AI FLIGHT PLANNER
… a comprehensive, fully integrated AI flight planning tool for FS9 and
FSX
INDEX
1. GENERAL
2. INSTALLING/UNINSTALLING AI FLIGHT
PLANNER
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 FLIGHT PLANNER’S
MAIN WINDOW
6. FLIGHT PLAN OPERATIONS
6.1 Loading Flight Plan Data
6.2 Saving/Compiling Flight Plan Data
6.3 Validating Flight Plans and Traffic Files
6.4 Finding FS9 traffic
Files on FSX Systems
6.5 Converting FS9
Flight Plans for Use with FSX
6.6 Creating Flight Plan Subsets
6.7 Displaying Arrival/Departure Information
6.8 Adjust Flight
Plans for Summer/Standard Time
7. EDITING FLIGHT PLANS
7.1 Arrival and Departure Times
7.2 Flight Plan Editor
7.3
7.4 New Flight Plans from “Scratch”
7.5 Built-In Text Editor
7.6 Find/Replace Functions
8. MANAGING AIRCRAFT DATA
8.1 Loading and Saving Aircraft Data
8.2 Creating a New Aircraft List from
Aircraft Folders
8.3 Adding an Aircraft to the Aircraft List
8.4 Editing an Aircraft Already in the
Aircraft List
8.5 Restoring Cruise Speeds
8.6 Deleting Aircraft
8.7 Finding Duplicate Aircraft
9. AIRPORT AND RELATED DATA
9.1 Displaying Airport Information
9.2 Collecting Airport Data
9.3 Customizing the Airport List
9.4 Editing and Adding New Airports
9.5 Airport Data Bulk Update
9.6 Saving and Retrieving Lists of Selected
Airports
9.7 Entering/Editing Time Zone Data
10. SUPPORT
11. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
11. END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT
AI Flight Planner provides all the facilities
necessary to create, develop, edit and maintain TTools-format AI traffic flight
plans for both the FS9 and FSX versions of Microsoft Flight Simulator (MSFS). It includes an integrated
compiler/decompiler. Hence, AI Flight
Planner can use either TTools-format .txt
files or compiled MSFS traffic .bgl files
as “source code” for flight plans and associated aircraft data – or you may
create one or both “from scratch”.
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 codess;
·
displays at any time the arrivals
and departures at any airport;
·
generates traffic for a subset of
the airports found in a flight plan file;
·
removes traffic to/from specific
airports from default traffic files; and
·
allows data from either .txt files
or compiled traffic files to be appended to 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;
·
filters flight plans by airport,
thus permitting the generation of efficient AI traffic files pertaining to only
a region or single airport from multiple, airline-system-wide flight plan
files; and
·
finds FS9 traffic files and converts
them for use with FSX.
If you are using AI Flight Planner with any of
the many “prepared flight plan” packages, such as those from WoAI, MAIW or AIG
Alpha-India Group, available from various download sites, you should restore
the aircraft cruise speed to their usual values as described in Section 8.5 of
this manual before compiling/re-compiling those files.
2. INSTALLING
/ UNINSTALLING AI FLIGHT PLANNER
AI Flight
Planner is installed simply by copying the files from the downloaded archive to
the desired destination folder. The
complete set of files includes:
The distributed archive file for some earlier versions
of AI Flight Planner contained several 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 2.0
application.
If NET.Framework 2.0 is
not already installed on your computer, the “redistributable” can be downloaded
from the Microsoft website at no charge.
Vista users
need full administrative privileges to use some of the features of AI Flight
Planner, in particular
To uninstall AI Flight Planner, simply delete the
folder in which it is installed.
A MSFS AI
traffic file comprises three main databases:
·
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.
It is important to note that most of this data is used
only to determine the time at which each AI aircraft arrives at various points
along its route, including when it should appear in the vicinity of the
destination airport. The performance of an
AI aircraft while in the vicinity of the user aircraft is always controlled by
the data in the relevant aircraft file of the simulator. The location and other characteristics of
airports are always determined from the information in the relevant stock
airport or scenery file. And finally,
even if the flight plan specifies arrival time, the actual arrival time of an
AI is affected by aircraft performance, weather and other traffic (including
the “user” aircraft).
