It seems more and more people are trying to get the AI thing happening. So I have decided to try and help with a little step by step guide to how its done manually (no PAI installers etc.)

Step 1, Must have files,
To begin you need to have these programs;
1. Afcad (So you can add parking to your airports) http://library.avsim.net/esearch.php?CatID=fs2004afcd&DLID=46238
2. Ttools (Adds the Aircraft and Flightplans)
http://library.avsim.net/esearch.php?CatID=fs2004ai&DLID=34731
3. Editvoicepak (This is optional but is well worth it to bring your AI alive)
http://www.editvoicepack.com/

For Ttools and Afcad add a new folder to your FS9 folder called AI Utilities and save them in there.

1. Afcad- There are two ways of adding Afcad files, you can do them yourself based on airport charts, info off airport websites etc. or you can download them off avsim.com or flightsim.com. If you are saving from the web they need to be saved in the scenery folder in the addon scenery section of FS9. Its fairly easy to navigate and learn how to use. We will come back to Afcad later in the tutorial.

2. Ttools- This little program is the heart of your AI, upon unzipping go to collect the purple collect airports logo. Once this is complete there are really only 4 files you will be using, the red Ttools program, and 3 notepad files named aircraft, flightplans and airports.

3. Editvoicepak- This will add to the ATC experience by allowing extra ATC aircraft callsigns, airports etc.

Adding the Aircraft.
Stick mainly with AI-Aardvark, EvolveAi and FS Painter where you can. As I live in Sydney we are going to use a Virgin Blue 737-800 winglet version as an example.
#1 - Go to http://www.ai-aardvark.com/ and in the aircraft repaints section click on the 737-800 http://www.ai-aardvark.com/aiaircraft/repaints/737_800/737_800.html, there are two models available for the B738 each download repaint must match the download model, so we want the 737-800 Base Model Winglet version. Save this to your fs9 aircraft folder. Once its done you have the base for all 737-800 Ai-Aardvark, with winglets repaints. Next you need the Virgin Blue textures, save these into your unzipped base model. Unzip when downloaded then copy the file marked texture.xxx (the xxx could be called anything from virgin to DJ) into the 737-800 folder and you have your first plane ready to be added to AI schedules. ***Don't be alarmed that the AI-Aardvarks don't appear in the Select Aircraft drop down menus in FS9 they are not meant to be flown *****

#2- Making the aircraft ready for AI flying. In your FS9 aircraft folder go and find you AI-Aardvark 737-800 Base Pack make sure that the files (model, sound, aircraft.cfg files are directly inside the folder that appears inside the aircraft folder or they will not work). Remember what the Virgin Blue texture folder is called e.g texture.virgin. Open the aircraft.cfg file and it will look something like this,

[fltsim.0]
title= Boeing 737-800 Virgin Blue Winglets
sim=aia_737_NG
model=no_refl
panel=
sound=
texture=virgin
atc_id=VH-VOW
atc_airline=Virgin
atc_flight_number=505
ui_manufacturer=Aardvark
ui_type=Boeing 737-800
ui_variation=Virgin Blue (Winglets)
description=AI Aardvark 737-800
atc_id_color=0000000000
visual_damage=1
atc_parking_codes=VOZ
atc_parking_types=GATE

You must make sure that the texture file is named exactly the same as the texture file you have in the aircraft folder otherwise you are going to have lots of pretty white planes flying around. You can change the title line if you wish (don't touch title= though) I did change the one above from the default to Boeing 737-800 Virgin Blue Winglets. And make sure the atc_airline= is the correct callsign.
Next scroll further down the aircraft.cfg file until you find this,

[Reference Speeds]
flaps_up_stall_speed=122.0 //Knots True (KTAS)
full_flaps_stall_speed=103.0 //Knots True (KTAS)
cruise_speed=200.0 //Knots True (KTAS)
max_mach = 0.86
max_indicated_speed = 340 //Red line (KIAS)

Change only the cruise speed to 200.0 if its a jet aircraft and to 160.0 or 170.0 if its a prop. Once this has been done you have the changes ready to add it to TTools.

