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Added fuel truck!!

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Hello All,

I am proud to say I have been able to place a fuel truck at my favorite GA field KSFF. :) All goes well except I can't keep the dang truck off the taxiways interfering with the AI. I did read the owners manual and saw explanations of the nodes and links on page 43. But I am doing something wrong.

Any chance someone could open KSFF add a fuel truck by the tower and explain what you used to keep it off the taxiways?

Thanks,
 
you need to add a vehicle path for him to travel on. Ensure that the vehicle path crosses over (*with nodes*) the parking links -- this'll allow the vehicles to drive without having to take the taxiways everywhere. :)
 
Hi David,

Thanks for the quick reply. When you say nodes you mean the blue balls right? If there are already blue balls where existing taxiways are do I need to put another blue node over the top. If you could open KSFF and look at the west side I am trying to link with that taxiway but the fuel truck stops at the first blue node
 
Gary
the easiest thing for you, is to have a look at one of mine or Jim Vile afcad's at avsim, this will give you a much better idea of how to run a vehicle path
now you have added your fuel truck, connect it to a separate blue Node (that is not connected to anything) then run a totally separate path from this blue node with a width of 7-9M (your choice of width) try not to connect it to a taxiway but run it to your parking spots and connect it to the path that connects the aircraft spot to the taxiway, say somewhere in the middle, this will ensure that your fuel truck will not use a taxiway and keep on this path, returning on it when it has refueled the aircraft......
i hope this explains it for you, but i would have a look at some of our work this will give you a much better idea of what you need to do

Ray
 
Gary

The picture shows your airport. I added a simple Fuel Truck Road that both the fuel truck and all animated airport vehicles will travel. This is a round robin but a vehicle path (road) does not have to connect back to the beginning. The truck will go to the end of any vehicle path (road) and back.

It also shows a blue node is placed each time the Fuel Truck crosses a taxiway/parking link line like David was explaining.

This is only an example. You can open many large airports with ADE and look to see how FSX by default adds the vehicle path for the animated vehicles. You can extend vehicle paths (roads) around the ends of runways if parking is on the other side of the airport.

This keeps the vehicles off the taxiways and from crossing runways. The vehicle paths are normally 20 to 30 ft wide your choice with dash lines on each side (no center line or lights)

hope this is also helpful


EDIT **********


Gary

A good example is my KSAV or KJAX for FSX on AVSIM. Download and open with ADE using the File menu that says open airport from BGL. This will let you select a folder where you placed one of my airport bgl's.


sorry Ray I was typing when you posted



EDIT ************

Added another picture to show 2 different ways for a vehicle path to attach to a group of GA parking. One way is in series and the other way is parallel with a series connection to the parking spot.
 
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No problem Jim
your pic should show Gary what is required, its much easier to look at something than trying to explain it :D

Ray
 
Note. You need to be careful when placing nodes on an existing taxiway link. After placing the node, hover the mouse over the node and ensure that the links either side are highlighted or try dragging the node. If they are not highlighted, or the split links do not drag, delete the node and re-insert.

This will be corrected in an early update.

George
 
Ray & Jim,

Thanks to you both for all the help. I'll check an AFCAD as well as the example that Jim posted. Now, I'm off to ADE. I'll let you know my results tomorrow.
 
Golf-HotelDelta said:
Note. You need to be careful when placing nodes on an existing taxiway link. After placing the node, hover the mouse over the node and ensure that the links either side are highlighted or try dragging the node. If they are not highlighted, or the split links do not drag, delete the node and re-insert.

This will be corrected in an early update.

George
Click to expand...


Just curious...what is the purpose of connecting the
vehicle path links to taxiway paths with nodes when
they cross? Has this something to do with ATC
"hold short, other traffic" instructions?

Paul ( just beginning the never-ending FSX airport modification path...)
 
Gypsy Baron said:
Just curious...what is the purpose of connecting the vehicle path links to taxiway paths with nodes when they cross? Has this something to do with ATC
"hold short, other traffic" instructions?
Click to expand...
The vehicles must be able to reach all parking spots. If the vehicle path does not intersect with the parking connector they will use the regular taxiways. In this case, ATC will give precedence to vehicles rather than AI aircraft when on a taxiway.

