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AI: Taxiway Path Parking ...

J

juxair

Messages
16
Country
luxembourg
Question:

Are the width settings for taxiway , path recognised by FSX and used for AI Traffic ?

Example:

my Parking spot is Gate Heavy radius 200
taxiway path width 50
taxiway width 5

Would a 747 find it s way to the parking as the taxiways are to small for that aircraft or are those settings only for designer use ?

regards

awe
 
Short answer: in my experience YES it should provided the taxiway links to the parking spot

I can't tell if you're working in feet or meters. (as an aside, 200 foot radius is an unneeded large size, even for a 747. If you're talking diameter that's different.)

Although I have not tested the specific case you mention (a 747 on a 5-foot or 5-meter wide taxiway) I can tell you the following:

A Shorts 360 (turboprop commuter) will indeed taxi over a taxiway that is very narrow (as in 1 or 2meters wide) to it's 12.10m radius parking spot.

So the concept is the same as what you ask. The taxiway seems to be able to be much more narrow than the aircraft taxiing on it.

-------------------

FS seems to be ignoring the width of taxiways as it relates to what can taxi on it. FS is more interested in if the taxiway exists, and what nodes it connects to, to determine whether aircraft uses that taxiway or not. AI aircraft seem to take the shortest routing to where they are trying to go.

Other than plumbing-type parking systems, there are limits to what we can control with AI taxiing behavior. XML Variables that are in the SDK like taxiway weight limits are IGNORED by FS.

If these variables were honored in FS, it might give us some more control over what taxi's where.

I ran into this at KSTL where there is a taxiway that is seldom used because it's close to a vehicle path. In FS, AI love to use that taxiway because it's handy for them. As a result, I had to break a link or two in it, and also move the taxiway slightly south of its actual location to allow it to handle 757-size aircraft without contacting ground vehicles.

Breaking a link or two in it makes the AI move somewhere else quickly, so they don't stay on the taxiway too long and are forced to move to the adjacent parallel taxiway.

I hated to deviate from reality, but I did only move the taxiway about 1 or 2 or 3 meters. Not noticeable to any user unless you are a designer and are intimately familiar with KSTL.

Sorry to start rambling but your post brought up some things I have seen and tested in FS regarding your taxiway width question. You brought up a good question...
 
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mace

so in fact the width in FSX Planner for taxiways is only for designer use.

ty for the info

any tips or tricks on how to "force" a special aicraft to a special parking spot ?

regards

awe
 
Thank you for creating your ellxv1 for fsx. I fly in and out of Findel a couple of times a year and I appreciate the effort you put into your project. As to your question, I once posed a similar question to Burkhard Renk (creator of MyTraffic) and I'll post his response here as an fyi.

kagazi Post subject: Posted: Sat Jun 23, 2007 2:48 pm



Joined: Tue Jan 09, 2007 10:31 pm
Posts: 47 Burkhard/Jaap:

This discussion was helpful but after reading I still had a couple of questions.

I'm in the process of developing accurate parking assignments at KIAD using the most up-to-date airline and parking info. I'm running into a couple of issues and was wondering if there's a fix.

1) I've noticed that commuters (TED and US Airways Express to name a few) will occupy a parking specifically assigned to ramp_cargo. I was under the impression that only cargo planes could park at ramp_cargo parking? What would cause a commuter to occupy a cargo parking spot? and is there a way to block them from parking in the cargo area? I used the editor to look at the series and according to the editor they're not supposed to be parking at a cargo ramp.

2) Some instances where a random commuter (Execjet or equivalent regional express commuter such as CHQ) will occupy a parking assigned specifically to another airline like SWA or JBU. From what I'm reading here, since the regional commuter carries passengers it would naturally park at a gate parking; however, would the assignment of the gate to one airline not prevent it from being used by other airlines including regional commuters? Or does the assignment only give the assigned airline priority but not exclusivity?

I'm sorry if this has been mentioned in the past. Thank you for your time.

kagazi


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Burkhard Post subject: Posted: Sat Jun 23, 2007 9:22 pm


Product Support

Joined: Tue Nov 05, 2002 10:59 am

Posts: 6415

Nothing in FSX is exclusive.

