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Refueler trucks cannot get to me

ryanbatc

ryanbatc

Messages
59
First off, thanks for this awesome program, I've done a few AFCADS for FS2002 but not since then....

I'm trying to make the refuel trucks come and give me fuel.

I created two truck parking spots as shown in the pic, and at one time I had a vehicle route added in with the purple lines all the way to the left of the tower. The thing is, the trucks would just STOP before they get off the apron. And never make it to me.

How do you make vehicle routes that connect properly to taxiways and aprons?

And, when I create vehicle pathways, there is a yellow line drawn in FSX, I don't want that.....I either want no line or the little white checkered lines....how do you make those?

vehiclesmeh.jpg
 
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Use the following steps and it should work:

1. The first link out of the vehicle parking spot should be a green apron link.

2. The remaining links should be purple vehicle taxi links

3. When you draw the links you want them to intersect or cross over the green links to your parking spots which you want serviced with fuel. (Example, if your link to your parking spot runs north/south you want to create a four way intersection with your vehicle path going somewhat east/west. The truck will turn off the vehicle path and follow the green path to parking to service the plane.)

4. In the properties dialogue box you should set the vehicle taxipath width to 7-9 meters and uncheck the centerline box. Set the edges to dashed and that will give you the white zipper lines on each side.

5. To get a better example open a large stock airport like KSTL and take a look at how the vehicle paths are laid down.
 

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Hi Ryan,

There are a couple of quirks built into FSX that are not your fault but will stop the fuel truck from coming to you. First, even though you have your a/c parked on the parking "T" correctly there is a hidden box that you can't see. And as Jim Vile said it appears to be fairly small. The FIRST thing I would do when the fuel truck "stalls or stops coming" is to put FSX into SLEW mode and move the a/c forward about 4 feet. I bet the truck will now come to you. This can be dealt with in the "T" off sets. Jim has a note up in the sticky's somewhere and was a great help to me. Remember, build it and they WILL come!:)
I hope Jim sees this and will come to your aid as I am at work today with limited time. Keep in mind that you MAY HAVE built the paths correctly. If you have not connected the paths correctly I don't think you'll get the message, " you're customer number one" Keep us posted of your progress. Also for reference I (mostly all Jim Vile) built a small bgl for Felts Field adding 1 fuel truck. It's in the AVSIM FSX Library under scenery. Search "fuel truck" & "Felts Field". Good luck!

ryanbatc said:
First off, thanks for this awesome program, I've done a few AFCADS for FS2002 but not since then....

I'm trying to make the refuel trucks come and give me fuel.

I created two truck parking spots as shown in the pic, and at one time I had a vehicle route added in with the purple lines all the way to the left of the tower. The thing is, the trucks would just STOP before they get off the apron. And never make it to me.

How do you make vehicle routes that connect properly to taxiways and aprons?

And, when I create vehicle pathways, there is a yellow line drawn in FSX, I don't want that.....I either want no line or the little white checkered lines....how do you make those?

vehiclesmeh.jpg
Click to expand...
 
Hi ryanbatc
the comments above are very valid and dcmiller58 pic is an example of how a vehicle path should be laid out
a couple of observations i see in your pic are, try not to put fuel trucks together, might look neat and real but will not work in FSX, always try to place them randomly around an airport for them to be efficient
the fuel truck at the bottom (by your arrow) will never move the one above will be doing all the work, i would place one of them over on the apron up in the top left of your pic and then both will be used (making a separate vehicle path to rejoin your original path) try not to connect a fuel parking spot to a apron path, always make sure it has own connection as shown in dcmiller58 pic
also fuel trucks will not refuel a heli, unless you have just put the vehicle path there for a visual effect
you had your vehicle path connected as i see the blue nodes, why did you remove them, when connecting between the green apron paths you will need to resize the vehicle path as dcmiller58 has described, if your fuel truck is not using the vehicle path for some reason (hover your mouse over nodes to see if all paths are connected) fuel trucks will use the taxiways, something to avoid as you can get holdups with departing/arriving aircraft
if you need any more help don't hesitate to get back to us

Ray
 
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Thank you, I got it working....yeah the refueling areas seem to be very sensitive, gotta be right on that dang T I guess

My next step is helipads, I made 2 start area for helos, but don't know where I could get AI helicopters...

Is it even possible?
 
Good for you, Ryan.

As for AI helos...I have no experience with that sort of thing. Maybe one of the other guys will...this is ground zero for AI programming, it seems.

Derrick
 
AI helicopters - no such thing

AI helicopter models flying with motorglider flight dynamics - look pretty good. No hover takeoffs or landings - but pretty good.

Basically we create new overlay airports with different designators and very short runways for the helicopters.

If we mix helicopters and regular fixed wing aircraft on the same airport / runway - we can end up with no AI aircraft.

A helicopter will be vectored in for an ILS approach and will close on the airport at 30 KIAS. That's 10 minutes for a 5 mile final - 10 minutes in which the runway will be locked out for all other traffic.

Search for some files which begin with the name AIHEL*.* in your favorite web site file library for some details. Yes, the FS2002 and FS2004 files have very valuable information for FSX.
 
ryanbatc said:
I made 2 start area for helos, but don't know where I could get AI helicopters...
Click to expand...
As Reggie said, AI helicopters are just helicopter models with aircraft air and cfg files. They will not fly from helipads but from normal parking spaces.

In FS9 it was easy to create invisible runways but this is no longer possible in FSX, one needs to create runways of zero width:



George
 
Not much I can add to Gary's post on why a Fuel Truck will stall on its way to your plane.

You have found the problem. At some airports the bounding box the plane sits in is very very small. You must be directly over the default "T" to be in the box.

Like Gary said once you set a few offset T's the front gear wheel is visible to the "T". That does not change the box bounds but helps with a visual when you taxi into the box.

In some of my studies I also notice the boxes are varing in size at larger airports also. Some Planes can park off the "T" and evrything will still work.

But then a parking spot right next to that spot needs the plane parking directly on the "T"

This also has a ill affect with the conveyor belt at GATE type parking. If you do not get positioned inside a very small box correctly the converyor will not come to the baggage door. A slight movement in slew will normally start the conveyor.
 
Reggie and George

I have now been able to code and tie a ILS to a Heliport in XML which is seperate to a runway ILS.

I do not have any experience or studies on Helicopter behaviors but there might be a way to tie the helicopter to the heliport and a parking code that has a 3x10 ft runway with the ILS nested to it.

With a little nudging and cfg EW's the helicopter might just choose the ILS for the heliport rather then the runway ILS and appear to land/park with not a lot of movement.
 
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Golf-HotelDelta said:
As Reggie said, AI helicopters are just helicopter models with aircraft air and cfg files. They will not fly from helipads but from normal parking spaces.

In FS9 it was easy to create invisible runways but this is no longer possible in FSX, one needs to create runways of zero width:


George
Click to expand...

Cool, is there a way to make it so that only HELOS use that "runway?"
 
ryanbatc said:
Cool, is there a way to make it so that only HELOS use that "runway?"
Click to expand...
Again, do what Reggie said and create an overlay. An overlay is a separate airfield with a separate ICAO with its runway somewhere on your existing airfield adjacent to your helipad.

This is one from FS9 where the runway was made invisible by setting Surface="UNKNOWN"



George
 
Helicopter overlays do work in FSX provided that the runway and apron paths are set to zero width. I created this on an existing apron defined in the main airport AFD file:



Take-off:



Landing:



Parking:



George
 
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