Can I influence Ground for assigning a parking place?

[Hans Hartvelt 11]

I experience that, after landing, Ground directs my always to the same parking place at each airport, which is often a remote place at a ramp, which is not always suitable for my B738. Is there a possibility to program a certain parking place or ask Ground for a certain parking place?

Hans Hartvelt
The Netherlands

[vadriver 248]

1 hour ago, Hans Hartvelt said:

Is there a possibility

The short "half" answer is yes .... by a program tweak (but not to my knowledge, a request to Ground).

In both your aircraft.cfg & the airport's afcad, add a sole / unique (to your AI inventory) airline code e.g. VOXP .... also make sure your  parking type matches and the wingspan fits.

It also helps to have other parking coded for all aircraft in you AI inventory using the airport.

Edited January 20, 2022 by vadriver

[Hans Hartvelt 11]

Hello John,

Thank you for replying. That's a smart workaround indeed. I tried it out. In my aircraft.cfg file I changed the value in atc-parking-codes from KLM into VOX. In LEPA (Palma de Mallorca) I choose gate 44 as my favourite gate. With help of the airport editor of GSX, I removed all airline codes from this gate and set VOX into it. I ran the VoxATC indexer.

I made a test flight. VoxATC Ground assigned my gate 12 and not 44. GSX gave me all parking positions for my airline: just # 44. The follow me car delivered me neatly at gate 44. So VoxATC doesn't handle my gate wish right, but GSX does.

Should I have changed atc_airline=KLM into atc_airline=VOX?

On 1/21/2022 at 12:24 AM, vadriver said:

It also helps to have other parking coded for all aircraft in you AI inventory using the airport.

Don't exactly understand what you mean by this.

 

 

[vadriver 248]

4 hours ago, Hans Hartvelt said:

With help of the airport editor of GSX,

VoxATC only recognises a coded park from the airport's afcad ...... for this tweak, requires an edit using ADE (ie it does not read GSX data)

No need to change the "atc_airline".

4 hours ago, Hans Hartvelt said:

Don't exactly understand what you mean by this.

The tweak is almost always (for mine) ........ VoxATC spawns AI at one's destination at about 30nm direct, so there is the limited chance preceding arriving AI with no coded parking available may be directed to your nominated park (VoxATC's spawn gives preference to active traffic, it will find a park somewhere even if at another airlines's empty coded park)

To minimise this, make sure there is sufficient coded parks for all your AI (using that airport). Most afcads meet this need except for perhaps local regionals unknown to the afcad's author.

[Hans Hartvelt 11]

On 1/23/2022 at 3:09 AM, vadriver said:

VoxATC only recognises a coded park from the airport's afcad ...... for this tweak, requires an edit using ADE (ie it does not read GSX data)

I have no experience with ADE at all. Maybe you will help me.
I tried. I opened the airport file LEPA_ADEV5OP01.bgl using ADE. I double clicked on gate 44 and got the Properties window. I removed the airline codes (only BER) and typed VOX in it. But how to save my work? It seems that I can only save my work as an ADE Project, while I want to save my work as the original bgl file. What is the procedure to do this?

On 1/23/2022 at 3:09 AM, vadriver said:

The tweak is almost always (for mine) ........ VoxATC spawns AI at one's destination at about 30nm direct, so there is the limited chance preceding arriving AI with no coded parking available may be directed to your nominated park (VoxATC's spawn gives preference to active traffic, it will find a park somewhere even if at another airlines's empty coded park)

To minimise this, make sure there is sufficient coded parks for all your AI (using that airport). Most afcads meet this need except for perhaps local regionals unknown to the afcad's author.

Thanx, now I understand. Sounds as a lot of work for something that will probably never happen. I use VoxATC at 50%, so that may reduce the chance that my favourite gate will not be available. I will see.

[vadriver 248]

7 hours ago, Hans Hartvelt said:

But how to save my work?

Firstly, I'll assume your airport is an addon ..... and you have saved a copy of the original afcad away from the sim's folders (perhaps beside the airport's installer).

Then do as you have changing the parking at G44, making sure it is just big enough (20m radius) for your B738.

I recommend you run ADE's fault finder next to check your efforts & also for any missing links / glitches on the taxiways that may stop access to G44.

Lastly do an ADE compile of your efforts overwriting the afcad in your addon folder (optionally saving an ADE project if you wish).

Edited January 25, 2022 by vadriver

[Hans Hartvelt 11]

John,

Thank you very, very much for these useful advices.

Yes, it is an add-on and it's always wise to save a copy of a file that you want to change.
Although ADE suggests another name, so the chance that things will go wrong is not that big. I made a copy AND i set the default AFCAD from .bgl to .off.

Yes, the gate is big enough (24 meters), but thanx for remembering.

Good to hear to use the compile function to save my work as a .bgl file. But first I had to download and install the SDK from Prepar3D and tell ADE where to find the compiler. Which is easy because ADE supplied a find function.

Thanx too for the find faults function in ADE. I got quite a list of faults, but none of them was connected to my Gate 44, so I didn't pay much attention to them.

Of course I ran VoxATC Indexer.

