Schedule Manager-Arriving Aircraft
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Question. I am using FS traffic to implement heritage defunct airline traffic (ie Braniff, Ozark, etc) Successful at connecting the models in the Aircraft Manager as well as the Schedules in the Schedule manger except for arrivals. The schedule manager only concerns itself with departure time and departures are all working great.
I know that each airport has a .ini file for departures and arrivals but the Schedule manger only updates the departure airport ini file. None of my new schedules arrive at their destination even when confirming destination airport within the sim. Anyone have any clues?
---Jeff
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@TheRealFJM Due to the way we have had to code the arrival traffic in FS Traffic to get them to generate on approach and with reasonable spacing (both requiring a significant amount of code to workaround limitations with the simulator's traffic engine), it is not currently possible for custom flights to generate as arrival traffic.
A few months back we posted a more in-depth explanation of how the arrival traffic generation works in FS Traffic. I've copied that below and that should hopefully give a better understanding of how the arrival system in FS Traffic works:
"Just to give a brief overview of how the arrival traffic works in FS Traffic.
One of the more common support tickets we receive is regarding Ai aircraft frequently going around on approach, either due to traffic on the runway, or more commonly, due to traffic not having the correct separation on approach.
The limitation we face is that the MSFS Ai Traffic / ATC system does not apply any form of separation to the arriving traffic. ATC just directs them to start the approach immediately and does not take into account other traffic in the area.
This then leads directly to another issue we face with the default MSFS traffic system which is when an Ai aircraft performs a go-around, there is a sizeable chance that the aircraft will not receive further instructions from ATC to rejoin the approach. If the Ai aircraft does not receive instructions from ATC it will not know where to fly to, so the aircraft will fly back to the last waypoint on its flight plan (which in our case is the destination airport) and will fly over the airport at a very low altitude.
As MSFS doesn't handle this separation, we have to add separation via code and the only way we have found to do this is by controlling the timing and position of the arrival traffic generation.
So the way the arrival traffic currently works is we take all the arrivals in the 1 hour period the player is currently in, and then space those arrivals out equally over that 1 hour period. For example, if you load into an airport at 1020, we process all of the scheduled arrivals between 1000 and 1059 and then generate them in equal time periods for the duration of that hour (so if there are 6 arrivals scheduled in that hour, an arrival aircraft will generate every 10 minutes). With v1.0.5 we also added a hard limit to this arrival traffic of a maximum frequency of 1 arrival every 3 minutes. From our extensive testing, this provides the best balance of arrival separation and quantity.
As we have to apply a fairly significant amount of code to make sure the arrival traffic is generating correctly and with the best separation, it is not currently possible to add custom flights to the arrival schedules.
We hope that helps clarify the logic behind the arrival system.
To clarify for future reference, the above is all correct using MSFS SU12 and FS Traffic v1.0.5, but this can and likely will change with future sim updates and updates to FS Traffic."
Mark - Just Flight
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Mark,
Thanks for the full response. Makes total sense and understand the current limitations for AI within MSFS. Your solution is quite nice.
So what I have done is delete all of the arrival and departure information in the Airport .ini files and then rebuild them using the scheduling manager. Only issue is that custom schedules within the interface only affect the departure airport .ini files not arrivals as you are only entering departing times. I have a feeling I know this answer but is there a way to program the arrival information using the interface or is the only option to manually plug in the information into the arrival .ini file?
It would be nice if you could add arrival time into the interface then have it update the arrival airport .ini file the same way it does departure but probably only a few of us that would appreciate that level of detail. I am the one weirdo that has rebuilt KDFW airport into a Braniff hub and have 727's departing all day. Would like to have them arrive as well.
---Jeff
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Sadly it's not possible to add any arrival traffic through the Traffic Control Centre. The only way you would be able to add/edit arrival traffic would be to edit the .ini files manually.
Adding the arrival schedules to the Traffic Control Centre is something we have noted on our feature request list for a future update. No firm plans in place at the moment, but it is something I would personally like to see added too.
Mark - Just Flight
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@Mark said in Schedule Manager-Arriving Aircraft:
The only way you would be able to add/edit arrival traffic would be to edit the .ini files manually.
