Author Topic: NEW AFCAD FOR KLAS  (Read 71005 times)

Dillon

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Re: NEW AFCAD FOR KLAS
« Reply #15 on: April 20, 2009, 04:33:56 am »
Dillion, you have to many AAY gates, they only have one in real life. If u were to look at the arrivals and departure section of the vegas airport site you can see the gates that the airlines use.

I had no idea how many AA gates there were but I made an educated guess judging by my WOI traffic at the airport and Google Earth.  This is still a work in progress and we welcome ideas and suggestions.

Tom C

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Re: NEW AFCAD FOR KLAS
« Reply #16 on: April 20, 2009, 07:52:45 pm »
Just looking at this now Harpsi.

Where do the US Airways/America West aircraft park?
Both Airlines are now using the CACTUS callsign and the AWE code.

Looking good after that.
Nice Job.

Edit; Could you also tell me where the Janet Aircraft park please?
« Last Edit: April 20, 2009, 07:55:54 pm by Tom C »
Regards.

Tom C.

global express

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Re: NEW AFCAD FOR KLAS
« Reply #17 on: April 20, 2009, 08:03:59 pm »
Janets park on the west side. They have 6 or 7 stands.

harpsi

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Re: NEW AFCAD FOR KLAS
« Reply #18 on: April 20, 2009, 09:10:08 pm »
Hi

Which airline is the "janet" one?

US airways park at concourses A and B.

harpsi

masped

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Re: NEW AFCAD FOR KLAS
« Reply #19 on: April 20, 2009, 09:27:01 pm »
Which airline is the "janet" one?

Janet Airlines:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janet_(airline)

One thing that would be nice Harpsi is if you would delete the GA parking spots in the AFCAD where Area51/Janet aircraft park.  The GA spots in that are that's along to the side can stay but the main ramp should be devoid of GA aircraft until someone hopefully makes some static Janet 737-200 aircraft to go there.  Look at Google Earth to see what I'm talking about here if you have the time...

There's a Janet AI package on AVSIM:
http://library.avsim.net/esearch.php?DLID=129356

Matthew

global express

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Re: NEW AFCAD FOR KLAS
« Reply #20 on: April 20, 2009, 09:54:25 pm »
Janet is a nickname plane spotters have given "these" a/c. US Government would say they don't exist.

It's funny if you've ever been to KLAS and heard clearance delivery - they just give clearance to "destination".


Edit.... make sure you add some Military gates too. McCarran gets as much traffic as Nellis:
http://www.alexpeake.co.uk/p55116370.html
« Last Edit: April 20, 2009, 09:57:31 pm by global express »

01pewterz28

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Re: NEW AFCAD FOR KLAS
« Reply #21 on: April 20, 2009, 10:23:43 pm »
I have put together a list of what airlines serve what gates

I am not done yet but here is what I have so far.

All of A Concourse- US Airways

B-Concourse
Virgin America-B20
Westjet- B14 & b15
Southwest
US Airways
Spirit

C Concourse-
Southwest Airlines

"D" Concourse

United/Express/TED- D51, D52 , D53, D54, D55, D56
AirTran D50
Alaska- D25 & D26
Allegiant- D1-D7
American-D8-D11
Continental-D19, D20, and D21
Delta-D36-D42
Frontier D17
Jetblue-D16
NWA-D9, D12, and D14

Sean

masped

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Re: NEW AFCAD FOR KLAS
« Reply #22 on: April 20, 2009, 10:48:01 pm »
Harpsi,

I think your AFCAD still needs lots more large GA parking spots - my terminals are full of Gulfstreams. It would also be good if there was somewhere for private 737s and other bigger business jets to park.

Finally the positioning of the parking spots near the cargo apron is a bit off (see attached image).

Thanks,
Matthew
« Last Edit: April 20, 2009, 10:51:33 pm by masped »

jordanal

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Re: NEW AFCAD FOR KLAS
« Reply #23 on: April 20, 2009, 11:21:18 pm »
OK, I'm going to ask the question and hope I don't get flammed for it.

Why is there no payware-grade AFCAD deliverd with the final product such as KLAS (specifically, parking spots)?  Almost everyone who purchases these large Intl airports already have, to some extent, an AI collection of which they would like to see at the proper gates.  I don't know Harpsi and I commend him for his endevours of which we will all benefit, but I don't get the feeling that he's part of the offical FSDT development staff.  Why does FSDT make such good airports and then deliver non-accurate AFCADs?

This is one area, and there aren't many, that could be improved before the product is released and purchased by customers.  Waiting for a properly radius-sized AFCAD for FS9 or a proper wingspan-sized AFCAD for FSX, after purchasing the product, somehow doesn't seem right.  You guys are so good at the airports, I just sit back and ask myself, what happened to the proper parking spots during beta testing?  Are descent AI collections not taken into account?

I love the FSDT FSX products, and I will continue to buy all of them for FSX, but, IMHO, some improvment could be made to the generation of the AFCADs prior to selling the product.

Contructive critisism only...

With kind regards,
« Last Edit: April 20, 2009, 11:24:15 pm by jordanal »
Regards,
Al

virtuali

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Re: NEW AFCAD FOR KLAS
« Reply #24 on: April 21, 2009, 01:40:53 am »
OK, I'm going to ask the question and hope I don't get flammed for it.

Although this question was already answered, I'll like to give a definitive reply, hoping it would be the last one.

