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[Pilots of the Caribbean]

i already read all the posts concerning this problem, but none of the hints and tipps led to a final solution.
my WOAI traffic touches down in the water in varying distances (from only a couple of hundred feets to several miles) most of the time. happens to md83s, 737. airbus. interestingly the 744 seems to always gets a perfect landing. all other traffic is not affected (i.e. GA props and business jets, dehavilland turboprops and everything thats smaller then the general airline jets).


this is no afcad problem. someone already mentioned that this has to do something with the internal workings of how FS9 handles the approach on runway 9 without ILS for AI. they do the visual approach and crash through the "hard surfarce" at ~2000ft, then are not able to hold this height with gears and flaps down.

i tried to give the AI aircrafs more lift through the flight tuning. that kinda worked, but of course had tremendous effect on their landing behavior (ever saw a 737 slowly gliding down on the runway at around 60 kias? )

then i tried to remove the loading weight of passengers. lighter plane, better stability? didnt worked out.

changing all flightplans (with ttools) that go to TNCM to FL310 didnt do the trick either.

setting visibility to <3 miles (as suggested) seems to work. maybe theres a way to hack something so TNCM always thinks its <3 visibility, while having the weather set to normal ~40miles visibility (i dont want to fly around the caribbean without seeing anything ).

this not just happens in the first 15 minutes (where it seems normal that AI behaves stupid until everything is sorted out).

there was something mentioned about the ATC AI distance and some point that is used to get AI on the approach and that this point is too close to TNCM. so i wonder if there is any way to change any of this for TNCM in the fs9 internals. maybe some hex editing, xml modifcation. whatever.

maybe changing something so the AI use instrumental approach on tncm.

anything :/

maybe its a problem with the flight dynamics all WOAI aircrafts use and other traffic is not affected, i would just love to fix this problem somehow, if only someone could give me some more insights, as all my amateurish tries lead to no good results.


EDIT: after updating all the WOAI traffic airlines that fly to TNCM with Jan Martins improved (more realistic) flight dynamics a lot of testing and waiting and planespotting i had excellent results that mostly solve the problems i was having. the initial AI spawn of course still show the well known weird behavior but after a few minutes all the arriving traffic is able to approach correctly now.

i used ai separation and the fs2004 sdk ai toolbox module (which btw is very great as it gives you extrem good control over AI with instant position changes, viewing and whatnot) to monitor the traffic.
i have yet to see how the change of flight dynamics will affect the behavior at other airports but for the moment i am happy with how things worked out for me at TNCM and now can concentrate on my fspassenger winair twotter flights again

[martin[flytampa]]

You could edit the AFcad and insert a (fictional) ILS for runway 9, that works too I think.

[Pilots of the Caribbean]

thanks for the tip but as far as i know the AI traffic does not use the afcad ILS at all. it seems that the ILS in afcads is only used for the user aircraft and ai traffic is handeld differently.

i posted my problems on the WOAI board too and until now got at least one promising answer. alternative fight dynamics for the AI traffic that has the problems with the special tncm approach.

we will see how it turns out

[martin[flytampa]]

Right, it would also need the approach code which is omitted in the good old Afcad. It can be hand-coded (XML) or made with ADE and the resulting "AFX" backported to FS9 I guess. Would still result in having a fictional ILS of course.

[Pilots of the Caribbean]

hmmm. interesting. i am just in the process of testing new FDE's for some of the traffic that goes to TNCM. until now i have mixed results. some planes now always land perfectly (even in the first 15 minutes right after starting FS) while others still behave weird (approaching at 10k feet height, when above the runway starting go-around which then gives a correct landing.

soooo. there is a way to give the tncm afcad a new ILS approach in xml which would allow AI traffic to use that rather then the visual approach landing?
i would rather have a fictional ILS at TNCM that allows my ai traffic to land correctly, than always have to worry about waterlandings

of course i am not asking anyone to do this for me. i gonna try to find out more about it. any ideas where i can find tutorials, examples, help files for this hand-coded approaches?

the positive side effects of all my tweaking and researching is, that i learn so much more about how FS handles ai traffic and how FDEs affect them and whatnot. interesting stuff

while i was writing this i saw 2 american airlines jets land right on point on runway 9 (with the modified FDE's).

we'll see how all of this works out in the end. thanks for taking the time

[Pilots of the Caribbean]

hmm. ADE seems to be not available for me, since i dont have FSX and it needs at least the FSX SDK installed if i understood the requirements correctly.
i will try to find some more infos on xml coded custom approaches.

in the meantime i had more successes with the modified flight dynamics for my woai traffic. haven't seen any waterlandings with them yet, but occasional 10k feet approaches with go-arounds and the 747 corsair always crashes into the water and dissappears