Continuing Flights

[707FAN]

There was a problem with Tower 2011 where a flight arrived and departed  using the same flight number in the same session, the second flight was normally ignored.

To fix this it was necessary to change one of the flight numbers to a unique number. This took quite a lot of effort. especially for operators like OO etc. where there were a lot of these flights.

Ques. Is this still a problem with Tower 3DPro as LAS has several of the flights. Also there are a couple of duplicate flight in the schedule. These are easy to delete but going through the schedule making sure there are no duplicate flight numbers by the same operator can be quite time consuming.

Maybe I'm getting lazy

Kev M

[ATControl -- Joe]

I have custom KLAS traffic coming out in the next couple days.  This should alleviate any headaches caused by Nyerges.  Stay tuned.  

[crbascott]

On 9/5/2017 at 2:00 AM, 707FAN said:

There was a problem with Tower 2011 where a flight arrived and departed  using the same flight number in the same session, the second flight was normally ignored.

To fix this it was necessary to change one of the flight numbers to a unique number. This took quite a lot of effort. especially for operators like OO etc. where there were a lot of these flights.

Ques. Is this still a problem with Tower 3DPro as LAS has several of the flights. Also there are a couple of duplicate flight in the schedule. These are easy to delete but going through the schedule making sure there are no duplicate flight numbers by the same operator can be quite time consuming.

Maybe I'm getting lazy

Kev M

To actually attempt to answer your question I created a very simple schedule file to see what would happen. 

LAX,EWR,320,VX,1162,12:00,09:59,1,VX
BWI,LAX,738,AS,739,10:00,12:00,1,AS
LAX,SEA,738,AS,739,12:00,10:30,1,AS

The first flight in the schedule is just to get the sim started. For this test ASA739 landed as scheduled and the same plane requested pushback a little later. All is well!

However, I've noticed where continuing flights don't always use the same equipment. For example AAL108 from HNL to LAX is an A321 and the outgoing flight to LHR is a 772. There are many other flights like this at LAX.

So, that meant I needed to run another test. 

LAX,EWR,320,VX,1162,12:00,09:59,1,VX
BWI,LAX,738,AS,739,10:00,12:00,1,AS
LAX,SEA,739,AS,739,12:00,10:30,1,AS

I changed the departing flight from a 738 to 739. For this test, ASA739 arrived as scheduled but the departure never occurred. There was no B739 at the gate all.  

In summary, in most cases continuing flights shouldn't be an issue unless there is an equipment change within the six hour window of flights the sim loads.  

I'll probably continue to renumber the flights as part of my schedule making to avoid any chance of duplicates or dropped flights. But then I've automated this process so time is not a factor.

Craig

PS - This was a small test. I'm inclined to think that a full schedule file would potentially have more issues. But that's another test, for another day, by another person. :) 

[707FAN]

11 hours ago, crbascott said:

However, I've noticed where continuing flights don't always use the same equipment. For example AAL108 from HNL to LAX is an A321 and the outgoing flight to LHR is a 772. There are many other flights like this at LAX.

Craig,

Thanks for looking at this.

The AAL flight is interesting. Looking at the schedules from Flight Aware, AAL 108 HNL-LAX (A321) arrives about 15:30.  at a certain gate. AAL108 LAX-LHR (772) departs about  18:05 from a different gate.  Any ongoing passengers have to go to a different gate to board what is in reality a new flight, albeit with the same Flt Nbr.   This means from an operational viewpoint it is a new flight with a different A/C type, new crew etc. But, from a tower3D viewpoint it is a continuing flight as it has the same flight nbr. As it has a type change and as per your AS 738/739 example it would probably not show.

I wonder if Vic has any ideas on this one.

Kev M

[FeelThere_Vic]

Tower is using the following logic for returning, connecting flights:
If a certain airline using a certain airplane type arrives then leaves within certain time (it can vary by arrival delays, airport sizes) using the same type then Tower will try to utilize the same plane for the departure. This way we avoided the issue we had at T!2011 where each departure had it's own airplane. Continuing flights using same callsigns are not supported at all.

 

I hope it helps

 

Vic

 

[crbascott]

Vic,

How does the sim handle turnaround flights with the same flight number? For example there is a flight 1984 from PHL-ORD and then ORD-PHL a few hours later (within the six hour window). Same flight number, same equipment. I assume if we want both flights to show up one of the flight numbers will need to be different. I'm 100% sure I've seen this scenario happen in both RT and custom schedules and the departing flight is dropped.

You know me ... I could test this to make sure, but thought I'd ask first. I'm lazy tonight. :)

Thanks, Craig

PS - In the above scenario ORD would have the continuing flight. Just thought I'd make it clear and that I'm not hijacking the thread. :) 

 

[FeelThere_Vic]

Hi Craig,

 

I think it will not pick it up as a continuing flight. Please read my note above how's the returning flight logic is coded.

 

Vic