Flightgear Airports - How-to from beginning to end...

[wkitty42]

NOTE" this is intended to be a living document... as steps in the operation of Flightgear Airports are explained, figured out, and/or clarified this post will be updated with the information... at some point after it is pretty much complete, it may be copied into the wiki - wkitty42 2020 Jul 02

in this post, i will detail the installation and use of Flightgear Airports using its appimage...

1. download the latest appimage from here: https://github.com/Portree-Kid/flightgear-airports/releases
2. place it somewhere convenient...
3. make sure it is executable...
4. click on the image file to execute it...
5. lower left, click on the cog...
6. set the paths...
   
   • it is recommended that you have a local clone of the https://github.com/terrasync/main.git git repo and point the Airports Directory there...
   • at least the Flightgear Directory must point to the directory that contains your FGData directory... the tool will append "/data" to the directory you select here and look in there for the Airports/apt.dat.gz and the AI/Traffic/*.xml files... at least on my linux installation built with the dnc script, i had to add a soft-link named "data" pointing to "fgdata" in the same directory...
     
     

     Code: Select all

     ~/flightgear-dev/release/install/flightgear$ ln -s fgdata data

~/flightgear-dev/release/install/flightgear$ ls -la
total 20
drwxrwxr-x  5 myuser mygroup 4096 Jul  2 10:08 .
drwxrwxr-x  4 myuser mygroup 4096 Jun 19 11:57 ..
drwxrwxr-x  2 myuser mygroup 4096 Jun 19 13:09 bin
lrwxrwxrwx  1 myuser mygroup    6 Jul  1 19:15 data -> fgdata
drwxrwxr-x 33 myuser mygroup 4096 Jun 19 12:48 fgdata
drwxrwxr-x  7 myuser mygroup 4096 Jun 19 12:03 share


7. check the paths for Traffic Directory and APT File to be sure they are pointing to the proper locations for those files...
8. Export Directory should be set to a directory you will use for loading custom scenery... your groundnets will be exported there and you can use FG to watch the AI craft using your new work... in the launcher, you would add this directory as an AddOn scenery directory...
9. make sure your Phi Host Url is correct for your running FG... the main things are
   1. tell your FG to execute its http server with --http=XXXX where XXXX is some unused port number from 1024 to 65535
   2. specify the same port number in the url in the box...
   3. localhost should work fine for most installations...
   4. when your FG is running while you are working in Flightgear Airports, they will communicate via the specified URL...
   5. make sure your email and name are correct for the repo commit messages when you post your groundnet work to the repo for inclusion in FG...
10. above the settings cog is a two-arrow circle... click on it and then click on each of the Scan buttons, one at the time... there should be a blue progress bar to appear at the top of the button list... let the Scan complete and then click the next one... you should only have to do this again if you have a major update of your FG installation...

now that we have the data all loading, it is time to find an airport to work on... i'm wanting to add GA parking to KRDU and some other airports in my area... i want to do this for my GA AI flights so they can fly around to the local airports... so i click on the magnifying glass and type KRDU in the box... click on the blue link below and then close the search box by clicking on the white left pointing triangle in the blue title field at the top...

now we're looking down at our airport... we can scroll in and out... we can see drawn pathways in yellow(?) and object outlines in dark grey(?)... are the yellow lines the existing taxiway lines?

i can click on the Edit button on the bottom of the top right... not sure what i should do next... well, heck... how do i get out of edit mode?

how can i load my own groundnet i've been working on with another tool? should i put it in the export directory and FGA will pick it up from there and allow me to edit it?

[portreekid]

i can click on the Edit button on the bottom of the top right... not sure what i should do next... well, heck... how do i get out of edit mode?

Top right either Undo which gives you the choice of back to last save or back to the GIT version or save. These are likely to move to the airport tab as they are project level and not to do with editing.

how can i load my own groundnet i've been working on with another tool? should i put it in the export directory and FGA will pick it up from there and allow me to edit it?

https://github.com/Portree-Kid/flightge ... /issues/25

[wkitty42]

thanks... i'm still figuring it out

i did finally get my groundnet in place... i ended up replacing the one in my clone of your terrasync/main and then rescanning the groundnets... only had a few errors i was able to correct after some time... not sure how to select lines/nodes and delete them or inject new ones in between...

for my GA craft, i'm trying to figure out how to have a parking with a one way entrance from one side and a one way exit out the other side... they're small enough they can all come in on one of two rows between the parking spots and then turn right into their parking spot... when they go to leave, they would roll forward in the direction they are facing and then turn left onto the one way path leading leading out to the taxiway...

plus, it also dawned on me that FGA doesn't have any way of using my overrides like FG is doing... i have my AI GA flightplan file in a custom location but i had to move it into my fgdata/AI/Traffic/misc for FGA to find it and list my GA airline that has ten craft flying loops out of KRDU and back...

[jtprophet]

I'd like to add to the comment posted by wkitty42 regarding selecting lines/nodes for editing, moving or deleting. My experience has been after doing a check work it says to me that I have an invalid end so sometimes I just have to delete the whole line which usually takes the two end nodes away and draw another line and then finalizing the line by double clicking I am finding that it puts two nodes there; upon a check of course it then reports an invalid end of course.

Thanks,
John

[wkitty42]

i have seen similar... what i do (with 0.0.15) is make some edits, save, edit, then check and see what it says... 0.0.16 is just out and i'm working with it... it brings a change in the parking place area indicator... instead of it being a circle, it is now like a house with the nose of the craft being the central chimney at the peak of the roof... it does help to fix overlaps and has allowed me to see that i can reduce some to a small radius and still have them used properly...

[jtprophet]

I concur on that replication you just described so I am going to uninstall .15 and install .16 and see how it goes.

John

[BecOzIcan]

for my GA craft, i'm trying to figure out how to have a parking with a one way entrance from one side and a one way exit out the other side... they're small enough they can all come in on one of two rows between the parking spots and then turn right into their parking spot... when they go to leave, they would roll forward in the direction they are facing and then turn left onto the one way path leading leading out to the taxiway...

Please refer to wiki in both "Warnings and limitation" and "pushback" sections
http://wiki.flightgear.org/AI_Traffic#W ... imitations

Also refer to tests done in viewtopic.php?f=23&t=37130

Segments in and out of parkpos must have the same heading than the parkpos itself. AI aricrafts cannot "Pivot" on their parkpos

Cheers
Ian

[wkitty42]

yeah, i remember that stuff... what i'm looking at is driving in/out and parking straight between two taxi rows...

eg: craft coming into the parking lot from the bottom right would move upward to one of two left turns... they make the left turn and proceed to their parking spot's right turn... they turn right into the slot and drive forward into the parking position and stop... when they go to leave, they drive forward to the taxi path in front of them and turn left onto the path... when they get to the end, they make another left to head out of the parking lot and onto the main taxiway...

so the question is does a pushback route have to be created even if they are not going to be pushed backward?
if a pushback has to be created, it should go from the parking position center to the taxi path crossing in front of the parking space in the direction the craft is facing?

[BecOzIcan]

so the question is does a pushback route have to be created even if they are not going to be pushed

No; Rolling forward is the default behaviour. It applies to all regular segments.. Please read the wiki first. http://wiki.flightgear.org/AI_Traffic

"The "Roll Forward on my current heading" rules also applies to Parking position with no pushback route. These are often used for smaller propeller aircrafts which "pivot" on their parking position before rolling forward. You cannot currently replicate this pivot behaviour in Flightgear AI"

[wkitty42]

ahh! i missed that... i was also kinda asking about for commercial craft but i get the point now... just gotta try to remember it when i go to use it