Maiquetia (SVMI) problems Heavy AC at Small Gate

Alex,
TrafficX provides updates to the files that describe airport configurations (most often called "AFCAD" files) but it does not look like they did that for SVMI. The only AFCAD file for SVMI on my system is the default. That file has the 7 heavy gates, each with a radius of 36M. There are also several other gates with radii of 18-23M. None of these parking spaces have parking codes associated with them. So FSX is going to try to put the planes in the parking spots that will be closest to the right size for them, using the wing_span value in the aircraft.cfg file. So it will try to put aircraft whose half-wing-span is less that 18M into the 18M spots before it tries to put them into the 36M spots. This is complicated by the fact that many large TrafficX aircraft have very low and inacurate wing-span values. It appears to me they that they were intentionally made low so that they would fit in 15M spaces. Since very few, if any of the TrafficX aircraft have half-wing-span values larger than 18-23M, the smaller spaces will always be used first and the larger ones will only get used if the smaller ones are all filled.

There are several ways you can fix this, depending on how much work you are willing to do and how "accurate" you want your solution to be. If want to take a "quick and dirty" approach, and you do not already have an airport editor installed, you could simply identify the aircraft that are parking in the wrong spots and increase their wing span values (which are in feet) so that half of the wing span is greater than 23M. This approach could however cause problems at other airports, and it certainly is not the approach I would take.

The only other way to fix this is to use an airport editor to modify the parking spots at this airport. The two most popular ones are ADE (free) and AFX (fee, from Flight1). The most realistic way to do this is to first modify the wing span values of the TrafficX aircraft to be more realistic (real wingspan values can be found on the web), Then modify the parking spaces using the airport editor of your choice to match the sizes of the aircraft that are trying to park there. You can also add parking codes to the parking spots so that particular airlines only park at specific gates.

Author	Message Topic Search Topic Options Post Reply Create New Topic Printable Version Translate Topic
arancel Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Check-In Staff Joined: 07 Jun 2009 Location: Venezuela Points: 1	Post Options Post Reply Quote arancel Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Topic: Maiquetia (SVMI) problems Heavy AC at Small Gate Posted: 07 Jun 2009 at 6:37pm
	Hi folks, I used to flight on my country, Venezuela, so, at the Mayor Airport of it (SVMI), the Heavy Aircraft are parked at the Small Gates, by te way, SVMI have 7 Heavy Gates, but in those gates none of Heavy Aircraft use it neither small aircrafts, allways the Heavy gates are empty. Anybody could help me ? I appreciate your help, Thanks!
	Alex Rancel

Chuck Morse Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Ground Crew Joined: 14 Apr 2009 Points: 70	Post Options Post Reply Quote Chuck Morse Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 07 Jun 2009 at 8:02pm
	Alex, TrafficX provides updates to the files that describe airport configurations (most often called "AFCAD" files) but it does not look like they did that for SVMI. The only AFCAD file for SVMI on my system is the default. That file has the 7 heavy gates, each with a radius of 36M. There are also several other gates with radii of 18-23M. None of these parking spaces have parking codes associated with them. So FSX is going to try to put the planes in the parking spots that will be closest to the right size for them, using the wing_span value in the aircraft.cfg file. So it will try to put aircraft whose half-wing-span is less that 18M into the 18M spots before it tries to put them into the 36M spots. This is complicated by the fact that many large TrafficX aircraft have very low and inacurate wing-span values. It appears to me they that they were intentionally made low so that they would fit in 15M spaces. Since very few, if any of the TrafficX aircraft have half-wing-span values larger than 18-23M, the smaller spaces will always be used first and the larger ones will only get used if the smaller ones are all filled. There are several ways you can fix this, depending on how much work you are willing to do and how "accurate" you want your solution to be. If want to take a "quick and dirty" approach, and you do not already have an airport editor installed, you could simply identify the aircraft that are parking in the wrong spots and increase their wing span values (which are in feet) so that half of the wing span is greater than 23M. This approach could however cause problems at other airports, and it certainly is not the approach I would take. The only other way to fix this is to use an airport editor to modify the parking spots at this airport. The two most popular ones are ADE (free) and AFX (fee, from Flight1). The most realistic way to do this is to first modify the wing span values of the TrafficX aircraft to be more realistic (real wingspan values can be found on the web), Then modify the parking spaces using the airport editor of your choice to match the sizes of the aircraft that are trying to park there. You can also add parking codes to the parking spots so that particular airlines only park at specific gates.
	Chuck Morse