3.1 Airports
– Generally, AI Flight Planner derives the airport information required for the
generation of traffic files from a file named AirportList_Base.dat. AirportList_Base.dat “shipped” with AI
Flight Planner includes every stock airport in FS9 and FSX and records which
airports exists in only one or the other MSFS version. AirportList_Base.dat
is copied to a user file named AirportList.dat
on initial start-up of AI Flight Planner.
However, if a flight plan in an existing flight plan file refers to a
non-stock airport , AI Flight Planner uses the positional data from the companion
airport file.
To address new or modified airports included in
scenery add-ons, AI Flight Planner provides:
·
an editor to add/update individual
airports,
·
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
and re-applied should you re-build AirportList.dat.
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 a custom airport list and use that list instead.
Using a “tree-view” style
window, you can quickly find the ICAO and IATA codes and other details of any
airport “known” to the system.
The data for the airports
used in the currently loaded set of flight plans are held in the Airport List.
3.2 Aircraft – Like TTools, 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 files.
Data from all sources may be
combined and used simultaneously.
Aircraft data may be edited
using either AI Flight Planner’s custom editor or in TTools format using the
default text editor on the host system.
The aircraft used by the
currently loaded set of flight plans are held in the Aircraft List
3.3 Flight
Plans – Flight plans may be:
·
created from scratch,
·
loaded from TTools-format flight
plan files, or
·
retrieved from compiled traffic
files.
Multiple flight plan files,
whatever their source, may be appended.
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
The set of flight plans
currently being operated on are held in the Flight Plan List.
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 –Three
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 (early versions of AI Flight Planner utilized
AIFPC), and
·
Traffic DataBase Builder (TDBB),
Microsoft’s AI traffic generation utility for FS9 and FSX
- and now, 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 used
by TDBB are very different from those used by TTools and AIFPC 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 TTools-format traffic
files compiled for FS9 with traffic files compiled for FSX, the
compiled-for-FSX traffic may be suppressed.
This has nothing to do with the day-of-week encoding scheme discussed
below. Rather, data formats of the two
types of files are different and, apparently, incompatible. Surprisingly, FSX gives priority to the
compiled-for-FS9 traffic files.
So, each compiled-for-FS9 traffic file on your
system that potentially 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.
AI Flight Planner requires you specify the
target system (FS9/FSX) at compile time.
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 .bgl
file.
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
potential 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 the day-encoding of all flight plans in the
currently-loaded flight plan file one day at a time. (If you inadvertently adjust day-encoding or
otherwise go too far, adjust another six times.)
4.4 The
@ Symbol (User-Specified Arrival Times) –TTools allowed arrival times to be
specified by the user by prefixing the time 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. There is no
parallel in TDBB. With TDBB, arrival
times are always calculated based on distance and speed.
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. The arrival time calculated by
both the TTools and TDBB compilers is used to “tell” the AI engine when an AI
aircraft should arrive in the vicinity of the destination airport (i.e., at the
boundary of the sector in which the destination airport resides) and at the
boundary of every other sector along the way – based on the specified cruise
speed of the aircraft (no allowance for climb/decent profiles or departure
routing). Thus, the AI engine has the information necessary to position the aircraft
all along the routs so as to arrive approximately at the specified arrival
time.
AI aircraft only ever materialize in the
vicinity of the user aircraft.
(Otherwise, processing the thousands of AI aircraft flights scheduled in
the default traffic files would place an impossible burden on the system.)
The “@’ symbol is not “understood” by the AI
engine, so 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 notional amount to allow
for approach, landing and taxiing - from the specified arrival time and used
that value instead to determine sector-arrival times. For the purposes on the next section, please
note those times are not related to the designated aircraft cruise speed.
It is important to recognize that a
user-specified arrival time does not control the exact time of arrival of an AI
aircraft at its parking spot, but rather, the time at which the AI aircraft
“materializes” for approach – allowing 15 minutes for the balance of he flight.
