Making Airlines park at a certain location

[Bizub4]

How can I use FSXPlanner(Or can I) to make a certain Airline use a certain gate? I see the airline code area but if I just enter DL will that make all of my World of AI Delta Planes park there?

 

[rf360m]

I'm going to leave this one up to those people who are more knowledgable than I on this topic.

-Russell

 

[jvile]

Bizub4

The first thing you have to do is make sure the parking spots are large enough to accept a half wing span ft value airplane.

Your uploads on various web sites have GATE parking set at 12, 13, 15M sizes and only CRJ/GA type planes are going to pull up to the Main Terminal buildings (KRIC, KPHF, etc.). The larger AI Airlines are going over to the GA Parking because you set them to 18M

Once the parking sizes are correct then you must use a correct Airline code that is the standard set such as Delta is DAL. The standard was decided on many years ago and most FP designers that have AI Planes in their package set the cfg code properly.

You also need to be sure the Gate Parking spots attach to a Taxiway link (KPHF) and also all Vehicle Link lines have a node attached to the parking path link.

You should start out with a small airport in your designing efforts and practice "How To" make a airport work. Once you have tested the airport then move to a larger airport.

The airports you are uploading are going to cause a CTD and need to be repaired. In the KRIC alone you have over 140 <Scenery GUIDS/> nesting above the airport header which are duplicates of airport scenery from the default APX/OBX bgl that Richmond nest in.

All the taxiway signs are duplicated because no exclusion bounding box exsit in your XML.

You removed aprons that are still part of airports but left all the lighting in the XML.

None of this is a fault of how FSXP works but a fault with poor design work and not testing airports prior to uploading.

The objective is not to destroy a perfectly working FSX default airport but enhance with Utilities what FSX gave us to begin with.

The next time I post on a web site trying to help you with a problem don't shout at me just because I won't send you a MS FSX protected bgl. The eula says, DO NOT publish the software for others to copy;

Your quote to me after I tried to answer your question on AVSIM

Bizub4 says on July 14

This is it. I've had it. I asked him (Russell) he told me my file must be corrupurted because it opened for him. NOW IF YOU ARE NOT GOING TO ATTACH THE FILE TO YOUR REPLY DONT REPLY!

If you continue with these type respnses you are going to run out of help very fast. I am not here to be abused by you and your lack of knowledge but I am here to help those that want to enhance the further development of FS.

 

[Mace]

How can I use FSXPlanner(Or can I) to make a certain Airline use a certain gate? I see the airline code area but if I just enter DL will that make all of my World of AI Delta Planes park there?

Jim pretty much hit it all.

The key thing to remember is that it's not a simple procedure...there are several things interacting to determine what parks where. These things MUST be accurate and well thought-out or else your bgl won't do what you want. For parking, offhand those things are:

1) size of parking spot
2) wing_span value in the AI aircraft's aircraft.cfg file
3) atc_parking=DAL or whatever it is, in the aircraft.cfg
4) the parking spot must be coded to accept DAL

You can even do things to fine-tune what parks where, by messing with parking spot radii, and so forth.

I suggest you use the handy SEARCH function and look for the threads here about parking. Read thru all of them and if you are interested in this stuff at all it should be a good read, and should help your bgl's work better.

 

[Bizub4]

Thank you Mace.
As for you Jvile It sounds like all you want to do is to put me down. Please knock it off.
Many people are pleased with my work so mainly I don't see why I should care about your statment but I will look at the problems you pointed out. But if you really want to reach me with bugs or problem please e-mail me at the address in the Richmond and Newport News read me's.

 

[Mace]

Thank you Mace.
As for you Jvile It sounds like all you want to do is to put me down. Please knock it off.

You know I do not want to post a non-scenery design post here, but I can't help myself in this one instance.

I saw what you said at AVSIM, and it was uncalled for, so I don't blame him for being a little ticked at you. If you want to have that kind of attitude, you're free to do it, but if you do, with most people, help won't be very forthcoming for you, I'm afraid. That is too bad because we need as many good designers as we can get, since there are 24000+ airports in FSX, most of which could use improvement, and not nearly that many of us. Cheers on the upside.