#3 Open your red Ttools icon, on the right hand side you will see a column FS2004 Traffic files, click on the traffic030528.bgl until it highlights it grey and press decompile. Now open the file in AI Utilites folder that downloaded with Ttools called Aircraft030538 this will open in notepad and list all of the default aircraft that comes with FS9. Now you need to add your Virgin Blue aircraft, the last aircraft listed on that file should be,
AC#59,62,"Vickers Vimy Transatlantic"

You simply add the next number in the sequence so it will be
AC#60,
then the airspeed that you changed in the aircraft.cfg to 200 knots, if you didn't change it, or whatever you changed the cruise speed to it must exactly match in this file, so in our example it was
200,
and finally the aircraft name itself, simply copy the title line (excluding title=) like so
"Boeing 737-800 Virgin Blue Winglets" -> you MUST add the apostrophes around the this part. So when you are done this is how it will read,
AC#60,200,"Boeing 737-800 Virgin Blue Winglets"

Repeat this step with each plane you add by just adding the next number in the sequence. Now go back to Ttools and press compile. Make a note of what the aircraft number was in this case AC#60.

#4- Its flightplan time, this does take some getting used to. Go back to Ttools and again decompile, this time open the flightplan030528 file these are the flightplans used by Orbit, Landmark and Global Freightways etc. As I like flying with real world airlines I simply copied these to a file in my documents in case I wanted to use them later. Once that was done I deleted all of the out of flightplans030528 file. To write the flightplan you must convert all local times to GMT.
Below is a daily flight for Virgin Blue,
AC#60,VHVBF,10%,24Hr,IFR,20:29:46,@21:54:51,310,F,0203,YBBN,22:59:53,@00:29:53,300,F,0216,YSSY,01:59:53,@03:24:58,370,F,0225,YBBN,06:00:00,@07:30:00,360,F,0252,YSSY,09:00:00,@10:24:44,350,F,0253,YBBN,10:59:53,@12:29:53,340,F,0276,YSSY

AC#60 - This is the aircraft number you assigned in Aircraft030528 file.
VH-VBF - The aircrafts registration
10%- This is used in connection with the traffic density slider, I always use 10% as my default when typing the flightplans.
24Hr- There are several different times to add to this it can be 2Hr, 4Hr, 8Hr, 12Hr, 24Hr, Week. If you add anything under 24Hr you will get the same flight every 2,4,8, or 12 hours if you want it to look like real world stick with 24Hr or WEEK (which we will get to later).
IFR- You can have your flights either IFR or VFR
Then comes the flight times this one departs Sydney at 20:29 GMT 10:29AM Local and arrives in Brisbane at 21:54 GMT 11:54AM Local, you will notice a @ symbol being used this will force the plane to arrive at that time and if you lowered the cruise speed to 200 knots earlier you MUST use this symbol.
310- This is the flight level that it will climb to
F- This means ATC will call the plane by Airline and flight number e.g. "Virgin 203" adding and R instead of F will have ATC calling it "VBF"
YBBN- This is the airport code, you must start the days flying at the airport you are going to end the days flying at if you are using 2,4,8,12, or 24 hour flight plans. So in the case above we depart Sydney for Brisbane and the last flight on the plan is 276 to YSSY.

You must write the plan as complete with commas, above using GMT to show departure and arrival times, the airline websites all have timetables which makes planning easy just convert the times shown to GMT and you should have no problems.

