FedEx Cargo on passenger terminal?

[specialist]

I use P3Dv3 and MyTraffic6. I keep traffic at around 10, but never above 15, any more than that and KMEM or for that matter any other major airport will have to much traffic for me and create an over flow. It's not happening at any other FSDT airport I have except this one. Even if the FedEx parking tarmac is half full, I still get a FedEx plain parked at a passenger terminal. Has anyone seen this on their end too, or is it just me?

[Bruce Hamilton]

Check your aircraft.cfg file, under your FedEx paint, make sure you have atc_parking_types=cargo

[specialist]

I will check, but I would also assume that if I'm buying a commercial product like MyTraffic 6, that they would have made sure the liveries parking codes are correct.

[Bruce Hamilton]

I just checked my MT6 files, most say gate,ramp... just remove the gate, should solve the issue.

[specialist]

Well, mine says gate but that's for the normal airliners. I checked my FedEx, and they all say cargo and ramp, not gate.

[Bruce Hamilton]

I did some Googling and found this post by Whicker on SimForums, hope it helps.

First things first

Airport Facility Computer Aided Design also known as the acronym AFCAD is NOT the first program that allowed easy editing of the FS2002 BGL opcodes where the Airport records were nested. The original airport editor was created by John Stottlemire and he called it "Add A Gate". Upon his untimely passing Lee Swordy took John's code and finished it for FS2002. Lee changed the name to AFCAD version 1

When FS2004 was released a new, XML-based, scenery format was created and is required for creating new scenery. Airport scenery could no longer be created with BGL opcodes from previous versions of Flight Simulator. Without any SDK's Lee deciphered the new XML type code and AFCAD version 2 was released.

This is what we thought we knew about parking priorities when the AFCAD Document was written:



Quote FS uses the following criteria to decide where to park an AI aircraft. These criteria are in order from most important to least important:

1. Parking Codes (KLM, AAL, etc.)
2. Parking Types (Gate, Ramp, Cargo, etc.)
3. Parking Areas ( Parking, Gate 1, Gate A 1)
4. Parking Radius (31m, 38m, etc.)
5. Parking List order (first, second, third parking spots listed etc).

The lower level criteria are only used as tie-breakers if there are two or more parking spots that meet the higher criteria, otherwise the lower level criteria do not come into play.
 


Many developers have the impression from the AFCAD Readme that the process is an IF/THEN. It is not that simple. FS does not assign a parking spot until ALL five criteria have been evaluated and a score assigned to every open parking spot on the airport.

1) #1 - Parking Codes is not a Priority, it is used to generate a weighted score and a Preference.
2) #5 - Parking List order is the MOST FREQUENTLY deciding criteria in assigning AI aircraft to parking if the airline has many parking spots on an airport.
3) The lower level criteria are always considered in the parking process, and lower level criteria may generate a high enough score to overrule higher criteria.

Very Important - We have to remember that Lee wrote that section in September 2003, with  less than 30 hours of testing along with the 15-20 of us on the PAI AFCAD beta team at that time. We now have thousand's of hours of testing under some carefully controlled conditions to give us a much better understanding of how parking works, and since about mid-2005, we've understood the exact formulas used to create the parking assignments.

Let's look at how the order actually works

1) Parking Code - the first code in the parking spot order will be given a score of 12, the second code will be given a score of 10, the third code 6, the fourth code 3, the fifth code 1, the sixth code 0.9, the seventh code 0.8, etc

2) Parking Types - there are only THREE types of parking area - GATE, RAMP and UNKNOWN. Cargo and Mil_Combat and Mil_Cargo are subsets of RAMP parking. If the aircraft has ATC_PARKING_TYPES=GATE - any GATE parking spot returns a score of 3, any other type of parking spot returns a score of 2. Using GATE,RAMP results in a scoring of a parking spot for 3 for GATE spots and 2.5 for any type of RAMP spot. An exact match between RAMP_CARGO or Mil_Combat or Mil_Cargo will return a perfect score of 3, but otherwise all RAMP spots return the same score.

For civilian GATE aircraft and other aircraft with RAMP or no ATC_PARKING_TYPES entry - all ramp types, including GA, Cargo, Mil_Combat, Mil_Cargo return the exact same score.

AI aircraft with GATE,RAMP in the ATC_PARKING_TYPES= entry increase the chances of the aircraft being assigned to a RAMP spot instead of an open GATE spot, not the other way around.

There is no priority between SMALL, MEDIUM, HEAVY, LARGE in a parking type name. Those are just labels to make it easier for us to judge the approximate size with no impact upon the parking process.

