Custom missions: Landing patterns

    • New

    It is done: The Aerofly Landegerät has created the first downloadable missions file, landing patterns for Martha's Vineyard. The missions files are hosted on the Filebase of Flight-Sim.org.

    First results of landing pattern generator

    The Landegerät asks for an aircraft and an airport to start with, and then creates random landing practice missions by

    1. downloading airport data,
    2. downloading history weather data for 10 missions, distributed over the last 12 days,
    3. determining what the active runway will be and
    4. placing your aircraft in a random location, for you to join the landing pattern.

    There may be some quirks in the files, as the data is taken from a public API instead of Aerofly directly, so the airports in the missions files may differ from the airports in Aerofly FS4. Nevertheless I had great fun trying to land my Cessna 172 in Martha's Vineyard.

    What do I do with the files?

    There is a small set of instructions taken from the for installing custom mission files. After you have placed the mission file in the correct folder, the missions should show up under "Challenges".

    What else can the Landergerät do for the community?

    I am planning on releasing the tool to the public as soon as it is stable enough, for you to generate any combination of aircraft and airport you can imagine. Until than I am open for suggestions on what combination of airport and aircraft I should build mission files for. ;)

    (As of now I also have generated files for Key West, Jackson Hole as well as Sylt Island, all to be flown with a Cessna 172 - but have not tested them yet.)

    • New

    Here we go: The Landgerät has been relased. It is now a somewhat clunky NodeJs application, but I am hopeful that this tool may be helpful to some GA pilots eager to have a quick landing lesson mission. (Actually I build this thing because I do not have the time for longer lasting flights anymore, but did not want to resort to improper practices).

    Here are some quick take-aways:

    • If you know NodeJS or have the time & patience to find out about it, this tool can quickly generated mission files right in your custom mission folder.
    • If you do not know NodeJS or cannot be bothered, there are some pre-generated mission files available.
    • If you cannot build your own files and have a very specific scenario in mind (say: landing with a Concorde in Lukla airport) maybe some helpful soul (e.g.: me) build this file for you. ;)

    This tool is for free, but I would like to ask for your very special support:

    Community project: Aircraft database

    The Landegerät (as well as the Missionsgerät) use a very simple, internal database for aircraft data. For some aircraft I had the time to add very specific data, but for most planes I just use fallbacks. So if you take a look at AeroflyAircraft.js you might notice some of the planes are missing (because I do not yet own the extra aircraft DLC), or have missing data.

    If some helpful soul wants to participate in completing this database, just answer me inthis thread with the folllowing data:

    • Aerofly Internal Aircraft Code (as seen in the directory listing of "aircraft"), e.g. "c172"
    • ICAO code of the aircraft type, e.g. "C172"
    • The callsign of the first aircraft as seen in the aircraft selection screen of Aerofly FS4 (e.g. "N51911")
    • The cruise speed in knots (no support for Mach as of yet)
    • The takeoff & landing runway length required (I have no clue if this number is usually a minimum, maximum, or whatever, but we will eventually find out).

    Your help is greatly appreciated - and a possibility to lend a hand to this tool as well as future tools.