Assigned Parking

[rowcoach]

What happens when you assign parking spaces? Will only the assigned planes park there? If I have some Air Canada AI and I assign gates to ACA, will they be the only planes to show up at those gates?

I also have cargo AI (UPS and FedEX) that keep showing up at passenger terminals that I would lilke to move to a cargo area.

Thanks!

 

[glottis]

rowcoach
this can be a long and complex question to answer in detail without confusing you if you are new to AI Traffic
and you will find other threads that may answer many of these questions for you ......
to simplify, you are correct if you assign ACA that is all that will use that spot making sure the various sizes are correct for a particular ACA aircraft, at an overcrowded airport with AI fighting for a spot you might see others on that spot regardless of what has been assigned, i wont go into these details right now as there can be a pecking order with certain flight plans.........
if you are getting Cargo parking at the terminal then either there is no cargo spots, none the correct size, or not enough parking so they will go to the only spot available to them, the terminal, always add more than enough parking spots, more than you think you will need
you don't even need to assign your cargo spots if there is enough parking for them and of the right size and they then will never go to the terminal, of course you can still assign these spots if you wish,
the priority is plenty of parking first, then assign your parking where you wish, each developer has his own plan of work of course

Ray

 

[rowcoach]

Thanks - that helped.

I've moved both military and cargo AI to another apron leaving more space by the terminal. However, I have a couple new issues now....

(1) some of my passenger AI ends up in cargo - even though there is plenty of room elsewhere. I've played with the plane's config file, but still no luck.

(2) not all of my jetways appear. Is that because my settings are too low?

Thanks again.

 

[glottis]

if there is plenty of parking you may need to now check the size of your parking spots, are there enough heavy "GATES" at the terminal, which aircraft are going to cargo are they the heavies or small jets/props? are the parking size at cargo the same as the empty ones at the terminal......
what are you doing to the CFG file? are you adding a code or GATE/RAMP/CARGO for a particular aircraft?
your slider settings are to low if all Jetways do not appear, for all jetways to appear (assuming you have not changed their setting in the jetway properties) you need to set your slider for scenery objects to "Extremely Dense"

Ray

 

[jvile]

rowcoach

I have sent Reggie a message to post on this subject in detail.

Just as soon as the holidays are over I expect to see him back on line and will give you a link to that post if needed.

The holidays have many of the ADE Team off traveling (including Jon) so bare with us until we are all available again for answering all types of questions.

 

[rowcoach]

Thanks for your help Jim. No rush. I'm going to be playing with this for a while to get familiar with it. My next step is figure out how to move, add, delete buildings - but that project can wait a couple days!

All the best of the New Year!

colin

 

[scruffyduck]

Colin

You will need something other than ADE Home to delete move or add buidings. In the current version you will not be able to do that. An object placement tool like Whisplacer (freeware) or Instant Scenery from Fight1 (payware) are worth looking at

 

[rowcoach]

Thanks Jon,

Both Instant Scenery and Whisplacer look good. Do you know if IS let's you design your own buildings or do both draw from a pre-existing library?

colin

 

[scruffyduck]

Thanks Jon,

Both Instant Scenery and Whisplacer look good. Do you know if IS let's you design your own buildings or do both draw from a pre-existing library?

colin

They work with existing object libraries. Designing your own buildings is a whole different ball game and you would need to learn a 3D design tool such as GMax or FSDS.

 

[rfields]

Will only the assigned planes park there?

No, Parking assignments only create a preference for a parking spot.

There is no exclusion in FS parking except one - the aircraft is too large for the parking spot.

When you are seeing aircraft park in the wrong place - your parking assignments are not matching the AI flight plans on your computer.

AI Parking must match the flight plans, not the real world airport. AI flight plans for large airlines like Air Canada almost always have more aircraft overnight at their major hubs than there are gates for that airline in the real world.

This is easy for a real world airline, they just push the extra aircraft back to an empty area of the ramp - but FS won't move an AI aircraft on the ground after it is parked.

My recommendation for a hub airport is to set the traffic file so that only the major airline is active / visible.

Work the parking assignments until that airline parks perfectly at all times of the day.

Make sure every passenger carrying aircraft, even the regional props and jets, is atc_parking_types=GATE and every parking spot they are to use is GATE_HEAVY, GATE_MEDUIM or GATE_SMALL (Though in FSX, you may have to use RAMP_GA with and airline parking code for spots where you do not want the pushback tug, baggage cart and baggage loader to appear)

Check the parking an hour before dawn, at 8 am, 10 am , noon, 2 pm, 4 pm, 6 pm, 8 pm, 10 pm , midnight and 2 am.

Also be aware that your airline parking locations not at the terminal or jetway must be coded with so that the NAME in the parking spot properties is GATE + a letter is you have any GATE + a letter parking on the airport.

GATE without a letter has a priority over GATE with a letter.

There is no priority of GATE A over GATE B, etc.

I tend to use GATE R for overflow parking spots.

Once you have your main airline and it's regional feeders parking correctly - add all your cargo airlines and check again. That is the best way to check cargo parking - with only one major airline on the airport and lots of empty gate spots to asorb overflow.

You'll spot how much extra cargo parking you need quickly.

Then add other airlines - working for the ones with the most traffic down the list.

I always prefer 10-15% of the parking of each type on the airport have no parking code/ assignments. That lets you spot problems caused by changes in AI schedules pretty easily.

One other factor which you may or may not wish to do is to edit the AI flight plans and put the largest aircraft at the top of the flightplans file.

The normal practice seems to be the smaller aircraft first.

What that does is hide any issues you have with too few of the smallest spots and aircraft cascading into larger spots.

If the heavies are first in the plan, then the medium sized aircraft, then the small jets, then the regionals - you will see quickly if you don't have enough parking for a particular size aircraft.