For International flights its largely the same principle, but you add WEEK instead of 2,4,8,12 or 24Hrs. And they are a longer flight plan as it goes on a 7 day week instead of 24 Hours, below is a QF744 weekly flight plan,
AC#72,VHOJS,10%,WEEK,IFR,5/23:43:08,@6/15:04:45,330,F,0149,KLAX,6/21:59:25,@0/10:32:28,320,F,0008,YSSY,0/12:13:22,@0/22:00:18,380,F,0031,WSSS,0/23:33:49,@1/13:14:32,380,F,0031,EGLL,1/23:03:56,@2/11:54:12,390,F,0010,WSSS,2/13:43:43,@2/19:41:47,390,F,0010,YMML,2/21:22:41,@2/22:41:26,350,F,0010,YSSY,3/05:49:38,@3/15:37:48,320,F,0005,WSSS,3/16:56:33,@4/05:35:45,320,F,0005,EDDF,4/23:50:52,@5/11:54:23,310,F,0006,WSSS,5/13:59:53,@5/19:17:21,310,F,0006,YSSY

Again all times are GMT at each local airport and the day/time must be added as above, these take some time to get used to and will cause many headaches along the way, but if you want to 5 or 6 QF 744 parked at LAX just as in real life its worth the effort. The only worry about arrivals and departures is that the last leg must arrive at the departure airport used in the start of the flight plan.

Go back to Ttools and hit compile, if you get a 'Red' Message there is something wrong with the flightplan a lot of times you may have added a . instead of , they must be written perfectly or it will not compile.

#5- Finally to make your airlines park in there correct spots go into AFCAD again and find Aircraft editor in the tools section, highlight the desired aircraft in the list then match it to a the name in the parking code selector, that don't have to be identical, for instance I use Qatar Air Cargo for my Qantas domestic so they don't park at the International Terminal. I suggest reading the tutorial in Afcad on how to assign gates, parking codes etc.


This hopefully may help someone out there looking to give AI a go, I accept no responsibilty for lost files but if a novice like me can work it out it can't be that hard, if you require any further help please drop me a line.

Regards
Mark

Thanks so much! You really helped me improve making AI, I was unaware of quite a few things.  

KPDX  

Hi,

Sorry to drag up the past but

When i open up Ttools i get, just Traffic.BGL, i then Decompile that and get
Aircraft.txt
Airports.txt
flightplans.txt
Airports_2004.txt.

WEres the Aircraft030538 file? is it not there because ultimate traffic is there?

Also when i click on just one of the .txt it highlights 2 others.

Rgds --James--

Does adding AI affect add-ons like Traffic 2005? I want to add my own AI at the airports I fly mainly to, but don't want either one or the other.

Too bad that doesn't work for FSX!!!

Quoting Dellatorre (Reply 4): Too bad that doesn't work for FSX!!!

Sorry I wrote it for FS9 and won't be upgrading, so can't help you out with FSX.

Quoting QFA380 (Reply 3): Does adding AI affect add-ons like Traffic 2005? I want to add my own AI at the airports I fly mainly to, but don't want either one or the other.

I don't have either Traffic 2005 or Ultimate Traffic, I make my own traffic files, it is very time consuming but I prefer to do it that way. Im pretty sure you should be able to add you own flight plans to work with those two add ons. Maybe try asking over on avsim of flightsim message boards if you can.

Quoting Jamesbuk (Reply 2): When i open up Ttools i get, just Traffic.BGL, i then Decompile that and get Aircraft.txt Airports.txt flightplans.txt Airports_2004.txt. WEres the Aircraft030538 file? is it not there because ultimate traffic is there? Also when i click on just one of the .txt it highlights 2 others.

The actual files themselves are notepad files found in the folder, you use the Ttools program simply to compile and decompile. Im not sure why they are not called Aircraft030538 they are in mine so maybe it is something to do with UT. Click decompile on Ttools then go back to where you have the unzipped Ttools folder located and you should see three notepad files Aircraft, Airports and flightplans these are where you make your changes then when you are done go back to the Ttools program and click compile.

