become permanent until you click on the Save to
AirportList.dat button. If you wish to
exit without saving, simply close the dialog box.
9.5 Editing and Adding New Airports – To
edit an airport in the Airport List, right-click on the airport and select Open
Airport Editor from the menu presented, or double-click on the airport when
displayed in an “airport tree”. The
editor will be opened with the data for the selected airport displayed. To add a new airport or to otherwise open the
Airport Editor, click on Airports /
Edit/Add Airport. The Airport Editor
is also opened if you respond affirmatively to a system enquiry as to whether
you wish to enter/update the data for a missing airport.
Proceed as follows:
·
if the airport of interest is not already displayed, enter
the airport ICAO or IATA code and click the corresponding Open button or click
the New button and then enter the ICAO code for a new airport
·
enter/update the remaining data as necessary, and
·
click the Apply Update button.
Repeat as necessary for additional
airports. When finished, click the Save
File and Exit button.
9.6 Airport Data Bulk Update – Despite
the large number of stock airports included in FSX, some small local airports,
grass strips, water airports and military fields are missing. Scenery developers often model these missing
airports. As an alternative to manual
entry or recollecting airports, where an AI flight plan set for such airports is
available, AI Flight Planner is able to extract the required data from the
corresponding TTools-format airport file.
To update AI Flight Planner’s airport data from a TTools-format airport
file:
·
click on Airports
/ Bulk Update;
·
check the Update Existing checkbox if you wish any airports
already in the AirportList.dat to be
updated based on the data in the TTools file; and
·
specify the TTools-format airport file using TTools
Airport File for Update field and associated Select button.
The first airport in the file, or
the first one not already in AirportList.dat
(if the Update existing checkbox is not checked), is loaded into the
editor. If the airport was previously in
AirportList.dat, the full record as
updated by the TTools-format file data is shown. Make whatever further changes are necessary
and then click on the Apply Update button.
Scroll forwards or backwards through the airports in the file meeting
the Update Existing criteria using the
When finished click on the Save File
and Exit button.
9.7
9.8 Entering/Editing Time Zone Data – The
file Timezone_Base.dat in AI Flight
Planner’s distribution archive file includes time zone information (UTC
offsets) for every country and region where a stock airport exists. But reliable time zone data for some of the
more remote airports is difficult to obtain.
And, even though certain countries notionally lie entirely within a
single time zone, there are instances where a certain city in or a small region
of such countries use a different time zone.
If you develop AI flight plans for such areas using local times, you may
find it necessary to update AI Flight Planner’s time zone data.
To do so, click on Airports / Change Local Time Offsets. This opens the Time Zone Editor. Enter the ICAO or IATA code of the airport of
interest into the designated text box and click the Open button. If sufficient information is known about that
airport, its location information is displayed.
Enter the standard and daylight
savings time offsets from UTC and click the Apply Update button. This action establishes the UTC offsets not
only for the designated airport but also for any other airport existing in the
same country/region/city combination for which a specific time offset has not
previously been specified . Where the
city, or city and region, is left blank, the entered time offsets will apply to
the whole region or country respectively. As with AirportList.dat updates, such
changes are not made permanent until you click the Save File and Exit button.
When interpreting time zone data, if
AI Flight Planner encounters two or more entries which may apply to a given
airport, it uses the most precise. For
example, while most of
9.9 Updates to Base Time Zone Data –
From time to time, errors may be discovered in the base time zone data
contained in the file Timezone_Base.dat. While such errors will be corrected in the
following release of AI Flight Planner, having the corrected data implemented
in your system will require some effort on your part.
If you have not made any time zone
data changes, simply delete the file Timezone.dat
from your system prior to installing the release that contains the updated
information. AI Flight Planner will
regenerate that file the next time you run the newly installed version.
However, if you have changed the
time zone data, you must update your Timezone.dat
file manually. The file Version History.pdf for releases
containing updated time zone data will identify the countries/regions/cities
for which time zone data has been updated. To carry these changes into your
system while preserving your earlier changes, open both your Timezone.dat and the new Timezone_Base.dat with Notepad or
another text editor. Copy the line(s)
noted in Version History.pdf as
having been changed from Timezone_Base.dat
into your Timezone.dat. Then, save your updated Timezone.dat.
In neither case is the timing of
your action critical. It can occur
either before or any time after installation of the updated version of AI
Flight Planner. Of course, the revised
data will not take effect until you do one or the other of the above-noted
procedures.
10 TROUBLE-SHOOTING AI DIFFICULTIES
Whether you use Microsoft’s Traffic Toolbox, which ships as part of both
FS9 and FSX, or a TTools compatible utility (e.g., TTools itself, AIFPC or AI
Flight Planner), successful AI flight planning requires some knowledge of the
“innards” of FS9 and/or FSX, as applicable, and well as an understanding of
flight plan data.
