The marshaller used to work for the Luftwaffe.

 

That's funny...enjoyed the link!

 

Glad I'm not the only one being told to try Bus Simulator by the GSX Marshaller.

Best bit about GSX I love is when you call for the Follow-Me truck and he comes along, and you diligently follow him, when all of a sudden he does a 360 degree turn and shoots off on a different tangent. And he always seems to do it at turns.

At Taxi2Gate's KMCO, he drives through the woods.

Best bit about GSX I love is when you call for the Follow-Me truck and he comes along, and you diligently follow him, when all of a sudden he does a 360 degree turn and shoots off on a different tangent. And he always seems to do it at turns.

Yeah and the passengers are like "dude wth" lol! Only time got a good parking was with warp!

Yeah and the passengers are like "dude wth" lol! Only time got a good parking was with warp!

To give my arrivals a bit of realism, I generally ask for and follow the Follow-Me, and then wait with bated breath as I'm gently poking the nose in, watching that marshaller waving his arms until I'm almost on top of him, and wait for that desultory comment that I parked badly. Sure is a hoot.

I remember he told me I did a good job once. I just about fell off my chair!

I raised this issue with Umberto on the GSX forum because I was becoming very frustrated at not being able to park 'correctly'.

 

Whilst not totally dismissing my complaint that it's virtually impossible to satisfy the marshaller he wasn't very sympathetic. I did suggest a readout display giving my position relative to the perfect position would be helpful. That was not taken up.

 

If the marshaller has both arms in a raised attitude and you hit the brakes just as his arms cross that to me is good parking. But not according to the code that controls the marshaller.

 

GSX is a great program but the marshaller needs to be either less fussy or more helpful.

The issue is that the textures on the ground (the parking centreline you visually follow) is not located in exactly the same path as the afcad. GSX follows the AFCAD, not the visual line, hence you will have a discrepancy.

 

You can look at it yourself if you install the free Airport Scenery Designer and look at the AFCAD of the airport...

 

Will,

 

I can understand why he would use the AFCAD for accuracy but many of us use the guidance of the marshaller. If he indicates through arm movements that you are horizontally aligned with the centre line and you brake when his arms cross why would that not be a satisfactory result? It suggests the marshaller is at fault, not us.

What  is a AFCAD ?

What  is a AFCAD ?

AFCAD files are scenery files (in *.bgl format) containing information about the position of airport facilities in FS. These files tell FSX where gates, taxiways, taxi signs, airport buildings etc are located.

They basically control what appears where, and some third party addons might read this data and use it to provide services according to this information (e.g. the GSX marshaller looks for the "ideal" parking positions of the gates, and is supposed to guide you to this position).

Fully concur with you, Ray. I approach him very, very slowly following his arm actions, and when he crosses arms, stop, apply brakes, cut engines off after having turned on the APU while taxi-ing following the Follow-me vehicle, and he still gives me gip!

If his arms are crossed over his head and not waving madly, that'll do me. I've given up taking any notice of the comment after that. There are no points for parking.

I usually just ignore the marshaller when he starts waving.... Something even more annoying is the procedure after the push-back. It takes ages.... why on earth do the tug and the marshaller stay in front of me and then even drive towards me??? why not just exit to the side (as for example AES does)? In a busy Online-environment i often just run over both marshaller and truck....

If the marshaller has both arms in a raised attitude and you hit the brakes just as his arms cross that to me is good parking. But not according to the code that controls the marshaller.

The marshall code is correct, clear proof of this, is that several people have seen him dancing. Since only 20% of a "very good parking" rating will get the marshaller dancing, if the marshaller code had a problem, nobody would ever seen him dancing. So, clearly, some users got the hang of it.

 

GSX is a great program but the marshaller needs to be either less fussy or more helpful.

The required accuracy for the evaluation calculated by the marshaller, is about half the one required by docking system ( which is also less strict than real life docking systems ), yet nobody ever complained about the docking system being too difficult, and that's simply because having the distance readout makes the docking system automatically easier to use, even if twice as strict as the marshaller. The "code", obviously, it's exactly the same, just a different animation, and the larger tolerance of the marshaller.

