OAG Official Air Guide 1955

[Bernard]

For those who would like have more information with CalClassic 1955 traffic, you might download the entire OAG 1955 here for £6.00. Certainly an interesting opportunity. I downloaded the 1932 and 1939 air guides as well.

timetableworld.com/product-category/air/

Bernard

[Tom/CalClassic]

Thanks, much better than the $50 to $100 paper versions on eBay.

[Jorge]

Saw this for 1958:

Railroad Schedule for 1958

There's a whole section on airlines and another on steamships as well.

Seems there are several like this for various years, so it may be an option as well.

No charge for this one, from what I can see.

Haven't looked at it too closely, but it might be useful for those with MS Trains who want to set up AI there, maybe? Not sure how AI works on that -- if it even has it.

Jorge
Miami, FL

[connieguy]

Many thanks, Bernard, not least because 1955 is just about ideal from my point of view,
Ken

[Bernard]

I found that the guide is far from complete. The list contains numerous airlines for which timetables are missing. Fortunately some of these companies and their aircraft are included in 1955 traffic. Thanks Tom for the more meticulous processing!

Bernard

[Tom/CalClassic]

I have a September 1955 North American OAG and I took most schedules from that. I got some from timetableimages.com and I had to use other years for some. A list is included in the traffic download.

[Bernard]

Tom, I think once you explained here how timetables have been created or converted to AI flightplans. Unfortunately I can't remember or find in which context you explained the procedure. Therefore I would be very grateful if you could sometime describe very very roughly how you did it. Thanks for your Informations.

Bernard

[Tom/CalClassic]

Hi,

Here's what I wrote a while ago:

The simplest way to create schedules these days is to use the MRAI Compiler. It's available at various places. Be sure to read the PDF help file thoroughly before starting.

First, you code each leg of the timetable in either Excel or Wordpad. I use the latter, and you code a flight as follows:

FFT;17;KABQ;KGUP;1616;1714;123457;DC3

This is a line from a 1964 Frontier timetable I did.

The meaning of each one from left to right:

1. The Airline name, in case you are coding more than one airline in a single flight plan file. FFT is Frontier's parking code.
2. The flight number
3. The departure airport
4. The arrival airport
5. The departure time. Times can be typed either as 7:14 or 0714. This is 24 hour time. You can use either local time or convert everything to GMT yourself first.
6. The arrival time. The compiler will use the @ symbol to force the arrival time, so your speed numbers in the aircraft.txt file should be in the 100-300 kts range.
7. Days of operation. 1 is Monday, 7 is Sunday
8. Equipment. This code should also be listed in the aircraft database in the compiler's Database folder.

Continue adding lines for each leg of each flight in the timetable. Do a search of the file for commas, colons, and periods (common mistakes). They should all be semicolons.

When done, load into the compiler using the Open Timetable button. BEFORE THIS, use the DST and/or GMT boxes as desired. If a summer schedule use the DST box (if desired; I don't), if you converted all times to GMT use the GMT box.

The first things that may come up are:

1. A warning that an airport isn't in the database. Do a search of the AirportDB.txt file in the Database folder. If the airport is not there, add it. Refer to the readme file in the Documentation folder for details of what each item is. If it *is* there, there is probably no time zone information - add it.
2. One leg takes over 20 hours (if not true, you probably have a typo or a problem with time zones or DST between those airports; again fix the flight plan or the airports database)
3. You may have duplicate flights (identical times and airports used for a leg). Fix those too. If two planes really leave and arrive at the exact same time change one of them by one minute.

If you edit the AirportsDB.txt or AircraftDB.txt file you must quit and restart the Compiler to reload them.

Once it loads without errors, take a good look at the list of flights, to make sure they are correct and that you have made no typing errors (i.e. there isn't a 1234567 in the AC Type column, etc.). Reload the text file after you fix them. Once those are fixed, then you can press the Compile AI Flight Plans button with the Check for Timetable Inconsistencies box checked. Be sure to enter the minimum wait time for any flight in your schedule first. I usually set it to one minute less than that.