4.5 The “37-Minute Problem” when Using @
– The foregoing discussion about calculation of time of AI arrival in
the vicinity of the destination airport is somewhat oversimplified. (Those wishing a more detailed explanation
should consult the TTools manual and/or related forum discussions.)
Under certain, as yet not-fully understood,
circumstances, the AI engine re-calculates the sector boundary arrival
times. But, this recalculation is always
based on the specified cruise speed of the aircraft. Consequently, the arrival-in-the-vicinity
times may not agree with those calculated by the TTools compiler for user-specified
arrival times, i.e., using the “@” symbol.
Unfortunately, if the arrival-in-the-vicinity
time specified in the traffic file is more that about 22 minutes later than the
time recalculated by the “AI engine”, the AI for that leg of the flight plan
never materializes for landing. Instead, it spawns in a parking spot at the
destination airport some time later in preparation for the next leg. Given the 15 minute offset applied by the
compiler, the 22 minute interval equates to 37 minutes later that a user-specified
arrival time. Hence, I’ve coined the
name “37-minute problem”.
The 37-minute problem is most likely to occur
when simulating scheduled airline long-haul operations where the scheduled
arrival time - even allowing for the 15 minute buffer - is often substantially
later than the simply-calculated (distance/speed) arrival-in-the-vicinity time.
AI Flight Planner’s compiler avoids this problem
by halving the aircraft cruise speeds saved in the traffic file, thus assuring
that the arrival-in-the-vicinity time that may be calculated by the AI engine is
later than any reasonable user-specified arrival time. These cruise speeds are reconstructed when
the traffic file is decompiled (which may result in a 1-knot change in the
aircraft cruise speed shown in the Aircraft List). Other than this possible slight change in
aircraft cruise speeds, there are no known side-effects of this scheme. (In earlier releases of AI Flight Planner,
the solution to the “37-minute problem” resulted in AI departing from distant
airports and scheduled to do TNGs arrived late.
This is no longer an issue.)
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 is a “flag” used by AI Flight Planner to
indicate that it has taken special measures to address the “37-minute problem”
and to indicate that it must double the aircraft cruise speeds derived from
companion aircraft data.
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.
5. A
GUIDED TOUR OF AI FLIGHT PLANNER’S MAIN WINDOW
AI Flight
Planner’s main window is partitioned as follows.
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 and there are at
least two legs in the Leg List – the
minimum for a valid flight plan – unless touch-‘n-go operation is specified.
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.
This
section describes the main flight plan file-handling operations.
6.1 Loading Flight Plan Data – Flight
plan data may be loaded from any of three sources:
·
TTools-format .txt files - click Flight
Plans / Open File Set and specify the desired flight plan file; if there a
companion aircraft file, it also is loaded;
·
compiled MSFS traffic .bgl files - click Flight Plans / Open Traffic .bgl and specify the traffic file of
interest; the traffic file is decompiled and both flight plan and aircraft data
is loaded; and
·
reload the last loaded or saved file
– click Flight Plans / Reload Last File
(Set), which discards all changes since the last load or save/compile
operation. The last loaded file data is
preserved across AI Flight Planner sessions.
The flight plans are saved to
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, AI Flight Planner looks for
that airport in the companion file. If found, it saves the related data.
At the completion of the file
loading activity, a summary of any missing airports or aircraft and any other
errors is provided – in printable form if more than a single error is detected. 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 (which
may be only the ICAO code) 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. When
the flight plan data comes from compiled traffic files, AI Flight Planner “knows”
which encoding scheme is used. However, there
is no way for AI Flight Planner to determine automatically the day-encoding
scheme used in TTools-format flight plan files and it issues a message advising
you of the problem. AI Flight Planner always
uses the FS9 day-encoding scheme.
However, it provides a mechanism (Flight
Plans / Adjust Day Encoding menu item) to adjust the day-encoding in the
flight plan should it be for FSX after opening a TTools-format flight plan
file.
Previously-loaded flight plan
and aircraft data may be supplemented at any time by appending data from additional
files using the applicable Main Menu function.
