GSX Parking Positions in Prepar3d V 5.3

[13ifs40 5]

 

I posted this in the Fsdreamteam forum and got no reply so i am wondering if you folks out there could help me

 

I was wondering if anyone can help me with a couple of questions?

I know all the heavy parking positions are incorrect, so i have tried to correct them but i am having a problem      when i enter the editor i can correct the marshall position no problem, but when i try to correct the 777-200 or 777-300 i end up with the plane
back in the same position which is with the nose in the terminal.    I follow the editor and it seems correct but when i exit using the Y key the plane moves back to where it started at

2nd question is do i have to adjust every single parking position or is there a way to do it only once and it fills in at every heavy parking spot at every airport?


Thanks for your help in advance

Ian Snow

 

[cyyzrwy24 129]

3 hours ago, 13ifs40 said:

i end up with the plane

I never solved GSX mystery myself either. If you end up with the plane in same position that's still OK. Often I end up going somewhere off and away the airport. By now I tried everything. I watched videos on YT and they are doing same thing I am trying to do. But very often I have some issues. 

I have to say for most part it's ok but when needs some "adjustments" than things go wrong very quickly. I would like to see troubleshooting video somewhere.

[David Vega 348]

@13ifs40

In you're using GSX to modify the parking spots at airports, you can only modify one airport at a time. For each parking spot you can modify where is the aircraft stop point, where does the marshaller stands, etc. Once you finish and exit the editor, the new information is saved in your computer. Ensure you do move the aircraft to where you want it to top. 

[13ifs40 5]

Hi David

     Yes    when i go into the parking section i hit control Y to exit like the directions say and my aircraft ends up with its nose completely in the terminal.   So it basically has no effect on what i did and i am back to square one

 

Ian Snow

[Balint Szarka 123]

2 hours ago, 13ifs40 said:

Hi David

     Yes    when i go into the parking section i hit control Y to exit like the directions say and my aircraft ends up with its nose completely in the terminal.   So it basically has no effect on what i did and i am back to square one

 

Ian Snow

That is because of the AFCAD of the particular airport that has to be modified. Technically GSX creates the parking position based on the AFCAD lines. If, upon loading up the sim you end up in the terminal building or something like that that is because of the AFCAD is modeled in such a way. You can modify the AFCAD with ADE (Airport Design Editor) then just adjust the GSX's parking positions so that they match. One way I found is the most efficient and least time consuming is to load up the sim and park yourself to one of the parking positions you want to modify. Start up ADE. Connect it to the sim. It should show you in the program with a red cross where your aircraft is located. Where the red cross crosses the parking position that is where the nose gear is located. Based on this move your A/C in the sim (slew mode) to the particular place where you want the parking position to have the end of it and voila. I hope it makes sense.

[David Vega 348]

@13ifs40

See this explanation by the GSX developer. He says:

"That's why you probably got confused: if you used the standard World -> Go To Airport command, the simulator will continue to place the airplane center of mass in the center of the parking, as defined in the AFCAD. The simulator itself doesn't know anything about your GSX customization, so it will continue to use data from the AFCAD.

Instead, if you want to jump to a parking and being placed were GSX expects, you will have to use the GSX menu with the "Warp Me There" feature. Since this is a GSX feature which can basically replace the standard "Go To Airport", it  knows about your GSX customization, and will use it."

BTW, you exit the GSX editor by pressing the letter Y, not CTRL+Y. 

Edited January 23, 2023 by David Vega

[Balint Szarka 123]

4 hours ago, David Vega said:

@13ifs40

See this explanation by the GSX developer. He says:

"That's why you probably got confused: if you used the standard World -> Go To Airport command, the simulator will continue to place the airplane center of mass in the center of the parking, as defined in the AFCAD. The simulator itself doesn't know anything about your GSX customization, so it will continue to use data from the AFCAD.

Instead, if you want to jump to a parking and being placed were GSX expects, you will have to use the GSX menu with the "Warp Me There" feature. Since this is a GSX feature which can basically replace the standard "Go To Airport", it  knows about your GSX customization, and will use it."

BTW, you exit the GSX editor by pressing the letter Y, not CTRL+Y. 