This will (hopefully not) bring up an error box containing the following error:

One airport has more arrivals than departures or visa versa. This should be fixed unless you want an ugly flight plan file. First look at these flight plans, sometimes there will be typos in them that will cause this error. If it still is present then either add a ferry flight back the other way (I add mine late at night) or change the frequency of a flight to make them match.

OK, now when you press the Compile button it comes up with a Save box. You can now save your new flight plan file where you like with any name you like. I save it to the same folder I have my text file in, with the default name. The compiler might give the following error:

"Aircraft does not exist". Add this aircraft code (and info) to the aircraft database (AircraftDB.txt) or correct your plans text file to match the existing code in that file. Restart the Compiler, reload the plans, and recompile.

Open the resulting compiled file in Wordpad or Notepad. You will find a list of airports at the top; File/Save As an airports_ual63.txt file (for example), and remove all the flight plans from this file.

Then open the original compiled file again, and use File/Save As a flightplans_ual63.txt file (for example). Delete the airport listing from this file.

Now look at the flight plans. Are there any flights that are very short? (i.e. don't have many legs, compared to the majority of the plans). I look at any that are shorter than 1/2 the legs of the plan with the most legs for that plane. I.e. if the longest plan has 26 legs, I look at any that have less than 13 legs. I estimate this by turning off word wrap and using the scroll bar at the bottom. Move it to the end of the longest plan, put your finger half way to the left edge, and scroll to your finger. Any plans that end to the left of your finger are suspect.

Check them out and see if the plane waits for long periods of time, especially at big busy airports. If it does, consider deleting this plan, for it will lead to many aircraft sitting on the ground at that busy airport. If it has very important plans (to you), then leave it, but you will pay the price. I delete any that don't fly at least once a day or so.

Below these short plans are plans that don't begin and end at the same place - they will have the starting and ending airports listed first. I usually delete these unless they contain critical flights. If they do, you need to repair them by adding/subtracting legs until they begin and end at the same place. Then remove the airport codes at the beginning to make it a valid flight plan.

Finally, you may see some plans with an asterisk (*) at the beginning. This may mean that the flight plan takes more than a full WEEK (and won't show up in FS). You need to repair these to shorten them to less than a full week. Sometimes it's nothing more than a close connections between the end and beginning of the flight, which is fine. Delete the asterisk.

After that, you will see that there are no aircraft numbers (AC#). You will need to add these (Search and Replace works well). Each aircraft type should have it's own number. For example, replace AC#,FFTDC3 with AC#1,FFTDC3 for the first aircraft type.

One more thing - you will see that the aircraft reg number section of each flight plan is listed as airline/aircraft (FFTDC3 for example). If you have the registration number information for this airline's fleet, you can replace these with the real reg no's. Aeromoe's Airline Fleets page has a lot of these for US Retro aircraft (http://www.geocities.com/~aeromoe/fleets/airlines.html).

Finally, create an aircraft_ual63.txt file from a copy of one for another airline or year; the line for my Frontier DC-3 looks like:

AC#1,110,"AI DC-3 Frontier"

The name (in quotes) should be exactly what is to the right of title= in the desired plane's aircraft.cfg file. The speed should be slow (remember it's using the @ symbol). DC-6B's should be around 150, DC-7's around 170, and jets around 200. Make each aircraft type a slightly different speed (helps stagger arrivals).

At last, you should be able to compile the three files with TTools and if it compiles without errors, check out each plane in FS and make sure they appear at the expected times. If a given flight has more than 100 legs, the plane will not show up in FS. Split these into two flights, if required, or delete legs down under 100.

Hope this helps,

Tom

[Bernard]

Many thanks for your ample reply. I've already made a few attempts with MRAI Compiler before, but was very successful, So I certainly will through your tutorial again.

However, I thought more about how the data from original timetables was implemented. Because I can't imagine that all the data would be written down and inserted manually into the compiler. That would be a task of titanic proportions. Or am I wrong? I thought that evenuellay the timetable data would be read and integrated by using an OCR tool. I thought that the original flight plan data would be read and integrated using an OCR tool. But perhaps this is more of a wishful thinking and already in the realm of fantasy!

Bernard

[Tom/CalClassic]

No, all coded into Notepad by hand. The data entry is totally manual.