Pushbacks

[Harrier77 60]

Hi Nico,

Regarding pushbacks, I have noticed that some live aircraft do not start the pushback until the real aircraft has started to taxi away, whereas other live aircraft start the pushback soon after the real aircraft starts its pushback.

I have been trying to work out why this should be the case and from observations the only consistent thing I have noticed is the live aircraft pushback doesn't start until the real aircraft taxis out when the real aircraft pushback distance is small, whereas if the actual pushback distance is large the live aircraft will start the pushback soon after the real aircraft does. Is there a required distance for the real aircraft to move before a live aircraft starts the pushback? If so, maybe this distance could be reduced a little to ensure more live aircraft pushbacks start soon after the real aircraft does.

Peter

[kiek 1,215]

33 minutes ago, Harrier77 said:

Is there a required distance for the real aircraft to move before a live aircraft starts the pushback?

Yes there is.  It is 80 meters.

This is to cater for noise in the lat/lon data. The distance may go from say ..., 12, 45, 23, 44, 10, 45, 70, 81 (bingo, PSXT concludes the arcrfat is pushing back)
However, the distance can also be from nothing to 180. And upon values below 230 mters PSXT also concludes a push back is going on. 
(If the value is -in one go-  greater then 230 it removes the aircrfat from the gate and positions it imediately at the new position, without pushing back.)

This may be the reason for the differences you see.

 

33 minutes ago, Harrier77 said:

 If so, maybe this distance could be reduced a little to ensure more live aircraft pushbacks start soon after the real aircraft does.

I have experimented with this value a lot, if you set it lower you get more false push backs. So no.

 

 

[Harrier77 60]

Thank you for the explanation. Not being a programmer it is always easy to think that there is a simple solution (which of course you would have already found out about and fixed it), but I know you are always trying to find ways to improve the experience. Maybe one day with better data.....