HTAI C172 Aeroclub de Guatemala fleet

[mage]

Six Cessna 172P operated by the Aeroclub de Guatemala out of MGGT (La Aurora)

They share the same Cessna factory livery although only one of them has the club name along the ventral fin, TG-DAY.

These were created because a new template for the one click repainter is based on these patterns.

Removed download as it has been replaced with the one in the next post - with the Beech Duchess added.

[mage]

Here's a revision.

I added their Beech 76 Duchess TG-ACT on the GAI model.

While I did this I noticed that three of their 6 172s actually wore a darker livery to match the Beech, so I recoloured the Cessnas EAA, EAG and KOZ to match the Beech's darker more glossy red.

I intend to put out set of 52-week flightplans for this club and there will be some accompanying AFCADs for the airfields across Guatemala that these visit, since I could find very few airports for Guatemala online apart from their base, La Aurora, MGGT.

[jhaley101]

Great paints and thank you for including information regarding your intentions for plans as well!

JH

[mage]

Doug Roth has created 2 AFDs for Puerto Barrios and Retalhuleu as part of his TG-ATE package on flightsim, there's a package for Iztapa (a fairly recent airfield that hosts annual air displays) and also for Mundo Maya (formerly Flores Airport) that are for FSX and might be possible to convert.

I've already seeded 23 AFDs around Guatemala (I create basic airfields using MS Excel to spit out compilable XML at the correct geocoordinates and official elevations) and the 52-week plans (also created by Excel) visit all of these. The basic airfields need to be improved (most do not exist in FS9 at all - the FS9 airports list has only 2 Guatemalan airports/airfields).

There are many more airfields in the country, perhaps in the region of 150-200 private airfields with legitimate use, and upward of 600 illegal airfields used for smuggling. One official airfield, I forget which, has a runway that's also a main road the rest of the time.

After my 23 strips are added to the official airports, it (25) is still well short of what is actually going on in Guatemala but will at least wake the place up a little. With more airfields the 52-week planner would scatter flights more broadly and the AI at any particular place would thin out unless aircraft are based there, so it's probably as well that the airfields are carefully chosen.

My AFDs will be quick'n'dirty affairs just to get the AI moving. Runway, parking, scrub clearance and maybe a default building or two. there's a limit to what can be added before the airfields start suppressing autogen (eg fuel storage tanks - a default object - etc).

[mage]

The FS9 AFDs are proving to be a problem, a few were made by other people and there's no point replicating those, but the rest are going to take too much time for the time I have available and will only be looked at should it become necessary, so they may never be done, by me at least.

But the plans are attached. If an AI flies to a missing airport (one that doesn't exist even as a simple runway and needs to be created new) it will fly through the coordinates assigned and then continue on into oblivion.

FS9 plans point the aircraft at the coordinates assigned for the destination and expect the AI aircraft to "find" the runway at the far end when it comes into range. At that point the AI engine puts the aircraft in what I guess I will call "pattern mode" and a different part of the AI coding will fly the AI around the pattern or get it vectored to the ILS for a landing. AI aircraft also "scent" the centerline and line up for themselves, so its a set of discrete and simple operations by the AI engine that broadly mimic the behavior of aircraft in the real world.

If a piece is missing, such as an entire airport, the AI will still set off in the hope of finding it. If an AI is returning from a missing airport it will still arrive at the destination having spawned into position enroute when you get it within your AI range of about 100 miles or so (not the AI visual range from your eyepoint).

That's my longhand way to say that these plans will have the ACdG fleet operating just fine out of MGGT.

I can't imagine many (if any) people do the 52-week thing, but any week of these will do the job just fine, but the schedule will remain fixed.

[jhaley101]

Excellent work, plans look great.  I simply used Week 1.  I also converted the textures for P3d optimization, will likely convert to MSFS textures shortly. 

A nice addition to my 14 Corporate/Charter/Government plans for Central America.

Well done, thank you!   You should take a stab at the Duchess.   You've done a super job with the Cessna's!

John

[mage]

The Duchess was in the revision zip in a later post. It was the color of that which alerted me to the color difference in half of the Cessna fleet, and the revision also has three recolored 172s in it as well as the other three in a different shade of red.

Some AFDs will be necessary to see them on the ground elsewhere, since I have them visiting almost 30 airfields in Guatemala. At MGGT they will come and go as usual.

I just generate 52 weeks without thinking these days, especially for small fleets. I don't visit FS Guatemala often enough to notice a pattern as I might in Europe, so I could really get away with just using one week as well.

Since large batches take a long time, it's probably better away from my home patch to make just single week plans. I created some generic Cessna 172 plans for Europe (minus the UK) that has a fleet of about 3500 Cessna 172s, and 52 weeks took about 18 hours to create. Then I discovered how many parking spots the AFDs across Europe would need, and quickly gave up the idea of making grand sets of plans.

I'm surprised that such small textures are even viable in later sims, definition-wise.

I'm also surprised that any old AI can be put into MSFS now, or does it still mean using some third-party package?

[drpilot2]

Mage thanks for the Guatemala stuff! I have spent a lot of time down there over the last 30 years as that is where my wife's family is from. It's also nice to see somebody pick up the region for FS ai as due to age related health problems I have retired from painting (which requires way too much time behind the computer) with the TG-ATE Caravan to be my last.

Nice work and thanks again. 

--Doug

[mage]

Hi Doug!

I'm sorry to hear about the health problems getting in the way of painting for a sim you obviously care about. It's never an easy decision to come to, to quit something that was important to us, for any reason at any age.

I hope it's some comfort to know that your work is out there in other peoples' setups, mine included, plying the virtual airways!

I made a few Guatemalan Cessnas in the One Click repainter that I've also flightplanned, so Guatemala City at least looks like it might be in Guatemala now, with a few local registrations floating about. Just about enough to give some sense of place. Looking at aerial images of airfields it is evident that aviation is vital to Guatemala, even if some of those airframes are no longer active.