IMPORTANT NOTE - The ATC_PARKING_CODES= entry must exactly match including capitalization in the aircraft.cfg and the parking spot properties. BAW and Baw are not the same. The ATC_PARKING_TYPES= entries must be in ALL CAPS and in the exact format as specified in the SDK. GATE_SMALL is not a valid entry. GATE, RAMP, CARGO, MIL_CARGO, MIL_COMBAT, DOCK are the only valid entries.

3) Parking Areas - There are only three types. GATE # returns the highest score for ATC_PARKING_TYPES=GATE aircraft, GATE L # returns a slightly lower score for those aircraft. All Ramp parking has an equal score. Unknown parking such as DOCK returns a lower score. However the UNKNOWN parking type in AFCAD is mis-named. The parking type is actually RAMP_GA

KMCI is one where a lot of folks have issues. It has three terminals named A, B & C. All the terminal parking is named GATE A #, GATE B #, GATE C #. If you setup overflow parking on the ramp as Gate # - the AI aircraft will always park in the open ramp spots before parking in the open terminal spots because GATE with a number is a higher score than GATE with a letter and a number.

There is no preference among letters or numbers - GATE Z 999 has an equal score as GATE A 1.

4) Parking Radius - This is a very, very important factor in parking. The actual score is not much, but what actually happens is an aircraft lands and the scores of several parking spots are identical. Radius will separate the parking process even more. However, the other criteria can create a score that will park a small aircraft in a large spot. So beware. The Parking Radius score is based upon the difference between the aircraft model radius and the parking spot radius.

5) Parking List Order - This is the deciding factor in most parking assignments.

Here is how it actually works.

One BAW B737 lands at EGLL - Heathrow - and the FS program does a scoring of open parking spots on the airport which are as large, or larger than the aircraft model radius.

A. There are 13 open spots on the airport with BAW as the first parking code - 20 points for each spot

B. All 13 open spots are GATE type parking spots (5 GATE_SMALL, 4 GATE_MEDIUM, 4 GATE_HEAVY) - 4 points for each spot

C. There are 11 of those spots which are GATE Letter Number and 2 spots with GATE Number in the overflow area - GATE_HEAVY spots. The two heavy GATE # spots get a score of 3.5 and the other spots get a score of 3.0

D. Those five GATE_SMALL spots are 25.0M, the GATE_MEDIUM spots are 31.0M, the GATE_HEAVY spots are 43.0M - the aircraft model radius for the B737 is 23.0M - so the spots return scores of GATE_SMALL - 3.0, GATE_MEDIUM - 2.75, GATE_HEAVY - 2.5 (Note at this point - the GATE # Heavy spots have an equal score as the GATE L # Small spots)

E. The first open spot in the parking list order of the GATE_SMALL GATE L # spots or the GATE_HEAVY spots with GATE # - will "Win" the aircraft. Because all the other criteria among those seven spots returns an equal score.

Also,
There are a couple ringers in this figuring of the scoring system.

When the parking spot order is the deciding factor in a gate assignment, a sixth factor comes into play - distance from the aircraft to the parking spot.

It is a very small number, but AI aircraft can be assigned to a closer open parking spot, skipping the first open parking spot on the Parking List Order.

Another ringer is that the system can assign two aircraft to the same parking spot. The parking process runs twice for landing AI aircraft. When the aircraft slows and enters the "Rollout" mode of operation on the runway, a parking spot is assigned, however the parking spot is not marked as 'occupied' but the FS program.

Another aircraft of the same size landing on another runway at the same time will also be assigned to the same parking spot.

When the AI aircraft leaves the runway and encounters a Hold Short Node - it will contact ATC for parking instructions. The parking process runs again, and the aircraft will be assigned to a parking spot. At this time the parking spot is marked as Occupied. I've seen AI aircraft parking assignments changed hundreds of times over the years in such situations.

If the open parking spot assigned to two aircraft on the runway is the last open spot on the airport, the second aircraft to reach a Hold Short Node will be deleted.

Note - for a departing aircraft - the parking spot is marked as Open when the aircraft receives permission to pushback. Thus if an aircraft is delayed in pushback because of the ATC channel being too busy, another AI aircraft could taxi through it into the just emptied gate. The position of the AI aircraft does not determine if a gate is occupied or open.

In FSX the parking priority has changed. You can repeat the landing of an AI aircraft, and it might park at the same spot twice in a row, and a different spot on the third repeat, or it might park in the same spot every time, or it might park in a different spot every time. The larger the airport, the more likely the aircraft is to park in different spots.

 

Acknowledgement

Reggie Fields research

Winfried Orthmann disassembler code

 

P3D v2.4 shows a different parking priority that is still being studied.

The same applies to FSX:SE by Dovetail.

 

Jim

[specialist]

Thanks for the info. I will take a closer look at the entries and see if there is anything that needs adjusting or change.