Exactly, that’s right. That’s what I was trying to explain above.

[787flyer 643]

Just to add to the advice given above, if you find the default parking leaves the plane to far forward, as mentioned you can use the slew command to move the aircraft back to an appropriate position in the sim so it's lined up with the jetway, but in ADE, you should then physically move the parking spot backwards so that it aligns with the current position of the aircraft.Then recompile the airport in ADE to create an updated AFCAD file and then replace the existing .BGL file in the airport scenery folder with the new one ADE has created.

Once this is done, I will usually revert back to the sim and check the aircraft parking position and Stop position for that gate using the GSX editor. Unfortunately there is no quick way to fix this if you experience this significant parking issue to address multiple gates at one time. The GSX editor however does support multi-selections of parking spaces/gate when trying to add new features such as adding jetway bridges or other features to each parking spot like the underground fuel access point etc, but this is a different operation to the one where parking spot locations need to be fixed.

 

[fluffyflops 1,864]

I used to like AFX for amending afcads.  Shame is discontinued and only works upto FSX 

[13ifs40 5]

HI Guys

    Sorry to sound like the Moron of the month,but that made me more lost     So what i am trying to say is when i land at X airport and taxi to the gate, i try and pick up the marshaller,    he is not there so i am parking blind.

if by some miracle the marshaller is there and i can see the two numbers that show either left or right of the center line and the count down to stop, i taxi into the gate unfortunately when the number hits zero to stop i have parked to far forward and in the process squashed my marshaller like a bug 

[David Vega 348]

@13ifs40

Each airport scenery comes with an interconnected wireframe that connects the runways to taxiways to parking spots. Think of this wireframe as hidden just below the visible airport surface. It's mostly used by the simulator to maneuver AI aircraft. This is what most folks call the AFCAD file for an airport. This file stores other airport scenery-related things, such as the type and position for airport scenery objects, like airplane parking spots. Each parking spot description stores the type of parking, the size, and the parking spot position. 

Some scenery developers focus more on how the scenery looks and ignore the accuracy of the information stored in the AFCAD. If the developer renders a beautiful gate with a nice line on the ground depicting where each jet type is expected to stop, but does not make the parking stop position stored in the AFCAD match those stopping points in the visible scenery, one would see the aircraft parked off that line or position when starting the simulator or when asking the simulator to jump the aircraft to that gate. Likewise, if the AFCAD parking spot is positioned inside the building, then the aircraft nose will appear inside the building. 

GSX has no way of knowing that some of these parking spots are misaligned with the visual airport scenery. It simply places the marshaller a set distance from the parking spot in the AFCAD. Like in the example above, if the parking spot is misaligned, the GSX marshaller will be misaligned. This is why you may not see the visual representation of the marshaller because he/she may be inside the building in front of the gate. 

Once can use GSX to create a configuration per gate that sort of overrides what's in the AFCAD, but the only way to align things permanently is to use an AFCAD editor, such as ADE, to correct the parking positions. This is not hard, but also not trivial and requires learning the editor. 

No question is silly. Keep asking please. 

[Ray Proudfoot 9,041]

Excellent summary David. Occasionally I get frustrated with 3rd party airports where the author hasn't spent much time making things accurate.

Latest was Orbx Melbourne YMML where I corrected most of the parking positions in the AFCAD and then loaded GSX to set the stop position and in some cases changed the marshaller to a docking gate system. I also removed the ugly supplied jetways and installed fancy glass ones so I could see the pax entering and exiting.

All very rewarding and once you get into a flow it's just simple actions repeated. Well worth learning another skill. 👍

[Bob Scott 7,750]

One other point worth mentioning--there is a limit to how far the GSX spot can be moved.  If your revised parking/stop position in GSX is too far from the spot as defined in the airport file (aka AFCAD/ADE/AFX file), it won't be saved.  The cure for this is to first correct the airport file.  The best way to do this is to slew the jet into the proper position on the parking spot, open ADE and connect it to the sim, and then drag the parking spot to coincide with the red airplane icon.

[13ifs40 5]

Thanks for all your help       this weekend when i am off i will get the program and try it out

 

 

Ian Snow