The algorithm is the following:

When a plane needs a parking, it loops over all free parkings. Based on
a) radius
b) parking type
c) airline code
d) distance from runway it lands on

every parking gets a weight. The parking with the heighest weight gets used.
So let us assume on your airport you have two airlines DAL and AAL, and 4 gates and 2 cargo parkings. 2 gates are associated with DAL, two with AAL, the cargo are unassociated. Airport is empty. All parkings have same radius.

1. aircraft landing is a DAL airliner - it will park at a DAL gate.
2. landing is UAL airliner - it will go to cargo, since the weight of parking code is higher than parking type - this was changed in FS9 SP1 due to severe pressure by the PAI group.
3. landing is an AAL - will go to AAL.
4. another DAL lands - goes to DAL parking.
5. still another DAL - will go to cargo.
6. a cargo plane - has to go to the AAL gate since this is the only free one.

Consequence: a strict association of gates to airlines only can work if for every airline the number of associated parkings ( of each radius type ) is always larger than the number or aircrafts on the airport. If you load the airport to more than 30% of its capacity, this will never happen.

General advice therefore is to not associate more than half of the gates to an airline, leave at least half of them, so at very least three of each radius size, free. These can be ramp positions away from the jetways, but must be created as Gate_small 18m etc. Only if you really have many of such unassociated parkings, you can expect a consequent row to really show up as one airline.

It is a design principle of FS9 and FSX to avoid the situation to have to delete an aircraft before the users eye as much as possible - that is why FSX prefers to put a FDX MD11 to a gate heavy instead of blowing it into the air.

The above now is only true if FSX can loop over all free parkings - which only will happen if your actual frame rate is not target frame rate. If it is, the loop will be terminated long before looping over all - so if you have a target frame rate of 25 or above or unlimited, and only 20 fps, you can be sure the selection is just the next free one, whatever that is.
 
juxair said:
so in fact the width in FSX Planner for taxiways is only for designer use.
Click to expand...

Well, the width of the taxiway is also important because it determines how wide the taxiway appears in the sim.

But as far as aircraft goes it doesn't appear to affect them

any tips or tricks on how to "force" a special aicraft to a special parking spot ?
Click to expand...

The best way, is to give it a parking code (atc_parking_codes=<yourcode>), and then set a parking spot to use that code at your airport.

And of course you'd have to make sure the parking spot was big enough for your aircraft, too.

Do you need more details?

There are other ways, too...but that's the easiest way..parking codes.
 
well..ty for your help guys

off course taxiway width IS important for the design from runway to parking.

My concern was about the taxiways (path ) on aprons (parkings) to let s say CLOSE a small parking for a huge aircraft by using a small taxiway.
But the aicraft don t seem to be affected (a 747 nicely travels on a 5m taxiway....)

as to ELLX you may have figured out that the parking spot numbers aren t correct.
WHY ?

well..i watched my AI for hours..days and tried to figure out the most realistic AI for my AI traffic.

i m using WOAI and for Cargolux (old PAI ) and for Luxair (the schedule on the Luxair site ).

So at ELLX all aircraft seem to park nicely where they are supposed to park EXCEPT the 2 737-500 and the winglet.A MD11 Cargo also seems to prefer a gate instead of going to a Luxair Cargocenter parking.

As it s OLD AI aircraft it also might be due to their model files ( i haven t tested that yet ).

It would be nice if WOAI could post the flightplans for Cargolux and Luxair (all the needed AI aircrafts are available on the web except the new Bombardier for Luxair )

Afterall ELLX has grown up to a heavy cargo airport !

regards

awe

PS: Once the WOAI flightplans are available i ll modifie the parkings again to be sure the aircrafts will go to the correct parkings.
 
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I picked up the Aeroport de Luxembourg Horaire/Timetable/Flugplan while at the airport in September. It's the Summer 2007 plan but I used it to modify your afcad to more closely resemble parking and airlines.

What I did for the new Terminal B (gates B1 through B10)was to restrict the parking to 15m radius and LGL code. This guarantees to 95% that only the Luxair ERJ 135s or 145s will park next to the terminal. I also left open a few more 15m spots for SAS, KLM and VLM adjacent to the new Terminal A.

