AI FLIGHT PLANNER
… a comprehensive, fully integrated AI flight planning tool for FS9 and
FSX
INDEX
1. GENERAL
2. INSTALLING / UNINSTALLING / UPDATING
AI FLIGHT PLANNER
2.1 Installing
2.2 Automatic
Updates
2.3 Uninstalling
2.4 Regional Settings
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 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
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 Restoring Cruise Speeds
8.7 Deleting Aircraft
8.8 Finding Duplicate Aircraft
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
10. SUPPORT
11. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
11. END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT
AI Flight Planner provides all the facilities
necessary to create, edit and compile AI traffic flight plans for both FS9 and
FSX versions of Microsoft Flight Simulator (MSFS). Either TTools-format .txt files or compiled MSFS traffic .bgl files may be used as “source code” – or you may create your
flight plans “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 codes;
·
displays in airline schedule format all
the arrivals and departures in a flight plan/traffic file for any airport;
·
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 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;
·
finds FS9 traffic files on your
system and converts them for use with FSX.
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:
·
AI
Flight Planner.exe
·
AirportList_Base.dat
·
Timezone_Base.dat
·
ICAO-IATA.dat
·
FS9Chg_AIFP.txt
·
FS9Del_AIFP.txt
·
TimeZones.txt
·
and several information files including AI Flight Planner.pdf and AI Flight Planner.htm (this manual in
two formats).
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.
2.2 Automatic Updates - AI Flight
Planner checks for updates each time it is started. The update archive will be downloaded and
saved to your AI Flight Planner folder with your consent. For security reasons, the new version will
not automatically install itself. To
install an update, simply unzip the new archive to the same folder, overwriting
the earlier version of AI Flight Planner.
You may turn off automatic
update checking using Options / No
Updates. When you later restore
update checking, a check will be made immediately upon clicking that menu item.
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, ASCII compares are
based on “Invariant Culture”, 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" or otherwise not respond
properly when using a Windows regional option that uses a space as a decimal
separator (such as Finnish). Since the
degrees, minutes and seconds in latitude and longitude entries are separated
using spaces, a space cannot reliably be interpreted as a decimal separator.
·
With certain regional settings, two
or more characters are considered equivalent.
Again using the Finnish Regional Option as an example, Vs and Ws are
handled as if they were the same character.
Hence, in a sorted list, you’d find Vs and Ws intermixed. A case on point is AirportList.dat which, if
sorted using the Finnish Regional Option, has
So, if you normally use a
regional option that causes such errors, you may have to switch to another
regional setting (e.g., English, German) for AI Flight Planner to perform certain
functions properly.
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
form 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 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 DataBase 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 the
day-encoding of all flight plans in the currently-loaded flight plan file by one
day. (If you inadvertently adjust
day-encoding or otherwise go too far, adjust another six times.)
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. For a given flight plan leg, the compiler
records the entry and exit times of the AI aircraft for every sector lying
along the great-circle route between the departure and destination
airports. 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.
It is important to note that
the aircraft and airport data in the traffic file is used only to determine the
time at which each AI aircraft arrives at various points along its route. 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 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 no
longer uses 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 (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 the flight plan leg. Unfortunately (as will be seen in the next
section), there was no place to save this revised cruising speed in the traffic
file since it applied to only a single leg of a flight plan. (Overwriting the normal cruise speed of the
aircraft would affect all flight plans.)
4.5 The “37-Minute Problem” when Using @
– MSFS doesn’t “like” tardy AI.
For example, if an AI aircraft is delayed at a hold-short point such
that it has not taken-off within about twenty minutes of the scheduled
departure time, it simply disappears from the hold-short queue.
Under certain, as yet not-fully understood,
circumstances, (perhaps a reasonableness check on the compiler’s calculations)
the AI engine also calculates the sector boundary arrival times. But, its calculations are always based on the
normal cruise speed specified for the relevant aircraft – which is unlikely to
be the same as that calculated by the TTools compiler with the “@” symbol. Unfortunately, if the sector entry time
specified in the traffic file is more that about 22 minutes later than the time
calculated by the “AI engine”, the AI aircraft is not activated in that sector. Where the sector of concern is the one
immediately prior to the one in which the destination airport and user aircraft
reside, the AI aircraft does not materialize 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, 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) next-to-final- sector arrival
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 arriving 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 – but the “37-minute problem” will
not be addressed.