Appended data may be derived from either TTools-format files or compiled
traffic files, irrespective of the source of the previously loaded data. Before appending TTools-format flight plan
files, if it cannot determine the day-encoding scheme of the file to be
appended, AI Flight Planner asks for confirmation that the current day-encoding
is for FS9. If it’s not, it will be
necessary to load the second file by itself and adjust its day-encoding before
it can be appended.
Please be aware that the
times in the flight plan information returned by the Flight Plans / 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 allows a 2-minute “window”).
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 Saving/Compiling Flight Plan Data
– Flight plan data may be saved either:
·
in TTools-format plain text (.txt) format – click Flight Plans / Save (or Save As if you wish to specify a new
file name), or
·
as a compiled traffic (.bgl) file – click Flight Plans / Compile Traffic .bgl, Flight Plans / Compile Raw or Flight
Plans / 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 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 discarded.
AI Flight Planner has two compile modes:
·
“normal”, where the data is pre-processed
to avoid the “37-minute” problem identified earlier, and
·
“raw”, where the data is passed to
the compiler exactly as entered.
Unless you have reason to do
otherwise, it is recommended you use the “normal” compile mode.
Once error checking has been
performed, 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”), 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.
If you did select Compile Again, the data is submitted
directly to the compiler using the same compile parameters as for the previous
compile without any opportunity to make changes.
If you have checked the
“Identify Non-Stock Airports on Compile” item in the Airports menu, prior to
compiling, AI Flight Planner will warn you if any non-stock airports are
referenced by the flight plans.
6.3 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 FP List
You may also validate one or
more traffic files without loading them into AI Flight Planner by clicking the Flight Plans / Validate Traffic Files
menu item. This opens a directory-tree from which you may select any combination of
folders and files for validation.
Folders known not to contain traffic files, while still shown, are
dimmed. Folders to which you do not
have access privileges are not shown at all.
In both cases, a summary of
all errors found – in printable form if more than one - is generated.
AI Flight Planner’s
validation facility detects a number of situations that, while they won’t
“crash” the simulator, would cause AI not to behave as intended. Corresponding warning messages are output
each time the validation routine runs.
This may become irritating, especially when dealing with large
files. So, there is an option in the Flight
Plans menu to suppress these warnings. Messages relating to serious errors are,
however, always output. To avoid warning
messages from being suppressed without your being aware of it, this suppression
feature must be activated each time AI Flight Planner is run.
6.4 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 will be suppressed.
This situation will exist until the very last FS9 traffic file has been
located and either disable or converted for FSX operation (see next section).
To locate FS9 traffic files, click on the Flight Plans – Find FS9 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. Folders known not to
contain FS9 traffic files, while still shown, are dimmed. Folders to which you do not have access
privileges are not shown at all.
Select
the folders of interest and click the Find Files button. You could select entire logical disks, but
the search time would be excessive.
6.5 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 – updated to the FSX scheme.
The 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. Folders known not to contain FS9 traffic
files, while still shown, are dimmed.
Folders to which you do not have access privileges are not shown at
all. 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 suffixed
with “_FSX” and backed-up if they exist already.
Following conversion, any missing airports or other
problems encountered are noted in a conversion report.
6.6
Creating Flight Plan Subsets
– AI Flight Planner allows the creation of subsets of the flight plans currently
in the Flight Plan List based on the airports selected in the Airport List. Subsets may be either inclusive or
exclusive. An inclusive subset includes
each flight plan that references any airport selected in the Airport List. An exclusive subset includes every flight
plan that does not reference those airports.
To create a subset, select
the airports of interest in the Airport List and click on one of:
·
Flight
Plans / Create Subset (Inclusive)
·
Flight
Plans / Create Subset (Exclusive)
For both items, you are given
an opportunity to specify whether or not a subset of the Aircraft List also is
to be generated and if comments are to be preserved.
Among other things, this
feature allows the generation of regional flight plans (inclusive option) and
the exclusion of designated airports from the default traffic files (exclusive
option).
6.7 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 Airports / Arrivals/Departures. 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.
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 to the editor.
6.8 Adjust
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
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 (select
the flight plan in the Flight Plan List and click on the Open Text Editor
button), and
·
the Find/Replace function (edits are
made to the flight plans in situ)
Use of each is described below.