George
 
Hi Paul
and to add, basically to stop Collisions, generally whoever arrives first to the connection will get right of way, i know it looks odd for a 747 to stop for a sewerage truck.........
if you look at Jims pic you will see he has passed over one taxiway so neither will be affected, many developers do this to reduce traffic holdups

Ray
 
glottis said:
Hi Paul
and to add, basically to stop Collisions, generally whoever arrives first to the connection will get right of way, i know it looks odd for a 747 to stop for a sewerage truck.........
if you look at Jims pic you will see he has passed over one taxiway so neither will be affected, many developers do this to reduce traffic holdups

Ray
Click to expand...

Thanks Ray. That is more or less what I thought
might be the case but wanted to be sure there
wasn't some other aspect that would "bite me"
if I failed to "make the connection" :)

Since I began adding the missing parking to
Edwards yesterday I figure I might as well continue
to climb the learning curve there and add some
vehicle paths.

Paul
 
Ray

I am glad you spotted that one missing node. I did that on purpose so ATC does not see the vehicle crossing the taxiway (no holdup for any moving vehicle/airplane).

Its not likely that 2 animated objects (vehicle/Plane) would cross at exactly the same time.
 
Paul

Glad to see you over here.

Vehicles will travel on both a vehicle path and a taxiway. Planes will only use a taxiway. It is always best to try and make a vehicle path close to a taxiway so Vehicles by default will use it.

In my picture above I combined a vehicle path into a taxiway path and then continued the vehicle path further down. This works well when there is little room for a vehicle to manuver around a lot of GA parking spots.

At real large airports (see picture below) such as KATL, KMIA, EHAM, etc. the animated vehicles will take a short cut across a runway to get to additional parking on the other side of the airport.

Building a road network around the runway does not always stop this behavior. To keep the vehicles off the main taxiway if they cross a runway we place a vehicle path next to the taxiway which forces them to use that road instead. In my KMIA picture below I had to make a road cross runways for some animated vehicles. Some will go all the way around and some will not.

It is always best to place Fuel Trucks for a group of parking spots so they don't hold up pushback and departure. At large airports I have as many as 12-15 placed in areas so they service no more then 10-15 parking spots.

You see many designers group Fuel Trucks together. That does not work. Only one will be used. They need to be spread out all over the airport.

In my picture of KMIA below which is on AVSIM there is a node every place a vehicle crosses a parking spot like George references above. I do not place a node when a vehicle path crosses a runway. ATC will hold the vehicle if a plane is on approach similar to the way they hold planes at runway intersection. This backs up many vehicles and when they don't move for 5 minutes they disappear same as a plane.

The other main reason we design vehicle roads so planes and vehicles stay seperated is if you have Crash Detect turned on in FSX you will Crash if you run into a vehicle.
 
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Jim
As you know, if we do that at the large airports with many gates its quite amusing watching the support vehicles (as there will now be more of them)
race towards the crossroads with an aircraft approaching :D

Paul
we are all still on a learning curve with what you can a cant do in FSX and what MS may not wish us to do without corrupting something along the way........

Ray
 
In post #5 above I added a 2nd picture to show another way to get a vehicle path attached to a group of GA parking where room is a premium.
 
jvile said:
At real large airports (see picture below) such as KATL, KMIA, EHAM, etc. the animated vehicles will take a short cut across a runway to get to additional parking on the other side of the airport.
Click to expand...

I noticed this behavior when I was testing KSTL.

To keep the vehicles off the main taxiway if they cross a runway we place a vehicle path next to the taxiway which forces them to use that road instead. In my KMIA picture below I had to make a road cross runways for some animated vehicles.
Click to expand...

I had to do exactly that at KSTL. It involved placing a vehicle road where none exists in real life. I did not want to do that, but I had to weigh the consequences...

No road = ground vehicles crossing a busy taxiway.
Put in fake road = ground vehicles stay off taxiway.

I felt it was best to keep traffic moving in the sim, so I put in the stretch of vehicle road.
 
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