Airports should be able to favor certain runways, not simply based on wind direction. Many real-world airports have preferred arrival and departure runways as well as a designated “calm-wind runway” when wind is less than a few knots in any direction. This is often for convenience, noise abatement (might be dependent on time of day), nearby airspace limitations, runway gradient, or terrain/obstructions.
The current state of the sim is that ATC and the AI will pick a runway based solely on the wind. However, using the SDK, a runway can be flagged as entirely closed for takeoff or landing (or both), which is sometimes the case, but not very realistic either. Runways not being used for takeoff or landing is often a preferential, “usually” thing that can be overridden when traffic, weather, or temporary closures dictate. There are some airports that have crosswind runways that are only used for small aircraft (or maybe landing only for large aircraft) when conditions dictate. Further, some runways are closed entirely to jets, or aircraft exceeding a certain weight, for example.
With career mode now being heavily used and people running into all sorts of problematic pathing, there is no better time to address this.
This wish is to add a flag to the SDK and AI pathing that allows for designation of preferential runway usage for takeoff or landing when certain conditions are not exceeded (wind for sure, maybe aircraft weight and type, and/or a combination of).
I would happily fix this in the world hub.
Examples from the US chart supplement:
Here’s Oakland - you can see how extreme the if/ands get here, and I’m not calling for this type of complexity, but I think it can be approximated.
