Best practices for Taxi Mnt?

[Atlas 1]

Trying to fix one of the airports I'm currently using as my main hub (LIRF) and I would like to clarify a few things:

1.  Are more taxi points = better?  Importing the airport and there are loads of green taxi pins, I wonder if cleaning it up a bit would help or make things more efficient?  Some taxiways, especially those near gates, are just one long taxiway but have taxi pins at certain distances, does this help with taxiing to gates?  Or would it be better to delete all unnecessary taxi pins?

2.  After a Hold Short point, the next point should be the runway?  What happens if this next point is also the end point of a runway?  Or Hold Short points that do not connect to a runway but connect to another taxiway?  The Charlie taxiway at LIRF has a Hold Short point as part of it passes under the approach path to runway 25.

3.  I'm testing out taxi routes to runway 16L and 16C at LIRF and instead of bringing me to C - CD - Rwy 16C - D - DA to get to runway 16L, it takes me to C - CE - Rwy 16C - DE - Rwy 16L - DC - D - DA to get to runway 16L.  Is there any way to make certain taxi routes one-way only?  There are "no entry" signs on certain taxiways to mark this.

4.  Is there an undo button?

5.  Is there a way to display all taxiway names?

6.  Is there a list of best practices for when editing/fixing airport taxiways?

Thanks!

Edited May 20, 2020 by Atlas

[Dave-Pilot2ATC 870]

The goal of taxiway definition in the scenery is to provide paths for AI Traffic to follow.  So, more taxi points and curved entrances to runways achieve this goal.  The purpose for taxi points in P2A is to enable taxi instructions and hold-short commands, so unnecessary points are a hindrance. 

In general, the best approach is to leave the Taxiway definitions alone unless a problem is noticed.  Then, the first remedy should be trying to import the airport taxiways from the SIM.  In many cases, this will remedy the issue and no further action is needed.  If there is still an issue, like not getting a hold for a runway crossing, then fixing that one issue makes sense. 

If you want to redefine the entire airport, it should be done in the SIM's tool, WED for X-Plane, as an example.  Then import your newly defined airport and it should fix the problems.

To answer your questions:

1. Generally, more taxi points are not better, but they usually aren't a problem either, so leaving them is OK unless, for example, there are taxi points between a hold-short point and associated runway.  In the case of long taxiways near gates, it's a good idea to have a taxi point near each ramp area so the taxi instructions will find that as the nearest taxi point for taxi instructions.

2. Since the purpose of the P2A Taxiway definitions is to give good directions, you can extend the runway "red line" beyond the end of the physical runway and past the taxiway that passes under the glide path.  Then connect the hold short point to a point on the extended runway.  

3. P2A does not currently use taxiway directions/flow indicators.  That is on the list for future enhancements.

4. No.

5. No

6. There is a list of Taxiway editing "rules" in the User's Guide. 

Dave

[Atlas 1]

Hi Dave!  Thanks for that info.  So far, I've noticed that for big airports, it is very confusing to follow P2A taxi instructions and I just "cheat" by following the P2A taxi route.  I also noticed that sometimes the taxi route names do not match what I see in the Navigraph airport chart.  However, this is using default P2A info and I've not tried importing airport taxiways yet.

Just a clarification on your answer on #1 --- P2A looks for the taxi points when planning a route and does not really look at the taxi line between these taxi points?

[Dave-Pilot2ATC 870]

No, it uses both taxiways (lines) and taxi points.

The default data will quite often not match what you see.  That's one reason to import an airport.

Even after importing, you will match the SIM, but may not match the charts.  Life would be much easier if this taxi data was offered by the AIRAC providers, but to date, it is not.

Dave

[Atlas 1]

10 hours ago, Dave-Pilot2ATC said:

In the case of long taxiways near gates, it's a good idea to have a taxi point near each ramp area so the taxi instructions will find that as the nearest taxi point for taxi instructions.

 

6 hours ago, Dave-Pilot2ATC said:

No, it uses both taxiways (lines) and taxi points.

Sorry, I'm a bit confused now.  If the program uses both points and lines, why add points near each ramp area?

 

6 hours ago, Dave-Pilot2ATC said:

Even after importing, you will match the SIM, but may not match the charts.  Life would be much easier if this taxi data was offered by the AIRAC providers, but to date, it is not.

I'm also not sure what you mean.  Where would they not match?  What taxi data is missing from AIRAC providers?

[Dave-Pilot2ATC 870]

It looks for the nearest point to start from, so points are important near the gates.

The taxi charts provided by Navigraph are not readable by the program.  If you are aware of taxi data provided by them, please enlighten me.

[Atlas 1]

So it starts from the gate, then looks for the nearest taxi point?  Not nearest taxi line?