8 replies to this topic

[Liberty Air]

I'm quite certain this must've been asked sometime in the past, and I have tried searching through the previous postings, but did not find an answer.

Anywho, I believe this to be an AFCAD related issue, because this problem only comes up at airports where I install addon secenery with a new afcad, or even just a new AFCAD for a default airport.  Have not seen this problem at airports using stock AFCAD.

The problem is when I listen to the Airport ATIS, and it includes many additional visual approach runways that don't exist.  The airports usual runways are listed (Ex: 18L, 18R for KTPA - Tampa), but a whole mess of additional visual runways appear (ex: 1L, 1C, 1R, 2, 3, 4L, 4R, 5, 6, 7, 8L, 8C, 8R).   FS9 ATC will even assign visual clearances to some of these ficticious runways, and the aircraft end up going missed.  Unless of course the airport is under IFR conditions, then only the ILS runways will be listed in the ATIS.

I thought this would be AFCAD related, and guessing that perhaps FS9 is misinterpreting blank (unassigned) taxiways as runways, depending on which directional heading they are pointed.  So I went through the KTPA AFCAD, found allot of Blank Taxiways and made sure that all were assigned a designation (T1, J3 etc).  However; there was no improvement.

Is this AFCAD related?  If not, then I should probably post to a different forum.  If it is AFCAD related, what else can I try to correct the problem, if anything?  Thanks in advance!!

[IBtheSarge]

Liberty Air, on May 6 2008, 10:00 PM, said:

Is this AFCAD related?  If not, then I should probably post to a different forum.  If it is AFCAD related, what else can I try to correct the problem, if anything?
Thanks in advance!!

Not AFCAD related; the only thing AFCAD does is allow you to insert a frequency for ATIS, nothing more.  The sim's engine generates the data broadcast on that frequency.  Take a look at other airports around the one with which you are experiencing the problem .... do those runway call-outs apply to any of the nearby airports?  Rather than broadcast multiple ATIS messages in a single, general locale, the sim may simply be combining ATIS info for all of the nearby airports into a single broadcast.

[Liberty Air]

Sarge,

Thanks for the reply, and what you say sure makes allot of sense.  But if this is true, then how come I didn't have this problem when I was still using the default/stock AFCAD?  The frequencies of both the stock and the addon AFCAD are all the same for ATIS, Ground, Tower, ILS etc.  At least for Tampa (KTPA).

I had the same issue with O'Hare (KORD) where the stock AFCAD was ok, one add-on AFCAD gave me an extra 10-15 visual runways, but then I tried a newer AFCAD and the problem went away.  So it has to be something in the AFCAD.  I'll try as you suggest to look at the ATIS frequency, and see if there's something there that I can change, compared to the stock AFCAD.

Liberty Air

Edited by Liberty Air, 15 May 2008 - 12:15 AM.

[IBtheSarge]

Liberty Air, on May 15 2008, 01:15 AM, said:

sure makes allot of sense.  But if this is true, then how come I didn't have this problem when I was still using the default/stock AFCAD?

The sim's defaults are hard-coded and work (for the most part ) as intended by Microsoft.  Depending on the skill and knowledged of the 3rd party designer, that can be tampered with and produce myriad problems that the sim simply cannot resolve because the 3rd party addons are not in the sim's engine.

Liberty Air, on May 15 2008, 01:15 AM, said:

The frequencies of both the stock and the addon AFCAD are all the same for ATIS, Ground, Tower, ILS etc.  At least for Tampa (KTPA).

And now the question becomes, "Did the designer add to, or take away from, the original .bgl file?"  When you redesign an existing airdrome, you are modifying that data in the original .bgl file (which also contains other airdromes in the area as well) with another .bgl file that -- hopefully -- carried the other airdromes' data forward.  A slip-up and changes can be made where changes were not intended to be made.

Liberty Air, on May 15 2008, 01:15 AM, said:

I had the same issue with O'Hare (KORD) where the stock AFCAD was ok, one add-on AFCAD gave me an extra 10-15 visual runways, but then I tried a newer AFCAD and the problem went away.

And therein is the key .... the difference in how meticulous a particular 3rd party designer is when modifying an existing .bgl file for an existing airport.  I can assure you 100% -- the ONLY interface AFCAD has with the sim's ATIS is the assignment of a frequency for it.  AFCAD does not deal with ANY of the information broadcast over the ATIS frequency ... that is wholly within the sim itself, not AFCAD.

[Liberty Air]

Thanks for the advice/lesson Sarge, but I think I managed to solve my own problem.  

I used my AFCAD editor to open the AFCADs in question and began to browse through all of the options.  I went to the option used to view the runway listings, in this case for O'Hare, and got a long listing of runways.  So the extra visual runways actually exist in the AFCAD itself, so now the question was where!  The real runways, 4L-22R, 4R-22L, 18-36, 32L-14R, 32R-14L, 9L-27R and 9R-27L were listed with their proper lengths and widths.  The visual runways were all listed as having a length/width of 10x10, or 100x100, or something like that.  In addition to these wierd size parameters, these visual runways all had lattitude/longitude coordinates, that were miles away from the airport itself.  All these short visual runways had the same coordinates, and sure enough when I moved my AFCAD editor over to this area, there they were, arranged in a fan-like fashion, out in the middle of nowhere.  So first, just to be sure, I made a backup copy of the AFCAD.  Always a safe thing to do.  Then I highlighted each of these small visual runways, and simply deleted them.  End of problem!

Now getting back to what you said about the 3rd Party folks.  These people went to allot of trouble to create an updated AFCAD for us to use, including the badly needed extra gate spaces, and some even go through the trouble to assign the gate spaces to their specific airlines that use them in real life.  Why on earth would they then go that extra mile to add 5-7 bogus visual runways, miles away from the actual airport, so that when you tune into the ATIS, you spend 4 minutes listening to it rattle off all of those extra runways, that serve absolutely no purpose??

Since I have been adding/editing AFCADs for airports all over the world, I probably have plenty more the like one mentioned above, but at least now I know how to go about fixing it.  If only I had made a list!

[IBtheSarge]

johnfromoz, on Jun 2 2008, 02:47 AM, said:

Liberty Air, on May 29 2008, 01:36 AM, said:

... Why on earth would they then go that extra mile to add 5-7 bogus visual runways, miles away from the actual airport, so that when you tune into the ATIS, you spend 4 minutes listening to it rattle off all of those extra runways, that serve absolutely no purpose??

Sounds to me like "star runways" which are a trick used to activate crosswind runways (from memory). Worth Googling if you need to know more.

BINGO! johnfromoz, or (as Marty Feldman would say if he were still alive) "On the nosey!"     Those are INDEED the STAR runways for permitting use of crosswind runways at a particular location, in this case -- Ohare.

[Liberty Air]

Great, now I have to back into the sim at some future point and head over to O'Hare to see what runways are in use.  Normally they have three.  Something tells me that the backup copy I made might very well end up back where it was, and me listening to the phone book of runways on the ATIS.

[Liberty Air]

Yep they are the indeed the STAR runways.  Even though they are set to be closed for takeoffs and landings, FS9 ATC still randomly assigns visual approaches to these runways, and AI Aircraft end up going missed again and again.  Small nuisance and it's not a perfect world, not yet anyway.

What I have noticed however; depending on the AFCAD author, who creates this type of AFCAD to active cross-wind or multiple runways.  Some authors only include a few STAR runways, four or so, while others almost fill the compass dial.  So perhaps, using some experimentation, it may still be possible to remove a few of them, and still have cross-wind runways in use.  It wouldn't be a cure, just a temporary bandage.