Missing runway information in MakeRunways

[FlyingAxx]

Hi Pete,

By chance I found out that there are a couple (even possibly quite a lot) of runway information that did not find their way to "runway.xml" even if the airport itself is listed. In order to analyse the data, I imported the file into Excel and filtered them by a missing surface definition. I checked then in "Runways.txt" and found the missing information.

Example (just one)

Airport 00B :N38:54:52.9773  W076:30:17.0001  0ft
		  Country Name="United States"
		  City Name="Edgewater"
		  Airport Name="South River"
		  in file: Scenery\0302\scenery\APX27180.bgl
		  Runway 16W/34W centre: N38:54:54.0463  W076:30:14.8999  0ft
			  Hdg: 150.000 true (MagVar -10.000), Water, 5000 x 150 ft
		  FSM A/P  00B, lat=38.914722, long=-76.504723, alt=0
[/CODE]

What I did not find is the 'translation' starting in this case with "[font=courier new,courier,monospace] *** Runway *** 00B160...<snip>[/font]", I suppose.

The related XML entry:

[CODE]
<ICAO id="00B">
<ICAOName>South River</ICAOName>
<Country>United States</Country>
<State></State>
<City>Edgewater</City>
<Longitude>-76.504723</Longitude>
<Latitude>38.914722</Latitude>
<Altitude>0</Altitude>
<MagVar>-10.000</MagVar>
</ICAO>
[/CODE]

Probably there is a reason but I did not find a scheme as there are not only water surfaces (e.g. CJX7). Excel told me that there are 1995 runways having no definition which might be true for a couple of them (e.g. if the so called airport is just a patch of grass where a direction is not defined). However, if this is a bug and not intentionally I would be interested if you could iron it out one day.

Hope you enjoyed your leave!!!

[Pete Dowson]

Water runways are omitted. No one has ever asked for those. They weould have to be an option if needed, as pretty much all uses of the files prodcued uses them for land aircraft only. Similarly heliports are omitted.

As documented, runways of 1500 feet or less are also omitted. You can override that -- see the read me.

Pete

[FlyingAxx]

All right Pete, in principle I tend to agree regarding water runways, very short ones and pure heliports, too. However, obviously those are nonetheless listed in the airports.xml, at least partly (let's say 'about' 1995 airports).

Some examples are showing closed airports/runways listed as well. For instance a completely worthless airport having just one (with reasons!) closed 5000ft concrete runway like Sombor (Z27V) which was bombed as being visible in Google is listed the same way as for example EKVA in Denmark, closed but in a much better shape. BTW, why Microsoft included them will probably remain their secret.

In fact, they are not omitted and there is no way to filter those different types out purely based on the runway.xml. I could better get rid of all of those airports in this file rather then having listed them without knowing their 'features'. By the way, as I found out a water runway could be listed as long as there is at least one (valid?) land based runway. A good example for me is EDCY. In reality EDCY has no water strip as both of them are belonging to "Welzow - Sedlitzer See" (EDUY) which does not exist in FSX.

However, it's not a big problem anyway as I'm filtering for runway lengths and surfaces ('water' is a hot candidate) in my own application being used to fill gaps in some text based aircrafts' and multi-purpose FMC data sets (PMDG, F1 ATR72-500 and ISG1).

[Pete Dowson]

Some examples are showing closed airports/runways listed as well.

The files are as they are because that's how folks asked for them. Originally the first files were only intended for Radar Contact -- the utility was written explicitly for it -- and its files have Closed indications included. All the other formats were added one by one on request.

Pete

[FlyingAxx]

The files are as they are because that's how folks asked for them. [snip]. All the other formats were added one by one on request.

Pete

Hi Pete,

That's a fair point as I requested myself the one or other addition. Probably I made the wrong decision by using the runways.xml that appeared to be a nice database instead of counting commas in different csv files in order to filter out the data. I have to admit that I even never dreamt about 'exotic' cases like closed runways when looking for the file structures. However, an indicator for a closed runway would be a good thing for the xml database as well. It would be good to distinguish between landing and take-off closures, too. I wouldn't mind if completely closed runways would not be listed as well (as it is today) and airports having no usable runway at all (which should include those very short strips also). For example, MN79 (1470ft, grass) is filtered out in the RC files but appears without any runway data in runways.xml - and there are many others like MO08, too.

Okay, if is was an explicite wish to have those data available but stripped (same for water) then I can accept this, of course. However, for those runways being longer than the threshold I would like to know about the closure - pleeeeze. :oops:

[Pete Dowson]

Okay, if is was an explicite wish to have those data available but stripped (same for water) then I can accept this, of course. However, for those runways being longer than the threshold I would like to know about the closure - pleeeeze. :oops:

I'll take a look -- next week.

Pete

[Pete Dowson]

I'll take a look -- next week.

MakeRunways version 4.613 is uploaded. See the Download Links subforum.

The XML file still includes airports without eligible runways (as some applications are merely after identiying or locating airports, relating ICAO id to position and vice versa), but now each runway entry in the XML file has two more items: <ClosedLanding> and <ClosedTakeiff> which can be TRUE or FALSE.

Regards

Pete

[FlyingAxx]

Thank you very much! I think I owe you at least a beer if you ever would visit Berlin - best in later Spring... ;-)

[Pete Dowson]

Thank you very much! I think I owe you at least a beer if you ever would visit Berlin - best in later Spring... ;-)

We were in Berlin during a steam railway tour, chartered trans organised by the Railway Touring Company, this last Spring. Visited a few Brauhauses, our favourite for beer and food being Brauhaus Mitte near Alexanderplatz. Best hefeweizen I've come across! ;-)

We'll be in Stuttgart soon after New Year, then Augsburg. No other plans for Germany next year, yet.

Regards

Pete