If you are using 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 confirm
that the cruise speeds for the aircraft are realistic. (Often, you’ll find the cruise
speeds in such packages have been reduced to about 200 kts. in their attempt to
avoid the “37 minute problem”. Should
that be the case, restore the aircraft cruise speed to their usual values as
described in Section 8.6 of this manual before compiling/re-compiling those
files with AI Flight Planner.)
5. A
GUIDED TOUR OF AI FLIGHT PLANNER’S MAIN WINDOW
AI Flight
Planner’s main window is partitioned as follows.
Located 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, the state of the Options
/ Default System is FSX menu item is used instead. In the absence of any selection, FSX is given
priority of both it and FS9 are 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 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.
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, the current folder will be dimmed and no
further expansion permitted. As well, if
a folder is identified as an aircraft folder, it remains at full intensity but
is not expandable. 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. Consequently, 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 will
be 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. 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 from any of three sources:
·
TTools-format .txt files - click Files /
Open TTools 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 Files / Open Traffic .bgl and specify the traffic file of interest;
the traffic file is decompiled and both flight plan and aircraft data are
loaded; and
·
reload the last loaded or saved file
– click Files / Reload Last 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.
Previously-loaded flight plan
and aircraft data may be supplemented at any time by appending data from additional
files using the applicable Files 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 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 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 As if you wish to specify a new
file name), or
·
as a compiled traffic (.bgl) file – click Files / Compile Traffic .bgl, Files
/ Compile Raw 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 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.
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”), 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.
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 “Identify
Non-Stock Airports on Compile” item in the Options 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 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 errors found is generated.
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 Files – 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.
Select the folders of interest and click the
Find Files button. You can select entire
logical disks, but the search time will 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 in traffic files – 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. 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 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 a selected set of airports or aircraft. Airports may be selected individually or by
country in a tree-view structure.
Airports 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 Flight Plans 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 As …
To avoid you having to
re-select a set of airports or aircraft, you may save the currently selected
set 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 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 subsetted 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, it’s 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
6.7 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 Flight Plans / 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, 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).
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 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. 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 Edited Leg Data button to update the item
to which the edits apply in the Leg List.
For other than weekly flight plans as noted immediately above, 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.
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 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.
7.6 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 – In
earlier versions of AI Flight Planner, the flight plans Find/Replace controls
were on the main panel. They are now in
a dedicated dialog box accessed from Flight
Plans/Find / Replace.
The flight plan Find/Replace
function allows flight plans to be identified by the contents of one of
its/their fields and similar changes to be applied to those flight plans. Select the field of interest in the Field
combo box and the “find mode” 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 flight plan 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 “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.
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.
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 File
·
Append Aircraft File
·
Save Aircraft File
·
Save 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 Aircraft / Create Aircraft 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
/ Add New Aircraft.
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 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” File button. No error
checking is performed (nor is there much that could be), so be careful.
Unfortunately, it is not
possible to add new AI variants to your AI aircraft “stable” using the Aircraft
Editor since new textures and possibly new model or .air files are also required,
which is beyond the scope of AI Flight Planner
When editing the Parking
Types field, a listbox 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 – To add a new aircraft to the Aircraft List, select and edit as
necessary the desired AI aircraft using the Aircraft Editor (as described in
the previous section) and then click the Use This Aircraft button. This:
·
displays the next highest unused aircraft
reference number in the A/C Ref No box (you may assign any other unused
reference number),
·
copies the aircraft cruise speed to
the similarly named field in the Aircraft List Data section of the editor, and
·
enables the Add To/Update aircraft
List button and, if there is more than one AI variant in the selected aircraft
folder, also the Add All to Aircraft List button.
Click on one of those
buttons.
8.5 Editing an Aircraft Already in the
Aircraft List – To edit 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 This Aircraft.
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 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, such as World of
AI (WoAI), and of AI flight plans, such as AIG Alpha-India Group, specify a cruise
speed of about 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 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
file by clicking on Aircraft / Restore Cruise Speeds. As when creating a new Aircraft List, you
will be given the opportunity to select FS9, FSX or a custom set of aircraft
folders to be used as reference for then restored cruise speeds.
8.7
Deleting Aircraft – To delete
an aircraft from the Aircraft List,
select the aircraft to be deleted and either right-click on the Aircraft List and
select Delete Selected Aircraft from the menu presented or click on the Aircraft / Delete 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.
8.8 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 Aircraft in Traffic
File. 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 normally 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 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.
For stock airport data, you
may specify use of the base data provided with AI Flight lanner, 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.
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
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 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 term "AI Flight Planner" 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 file AI Flight Planner.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, 2009 - Don
Grovestine