AI Traffic Models, Missing Gear and a theory

Support Pilot Software
1

Hi,
im not sure how to get this solved or whose to-do it is…

There is a thread in the AIG Forum about missing/not visible Landing Gears… in this discussion and as i watched landing / departing traffic in EGPH yesterday i came up with a theory why some planes have their gear visible and some not… after a while it saw that

  • ALL ARRIVING planes never had their gear visible while departing planes always have it visible… i took a quick look into the AIG files… there are several code snippets pointing to events, Lvars in combination with the gear, gear animation etc … now aig assumes “it is something with vatsims injector”…

How to figure out who has something to do ?
This is the thread im refering to

MSFS 2020 landing gear is missing in all AIG models

2

I tried to register for their forum and after jumping through a ton of anti-bot verification hoops, it threw an error about token verification. I’m not going through that hassle again, so I won’t be able to participate in the discussions there, unless they simplify/fix their forum registration.

vPilot uses two different methods via simconnect to set the gear position for injected aircraft. When the aircraft is first encountered, it sets these three vars to either 100 or 0 depending on if the aircraft’s gear is up or down:

GEAR CENTER POSITION
GEAR LEFT POSITION
GEAR RIGHT POSITION

Then, after the model is injected, if vPilot later sees (in the data received from the network) that the gear up/down flag changed from true to false or from false to true, it sends one of these simconnect events to the aircraft object to raise or lower the gear accordingly:

GEAR_UP
GEAR_DOWN

This is how vPilot has always worked, and it has worked correctly for any model that actually supports the gear animation. My best guess is that somehow the AIG models are getting their gear position set correctly when they are first injected through the three gear position variables, but the gear stays “stuck” in the initial position even if the pilot raises or lowers the gear. Perhaps the AIG models are not responding to the GEAR_UP and GEAR_DOWN events. This would explain why departures show their gear down, and arrivals show their gear up.

One way to test this theory would be to try connecting at an airport where there is an aircraft on final with its gear already down. If that aircraft shows gear down when you connect, then the theory is likely correct. You could also try watching a departure as it climbs out. If the gear never get retracted, that would also support this theory.

Out of curiosity, do the FSLTL models also have this issue? If they do, then maybe it’s something in the simulator itself that is blocking/ignoring the GEAR_UP/GEAR_DOWN events, and it’s not specific to AIG models.

I found a couple posts that say the issue occurs with AIG as well as FSLTL, but they are both for MSFS 2024, not 2020.

One of those posts says that departures will indeed retract their gear, so maybe this is only an issue with the GEAR_DOWN event. Hard to say. I don’t have a system with AIG installed and I don’t have time to get it set up right now, so I won’t be able to do any of my own testing any time soon. Maybe you can point the AIG folks to my reply here and see what they say. I would post in their forum thread myself if it weren’t for the registration problems.

3

thx so far … yeah i struggled with their captchas aswelll … its due to n recent massive spam event or s.th that they do it like this …
i post it in there as for now

thx so far :slight_smile:

4

I can confirm that the FSLTL Models also having this issue. So maybe no AIG Problem

5

Hmm, ive quick checked FSLTL Models only
There are 2 landing Aircrafts
BAW15H
MAS447

The vPilot Debug shows for both an “gear down: true” Event, but the gear was not visible

But, later on there was
QFA81 - Landing gear visible during approach… but it was the only plane i saw its landing gear extended on approach.

On all departing aircraft the gear coming up animation while retracting was visible.

To sum up
MAS447 - not visible - A388
BAW15H - not visible - A388
QFA81 - visible - B77W
SIA955 - not visible - B77W

Departing (there were more - all visible)
JST98
SIA316

vPilot Debug log

6

Are you on MSFS 2024 or 2020?

7

Sebastian, can you confirm you are on MSFS 2020? (I assume so because you linked to a post about 2020 in your original post here.)

8

Its 2024 … the AIG Topic initially was 2020 … but in the meantime its also about 2024 (or both) … and honestly i missed it while posting that there is a 2020 in the title :)^^

9

Okay, gotcha. My best guess at this point is that the GEAR_DOWN simconnect event is not working in MSFS 2024. I’ll try to get some time to test it soon.

10

Just ran a quick test with an FSLTL model (JetBlue) and it responded fine to the GEAR_UP and GEAR_DOWN events. So that kills my theory. It’s possible that only some models don’t respond to the events, but that seems unlikely.

If possible, when you see an FSLTL model on arrival and the gear is not down, take a look at the aircraft list in vPilot (enter the .aircraft command to display the list) and let me know the FSLTL model title. I can then test that specific model.

11

I don’t think thats the case but others in this (or was it in another thread) said it might have to do with visibility ranges.

M theory would be that msfs has quite agressive LOD rules and maybe if the model does not have the gear in the lod that is loaded when the command is sent. Afterwards when the gear loads in the closer lod it remains in the up position.

No idea if this is actually the case but it would explain the differencew between 2020 and 2024 because 2024 applies LOD way more agressively.

12

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I really hope that’s not the case since I’ll have to constantly send GEAR_UP/GEAR_DOWN events to the models since I don’t know when the LOD transition occurs. Same with all the other events I send to set the flaps position, set the nose gear angle, toggle various lights on/off. Or maybe I just send them only if the aircraft is within say 10 NM of the user’s aircraft.

1 Like
13

Ive tried it to force any LoD of the models… gear never became visible.
Also ive tried to watch them while on final with the drone cam… none of them had any visible gear down animation … did this cause had the same idea with the visible range…

14

On MSFS 2024

15

Hiya, is there anything we can do to help with any tests that would help you guys? If there is Im more then willing to sit and test when needed, even at an airfield with someone where we can continuosly test gear up and down.

I only ask as im having the same issue, Ive used FSTL + AIG and both individually and I still cant get gear on landidng aircraft, I have every setting in msfs pushed to the highest as im lucky enough to be able too and still no joy, so now im willing to hunt down the true cause :slight_smile:

16

MSFS2024/FSLTL: I have the exact same problem, landing :flight_arrival: never have gear down, seems regardless of the type of airplane. Departing :flight_departure: always have their gear down. If there’s anything we could do, please feel free to ask :+1:t4:

17

Any solution here?