AGRICULTURAL AVIATION

One of the more difficult career activities available in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 is that of flying agricultural flights. On these flights, the pilot is expected to fly close to the ground and may have to dodge obstacles like trees or power lines, all while ensuring that the crops get dusted correctly, or that the seeds get spread evenly. If you wish your aircraft to be used on these activities you will need a preset that has been appropriately set up as part of the Modular SimObject, as explained below.NOTE: Currently only the crop spraying activity is available to users.

Example Of Aircraft Performing Agricultural Activities

 

For more information on the various other career activities and how to prepare your aircraft, please see here:

 

 

Agricultural Aviation Constraints

When it comes to setting up aircraft for the available agricultural activities, there are a few requirements that must be fulfilled by both planes and rotorcraft:

 

  • The aircraft will need to have the navigation_graph_pilot.cfg (as explained here).
  • The aircraft will need to have the ApronWithoutCovers.flt file (as explained below).
  • The operating_status must be either "in_service" or "experimental".
  • The aircraft cannot be flagged as military.
  • The aircraft cannot be flagged as premium.
  • The plane ui_max_range must be greater than 1.
  • The plane model must accurately show the appropriate equipment:
    • For seed spreading this includes a spreader attachment under the aircraft in the style of a typical ram air spreader, consisting of a hopper and a spreader tray (Please note that this mission type is not currently available).
    • For crop spraying, the aircraft should have a tank placed under the aircraft, and then have sprayer attachments extending along both wings, or out on struts for a rotorcraft. This will also need to be correctly setup, as explained in the Tank And Nozzle Setup (All Aircraft) section below. There must be more than four sprayers defined.
      Example Of Crop Spraying Setup For A Plane
  • The cockpit model will require controls to start/stop the spraying/spreading, normally some kind of lever that can be used to vary the amount of output.

 

 

For planes you have the following additional constraints:

  • The object_class must be "Airplane".
  • The plane can have either wheels or big-wheels for landing gear.
  • The plane cannot have skis or floats for landing gear.

 

 

For rotorcraft you have the following additional constraints:

  • The object_class must be either "rotorcraft" or "tiltrotor".
  • The rotorcraft can have either wheels or skids for landing gear.
  • The rotorcraft cannot have floats for landing gear.

 

Following these constraints will give the aircraft the AEA_Cabin type. See here for more information:

 

 

Tank And Nozzle Setup (All Aircraft)

In the SimObject editor it is assumed you will a Preset to be used for this kind of activity, so then in systems.cfg tab you can go ahead and set up the Modular Liquid Dropping System. This system is used to simulate the liquid fertilizer, insecticide, etc... and will require one Tank and multiple Door modules, where each "door" represents a nozzle from the sprayer on the aircraft. These should be setup as follows:

 

  • The tank should be placed in a position appropriate to the model, and the capacity will depend on the aircraft that you are using, varying from between 300 and 3000 Gallons. For example, the Air Tractor AT-802A can hold up to 800Gallons.

 

  • Each spray nozzle on the aircraft should have it's own door and then all the doors should be associated with the tank, by adding them into the Doors array in the tank hashmap. Note too that you may need to add an additional door definition into the hashmap if you wish to incoporprate an emergency dump option into the aircraft controls.

 

  • Since doors do not have a position directly associated with them, a reference_points.cfg will be needed to set the position and direction of the nozzle doors. This file needs the same number of reference points as defined doors, and the Name parameter of each point must be pos_door_N, where N is the door number + 1 (doors are created with an initial index of 0, but for the reference point CFG the index starts at 1, so pos_door_1 references Door.0). The reference points should also all be flagged as being exterior.
    Reference Point Positioning For Spray NozzlesNote too that you may need to add an additional reference point if the aircraft supports an emergency dump procedure (this would be positioned at the opening of the dump door in the tank). Finally, it should be understood that these reference points are not related to how the VFX will spawn, but are instead required to have an accurate simulation of the water being dropped. VFX is controlled through model behaviors, as explained below.

 

The minimum controls for the spray can be setup in the Model XML file, using the ASOBO_CT_Lever_Template to create the interaction between the lever model and the spray output. For example:

<Component ID="LIQUID_DROPPING">
    <UseTemplate Name="ASOBO_CT_Lever_Template">
        <IN_BASE_NAME>LEVER_SPRAY</IN_BASE_NAME>
        <IE_NAME>SPRAY</IE_NAME>
        <IE_TYPE>AUXILIARY</IE_TYPE>
        <AXIS>Y</AXIS>
        <GET_SETTINGS_CONFIG>ASOBO_Liquid_Dropping_Lever_Settings_Config</GET_SETTINGS_CONFIG>
    </UseTemplate>
</Component>

 

 

VFX Setup

The aircraft will also need some specific model behavior XML to ensure that the appropriate VFX spawn at each of the nozzle locations. This is done in the XML file associated with the sprayer model and uses the ASOBO_ET_FX_CROPDUSTING_SINGLE template, something like this:

<Component ID="FX_CROPDUSTING">
    <UseTemplate Name="ASOBO_ET_FX_CROPDUSTING_SINGLE">
        <NOZZLE_INDEX>1</NOZZLE_INDEX>
        <FX_NODE>pos_door_1</FX_NODE>
        <FX_GRAPH_PARAM_0>rateMultiplier, 0.99</FX_GRAPH_PARAM_0>
    </UseTemplate>
    <UseTemplate Name="ASOBO_ET_FX_CROPDUSTING_SINGLE">
        <NOZZLE_INDEX>1</NOZZLE_INDEX>
        <FX_NODE>pos_door_2</FX_NODE>
        <FX_GRAPH_PARAM_0>rateMultiplier, 1.05</FX_GRAPH_PARAM_0>
    </UseTemplate>
    <!-- Etc... for all reference points -->
</Component>

 

In the template for the nozzles you need to supply the following information:

  • <NOZZLE_INDEX> - This defines a unique index number for the nozzle and should be different for each one.
  • <FX_NODE> - This is either the name of the reference point (as defined in the reference_points.cfg file) associated with the nozzle, or a helper node on the actual model itself where the nozzle is.
  • <FX_GRAPH_PARAM_0> - Here you give a value to the rateMultiplier parameter. This parameter is used to set a random value for each crop dusting jet to randomise how the VFX is spawned and avoid visual repetition. Be careful when setting this since, if the gap between each value is too wide, it could affect the fidelity of the VFX. We recommend values between 0.9 and 1.1.

 

If the aircraft has an emergency dump option then you will also need to set this up in the same section of the XML, this time using either the ASOBO_ET_FX_CROPDUSTING_DROP_PLANE template or ASOBO_ET_FX_CROPDUSTING_DROP_HELICOPTER template depending on the aircraft:

<!-- For Planes -->
<UseTemplate Name="ASOBO_ET_FX_CROPDUSTING_DROP_PLANE">
    <FX_NODE>pos_door_32</FX_NODE>
    <FX_GRAPH_PARAM_0>doorIndex, 31</FX_GRAPH_PARAM_0>
    <FX_CODE>(A:LIQUID DROPPING DOOR FLOW:31, Pounds per hour) 0 &gt; (A:LIQUID DROPPING DOOR OPEN VALUE:31, Percent over 100) 0 &gt; and</FX_CODE>
</UseTemplate>
<!-- For Rotorcraft -->
<UseTemplate Name="ASOBO_ET_FX_CROPDUSTING_DROP_HELICOPTER">
    <FX_NODE>pos_door_32</FX_NODE>
    <FX_GRAPH_PARAM_0>doorIndex, 31</FX_GRAPH_PARAM_0>
    <FX_CODE>(A:LIQUID DROPPING DOOR FLOW:31, Pounds per hour) 0 &gt; (A:LIQUID DROPPING DOOR OPEN VALUE:31, Percent over 100) 0 &gt; and</FX_CODE>
</UseTemplate>

In this template you need to supply the following information:

  • <FX_NODE> - This is either the name of the reference point (as defined in the reference_points.cfg file) associated with the emergency dump door, or a helper node on the actual model itself where the door is.
  • <FX_GRAPH_PARAM_0> - Here you give a value to the doorIndex parameter. This needs to be the index (not the name) of the emergency dump door.
  • <FX_CODE> - The code shown should be copied and used "as is", with the exception of the index given to the two SimVars (LIQUID DROPPING DOOR FLOW and LIQUID DROPPING DOOR OPEN VALUE), which should match the door index given to the doorIndex parameter.

 

Finally, there is an additional template that is available and that should be used for rotorcraft: ASOBO_ET_FX_CROPDUSTING_VORTEX. This template is used to add an additional VFX to simulate the effect of the rotors on the sprayer output, and would be added into the same component section as the previously discussed XML:

<UseTemplate Name="ASOBO_ET_FX_CROPDUSTING_VORTEX">
    <NOZZLE_INDEX>45</NOZZLE_INDEX>
    <FX_GRAPH_PARAM_0>sprayWidth, 14</FX_GRAPH_PARAM_0>
    <FX_OFFSET_X>0.0</FX_OFFSET_X>
    <FX_OFFSET_Y>0.0</FX_OFFSET_Y>
    <FX_OFFSET_Z>-0.600</FX_OFFSET_Z>
</UseTemplate>

The offsets used here are relative to the Datum Reference Point, and in general they should be at (0, 0, 0), although they can be adjusted if the effect looks off at the default position. There is also a paramater that should be set, sprayWidth. This is defines the width of the spraybar and is used to correctly place the vortex effect at the extremity of the spray.

 

 

FLT Files

When a user starts an agricultural activity they will not be going through the usual Preflight checks, and so they will need to have an ApronWithoutCovers.flt file in the aircraft preset for the activity instead of the Apron.flt. This file should be set up like a regular apron FLT file, however you should ensure that the following parameters and sections are setup correctly:

 

Related Topics

  1. The Navigation Graph Editor
  2. navigation_graph.cfg
  3. Apron Services
  4. Navigation Services And Interactions