Performing ground taxi of aircraft can be either difficult (on airports you do not know) or boring.
That's why we invented the taxi recorder.
In short, you do a pretty precise taxi by hand once and in future you just select a taxiplan and let FSXPilot do the job. First you should try one of the demo taxiplans provided with V 1.35.
Please start up FSX and place your learjet at Gate 103 in EDDM - Munich, Germany. To do this find Munich airport in FSX airport list and select (drop down menu) the position where to start your flight -GATE 103 (my home gate ;-). Load the flight and start FSXPilot.
Load the 'flightplan' TAXI_EDDM_GATE103_08L_w_pushback and run the flightplan.
Lean back. You will see that the aircraft will perform a pushback ...
.... and then follow the usual taxiways used for departure aircraft. You can modify the taxi speed via the AP panel - 5 knts are preselected, 10 are possible, more than 15 usually not recommended. You can go a bit faster if you have straight taxiways ;-) And if you are in a hurry consider using moderate time acceleration rather than speeding up the plane. 20 knts is the speed limit for real ground taxi in Munich.
The plane stops at the holding point of one of the first entries to runway 08l, end of flightplan.
After manual 'line up' on runway you can either takeoff manually or start up the autopilot for automated takeoff.
Similarly, after landing on a different runway, let's say runway 26R in Munich, you can load the taxiplan TAXI_EDDM_26R_GATE103 and run the plan. Lean back and enjoy the taxi back to your home gate. In total we made 12 demo taxiplans from gate 103 to all active runways and from all active runways back to gate 103.
To produce one of those plans for your home airport and favorite gate is quite easy.
Power up FSX, select your favorite gate and wait until the session starts. Start FSXPilot and switch AP on. Select "Start GPS recording ..." from the 'Extra' menu entry of the AP panel. Do a precise taxi by hand, preferably at the speed of 5 knts. At your desired holding point "Stop GPS recording ..." via the "Extra" menu. A dialog box will open and ask you for the name of the taxiplan. Give it a good name and press ok. After that, you will find your new plan containing all the necessary commands as a new text file in the "flightplan" dir of your FSXPilot home dir.
Please note that is is not possible to record a pushback with the GPS recording function. If you need a pushback, please start your GPS recording after any pushback you might have performed and enter a
toggle pushback
wait 60.
toggle pushback
before the "set speed 5" command.
See an example (without pushback) here: TAXI EDDM 08L GATE103
// // FSXPilot (c) by Scientific Networks, Munich // // GPS recorded taxi-/flightplan // navlights on strobelights on set apcontrol plane set speedunits knots set distanceunits miles set userinput on set speed 5 maintain speed run apv gpswaypoint 1491.4 0.0 48.36513983 11.79861391 gpswaypoint 1491.4 7.2 48.36490078 11.79919363 gpswaypoint 1491.4 7.8 48.36468904 11.79979468 gpswaypoint 1491.4 7.4 48.36448414 11.80040086 gpswaypoint 1491.4 7.0 48.36427581 11.80100790 gpswaypoint 1491.4 6.8 48.36406749 11.80161578 gpswaypoint 1491.4 6.8 48.36385917 11.80222282 gpswaypoint 1491.4 6.8 48.36365427 11.80282985 gpswaypoint 1491.4 6.8 48.36344595 11.80343517 gpswaypoint 