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 !