One thing that we learned over the years is that, whatever AFCAD you might do, it will NEVER be to everyone's taste. Some expectations are just conflicting with each other. There are user that don't care at all the default ATC, because they fly online so, for them, any side-effect on the ATC created by the desire to make the AFCAD as close as possible to real world,  doesn't matter to them. Other users, instead, fly *only* with the default ATC, and they would prefer a more standard and close to default behaviour. And, there are many users who don't even FLY the sim, they just WATCH AI for hours and, for them, there are other priorities, like smooth traffic flow, correct arline matching...

If you combine this, with the fact that everyone use a different AI package, sometimes even *combination* of them, like multiple package installed, one for airliners, one for GA, it's almost impossible to verify everything.

Parking sizes, you mention...that's quite messy because, there are still many AI models out there, that weren't even created for FS9, they are still around from FS2002 that didn't had the airline codes in the parkings so, there was some kind of common conventions in the model authors to use non-realistic wingspan sizes in the model files, in order to trick a specific plane to park at a specific place, by playing with parking radius in the AFCAD against wingspan sizes in the MDL files. Of course, this method doesn't make much sense anymore in FS9 and FSX, thanks to parking codes but, since there are still plenty of models made like that around, it might become very complex to appeal to everyone.

What we found is that, there's no way a "perfect" AFCAD can be done during developement. If we had to do it with the dedication needed, we would just have to stop scenery developement, and start playing with AI package collections, testing them together, etc.

The only solution that seems to work, is to let the most interested users, like Harpsi, who is helping us since we did EHAM for Cloud9, playing with the AFCAD, and exchanging feedback with other users, to progressively improve it, until it becomes something *most* ( "everyone", is just not possible ) users would find it a reasonable compromise, and that will become the standard AFCAD. And of course, the forum would be always open for users wanting to share more customized solutions, like multiple wind settings, etc...if they like to do so.

I think our solution is the best compromise, because a good AFCAD will eventually come. Harpsi is credited in our manuals and gets some minor compensation, we thank him for helping us, and he has always been happy of this.

In this market situation, the line between surviving and losing money is *very* thin, and we don't have much to spare, we can barely keep FSDT into operation by releasing 4 sceneries per year. If those would become just 3, because we had to spend 1 month extra for each one to create the elusive "commercial grade AFCAD", we might just not be able to continue as a commercial entity. And no, a better AFCAD on the relase day, will never increase sales so much to offset the loss of 1 major product per year...what it's important is that people knows that a good AFCAD will eventually arrive, as it was for ALL our previous 4 products.
« Last Edit: April 21, 2009, 01:11:59 pm by virtuali »

jordanal

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Re: NEW AFCAD FOR KLAS
« Reply #25 on: April 21, 2009, 02:51:45 am »
Thank you for the reply and now I know it's a conceous decision for several reasons that I hadn't thought of.  I appologize for not searching for the question being previously asked (I should have).

Regards,
Regards,
Al

harpsi

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Re: NEW AFCAD FOR KLAS
« Reply #26 on: April 21, 2009, 04:56:33 am »
Hi

I still need to add some more parkings but as you understand I am working in the "dark" because there arenĀ“t so much yellow marks on the ground. I am seeing google earth and trying to replicate what should more or lees happen in real life. I almost added a lot of positions. I will try to add more 20 or 30 tomorrow if I have time to do it. I think next weekend the file should be more or less complete, not for all tastes, but at least 95 % of all users should be happy with the file, concerning what I imagine all users should have in terms of AI traffic in their simulators.

harpsi

Cereal Eater

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Re: NEW AFCAD FOR KLAS
« Reply #27 on: April 21, 2009, 05:11:47 am »
Although this question was already answered, I'll like to give a definitive reply, hoping it would be the last one.

One thing that we learned over the years is that, whatever AFCAD you might do...

Very nice response. Impressive. Thanks for taking the time to explain that to people in such detail.

If everyone would go to AVSIM and look at all the different AFCADS that have been made specifically for use with various airport sceneries they would see there are tons of them out there. That's why Lee Swordy created AFCAD... so that FS users could have the freedom to [very easily] customize their sim experience.

AFCADS for commercial airport packages are a lot like liveries for commercial aircraft packages. PMDG, Feelthere, CLS, PSS... none of them include every single livery that exists in the world for each aircraft type they sell. It's a no-brainer: You go to AVSIM/Flightsim/etc and do a search for liveries made for that particular model, download and install them. The same has always been true for AFCADS.

I submit to anyone concerned about this AFCAD situation that if they just took a mere 30 minutes out of 1 day of their life and read the help file for AFCAD, they would realize how simple it is to edit and/or create detailed, complex AFCADS which conform to their specific needs and desires. It's actually quite fun once you start getting into working on one. And then when you get done, you can release your own unique version for everyone in the world to try if you like. And become famous even, provided you're good enough at it!

FSDT KICKS BUTT!!!
« Last Edit: April 21, 2009, 05:13:18 am by 108 »

global express

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Re: NEW AFCAD FOR KLAS
« Reply #28 on: April 21, 2009, 09:05:04 am »
Regarding GA, you'll need at least 60 parking spots to get rid of them parking at airliner gates. BBJs need 22m BBJ2s need 24m and if you have my flightplans installed for the Las Vegas Sands Corp 747s and Tristar, you'll need to have some 43m!

Feel free to copy the GA gates off mine (excuse the custom GA codes):

Aeroman

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Re: NEW AFCAD FOR KLAS
« Reply #29 on: April 21, 2009, 01:17:01 pm »
Quote
And, there are many users who don't even FLY the sim, they just WATCH AI for hours...


You've GOT to be kidding... :o
Best regards,

Ryan Cummins
AAL148
Dallas/Fort Worth Int'l. Hub
American Virtual Airlines
"We know why you fly"