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Empty airports

Lance, I'm chasing some missing aircraft at the moment. The problem appears to be the FSX doesn't recognize certain aircraft. But that's not your problem.

I compiled your files and the flight plan appears in Traffic Toolbox Explorer. So, assuming you compiled for FSX (the decompile function doesn't identify the target sim version), I suspect you've got a compiled-for-FS9 traffic file in your system. For an explanation of the situation when FS9 and FSX traffic files are mixed, please refer to Section 1.4 of the AIFP user manual.

An easy way to prove this is to place your new traffic file in a scenery folder of its own, enable that folder in the Scenery Library and disable all other add-ons. Unfortunately, if that proves to be the problem, there's no easy way to find the FS9 file other than disabling/re-enabling your other add-ons one at a time.

Also, to be sure its not an interaction with the default traffic, you might also try disabling "trafficAircraft.bgl" in your FSX Scenery\World\scenery folder.

Please let me know how you make out.

Don

EDIT: PS, AIFP doesn't use TTools format airport files, so I'd expect it to be blank. The way to check the airport data is to decompile the traffic file and check the decompiled airport file. That will tell you what AIFP "fed" to the compiler.
 
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Unless they have changed the way they work, My Traffic was the one traffic generator that suppressed all other traffic. I reviewed it back in the days of FS8, and didn't recommend it for that reason. Traffic, Ultimate Traffic, and all of the freebies DON'T work in that way.
 
It "should" be working, but it's not. An AI guru I'm not, but trying to have one 737 fly a two leg FP between two airports shouldn't require a Phd in Computer Science.
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I agree, Lance. But, given the differences between FS9 and FSX AI and the related incompatibilities, sometime it seems necessary.
Tried to use some MyTraffic planes, AIFPC tells me the aircraft folder isn't valid. But it works for MyTraffic.
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The error message you were getting indicates there was no file named "aircraft.cfg" in the folder you selected. What folder were you trying to select?
Try to open the MyTraffic BGL, but AIFPC tells me the name is wrong, that it must be Traffic*.bgl.
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I believe that to be the case. But, i do agree that it appears that MyTraffic traffic files are labelled differently. Can anyone clarify? It's easy to delete the check.
Fps validate, compile and then don't generate any activity. No way to track down whatever file may be the offender, other than to rename BGL files one by one, because they can and are named something other than Traffic*.bgl
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Try compiling for FS9 and load into FSX. If the traffic appears in FSX, that will confirm that the problem you are currently experiencing is due to an errant compiled-for-FS9 file.
And every time I compile, I'm told there's one more plane used than I put in. If I use one, the pop up tells me it's two. If I use three, the pop up says four.
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I don't recognize this as a feature of AIFP. Could you be a little more explicit about what you're doing and what error message you're getting. AIFP doesn't care how many extra airplanes there are; it only objects if some are missing.

Don
 
What time of day are you looking for the flights? Because by my reckoning, they should be taking off from PHLI at about 0500, landing at PHNL at 05:30 taking off PHNL at 06:15 landing at PHLI at 06:45. Does this correspond with your expectations? Oh, and for the rest of the 24 hours, it should be sitting at PHLI. Oh, and with an empty airports file, you won't see anything! Or have I missed something?
 
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A couple of things;

1. The extra aircraft is the "dummy" inserted by AIFP to designate the file as having been compiled to overcome the "37 minute problem". It needs to know this on decompile. (See Section 1.4 of the user manual). It has no effect on the operation of the compiler or FSX that I have been able to determine. If you compile in "raw" mode, you should see only one aircraft - but you'll be susceptible to the "37-minute problem"

2. Now that I know you're using a default aircraft, the first problem report in this thread may be relevant. FSX doesn't seem to like it when the default aircraft.cfg file is modified. Something as simple as adding a new paint for a default aircraft will "upset" FSX. Fortunately, the problem eventually goes away, so I suspect its a cache problem. Try substituting a non-default aircraft that you know is working for AI purposes.

What about the empty airports.txt file????? What's going on there?????
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John, AIFP does not save a TTools-format aircraft file. If feeds the necessary airport info directly to the compiler. You'll note the compiler records two airports and the compile is error-free.

Don
 
Don,
The attacnment looked like a typical TTools output file set. perhaps if AIFP doesn't populate the airports file, it should write a brief explanation comment when it creates it?
 
John, I've just done as you suggested. I wonder, however, if it wouldn't be better to suppress the airports file rather than creating a blank file with explanation.

Don
 
It might actually be better to populate it, so that the user can also run it through TTools, for FS9 use? I know that they can use AIFP to compile for FS9, but it would be easier for packaging as flight plans for the web, for instance. AIFP could totally ignore this file, but perhaps populating it, and making sure that it is complete, would help such users.

Either would be better than an empty airports file, I believe.

I think the conversion function is going to be good news for PAI users, BTW, because the files as extracted from their packages don't always include all airports that they use, and AIFP is well positioned to fill that gap.
 
AIFP is now fully compatible with TTools. (It wasn't before, due to the automatic inclusion of the BOM string in the text files. But that's now sorted out. So, I've done as you suggest, John, and now write the airport file even thought AIFP has no use for it. (But, I can't imagine why anyone would want to take a file created by AIFP and run it through TTools for FS9:confused: But, you haven't steered me wrong yet.)

Don
 
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I'm thinking more of the publication issue - where someone develops flight plans in AIFP, then posts them on, say AVSIM. It would be much easier for anyone to do that if they are TTools compatible, because currently TTools is in use by all of the FS9 brigade (and, unfortunately, by a lot of the FSX users, as well). If airports.txt is empty, people developing flight plans for publishing would be stuck in the last generation of tools, because of the difficulty of manually compiling airports.txt if they were using AIFP without this file being generated. Once most are weaned off TTools onto AIFP, you could drop the file, but until that occurs, I think that not having that data available would tend to inhibit it's use rather than enhance it.
 
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