ANSWERED VH-TQZ=VH-TQG?

[fs4]

An interesting one this morning Graham. I was sitting at YARM (Armidale,NSW) intending to depart after the arrival of the scheduled QantasLink service at 0820 (local). The service arrived on time but as it was taxying I noticed it looked like a 200 series Dash8 rather than the scheduled 300 series (these models are great, and it is a credit to them that the difference can be noted so easily, even at a distance). I moved up closer once it had parked and saw that it was TQG which is indeed a 200 series. However, your list of AI arrivals/departures printed out in AIFP2 (another great suggestion from you) showed that in fact it should have been TQZ (a 300 series). I don't know anything about preparing these AI details, but at a simple glance it seems to suggest you may have given the wrong file names to the two models, such that a call for TQZ is bringing up TQG, and reverse.

Obviously it's not a big problem. It's not uncommon for the company to substitute a 200 for a 300 on an occasional day "for operational reasons", so it has no effect at all on the FSX "experience". But the apparent mismatch between the AI plan and the actual aircraft model might be a small detail worth checking at some time.

Thanks.

[Graham Eccleston]

In this instance, the FTX Traffic pack is correct and AIFP has incorrectly abbreviated the Arrival/Departure information. QantasLink have ‘equipment varies’ for that flight and the Traffic pack has a Dash 8 300 for Tues and Wed. And a 200 for Mon, Thur and Fri. The aircraft allocated for this flight is VH-TQZ for the 300 and VH-SDA for the 200.

It was totally impractical to include a separate aircraft repaint in the Traffic pack for each and every Qantas, Qantaslink, Jetstar, Virgin Blue, Rex etc. aircraft currently in their fleets so one aircraft has been used to represent each aircraft type. VH-TQG is the registration you will see on all the QantasLink Dash 8 200’s however each flight will show the particular registration for the aircraft appropriate to that flight. That way, all the ATC communication, Flight Traffic Board info etc. is correct even though a close up of the aircraft may show a different number. I did consider not including a rego number on the side of each aircraft but I felt an incorrect number was better than no number at all.

[fs4]

Fascinating! Thanks very much for the quick and detailed response Graham. It has helped me greatly in understanding how the whole AI traffic thing works. I agree it is better to have the plane "look right", i.e. with a registration on the side, than to have it agree with the nominal aircraft assigned to that flight. In fact, without looking up the AIFP details, most FSX flyers would never perceive any "issue" at all, as you would be unaware of the particular aircraft that had been assigned to the flight, even if you did get close enough to read the rego. It doesn't matter at all that DHC2 always equals VH-TQG.

Thanks again for all your work in putting the AI pack together. The detail is phenomenal, and it certainly adds to the flying pleasure.