1491.4 6.8 48.36324104 11.80404648 gpswaypoint 1491.4 6.8 48.36303614 11.80465436 gpswaypoint 1491.4 6.7 48.36280391 11.80524005 gpswaypoint 1491.4 6.8 48.36246923 11.80478414 gpswaypoint 1491.4 7.0 48.36241459 11.80411136 gpswaypoint 1491.4 7.0 48.36235312 11.80343347 gpswaypoint 1491.4 6.9 48.36229164 11.80275984 gpswaypoint 1491.4 6.8 48.36225066 11.80208194 gpswaypoint 1491.4 6.8 48.36221993 11.80140405 gpswaypoint 1491.4 6.9 48.36215163 11.80072956 gpswaypoint 1491.4 6.9 48.36207991 11.80005679 gpswaypoint 1491.4 6.8 48.36201161 11.79938743 gpswaypoint 1491.4 6.8 48.36194672 11.79871551 gpswaypoint 1491.4 6.9 48.36188866 11.79803676 gpswaypoint 1491.4 9.6 48.36183744 11.79735716 gpswaypoint 1491.4 10.5 48.36179646 11.79667329 gpswaypoint 1491.4 10.6 48.36175889 11.79599539 gpswaypoint 1491.4 10.4 48.36171791 11.79531152 gpswaypoint 1491.4 10.0 48.36167010 11.79462423 gpswaypoint 1491.4 9.8 48.36162229 11.79394804 gpswaypoint 1491.4 9.7 48.36157789 11.79327014 gpswaypoint 1491.4 9.7 48.36153008 11.79259310 gpswaypoint 1491.4 9.7 48.36148227 11.79191947 gpswaypoint 1491.4 9.8 48.36143446 11.79124072 gpswaypoint 1491.4 9.8 48.36139006 11.79056197 gpswaypoint 1491.4 9.8 48.36134225 11.78988920 gpswaypoint 1491.4 9.8 48.36129444 11.78920960 gpswaypoint 1491.4 9.8 48.36124663 11.78853170 gpswaypoint 1491.4 9.8 48.36119198 11.78784868 gpswaypoint 1491.4 9.8 48.36113734 11.78717249 gpswaypoint 1491.4 9.8 48.36108270 11.78649118 gpswaypoint 1491.4 9.8 48.36102806 11.78581499 gpswaypoint 1491.4 9.8 48.36097000 11.78513454 gpswaypoint 1491.4 9.8 48.36091536 11.78445579 gpswaypoint 1491.4 9.8 48.36086072 11.78377447 gpswaypoint 1491.4 9.8 48.36080608 11.78309743 gpswaypoint 1491.4 9.8 48.36075144 11.78242039 gpswaypoint 1491.4 9.8 48.36069680 11.78173908 gpswaypoint 1491.4 9.8 48.36063874 11.78106289 gpswaypoint 1491.4 9.8 48.36058410 11.78038158 gpswaypoint 1491.4 9.8 48.36054312 11.77970283 gpswaypoint 1491.4 8.9 48.36049189 11.77902322 gpswaypoint 1491.4 6.6 48.36044408 11.77834703 gpswaypoint 1491.4 6.0 48.36039285 11.77766914 gpswaypoint 1491.4 6.4 48.36030747 11.77700234 gpswaypoint 1491.4 6.8 48.35991815 11.77666254 gpswaypoint 1491.4 7.0 48.35946736 11.77665827 gpswaypoint 1491.4 6.9 48.35901998 11.77672401 gpswaypoint 1491.4 6.9 48.35857261 11.77681366 gpswaypoint 1491.4 6.8 48.35812181 11.77689306 gpswaypoint 1491.4 6.7 48.35772566 11.77722688 gpswaypoint 1491.4 6.9 48.35774615 11.77790905 gpswaypoint 1491.4 6.9 48.35778714 11.77858609 gpswaypoint 1491.4 6.9 48.35784178 11.77925801 gpswaypoint 1491.4 6.8 48.35789983 11.77992993 gpswaypoint 1491.4 6.7 48.35757540 11.78040463 gpswaypoint 1491.4 6.6 48.35713144 11.78053611 gpswaypoint 1491.4 7.1 48.35714510 11.78121315 stop apv stop aph head ch set speed 0. operate wheelbrake wait 2. release wheelbrake flaps 0. end
Technically, GPS recording saves a GPS waypoint every 50 meters on ground and approx every 5 km in the air. Recording a complete flight (takeoff, cruise, landing) currently does not result in a flight plan which will initially work.
Now go back to start and try your new plan out.
If you make good taxiplans please consider zipping them together (try to cover all possible runways to and from one gate) and sending us a copy for distribution with one of our next updates or publication in our download section.
Thanks and happy taxiing !