So I gave that a try, adding one airline's flights for one day at a small airport. Making observations at that airport near the times listed in the arrivals schedule, no arrivals occurred. I then observed FS Traffic scheduled arrivals at a bigger airport. The flights touched down from 12 to 37 minutes earlier than times listed in the arrivals schedule. I then tried observing FS Traffic arrivals at another small airport. One arrival was observed touching down 68 minutes later than the time listed in the arrivals schedule, which was later than it's scheduled departure that was observed before it's arrival. Another touchdown was 41 minutes after the time listed in the arrivals schedule.
Not only is it impossible to understand what the arrival time represents in the arrival schedule, but the schedule just doesn't seem relevant other than to make an arrival occur at God only knows the time.
Edit: After further review, the arrivals at a larger airport are only a little early if the "Arrival Time" is considered to be arrival at the gate, so not bad. Arrival schedules for small airports just don't seem to work, with the flights always arriving very late. Manually editing the arrival .ini file to add arrivals does work within the above limitations.
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@Art_P The arrivals are all very heavily custom-coded so that they look and feel correct, but they won't necessarily conform 100% to the schedule data. The simulator isn't capable of handling the correct volume of traffic that is expected at larger airports, as it doesn't apply any separation to the arrival traffic. If we generated all the arrival traffic at the correct times, we would end up with multiple aircraft approaching at the same time, sometimes on top of each other, and a lot of go-arounds. In order to prevent this, we add separation via the way we generate the traffic.
When arrival traffic needs to be generated, the FS Traffic module will process the entire hours' worth of flights based on the current simulator's time (so if we load into an airport at 12:30, the module will process all flights due to arrive between 12:00 and 12:59). All of these flights will then be spaced out in equal time periods in that one hour period, so if there are 6 flights due to arrive in that period, they'll each arrive at 10 minutes intervals. At very busy airports, we have had to place a limit of a maximum of 1 aircraft generating every 3 minutes in order for the arrival spacing to be preserved, so you may not see all scheduled arrivals at busier airports.
That's only taking into account the spacing issues on approach, we also have to take into account other factors such as the distance that Ai traffic is generated from the departure or arrival airport, as that determines whether the Ai traffic is generated on the ground, in the air, or not at all. All of this and more makes it a very complex piece of code to get the arrival traffic working correctly and has a chance to be broken if the arrivals are edited, which is why we don't provide options for modifying the arrival schedules in the Traffic Control Centre.
Mark - Just Flight
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@Mark Thanks for the reply. As indicated in the edit to my post, I find the arrivals at larger airports (MYNN is the example) to be reasonably accurate though I realize this is probably not comparable to the larger airports you must be referencing. On the other hand, is all this fancy coding having a detrimental affect on small airports? Why would arrival time be delayed at an airport with few daily arrivals? A list of examples follows:
MYNN - Saturday
Southwest 1867 Arrival scheduled 12:05, Landed 11:48, -12 minutes
American 1428 Arrival scheduled 12:08, Landed 11:54, -14 minutes
Delta 1907 Arrival scheduled 12:13, Landed 12:00, -13 minutes
American 2877 Arrival scheduled 12:30, Landed 12:05, -25 minutes
Virgin 107 Arrival scheduled 12:50, Landed 12:13. -37 minutesMYAM - Saturday
American 3443 Arrival scheduled 12:01, Landed 13:09, +68 minutes
Western 604 Arrival scheduled 13:00, Landed 13:41, +41 minutesMYAN - Tuesday (schedule by User)
Makers 101 Arrival scheduled 10:00, Landed 11:37, +97 minutes
Makers 301 Arrival scheduled 11:00, Landed 12:18, +78 minutesI realize that FS Traffic is only intended to add realistic looking aircraft activity at the user's departure and arrival airports for a short period of time, and accuracy may not be important. Separately scheduled departures and arrivals results in duplicated parked aircraft, perhaps enhancing the experience at large airports with lots of parking spaces. The FS Traffic methods just don't work very well for me at small airports.
