Hello everyone,
I can’t figure out why this is happening.
At Orly airport, LFPO, which I know well in real life, why all the time the AI planes (live traffic) land or take off on the wrong runway, even by adding a plugin it’s the same. looking at the metar which will define the landing or take off runway and listening to the live tower which gives the information to the planes following the metar, in MFS it’s almost always upside down? while the AI aircraft tracking comes from flybyware, I don’t understand why they represent the aircraft on the wrong runway, is it because the runways are 10° apart, or is it because since last year, I think, the runway number has been shifted due to the shift of the magnetic north ?
for example today, the take off is on runway 07 (formerly 08) and the landing is on runway 06, but in the game it is the opposite.
I have no idea how the live traffic works, how about the offline AI traffic? Maybe combined with setting wind manually?
The live traffic is really bugged anyway, I often see planes land and then disappear instead of vacating the runway and taxiing to the gate, they are cleared for VOR approaches where an ILS is available, its quite a mess…
From my observation, I believe the live traffic follows real world traffic until it gets close to the destination airport. Then the local simulation takes over and the planes no longer follow real world. As you said, it is “upside down” and the planes end up landing the wrong way or wrong runway compared to what the real world counterpart did. The same is true for flights generated at the airport. They takeoff according to the local simulation then once far enough away, they try to get back to the real world track.
Yeah its buggy , the other day when I was waiting for clearance to take off from ATC, a plane was on final and then when it touched down stayed on the runway and did not taxi. Ended up having to take off whilst the plane was still on the runway.
Often just disappear too.
This would explain why there is so much time difference between the real and the game,
Iirc There is 15min delay from RL
I often see planes land and then disappear instead of vacating the runway and taxiing to the gate,
Would that be from them turning off their transponder. I am not a pilot, but do you have to keep it on through taxi and parking?
I haven’t checked since, but at the time there was up to 45 minutes difference, with the few planes displayed, they may have improved the thing…
Usually you turn off TCAS not the transponder. Transponder should activated upon aircraft movement and be turned off upon parking brake set at the gate.
I know that in xplane for example with the live traffic plugin, you can see the aircraft appear or disappear at the gate, while their transponder is turned off, so I guess the information does not come from the transponder.
Perhaps it is the stand-by position that activates the transponder, visible from the tower, but not from other aircraft?
The thing is, there’s a very high possibility that the real world METAR you’re looking at doesn’t actually match the conditions in the simulator. The probability that a real world METAR will actually match the conditions in the sim are pretty low from my experience. Sometimes they will, but most of the time, they don’t. METAR is based on “right now” observations of a particular airport or airfield. Or at least within the hour. Sim “live” weather is based on forecasts made 12+ hours in advance by MeteoBlue, not actual weather conditions. Just like any other forecast, sometimes it’s right, sometimes it’s not. LIke the old joke goes, the weather forecast is 75% right, 50% of the time.
From my observations, live traffic will follow the actual routes the real world traffic followed 15 or so minutes prior. However, when it comes to the approach, they’ll be assigned a runway based on actual wind conditions in the sim at the time of their arrival vs using the runways the real world flights used.
That runway may not even be the active runway stated in the ATIS report for that airport you’ll hear in the sim, as the ATIS and active runways are based on the conditions on the world map at the time you set up your flight, not on actual conditions in the sim. And those conditions seen in the world map typically aren’t even remotely close to the conditions of the live weather in the simulator.
Transponder should not be set standby until parked at the gate. But flightaware likely relies on receivers in people their homes so guess you are right about that.
I noted that the simu takes by default the runway according to the wind direction without worrying about the runways used in real life, but it sometimes makes mistakes, because just now by default it gave me the runway 24 at takeoff while the wind was 138°, while even without the metar of the moment, it should have selected the runway 07 as in real life, I have the impression that the sim is lost with the crosswinds
Do this and you’ll understand what I’m getting at…
When you set up a flight in the world map, make note of what the wind conditions are at your departure and arrival airports.
Once you’re in the sim, compare that to the ATIS at both airports and what the active runways are. You’ll discover:
- ATIS and active runways FOR YOU at both airports are strictly based on what was reported in the world map
- Weather in the sim and weather reported on the world map most often don’t even come close to matching up. Sometimes they do, but I think that’s more out of luck.
- Active runways ATC will assign for takeoff and departure to AI is based on actual wind conditions in the sim
- the runways YOU are assigned are based on the world map conditions, which probably won’t match actual conditions.
In some cases, you may find yourself taking off or landing from the opposite end of the runway that’s active for AI. I’ve had that happen all the time. Actual wind is 260, AI planes are being assigned RWY27, but the world map said wind was 100, so I’m using RWY9 with AI traffic actively using the runway in the opposite direction.