 

We could surely a distance readout for the marshaller too, obviously as an option, because then people will start complaining "it's not realistic".

 

 

I can understand why he would use the AFCAD for accuracy but many of us use the guidance of the marshaller.

That's exactly what you should do and it's exactly what GSX does. The marshaller WILL give correct informations, based on the AFCAD, but the only information used from the AFCAD, is the parking location AND the parking heading. It will NOT use, instead, the AFCAD yellow lines, regardless if the scenery uses the AFCAD default lines, or if it uses custom lines.

 

And here is where you can be easily mislead thinking the marshaller might have a problem, or not understanding what data is using: there's no guarantee whatsoever that the AFCAD yellow line is aligned with the parking radius, that's up to the scenery designer, but of course is just natural trying to follow the yellow line, but it would be wrong if GSX would try to use that information to verify the alignment, because on many sceneries, especially 3rd party ones, the parking heading doesn't match the apron line. Even a very small difference, of a fraction of a degree, will make quite a difference, and it will result in not being aligned with the *parking* heading, which is what GSX uses for the marshaller signals.

 

We were guilty of this kind of sloppiness in the past, before GSX. After GSX, we tried to pay more attention to the alignment of the parking heading to the last section of the AFCAD apron line, but not all 3rd party scenery developers do the same, that's why it seems the marshaller is too picky, but he's not.

In addition to that,if someone would like to have a look at a modified Marshaller program, that includes a distance readout, download the following file:

 

http://www.fsdreamteam.com/download/marshaller.pye

 

To be placed under FSX\fsdreamteam\couatl\GSX\parkingServices

 

It will display a distance and longitudinal readout while you approach the parking.

 

To get a "Very Good Parking" rating, you must park within 0.5 mt. in the longitudinal axis, and 1.0 ft. in the lateral axis of the target.

 

The readout will display only it the "Message Verbosity" option in the "Simulation" section of the "GSX - Settings" menu is set to "Display All Messages"

 

If there's enough good feedback, we might make it an official feature, and include it in the next Live Update.

The marshall code is correct, clear proof of this, is that several people have seen him dancing. Since only 20% of a "very good parking" rating will get the marshaller dancing, if the marshaller code had a problem, nobody would ever seen him dancing. So, clearly, some users got the hang of it.

 

 

Agreed code is correct but the tolerances must be very tight. It would seem to be more luck than judgement to get within those tolerances to make the marshaller happy. But you must also concede that with so many people seemingly unable to park within those tolerances it makes them frustrated with one small aspect of an otherwise excellent program.

 

 

The required accuracy for the evaluation calculated by the marshaller, is about half the one required by docking system ( which is also less strict than real life docking systems ), yet nobody ever complained about the docking system being too difficult, and that's simply because having the distance readout makes the docking system automatically easier to use, even if twice as strict as the marshaller. The "code", obviously, it's exactly the same, just a different animation, and the larger tolerance of the marshaller.

 

We could surely a distance readout for the marshaller too, obviously as an option, because then people will start complaining "it's not realistic".

 

 

Ah but the docking system doesn't rate your parking skills. :wink:  Regarding the realism I take your point but maybe make it an option. It would also help pilots hone their parking skills and they might be able to then turn off the readout.

 

 

 

That's exactly what you should do and it's exactly what GSX does. The marshaller WILL give correct informations, based on the AFCAD, but the only information used from the AFCAD, is the parking location AND the parking heading. It will NOT use, instead, the AFCAD yellow lines, regardless if the scenery uses the AFCAD default lines, or if it uses custom lines.

 

 

Problem is we have to use the yellow lines and not what you use to measure our accuracy. I fully understand why you have to do it that way but you can also see that with what is available to us it does make parking difficult to satisfy GSX.

 

Anyway, I see you have provided a measuring tool which is greatly appreciated. I will install it and give you some feedback. Do you want it here or on your own forum?

 

Thanks Umberto for the feedback and explanation.