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 the Flight Plan File, 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, may be in
error (but, is correctable using the time zone database editor).
Unlike TTools, AI Flight
Planner does not use “@” and “TNG” as prefixes for arrival times. Touch ‘n go
operation is specified using a checkbox.
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.)
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
appropriate. (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 an
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 Flight Plan Editor – A flight plan
in the Flight Plan File is moved into the 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.
Flight plan data editing is
straightforward. (Nonetheless, if you
are not familiar with the individual flight plan fields, it is strongly
recommended that you download Lee Swordy’s TTools and refer to its user
documentation.)
Each leg of the flight plan is displayed in the Leg
List, time sequenced. As noted earlier,
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 must be entered 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 - 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. The Consolidate Weekly FPs checkbox located
in the bottom right-and corner of the window controls this mode.
An individual leg is moved
into the leg editor by double-clicking on it in the Leg List. Leg data in the editor is displayed in a combination of
text boxes, check boxes and radio buttons.
In general, error checking, 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.
When a leg is loaded into the
editor, AI Flight Planner attempts to identify the departure airport and
calculate 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. Please be tolerant.)
While every airport in MSFS
has an ICAO identifier, only large airports that handle commercial flights are
likely to have IATA designators. To
allow broader use of the “Use IATA codes” mode, AI Flight Planner allows entry
of ICAO codes when in the IATA mode by prefacing ICAO codes with “*”.
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 “?” optionally preceded by a character string. If:
·
no character string is entered,
i.e., just “?”, the Get Airport
Information dialog box is opened; locate the ICAO code of interest, select
(click on) it and close the dialog box;
·
the character string contains
“>”, a list of ICAO codes where the city name or airport name contains the
entered string pops-up; or
·
otherwise, a list of ICAO 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.
When editing an existing
flight plan file, should the ICAO code of an airport that is not known to the
system be entered but the airport is contained in the companion TTools-format
airports file, you may direct AI Flight Planner to use the data from the
airports file. You are also given the
opportunity to add the airport to AirportList.dat
using the Airport Editor.
An AI aircraft is known to
MSFS Air Traffic Control (ATC) by either its flight number or its registration
number. If the ATC Callsign FN radio-button
is selected, a flight number must be entered for the leg. If the Reg
button is selected, the aircraft associated with the flight plan must have a
tail (registration) number.
When all intended edits have
been applied to the leg, use the Save
Edited Leg Data button to update the item to which the edits apply in the
Leg List. The original copy of the leg
in the Leg List is updated,
irrespective of which leg might be selected when the Save Edited Leg Data button is clicked.
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. Similar to
Insert Leg, a blank leg is appended to the leg list and the departure
airport set. Please note that the Save Edited Leg Data button is not
enabled until all fields except arrival time have been entered.
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.
7.3.
Otherwise, AI Flight Planner
uses the departure airport (solely) to calculate the distance and duration of
the flight specified in the leg and to predict the arrival time. When a flight plan leg is moved into the
editor, AI Flight Planner attempts to determine the airport from which that leg
departs. For a daily (or more frequent) flight plan, this is a simple task – 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 (in a
weekly flight plan) is not necessarily the leg immediately previous 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. To accommodate such situations, AI Flight
Planner looks back up the Leg List to
find an earlier flight plan scheduled for the same day of the week and assumes
that to be the departure airport.
However, depending on the
complexity of the flight plan, AI Flight Planner may not correctly identify the
departure airport. (This is a trade-off
for being able to specify a leg only once irrespective of how many days of the
week it operates, and 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.) Should AI Flight Planner not
determine the correct departure airport, you may override its selection to
allow the calculation of distance, duration and ETA for the leg. This action has no effect on the
saved/compiled flight plan, which always reflects the leg sequence.
7.4 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 List Editor fields/controls are enabled. This sequence ensures that all required data
is available when needed. In the Leg List 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 Edited Leg Data
button. Create additional legs as
necessary using either the Add Leg or
Insert Leg buttons. (In all cases, please note that the Save Edited Leg Data 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 sufficient legs in the Leg List, i.e., two for all but TNG operation.