Hope that was some help
Mark

QF108 wrote:

#4- Its flightplan time, this does take some getting used to. Go back to Ttools and again decompile, this time open the flightplan030528 file these are the flightplans used by Orbit, Landmark and Global Freightways etc. As I like flying with real world airlines I simply copied these to a file in my documents in case I wanted to use them later. Once that was done I deleted all of the out of flightplans030528 file. To write the flightplan you must convert all local times to GMT.
Below is a daily flight for Virgin Blue,
AC#60,VHVBF,10%,24Hr,IFR,20:29:46,@21:54:51,310,F,0203,YBBN,22:59:53,@00:29:53,300,F,0216,YSSY,01:59:53,@03:24:58,370,F,0225,YBBN,06:00:00,@07:30:00,360,F,0252,YSSY,09:00:00,@10:24:44,350,F,0253,YBBN,10:59:53,@12:29:53,340,F,0276,YSSY

AC#60 - This is the aircraft number you assigned in Aircraft030528 file.
VH-VBF - The aircrafts registration
10%- This is used in connection with the traffic density slider, I always use 10% as my default when typing the flightplans.
24Hr- There are several different times to add to this it can be 2Hr, 4Hr, 8Hr, 12Hr, 24Hr, Week. If you add anything under 24Hr you will get the same flight every 2,4,8, or 12 hours if you want it to look like real world stick with 24Hr or WEEK (which we will get to later).
IFR- You can have your flights either IFR or VFR
Then comes the flight times this one departs Sydney at 20:29 GMT 10:29AM Local and arrives in Brisbane at 21:54 GMT 11:54AM Local, you will notice a @ symbol being used this will force the plane to arrive at that time and if you lowered the cruise speed to 200 knots earlier you MUST use this symbol.
310- This is the flight level that it will climb to
F- This means ATC will call the plane by Airline and flight number e.g. "Virgin 203" adding and R instead of F will have ATC calling it "VBF"
YBBN- This is the airport code, you must start the days flying at the airport you are going to end the days flying at if you are using 2,4,8,12, or 24 hour flight plans. So in the case above we depart Sydney for Brisbane and the last flight on the plan is 276 to YSSY.

You must write the plan as complete with commas, above using GMT to show departure and arrival times, the airline websites all have timetables which makes planning easy just convert the times shown to GMT and you should have no problems.

For International flights its largely the same principle, but you add WEEK instead of 2,4,8,12 or 24Hrs. And they are a longer flight plan as it goes on a 7 day week instead of 24 Hours, below is a QF744 weekly flight plan,
AC#72,VHOJS,10%,WEEK,IFR,5/23:43:08,@6/15:04:45,330,F,0149,KLAX,6/21:59:25,@0/10:32:28,320,F,0008,YSSY,0/12:13:22,@0/22:00:18,380,F,0031,WSSS,0/23:33:49,@1/13:14:32,380,F,0031,EGLL,1/23:03:56,@2/11:54:12,390,F,0010,WSSS,2/13:43:43,@2/19:41:47,390,F,0010,YMML,2/21:22:41,@2/22:41:26,350,F,0010,YSSY,3/05:49:38,@3/15:37:48,320,F,0005,WSSS,3/16:56:33,@4/05:35:45,320,F,0005,EDDF,4/23:50:52,@5/11:54:23,310,F,0006,WSSS,5/13:59:53,@5/19:17:21,310,F,0006,YSSY

Mark

I know this is bringing back a 12 year old discussion thread, but I believe the issue I am experiencing stems from the percentage in the Flightplan. Last night, I landed my EK A380 I flew from SIN to DXB. When i landed, I was not given the option to taxi to a gate once I exited the runway. Looking at this post and watching a very informative YouTube video, I am coming to believe i was misled in another YouTube video on installing AI traffic by changing the percentage int he Flightplan to 100% for all aircraft. My plan when i get home is to remove all installed flight plans and change every flight plan to no more than 10%. I am also curious as to what I should set my AI traffic at in the FS2004 Settings page, and how redoing my Flight plans to be either 1% or 10% will impact how much (or how little) AI traffic I see. I have already installed complete fleet AI packages for ANA, ANA Cargo, JAL, JAL Cargo, KAL, KAL Cargo, Air Busan, Singapore Airlines, Singapore Cargo, JetStar Asia, EK, EK Cargo, Etihad, Etihad Crystal Cargo, Kuwait Airlines, Gulf Air, Oman Air, Qatar Airways and Qatar Cargo. While flying and after I landed at DXB last night, I saw plenty of AI traffic, but I couldn't get a parking spot. All advise is appreciated.