Now the test in practice. VoxATC did NOT give me the 44 gate. I taxied to that gate though. I saw that the gate was possessed by 2 (!) Eurowing aircraft (airline code EWG). Moreover, all other gates in the 30 - 48 row were free. 

So there's still some work to be done. Suggestions?

[vadriver 248]

3 hours ago, Hans Hartvelt said:

Now the test in practice. VoxATC did NOT give me the 44 gate. I taxied to that gate though. I saw that the gate was possessed by 2 (!) Eurowing aircraft (airline code EWG). Moreover, all other gates in the 30 - 48 row were free. 

So there's still some work to be done. Suggestions?

Hans

Can't explain 2 of the same code ...... except if the sim's AI and / or AIGTC are also in use.

I would check (with ADE Lists) what if any coding there is anywhere for EWG (& others at gates 30-48) to perhaps understand what you see. There should be sufficient & appropriately sized parking coded in the afcad for most airlines (Use AI Companion Analyser to see the peak spots needed for your AI inventory).

Also, you might check the VoxATC log to see if there was an EGW arrival just before yours & which couldn't find a spot.

[Hans Hartvelt 11]

John, WOW, thank you again very much for these useful tips.

19 hours ago, vadriver said:

Can't explain 2 of the same code ...... except if the sim's AI and / or AIGTC are also in use.

The sim's AI is disabled, which is a condition for VoxATC to work.
AIGTC has not been installed on my PC.
When you see 2 aircraft on the same parking spot, there must be 2 programs that place an aircaft on this spot. VoxATC is surely one of them, but I don't know which is the other one. There are certainly no static aircraft too.

19 hours ago, vadriver said:

I would check (with ADE Lists) what if any coding there is anywhere for EWG (& others at gates 30-48) to perhaps understand what you see.

Thank you again for this useful tip. I checked and found that none of the gates are coded for EWG. At least for as far as I can see. I have streched the airline column in the List editor as broad as possible, but there are a number of gates of which I cannot see all the airlines. I also noted that the gates 38 - 48 only have the airline code BER. BER is the airline code for Air Berlin. This airline doesn't exist anymore and I also don't have aircraft of this airline in my AI inventory. That's also the reason that this part of the apron is so empty. So I decided to assign the parking code EWG to the gates 38 - 48. Hopefully will this keep EWG away from gate 44. Today I have not enough time to make a testflight,, but when I have I will share the results with you.

19 hours ago, vadriver said:

There should be sufficient & appropriately sized parking coded in the afcad for most airlines (Use AI Companion Analyser to see the peak spots needed for your AI inventory).

Also, you might check the VoxATC log to see if there was an EGW arrival just before yours & which couldn't find a spot.

I cannot find the program or menu option AI Companion Analyser. Where can I find that?

During my testflights, I had VoxATC logging not enabled. I will when the problem remains.

[vadriver 248]

24 minutes ago, Hans Hartvelt said:

I cannot find the program or menu option AI Companion Analyser

https://www.alpha-india.net/forums/index.php?topic=29651.0 ........ in Airport View, top right.

[Hans Hartvelt 11]

OK, I will have a look. In the meantime I did a quick scan. I started P3D and placed my aircraft at LEPA gate 44. After that I activated VoxATC to see if it would place Eurowing aircraft at the other gates. And guess what? It did. So I hope that everything will come right. I will let you know.

[vadriver 248]

5 hours ago, Hans Hartvelt said:

I have streched the airline column in the List editor as broad as possible, but there are a number of gates of which I cannot see all the airlines.

The export option helps one see all .............

[Hans Hartvelt 11]

On 1/27/2022 at 3:28 AM, vadriver said:

The export option helps one see all .............

John, thanks for this tip also. It worked.

I made a new test flight. VoxATC gave me gate 16 and not gate 44. Gate 44 appeared to be taken by an EasyJet aircraft as was gate 48. Gates 38 42 and 46 were taken by Easywings aircraft and gate 40 was free. I checked the parkings list and found that there were enough medium parking gates for Easyjet. So why on (MY!) gate 44???

[vadriver 248]

On 1/23/2022 at 8:13 AM, Hans Hartvelt said:

In my aircraft.cfg file I changed the value in atc-parking-codes from KLM into VOX.

Hans, I'm struggling to find the reason for your "unsuccessful" efforts.

I read back through the above (& as before) I was surprised to read that there was an "atc_parking_codes=KLM" included in your aircraft.cfg ...... one does not normally see that in PMDG aircraft (& hence one adds them, not edit)

I thus wonder if you have other aircraft / liveries with similar / other codes which may conflict with "atc_parking_codes=VOX". 

The aircraft I use in a paxs aircraft.cfg have the same "atc_parking_codes=VOXP" for paxs / "atc_parking_codes=VOXC" for cargo in other files.

[Hans Hartvelt 11]

Hello John,

Maybe I found something. I saw that AIG distinguishes 3 easyJet companies:
easyJet, with airline code EZY
easyJet Europe, with airline code EJU
easyJet Switzerland, with airline code EZS

LEPA offers parking places for EZY and EZS, but not for EJU. I suppose that the aircraft at gate 44 was an EJU, placed there by VoxATC, before I arrived at LEPA.

I will create parking places with airline code EJU and see what happens.