 

[rfields]

I just enter DL will that make all of my World of AI Delta Planes park there?

No for several reasons - not the least of which is that DL is not the code for Delta Airlines - it's DAL.

Most people use DALX for Delta's regional associates like Comair and others.

Two character IATA codes are duplicated too often in the real world to be very useful as FS parking codes.

The atc_parking_codes= entry in the aircraft.cfg fltsim.x section for the repaint must exactly match the parking code entered in the parking space properties. Capitalization counts.

As Jim notes above - size of the parking spot is just as critical as the parking code.

Flight Simulator airports are a house of cards - and have to be watched carefully because it is very easy to setup configurations which will cause CRD and other issues.

Most of the lessons provided by Jim and others have only been learned by hours and hours of testing. That testing has brought many advances by finding things we never thought possible in FS.

It's also shown some very strict limitations.

 

[Bell_209]

...and revealed that we need to adhere to a rough standard, otherwise we won't get anywhere!

 

[Bizub4]

I got it working!

 

[MoToCroSs986]

In Taxiway Parking Data screen of FSX Planner [R21]

I entered N737X as the Airline Code, but it wouldn't compile. Error said it could only be 4 characters. I looked thought a bunch of aircraft CFG files and they are all 5 or more characters (atc_id=?)Do you have to put(atc_parking=?) into the aircraft.cfg files?

Thanks

 

[Mace]

In Taxiway Parking Data screen of FSX Planner [R21]

I entered N737X as the Airline Code, but it wouldn't compile. Error said it could only be 4 characters. I looked thought a bunch of aircraft CFG files and they are all 5 or more characters (atc_id=?)Do you have to put(atc_parking=?) into the aircraft.cfg files?

Thanks

atc_id= is just the registration that ATC shows for the aircraft. It has nothing to do with how/where aircraft park.

What you need is atc_parking_codes= in your aircraft.cfg files. atc_parking_codes is a 3 or 4 character data field, the contents of which are the airline's code. Put it in the [flightsim.0] section such as I have with the B727 as follows:

[fltsim.0]
title=AIA 727-200 Delta
sim=aia_727_200
model=no_refl
panel=
sound=
texture=DAL
kb_checklists=
kb_reference=
atc_id=N474DA
atc_id_color=0xffffffff
atc_airline=Delta
atc_flight_number=424
ui_manufacturer="Boeing"
ui_type="727-200"
ui_variation="Delta"
description=
atc_heavy=0
visual_damage=0
atc_parking_codes=DAL
atc_parking_types=GATE

Keep in mind that DAL = Delta Airlines. DALX would be Delta regional partners such as Comair. FDX= Fedex. JBU = Jet Blue and so forth. You can use Wikipedia to quickly find the ICAO code for the airline you are interested in.

For FSXPlanner, atc_parking_codes= must match the code you enter in FSXPlanner for a particular parking spot.

With atc_parking_codes= and atc_parking_types= you can customize pretty strictly as to what parks where. The radius of the parking spot is another consideration, too, but that is another topic.

 

[MoToCroSs986]

Thanks so much Mace

 

[MoToCroSs986]

Do you need a "atc_id" for it to work, and where do you get that number or do you make one up.

Thanks

 

[Mace]

I think atc_id can be anything you want. It's just the aircraft registration that ATC says.

The atc_id number will also show in the Traffic Explorer if you have the Traffic Toolbox SDK kit installed.

I don't know if there is a length limit on the string of characters you can put there for atc_id. I have never tested that to find out.

 

[garfield_x]

atc_id is only used for user planes and not for AI planes.

For AI FS uses the ID given in the FP, so for AI fligths you can leave this one blank

 

[MoToCroSs986]

thanks guys

 

[Mace]

atc_id is only used for user planes and not for AI planes.

For AI FS uses the ID given in the FP, so for AI fligths you can leave this one blank

That's right, duh.