A340/B777? ATC: "Taxi to GA Parking"!

[martinlest2 58]

When landing in a commercial jet - say B737 or or A330... at a medium or large airport, it seems to me that ATC nearly always chooses to send me to a small GA parking spot to sit with all the little Cessnas somewhere round the back of the airport, rather than to an appropriate gate - even (I do check for this) when plenty of the latter are free.

 

I use PFE for ATC, but I don't think that has anything to do with this issue, does it? This happened long before I changed from default FS9 ATC. I have done all I can think of: checked (in AFCAD2) that gates are free of the appropriate size (metres) and are not set with the wrong parking codes; that I have the parking information correct in the aircraft.cfg file.. If I have to fix this on an airport-by-airport/gate-by-gate basic, it could take the rest of my life!

 

If anyone has any advice, it'd be welcome. For now I just ignore ATC and head off to the main terminals, 'zapping' any a/c coming towards me on the taxiway, or sitting in 'my' parking space when I get there, with the useful FSUIPC function. But that's hardly 'as real as it gets'!

 

Thanks,

 

Martin

[klamal 282]

Check your aircraft.cfg for the paint you're using and make sure it has an entry atc_parking_code I believe and have your airline's 3-letter code there.  So, for example:

 

atc_parking_type = Gate

atc_parking_code = NAX,NAX

 

The first line says to use parking types of Gate.

 

The second line will tell ATC and GSX that you are Norwegian Air Shuttle(change for your airline) for both gate(the first NAX) and cargo(the second NAX).  From now on, when you land at an airport with proper gate assignments/afcad, you will get directed to your airline's gate.

 

Unfortunately people that do the paints on the web can't take the additional time to put in these parking code entries.  So, until you do manually, you will get weird/wrong assignments like you're seeing.

 

**  Re-Painters - I know it's not hard for us to make these entries.  But, it would really be nice if it could be done in the original paint once and not every single time by every single person that downloads your paint.  But, this is an argument that was had in a whole different topic here on avsim already.

 

**** Edit  Sorry.  Should have read the whole entire post before replying so I hope I didn't tell you what you already know.  Afraid I might have so my apologies.

[martinlest2 58]

No worries! Yes, I do check for that, as I said. Thanks for taking the time to reply!!

[tf51d 284]

Note this needs to be plural

 

atc_parking_type = Gate

atc_parking_code = NAX,NAX

 

Should be

 

atc_parking_types = Gate

atc_parking_codes = NAX,NAX

[martinlest2 58]

Yes, no doubt a typo. :rolleyes:

[klamal 282]

Note this needs to be plural

 

atc_parking_type = Gate

atc_parking_code = NAX,NAX

 

Should be

 

atc_parking_types = Gate

atc_parking_codes = NAX,NAX

 

Thanks.  Sorry about that.  I wasn't in front of my FS PC so I couldn't check it to be sure. 

[WingZ 547]

Deciding ahead of time which gate you want helps... change the parking radius to something impossibly small, and tell AES to take you there! 

[martinlest2 58]

If it's an AES airport!

 

I currently have 189 AES airports in my FS9 setup (more in FSX, but I don't fly FSX all that often) - just counted them - but usually I am going to a non-AES destination...

[WingZ 547]

Well... you could just cut the taxi link to your favourite gate then, saves you zapping the unfortunate occupant of "your" slot!

[tf51d 284]

Deciding ahead of time which gate you want helps... change the parking radius to something impossibly small, and tell AES to take you there! 

If your going to go to all that trouble, the best way instead of changing parking radius, is to assign a ficticious parking code to the gate, and match that to the aircraft you are flying. Then ATC will assign that gate only to you, and will always be available.

[WingZ 547]

This discussion has been had probably many times and alas I can't remember how the parking overflow logic works.

But trust me, there will be a plane in your slot, no matter the parking code, if the airport is busy. 

EDIT:

Let's take you elsewhere....

http://www.flightsim.com/vbfs/showthread.php?261100-Why-do-other-AI-airlines-keep-stealing-the-parking-spot-I-ve-made-for-a-specific-AI&p=1749910#post1749910

[martinlest2 58]

It would be great if that worked, but I have never found that the parking entries in the aircraft.cfg have much effect once you arrive at the airport.

 

Probably best to cut a parking link in the AFCAD file, yes. But to do that for every airport I fly to is a bit of an undertaking, even doing it as and when....Also I fly a lot of different a/c - one flight a 747, next a CRJ200: one gate for all wouldn't really work.

 

I tend to look the other way or momentarily close my eyes when I 'zap' AI planes! Probably continue to do that unless any more elegant solutions surface.

 

M.

[tf51d 284]

They work perfect for me! Watch my videos (Prior to when I started using PFE) I'm assigned an appropriate gate every time. In most cases the problem comes down to the first response I posted. There was a tutorial for ATC parking floating around from a rather authoritative source, but it had the typo of not using purals for ATC_Parking_Codes, and ATC_Parking_Types. So there were always posts on how ATC doesn't park user aircraft the same as AI. Then you had the workarounds, like changing radius of the parking spot, all unnecessary. Once the syntax was corrected the posts I've seen were positive. Try it it works.

[N60JBravo 27]

Codes will not stop AI from parking in your spot.

 

Cutting the link will not stop AI from spawning in your spot.

 

The only thing, I repeat, the only thing that will stop AI from parking in your spot is the radius of the spot. Make it small, like 1 meter, and no AI will ever park there.

 

regards,

Joe

[tf51d 284]

Too each too own! You do it your way and I'll do it my way, it hasn't failed me yet!!