7.5 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. Alternately, select an item
in the Flight Plan List and click the
Open Text Editor button. The text editor supports both single-line and
multi-line comments. Each line in a
multi-line comment should be terminated using the keyboard <Enter> key and the succeeding line
commence with either “;” or “//”.
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 flight plan editor. To edit a flight plan in the text editor,
select it in the Flight Plan List and
click the Open Text Editor button. The data is formatted to make each leg
readily identifiable. Should edits destroy this clarity, it may be restored
with the Format button.
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 flight
plan edited in the text editor is performed when an attempt is made to place it
back into the Flight Plan List.
7.6
Find/Replace Functions – AI
Flight Planner’s flight plan Find/Replace function allows similar changes to be
applied to several flight plans. Select
the field of interest in the Field combo box and the “find mode” as: less than
(<) equal to (=) or greater than(>).
Then enter the value to be found/replaced in the Find text box.
To select the top-most flight
plan meeting this criteria, click on the “Find” button. Subsequent flight plans may be selected using
the “Next” button. To select all flight
plans meeting the criteria, click on the “All” button.
If the value in the designated
field is to be replaced, enter the replacement value in the “Replace with”
textbox and click on the Replace button after selecting the flight plan in
which the field is to be replaced, or on Replace All if all occurrences are to
be replaced.
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” button.
AI Flight Planner does not restrict you to using
aircraft data associated-by-name with the flight plan data (“companion” file). When a TTools-format flight plan file or a
compiled traffic file is loaded into AI Flight Planner, “companion” aircraft data
(if it exists) is also loaded. However, you
may replace this data or supplement it with data from other sources.
8.1 Loading and Saving Aircraft Data –
Loading and saving of aircraft information is handled in an identical manner to
flight plans. The corresponding items in
the Aircraft main menu are:
·
Load
New Aircraft File
·
Append
Aircraft File
·
Save
Aircraft File
·
Save
As …
8.2 Creating a New Aircraft List from
Aircraft Folders – Creation of a new Aircraft
List including some or all of the aircraft in FS9 and/or FSX aircraft files
is initiated from the Create Aircraft
List menu item. Once the desired
aircraft folders have been selected, an initial list including all aircraft in
the selected folders is created. That
list is in alphabetical order. You then
have the opportunity to “massage” that list by deleting items from it and
moving items up or down. The Save New Aircraft List button copies
the temporary list to the main Aircraft List, assigning aircraft reference
numbers sequentially, replacing the previous contents.
So, if you’ve made changes to
the Aircraft List, you should save it before creating a new one.
8.3 Adding New Aircraft to the Aircraft
List – Individual aircraft may be added to the Aircraft List by clicking on
the Aircraft / Add Aircraft menu item. This opens the Aircraft Editor dialog box and
places the next highest aircraft reference number in the AC# text box. However, you
may assign any other unused reference number.
The aircraft to be added may be specified in
any of three ways:
·
Specify a FS9 or FSX aircraft folder
using Aircraft Folder Select. The titles of all the aircraft variants
available from that folder are listed in the Aircraft Title combo box. The
Cruise Speed text box is filled in
automatically with the cruising speed specified in the relevant aircraft.cfg file, but it may be edited. If Cruise
Speed is edited at this time, the cruising speed in the aircraft.cfg file is updated and, hence,
will affect the performance of the aircraft in the simulator. Then to enter:
·
one aircraft from the list, select
the title of the desired aircraft in the list and click on the Add button, or
·
all the aircraft in the list, just
click an the Add All button.
·
Enter the title of the new aircraft (which
must be unique in the Aircraft List) into
the Aircraft Title text/combo box and
a cruising speed into the Cruise Speed
text box. Once all three fields have
been entered, the Add button is
enabled. Click it to add the new
aircraft to the Aircraft List.
The dialog box remains open
until you close it.
8.4 Editing an Aircraft Already in the
Aircraft List – To edit an aircraft in the Aircraft List, select the
aircraft and click on the Aircraft /
Modify Selected Aircraft menu item.
This action opens the Aircraft Editor dialog box.
