NewGRF (Air)ports - general discussion

[richk67]

There is also the power issue to consider. At takeoff full power is used, and so the aircraft can use that to power themselves through problems. However, on landing, the power is cut back and so the aircraft is more vulnerable to atmospherics (micro-bursts, etc), and cannot just push through the problem as it would compromise landing speed.

Takeoff is most vulnerable to power loss; landing is more vulnerable to weather and structural failures. OTOH, the worst air disaster in terms of lives lost was while taxiing (Tenerife).

From the NTSB reports Ive read - and they are fascinating reading - running out of fuel is incredibly rare as a crash fault. The saddest disaster I read about - which shows how delicate things can be - was one where a maintenance engineer left a 1 inch piece of protective tape over a piezzo sensor, and the aircraft instruments then went totally haywire. They could not tell how high or fast they were going, and in the end crashed into the sea. (Peru I think??)

What I program into OTTD I dont know yet - maybe some landing short, some landing overshoots, some power-loss on takeoff, and some mid-air failures. I dont think I would be able to engineer mid-air collisions.

[michael blunck]

... takeoff ...

... landing ...

takeoff_landing_1.png (23.31 KiB) Viewed 4632 times

takeoff_landing_2.png (34.64 KiB) Viewed 4629 times

(Graphics by http://www.asf.org)

[edit]

The saddest disaster I read about - which shows how delicate things can be - was one where a maintenance engineer left a 1 inch piece of protective tape over a piezzo sensor, and the aircraft instruments then went totally haywire. They could not tell how high or fast they were going, and in the end crashed into the sea. (Peru I think??)

No, that was a 757 of Birgen Air, flying from Santo Domingo (Dominican Republic) to Berlin in february 1996.
See http://www.rvs.uni-bielefeld.de/publica ... enAir.html

For those of you interested, here´s the CVR transcript.
[/edit]

regards
Michael

[richk67]

Fascinating - thanks for the info.

[Vikthor]

Takeoff is most vulnerable to power loss; landing is more vulnerable to weather and structural failures. OTOH, the worst air disaster in terms of lives lost was while taxiing (Tenerife).

Actually there were two planes involved in Tenerife disaster and while one was really taxiing, second one attempted take off without clearance. And the cause was human error - which is something that might be interesting to have in the game, but may be a bit difficult?

[michael blunck]

Actually there were two planes involved in Tenerife disaster and while one was really taxiing, second one attempted take off without clearance. And the cause was human error - which is something that might be interesting to have in the game, but may be a bit difficult?

Yeah, the CVR of this accident is a must-read:

http://aviation-safety.net/investigatio ... kl4805.php

regards
Michel

[richk67]

Yup, I didnt say that there were 2 aircraft involved, just that it was a taxiing accident. KLM wanted to send its best pilot to help the investigation - until they discovered he was the pilot involved - and generally regarded as being principally at fault for the accident by proceeding down the runway before PanAm was stated as clear by the tower.

I dont think I can easily program in collisions - the whole system is now geared to automatically lock sectors to one aircraft only. Effectively its Path-Based Movement for airports.

[Bilbo]

Hmm .. so there are less accidents in total during takeoff than during landing, but more fatal accidents. So if acident happen during takeoff, it is more likely to end up badly (well, losing power and end of runway is bad - you can no longer lift off and there is not enough space to brake)

[richk67]

As Dalestan pointed out, its more fuel than anything. Depending on the emergency, it is normal to dump as much fuel as possible before a landing to minimise fire risks. At takeoff, it is rare to have either the time or the location to dump fuel safely, so crashes post takeoff would tend to have worse fires.

An incredible landing accident after a major inflight systems failure, was the Sioux City crash. The aircraft lost all hydraulics and could only turn in one direction. It touched down at Sioux City (49/50 simulator pilots never made it that far!), but the wing dug in. It barrel rolled, split apart, big fireball, etc. However... and if you see the film of the landing you'll be amazed... nearly 50% of the passengers survived.

[PikkaBird]

I suspect MB's statistics are for general aviation aircraft rather than airliners, but it seems to be a similar story; according to Boeing, over 50% of airliner accidents happen on landing or approach, compared to about 20% on takeoff or climb. However, the fatality rate is much higher for takeoff accidents.

It wouldn't actually change the gameplay, but would it be possible to change the crash message so the fatality rate isn't always 100%?

[Bilbo]

May be worth some patch, though it is basically just an eye candy :)

With trains it is similar - when they collide head-on, both going 200km/h it is no wonder everybody on train is dead, but when train going 20 km/h catches up train going 15 km/h from behind, such fatality rate is rather surprising.

[Slye_Fox]

the link to the main thread donsn't work for me.

it says "firefox dosn't know the protocol svn"

[skidd13]

the link to the main thread donsn't work for me.

it says "firefox dosn't know the protocol svn"

It's the link to the source code. Not to a forum thread.

[Slye_Fox]

Where can i get this then?
The zip only has a readme in it.

[richk67]

Read first line of first post...

"This is the main thread for the NewGRF (Air)ports branch: svn://svn.openttd.org/branches/NewGRF_ports".

Check out the repository, and then compile it.

[Slye_Fox]

No idea what you're talking about.

[richk67]

Read the development part of the OpenTTD wiki for instructions on checking out a copy of the source code. You would also need a compiler to compile it. If you cant do that, then this really isnt for you. There are no pre-built versions available, since it is in development (like the nightly, but without the regular builds).

It is worth learning how to download a nightly, or a development area like NewGRF_ports, and compile it. It will open up a whole new world of cutting edge developments. (Note that cutting edges can cause bleeding... )

[Slye_Fox]

Dam.

Can't do that.

Don't know C (or ANY language simaler to it)

[Born Acorn]

You don't need to know any C to browse and check out the SVN repository, nor for compiling the source. In fact, it's probably the easiest and simplest part of development.

Just check out this or this, (I'm hazarding a guess that you're using Windows) - They give step by step instructions.

[richk67]

Yup. I was new to all this 2 years ago, and it was easy enough to read through the instructions, download TortoiseSVN and cygwin, and I had compiled my first own copy in about 2 hours.

[DJ Nekkid]

or use buildottd