For TTools-compatible flight planning, there is no better explanation of
flight plan data than the “Source Files and Formats” section of the TTools user
manual. However, there is no
comprehensive source of information on the inner-workings of FS9 and FSX. While most problems you’ll encounter have
been discussed, probably numerous times, in various forums, finding that
information can be a trying experience.
The purpose of this section, then, is to provide a checklist of things
related to FS9 and/or FSX to look for when your flight plans don’t work.
10.1 Traffic Analyzers - In diagnosing AI
difficulties, a tool such as Traffic Toolbox Explorer (part of Traffic Toolbox
but useful for all flight plans) or one of the freeware AI traffic utilities
(such as Peter van der Veen’s Traffic Analyser) can save you a great deal of
time by telling you whether or not an AI flight plan is being processed by MSFS. (If MSFS isn’t processing the flight plan or
leg of interest, there’s no point wasting time “sitting” at an airport waiting
for the flight to arrive!) Instructions
for the installation of Traffic Toolbox Explorer are contained in the relevant
SDK. (For FSX, you must own the deluxe
version to have access to the SDK.)
10.2 Converting Prepared FS9 Traffic Files
for Use with FSX – With the ready availability of prepared flight plans
covering airline system-wide schedules, the vast majority of AI difficulties
reported with AI Flight Planner are related to conversions. Ensure that all the steps/cautions noted in Section
6.5 have been observed.
Please note that FS9 flight plans in
text (TTools) format do not need to be converted.
10.3 Don’t Mix FS9 and FSX Traffic Files
- The most frequent cause of AI difficulties with FSX is the mixing of
compiled-for-FS9 and compiled-for-FSX traffic files following conversion. At time of writing, most prepared flight plan
data, e.g., WoAI, MAIW, is compiled for FS9.
You can load these traffic files directly into FSX and they will (or
should) work. But, if you place a
compiled-for-FS9 traffic file in the “purview” of FSX, any compiled-for-FSX
traffic will disappear. All traffic
files in FSX must be compiled for the same target MSFS version. They must be either all FSX traffic files or all
FS9 traffic files (in which case, if you want default traffic you must use the
FS9 default traffic file or convert the FSX default traffic file for FS9). AI Flight Planner will help you locate
compiled-for-FS9 traffic files. But,
only you can ensure there’s no mixing.
Please note that there is no requirement that traffic files be named traffic …bgl. While that naming is customary, it is not a
requirement.
10.4 Prerequisites for an AI Flight Plan
– There are only three ingredients needed for proper AI operation:
·
a valid flight plan whose legs are scheduled so as to
be achievable with the specified aircraft;
·
adequate parking at the destination airports properly
connected to the runways – adequate for the number and types of AI aircraft
that may exist at the airport at any point in time plus the user aircraft, and
·
a compatible aircraft with an aircraft.cfg/sim.cfg file that designates the aircraft (title) as
an AI aircraft (i.e., the file contains a corresponding “[fltsim.nn]” section).
AI Flight Planner will warn you if,
based on the cruise speed of the designated aircraft and assuming normal circumstances,
a flight plan leg cannot be completed prior to departure time of the next leg
in sequence, and of a host of other flight plan errors. However, weather and traffic delays cannot be
foreseen by AI Flight Planner. AI Flight
Planner cannot ensure that adequate parking will be available. (Note that FS9 assigns parking based on model
radius; for FSX, the wingspan specified in the aircraft.cfg/sim.cfg file is used.)
Nor will it warn you automatically if a required aircraft does not exist
on your system. But, you may check at
any time using the Aircraft / Check for
Missing Aircraft and Textures menu
item.
10.5 Troubleshooting a Traffic File - With
the exception of Windows regional settings issues, if a file compiles or
re-compiles without error using AI Flight Planner, it is highly unlikely that
the traffic file is invalid. It may not
work on your system, but the problem almost certainly lies elsewhere. So, if you have a traffic file that
"misbehaves" and your Windows regional settings are other than
English, the first thing you should do is rebuild the file with English
regional settings and recheck.
When things don't work as planned,
"keep it simple" is a good guideline.
Recognize that the ETA of a flight plan, unless overridden by the user,
is based on a simple computation of distance/cruise speed plus a fixed 15
minutes for approach and taxiing. Once
the AI enters the sector of the destination airport or a bounding sector, AI
performance is based on the stored flight dynamics for the aircraft and is
affected by weather and other traffic.
Consequently, depending on circumstances, the 15 minute allowance my be
grossly-inadequate. So, make certain
there is adequate time for each leg of the flight plan to complete before the
next leg is scheduled to depart.
Once you've determined that the
included flight plans are reasonable, the first step in troubleshooting a
traffic file is to isolate that file.
All other traffic files within the purview of the target MSFS version
should be disabled to eliminate any unplanned interactions. As well, it may be helpful to disable all
add-on scenery except those required to generate the airport(s) of
interest. For the default traffic file
and any others in the \Scenery\World\Scenery
folder, this means either changing their file extensions to something other
than “.bgl”, such as by appending “.xxx” to the file name/extension, or
temporarily moving them to another folder outside the purview of the target
version of MSFS. If isolating the
traffic file solves the problem, you can determine the real source of the
problem by re-enabling the other files one-by-one until the problem
recurs.