Edit the Aircraft Name, AC# 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. When ready, click on the Replace button. Please note that, in this case, a change to Cruise Speed is not recorded in the aircraft.cfg file (since all association
with the aircraft folder from which the aircraft may have been added has been
lost). The dialog box is automatically closed when the replacement is
accepted. If you change the AC#, AI
Flight Planner offers to update all references to the old number.
8.5 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 does
not materialize for landing. Instead, it
spawns in a parking spot at the destination airport prior to departure for the
next leg. To address this problem, some
suppliers of complete AI add-on packages, such as World of AI (WoAI), and of AI
flight plans, such as AIG Alpha-India Group, specify a cruise speed of 200 kts
for all aircraft.
This artificial cruising speed is problematic when
used in conjunction with AI Flight Planner.
·
For jet passenger aircraft, the
calculated duration of each flight plan leg is much longer than (2-3 times) the
real-world value and, consequently, the calculated ETA is 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
cruising speed in the traffic file being further reduced to only 100kts. Fortunately, with the exception noted in
section 4, this does not materially affect AI arrival times – but you must
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
file using the Aircraft / Restore Cruise
Speeds menu item. This menu item
allows you to select the aircraft folders to be used for this restoration.
8.6
Deleting Aircraft – To delete
an aircraft from the Aircraft List,
simply select the aircraft and click on the Aircraft
/ Delete Selected Aircraft menu item.
All aircraft not used by the flight plans in the Flight Plan List may be
deleted using the Aircraft / Delete
Unused Aircraft menu item.
8.7 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 the Aircraft / Find Aircraft in
Traffic File menu item. 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.
AI Flight Planner uses its own internal airport
information – even if there is companion airport data for the flight plan
file(s) loaded.
For your convenience, AI Flight Planner “ships” with:
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 the Airports / Get Airport Information menu item displays a list of
countries for which airport data exists in tree-view form. “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.
9.2 Collecting Airport Data - AI
Flight Planner includes a facility to collect data for FS9 and or FSX stock
airports, as well as add-on airports for both. The collected airport data is
displayed in a standard list box and saved to AirportList.dat under user control.
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.
For stock airport data, you
may specify use of AirportList_Base.dat
(check Use provided base data
checkbox) or have AI Flight Planner collect the stock airports from your
system. You would use the latter
alternative if, for example, you had modified your default airport data.
When you indicate that add-on
data also is to be collected, AI Flight Planner displays a directory-tree from
which you may select the add-on folders of interest. (Only the folders to which your Windows
operating system gives you access are shown.)
Please note that only those add-on airports that have at least one
runway or helipad are collected. (Depending on the approach used by the
developer, there may be several instances of an updated airport in the add-on) If
you want the positional data (latitude, longitude and elevation) of your add-on
airports to replace that of the corresponding stock airports, check the Update from Add-on checkbox.
The airport data collection function
attempts to locate the FS9 and FSX top folders using registry entries. If it is successful, the path(s) are
displayed at the top of the dialog box and the associated stock and add-on
airport checkboxes enabled. If FS9 or
FSX exists on your computer and is not located automatically, you may indicate
the relevant top folder using the Select
buttons. The FS9 and/or FSX checkboxes
and applicable, checkboxes remain disabled until the path to the corresponding
top folder is known.
Each time stock airport data
is collected, any updates you have made (saved in the file AirportList – Updates.dat) are re-applied.
Because of the extent of
control over the collection process, this airport data collection feature may
find other uses. For example, if you
wish to know which airports are installed in a given add-on folder, the airport
collector will answer the question.
Hence, airport data for purposes other than updating AirportList.dat may be explored. 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 computers or
limited RAM, you may wish to work with only a subset of the available airports.
To generate a custom airport list - which is selected
automatically on subsequent start-ups of AI Flight Planner unless you direct
otherwise:
·
click on the Airport / Customize Airport List menu item,
·
select the
airports/cities/regions/countries of interest in the “tree-view” display, and
·
click on the Generate Subset button.
The newly generated airport
data file is named AirportList-Custom.dat. If custom airport data already exists, you
are warned before overwriting it.
Generally, if you have
created a custom internal airport list, AI Flight Planner uses this custom list
as its source of airport information.
