Iberia World Update – Handcrafted Airport AI Check

Since the Airports in the last World Updates had some issues in regards to AI traffic compability I decided to start his new format here, where we as AIG check the new provided Airports with the AIG AI Traffic and highlight some ssues you might encouter while flying to/from these airports.

World Update 8 focused on Iberia (Spain and Portugal), it comes with 4 handcrafted Airports:

• LESU – La Seu d’Urgell Airport
• LPPI – Pico
• LPFR – Faro
• LECO – A Coruna

Besides LESU all are visited by AIG flightplans.

LECO – A Coruna

Taxiway-/Path Network

LECO has a simple taxiway network in real life as you can see in the image above. The majority of this network has been “migrated” into MSFS, but the paths to the runway are only pointing into one diretion. the turn to the other direction is missing. Tis will result in strange AI behavior during taxi to takeoff and after landing.

Along the runway are no turn areas for the AI added, so they will turn directly on the runway which will result in 99% of the cases in going of track and into the grass.

An optimized vehile netowrk is completly missing, the vehicle spot is connected directly to the taxi network, so AI Vehicles will use the same routes as AI and User Airplanes.

Parking

The Airport has some parking spots added and mostly placed as per real life. For GA flyers it would have been nice if Parking 5B and 6 had been added at the north side.

The placed spots are large enough to handle the AI traffic at the airport, but do overlap each other in some cases, so not all can be used at the same time. Since there is not much traffic at the airport this will be no issue at the moment.

Conclusion

Nice looking airport with some issues, the biggest is the missing dedicated vehicle network. You will see AI Traffic at the airport, but do not estimate to watch realistic taxi operations of the AI here.

LESU – La Seu d’Urgell Airport

Taxiway-/Path Network

LESU has a simple taxiway network in real life as you can see in the image above. The whole network is added into MSFS and can be used by AI

An optimized vehile netowrk is mostly missing, which would be fine for a GA airport. But since MSFS palces big vehicles like Busses here as will you will find yourself in a Cessna facing a bus on the taxiway in some cases.

Parking

The Airport has quite a lot GA spots added, all all places close to real world locations. This results in overlapping spots at the airport. As a result not all can be used by AI.

The placed spots are large enough to handle all kind of GA traffic that would fly to this airport in real life.

The fuel truck spot is placed on top of the Parking Area, so the truck will spawn on top of other static vehicles.

Conclusion

Nice looking airport with some smaller issues, the biggest is a non AI issue: Busses at a small GA airport.

LPPI – Pico

Taxiway-/Path Network

LPPI has a simple taxiway network in real life as you can see in the image above. The whole network is added into MSFS and can be used by AI. An optimized vehile netowrk is mostly added, which allows the vehicles to use it and not block the taxiways.

AS within LECO, the turnarounds at the runway ends are missing here as well. AI will turn in the middle of the runway and run into the grass.

There are missing hold short nodes (at least to our tests), there will be no takeoffs

Parking

All 3 spots are added and places as per real life. The size is with 18m large enough to handle the current airplanes at this airport, but a future possible A321 will not find a spot here.

As per real life the parking spots are facing the runway, so no pushback is needed in real life. The Sim sadly does not has this feature and AI will pushback. Because of the sharp turn at the end it has trubble to find the right way to the taxiway. This results sometimes in despawning of the AI airplane.

Conclusion

Nice looking airport with some issues. You will see AI Traffic at the airport, but do not estimate to watch realistic taxi operations of the AI here.

LPFR – Faro

Taxiway-/Path Network

LPFR is by far the biggest airport in this update with the most AI Traffic. The current Taxiway Layout has been added to MSFS based on the sta-images used in the Update.

There is only a small vehicle network that is not connected directly to any prking spot. Vehicles are forced to use the taxiways to reach the parking spot.

It seems taxiway RG is missing the holdshort node. AI can not takeoff from this taxiway (will never happen anyway) and AI using this exit will mostlikely disapear since it can not change to Ground ATC for parking request.

Parking

The Airport has more parking spots then it can handle. The develop has added ALL spots that the airport has, without thinkiung about overlapping spots. In areas where you could have 2 small or 1 big spot the Sim has all 3, overlapping each other.

There are some spots with Radius 27m, they can handle airplans such as the 767. Airplanes like the 787 or A330 will not spawn at this airport because of this, or vanish after landing.

Conclusion

Nice looking airport with major issues at the parking spots, tyou will not see all AI traffic you have installed because of the small spots. Expect to run into a few ground vehicles while yu taxi at this airport.

Overall conclusion

Nice looking airports, but as always not designed with the knowlage of how AI traffic (airplanes and ground vehicles) work. You will see AI traffic at all of them, but expect hickups and issues.