I assigned a few 18m spots adjacent to the old Terminal A for the Luxair 737-500 and 737-700. This is also where they park the Luxair Tours fights.

Most all other spots (15m, 18m, and 24m) are marked for the "other" airlines (Air France, Lufthansa, Austrian, British Airways, Hamburg, Alitalia, TAP, Swiss and Tunisair). I'm not too worried if they're parking in the exact correct spot as long as it's close and adjacent to the old and new Terminal A.

Thanks again for ELLX.
 
i see

my B1- B10 are at 18m though all ERJ parked there some 737 had to put their noose in there also

i ll fix this to 15m

the new terminal A prolly gonna be for the 737 and up

so i guess 18 or 24 should be the correct radius ?

regards

awe

PS: if you were wondering about the parking M that s my personal parking spot :)
 
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Ai parking configuration according to Burkhard Renk below.

I have confined the jetways at the new Terminal A to 18m parking. I only allow for two or three 23m spots in C or D. Most all flights at ELLX are 15m or 18m - Cargo being the exception. Now for the explanation.

"The Definition of parking radii is different for FSX than for FS8/9. While it was half the diameter of the bounding box for FS9, now it is half the wing span, which is much lower."

"After experimenting, I recommend the following values:

Gates:
Gate Heavy 40m special A380 parking
Gate Heavy 36m B747, A340-600, B777-300
Gate Heavy 31m B777, A330, A340
Gate Medium 27m B767, MD11
Gate Medium 23m A300, A310, B757
Gate Small 18m B737, A318, A319, A32x, MD80s, Fokker 100
Gate small 14m All Commuters up to E170/Q400

The 14 m gates should not be placed to jetways, since they will be used with priority for commuters with extractable ladder.

Ramps:
18m ramps are used as spare overflow parkings for jetliners mainly, while the 14m are overflow for commuters. Even most larger GA jets fit into the 10m parkings, and a 7m GA parking makes sense for the 1-mots.

Cargo: Now the A380F is not near to us, Cargo 35m is enough for all large cargo aircrafts, and additional Cargo 25m make sense for B757/B727/DC8 freighters.

The only difference between these definitions and the stock MS ones is in the Gate medium parking. The MS Definition of the 23m makes the 767 and the MD11 Gate heavy users, so you really need many parkings of these. With 27m, they group together with B757,A300, A310, DC10 and L1011 to one class in size.

14m all commuters up to E170/Q400
18m small airliners (A320/B737)
27m medium up to 767 ( 23 for A300/310/B757)
31 for A330/340/B777
36m for 747/346/773X
40m for A380

For Cargo, a 26m radius is suitable for the Il76."
 
If you are going to get into parking spot sizes, you need to look at Reggie Fields and Jim Vile's threads on this, which are here at FSDeveloper.

If you want the ULTIMATE in separation and AI controllability by type, these work well for the larger aircraft:

23.1m for 757's
24.1m for 767's
26.1m for DC-10/MD-11
33.1m for 747
40.1m for A380

And yes 15.1m is the magic number for keeping regional jets out of your 737/A318/319/320 parking, which will have 18.1 or 19.1.
 
ty again for the infos

now that the radius for a parking seems clear what about the parking definition ?

GATE small = 15.1 m

GATE medium

Gate heavy....or doesn t those count for the AI ?

regards

awe
 
GATE HEAVY, GATE SMALL, GATE MEDIUM, none of it matters at all.

The only difference is that GATE HEAVY draws a different ground graphic.

You can have a GATE HEAVY that is 2.0m radius, if you want to.

The radius is what governs. Not the designation, small, med, heavy.

For regional jets I tend to use 15.1m GATE SMALL
for 727 I tend to use 17.1m GATE SMALL
For 737/A320 I tend to use 19.1m GATE SMALL (18.1 works also)
For 757 I tend to use 23.1m GATE MEDIUM
For 767 I tend to use 24.1m GATE MEDIUM
For DC-10/MD-11 I tend to use 26.1m GATE HEAVY
and so forth...

Really ultimately, I will tailor my parking radii to what I want to park there. If you want the ground graphics around your RJ parking, then by all means give them 15.1m GATE HEAVY designations.
 
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