But, you may revert to the master AircraftList.dat
at any time by clicking on the Airports /
Use Master Airport List menu item.
9.4 Editing and Adding New Airports –
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
(and its custom counterpart, if used) before AI can be programmed for that
airport.
To modify the data for any
airport or add a new airport, click on the Airports
/ Edit/Add Airport menu item, which opens the Airport Editor dialog box. The
airport editor is also automatically opened if you respond affirmatively to a
system enquiry as to whether you wish to enter/update the data for a specific
airport or if you double-click on any item in the Airport List
Proceed as follows:
·
if custom airport list exists,
designate whether the update is to be applied to the custom or the original
data;
·
enter the airport ICAO or IATA code
and click the Open button to edit an
airport or click the New button and
then enter the new ICAO code for a new airport
·
enter/update the remaining data as
necessary, and
·
click the Apply Update button.
Please note that an IATA code
may be assigned to only one airport.
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.
To allow you to abort a
series of updates without affecting AirportList.dat, any changes you make do
not become permanent until you click on the Save
File and Exit button. If you wish to
exit without saving, click the Exit
button.
Where both custom and
original data is to be updated, the change must be entered twice or the custom
file re-created.
Whenever an airport is
entered or updated manually, a record of the updated airport is saved in a file
named AirportList – Updates.dat. If AirportList.dat ever needs to be
regenerated, these updates are re-applied automatically
9.5 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. Where flight plans for such
airports have previously been prepared, AI Flight Planner is able to update AirportList.dat based on the data in the
corresponding TTools-format airport file.
To update AI Flight Planners airport data from a TTools-format
airport file:
·
click on the Airports / Bulk Update menu item
·
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
·
if custom airport data exists,
designate whether the update is to be applied to the custom or the original
data; and
·
specify the TTools-format airport
file using TTools Airport File for Update
Select.
The first airport in the
file, or the first one not already in AirportList.dat,
as applicable, 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 Next Airport and
When finished click on the Save File and Exit button. To exit without saving, click the Exit button.
Whenever an airport is
entered or updated using the bulk update feature, a record of the change is
saved in a file named AirportList –
Updates.dat. If AirportList.dat
ever needs to be regenerated, these updates are re-applied automatically
9.6 Saving and Retrieving Lists of
Selected Airports – From time to time you may find it convenient to be able
to save and later retrieve a list of a subset of the airports in the Airport
List. This would be the case if you are interested in generating multiple
flight plan files for a selected set of airports and wish to avoid having to
manually reselect all the airports of interest each time.
To save such a list, select the
airports of interest in the Airport list and click on the Airports / Save Selected Airports List menu item. You then must specify the file name for a
text file to hold the list (which should start with AirportList).
To reselect these same
airports in the Airport List, click on the Airports
/ Select Airports from List menu item and select the file holding the
list. Each airport in the selected list
which is also in the Airport List is selected.
9.7
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 (free) 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 Planners time zone
data.
To do so, click on the Airports / Change Local Time Offsets
menu item. 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 results in an updated entry in Timezone.dat which then established the
UTC offsets not only for the designated airport but also for any other airport
existing in the same country/region/city combination. As with AirportList.dat updates, such changes
are not made permanent until you click the Save
File and Exit button
AI Flight Planner’s support forum is located in the
“Tools support” area at http://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
version number, the exact error message and a summary of what you were doing at
the time are likely to be particularly helpful
I have also creating a support website at http://members.shaw.ca/aifp. The most
recent release of AI Flight Planner will be 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.
11 AKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I wish to
thank the following people whose prior efforts or contributions made AI Flight
Planner possible:
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 me, the author.
Use for commercial purposes may be subject to a license fee.
In this end
user license agreement, any reference to AI Flight Planner includes the files AirportList.dat, Timezone.dat, all other files included in the downloaded archive (.zip) file and any derivates thereof.
Your use of
AI Flight Planner is entirely at your own risk.
I accept no liability whatsoever for any damage arising from its use no
matter how caused.
By installing
this software, you are deemed to have agreed to the foregoing.
AI Flight Planner - © 2008 - Don
Grovestine