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FDE philosophy: To get the best balance between realistic flight characteristics at the landing and take-off phases and smooth traffic flow on airports.
FDE characteristics:
1. The Aardvark FDEs are essentially that which came with the default FS2002 Boeing 737-400 with modifications to improve performance as AI. 2. Thrust has been lowered to increase takeoff run. The heavier the real aircraft, the lower the thrust. The lower thrust also goes some way towards fixing the excessive "cruise" speed of AI aircraft but not competely. To fix this problem completely would leave the AI planes with insufficient power to get airborne. The cruise speed issue is academic to scheduling, which is calculated on the figure written in the aircraft.cfg and not on "real" speed. 3. The maximum and empty weights have been reduced. This shortens the landing run, which decreases runway occupancy times, which in turn helps traffic flow. AI planes don’t use high-speed exits and have to get down to taxying speed to exit the runway. Users who would prefer a longer landing roll can increase the weights in the aircraft.cfg file but be warned that once the weight exceeds that of the default 737, other undesirable characteristics can emerge, notably on approach. 4. The drag scalar figures have been reduced. This removes the porpoising as the plane crosses the threshold, which is so apparent in the default 737 air file, and delivers the aircraft much closer to the piano keys, again helping to reduce runway occupancy times. On the negative side, the planes tend to be a little firmer on touchdown. Adjusting the drag scalar figures back towards the default setting of 1.00 will increase float but also the porpoising. Traffic flow and other issues: There several sites developing real world schedules for FS2002. Unfortunately, the sorts of real traffic flows at major hubs cannot be duplicated in FS2002 for the AI is simply not that sophisticated. Anything past 12 arrivals an hour for each active runway can create problems of formation approaches, excessive go arounds and worst of all, runway grid lock as a plane lands without clearance, then exits the runway between taxiways! Careful use of AITM to stagger arrival times to improve traffic flow eventually defeats the purpose of real life scheduling. Real life schedules are really for virtual aircraft spotters, not flight sim pilots. To fly your own plane in an AI environment made up of real schedules will effectively guarantee mid-air collisions on approach as your plane gets rundown by fast-moving AI traffic. Aardvark planes won’t fix the inherent problems with the AI engine - what they will do is maximize the frame rates and if scheduled carefully, add first-class AI traffic to the Flight Sim pilot’s environment. |