If you are on FS2004 / FS9 and you do not get a parking spot, did you first of all contact ground after landing AND did you properly turn off from the runway and align nicely along the taxiways when you exit the runway? If you turn off the active runway into grass and not taxiway, you will not get the proper handoff to contact ground.

If you contacted ground and you were not given the option in the menu to park, first thing to check is whether there are any free gate per your plane size.

If there are no free gate because you have so many traffic and not enough large gates, what I usually do is to change the gate settings in AFCAD to create sufficient number of large gates with gate size large enough to cover all the peak traffics that need a gate at any time of day.

If you want proof of this, try land into DXB at the same time of day as your last flight but fly in using a Cessna. It will increase the chance of getting a gate as a Cessna can take a gate of almost any size in an airport, but A380 cannot park at a gate of anything smaller than an A380 gate.

Regarding the %, I believe what it meant is if the AI flight plan wrote 10%, and in the game you set the traffic density between 1-9%, you will NOT see the flight operates. If the density is set between 10-100%, you will see the flight operates.

mdavies06 wrote:

If you are on FS2004 / FS9 and you do not get a parking spot, did you first of all contact ground after landing AND did you properly turn off from the runway and align nicely along the taxiways when you exit the runway? If you turn off the active runway into grass and not taxiway, you will not get the proper handoff to contact ground.

If you contacted ground and you were not given the option in the menu to park, first thing to check is whether there are any free gate per your plane size.

If there are no free gate because you have so many traffic and not enough large gates, what I usually do is to change the gate settings in AFCAD to create sufficient number of large gates with gate size large enough to cover all the peak traffics that need a gate at any time of day.

If you want proof of this, try land into DXB at the same hour as your last flight but fly in using a Cessna. It will increase the chance of getting a gate as a Cessna can take a gate of almost any size in an airport, but A380 will not.

Regarding the %, I believe what it meant is if the AI flight plan wrote 10%, and in the game you set the traffic density between 1-9%, you will NOT see the flight operates. If the density is set between 10-100%, you will see the flight operates.

Yes, I turned off the active onto a taxiway. usually as soon as I turn off if gives me instructions to taxi to the gate. I think the biggest problem is that I have my AI setting as such that my AI planes that do 2-3 hour hops, are being utilized once a day, and are sitting for the rest of the time taking up a free parking space. i also need to remove most, if not all, of the the 100%, and bump it down to 1%-10%. This way the AI aircraft will spend less time on the ground. I've done very little at work today except to search for this.

Are you using 3rd party plans or are you creating your own plans? Usually a good 3rd party plan mimics the real world, so should have around 12 hours activity per plane per day at least.

If you decrease the traffic to a very small level (like say 1%), then yes the gate issue may be resolved, however this comes at the expense of not seeing many AI planes at all which is unrealistic, so if you want maximum activity on the ground you should consider the option of creating dummy gates and/or enlarge existing gates via AFCAD. Remember you are talking about DXB here - the default AFCAD airport file in FS2004 (from year 2003?) will have less than say 10 widebody and 10 narrowbody gates and no A380 compatible gates. You need huge modifications there using AFCAD by increasing it to say 100 gates at least, with at least 40 A380 gates for example?

If you spend all the effort installing or writing all these plans and then set the AI planes invisible, then it kind of sees the effort go wasted, isn't it? Hence my suggestion above.

You can keep the traffic slider set to 100% but using an AFCAD editor set one of the gates to not have any airlines assigned to it. When you land the airport will be full but you'll have a parking spot!