How Do Drones Work Exactly?

[ZATZAi]

Unfortunately the forum won't allow me to search for the word Drone or Drones as it says it is too common. Thus I am asking here, sorry if it has been answered elsewhere...

How exactly do drones work in PilotEdge? I get that Commercial and GA planes will be flying around the ZLA and ZAO area (Around 500 or so if I recall). But will they be simply flying? Or will they land and take off from various airports, be parked at gates and the like and how do pilots and ATC deal with that, is it autmated, ignored, or treated like a real flight? Do these drones use the default FSX generic planes, or are their special models for real world airlines and the like (Or are they no models at all, and their just dots on the screen). Does it work better if you have specific models installed in your copy of FSX?

I guess what I'm wondering is how similar/advanced are the drones in PilotEdge compared to something like say Ultimate Traffic 2 from Flight1?

[Keith Smith]

Great questions. Here's an excerpt of the copy from our pre-launch web site. The new web site no longer refers to the drones in any significant level of detail:

Drones are automated aircraft that fly on the network 24/7. Their appearance and flightpath are carbon copies of flights that were recorded by our pilots.

The drones are there to provide background traffic. In the real world, it's very common for ATC to point out aircraft to you that are "VFR and not talking to anyone." The same will happen here on PilotEdge

These are not computer-generated aircraft, they are recordings of flights that were done by a human being. If you need any evidence of this, simply watch one of them try to land! We're still trying to work out if they landed or were shot down!

Since they do not respond to ATC commands, and do not make any radio transmissions, they remain clear of Class A/B/C/D airspace where communication with ATC would normally be required.

Users should be aware that the drones generally operate in and out of non-towered fields, and as such, should remain vigilant for aircraft in the pattern that are not talking on the radio, and are seemingly oblivious to your presence. Boy, this IS just like real life, isn't it?

In terms of the models that are used, it'll be the same model set that is used to render the other live aircraft in your sim. This can be configured any way you like, but we ship with a number of low poly-count models. We also make use of the default aircraft that ship with FS9/X. You can see these mappings in the PilotEdge\aircraft folder for FS9/X. If you have additional models installed, you can actually refer to those if you like by modifying the mapping file. The format is pretty straight forward but if you want any help, let me know and I'll get something posted explaining how to add more mappings.

[Keith Smith]

Btw, to see the drones in action, try viewing the map page with the drones switched on

[Orest Skrypuch]

That was a clever way to generate the drone flights.

* Orest