If isolating the traffic file
doesn’t help, then check the following.
(If you’re using FSX, it is assumed you’ve already removed any FS9
files.)
|
Symptom |
Possible
Causes |
|
AI do not materialize for departure |
·
No/inadequate parking ·
No/invalid aircraft ·
Insufficient time for AI to complete prior leg
|
|
AI do not materialize for landing |
·
No/invalid aircraft ·
37- minute problem (“raw” compile mode only) –
see Section 4.5 |
|
AI executes
missed approaches |
·
User aircraft on runway ·
No parking available for aircraft |
|
AI lands but disappears after exiting runway |
No taxi path to assigned parking spot |
|
AI does no proceed to runway for takeoff |
No taxi path to active runway |
Unfortunately, MSFS does not warn
you about missing or invalid aircraft.
It simply ignores any flight plans for that aircraft. But, you may identify missing aircraft by
loading the traffic file or flight plan text file set into AI Flight Planner
and run the Aircraft/Check for Missing Aircraft
and Textures function.
If a missing or invalid aircraft is
indicated, ensure that the aircraft title is declared as an AI aircraft in the
relevant aircraft folder. If it isn’t,
update the aircraft.cfg/ sim.cfg file
and try again. If it is, replace the
missing/invalid aircraft with a default aircraft or another aircraft you are
certain will work. (Not all aircraft you
download will perform satisfactorily as AI aircraft, particularly with
FSX. Default aircraft are reliable
alternatives.) If prepared flight plan
data has been used for the faulty traffic file, you should also check whether
or not the cruise speed has been altered – even if it’s a default
aircraft. If it has, try restoring its
normal cruise speed.
If inadequate parking or
missing/broken taxi paths are suspected, you should analyse the “afcad” for the
destination airport using AFCAD 2.21 (FS9 only), ADE or AFX (payware) or
another airport editor. They all have
fault-finders to help you identify and resolve such problems.
10.6 Summary – It’s tempting to download
the system-wide flight plans for your favourite airline or a package that will
populate your local military airfield.
But, it’s frustrating when you attempt to convert those packages for FSX
and they don’t work. Hopefully, the
foregoing will help you avoid some of those problems or, if you experience
them, help you to correct them. Be
methodical. Most important, don’t get
discouraged. Once you find the cause, you’ll
find the AI generated very satisfying. And you’ll probably learn something
along the way.
If all else fails, take a tip from bobbyjack, a frequent contributor to the
AI Flight Planner forum. Set your
system-wide flight plan aside and create a simple two leg flight plan to test
the aspects of your system that seem not to be working.
AI Flight Planner’s support forum is located in the “Tools support” area
at http://www.fsdeveloper.com. Please direct your problem reports,
suggestions for improvement and other comments there. When you report problems, please include
relevant details. In particular, the AI
Flight Planner version number, the exact error message and a summary of what
you were doing at the time are likely to be particularly helpful. If the problem involves a particular traffic
or flight plan file, please attach a copy of that file (and the companion
airport and aircraft files in the case of flight plan files)
I have also creating a support website at http://members.shaw.ca/aifp. Among other things, the site lists all known
problems with the latest release. The
most recent release of AI Flight Planner is available from that site.
While I can’t promise to resolve every issue you report or include every
feature addition you propose, I will undertake to support and enhance AI Flight
Planner in a manner consistent with it becoming and remaining the AI Flight
Planning tool of choice for Microsoft Flight Simulator.
I wish to thank the following people
whose prior efforts or contributions made AI Flight Planner possible:
As
used in this end user license agreement, the terms "AI Flight
Planner", "AIFP" and "AIFP2" shall be construed as encompassing
the full contents of the downloadable archive (.zip) file originally created and posted for distribution on
“download sites” by the author, including without limitation: the executable
files AI Flight Planner.exe and/or
AIFP2.exe, the associated user manuals and the data files AirportList_Base.dat, ICAO_IATA.dat and Timezone_Base.dat, and any derivates thereof.
You
are granted a free, non-exclusive right solely to install and use AI Flight
Planner on your computer system(s) for your own personal enjoyment and, subject
to what follows and the rights of others, to use and distribute flight plan and
aircraft data in TTools text or MSFS compiled format files created or modified
with AI Flight Planner (“derivative files”).
You may not:
without
the express written permission of the author. Use as may be permitted for
commercial purposes may be subject to a license fee.
Your
use of AI Flight Planner is entirely at your own risk. You assume and are responsible for any and
all liabilities and damages arising therefrom no matter how caused.
By
installing or otherwise using any part of AI Flight Planner, you are deemed to
have agreed to the foregoing.
AI Flight Planner - © 2008-2010 - Don
Grovestine