Author Topic: Service vehicle starting positions  (Read 1416 times)

bcars

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Service vehicle starting positions
« on: December 10, 2018, 10:59:52 pm »
The manual says that fuel truck will come from a Fuel parking  OR a random 'Parking space'   I Have a fuel parking and it does start there, however it only follows taxiways. I have vehicle links from the Fuel parking that runs to the  Gate parking, but it is not followed.

Also,  The Baggage carts will go TO the terminal to pick up bags, then return to the gate.  How do I influence what is considered the Terminal.  Again, I have vehicle paths that link the gate spot with starting locations close by my terminal, but the carts seem to head toward the Fuel parking spot, then circle back the long way around ?

Is there also a way to hard select the Tow vehicle.  I am using a 737 and it seems like I get 3 different types of tow motors each time I start. Different one each time. I know it is supposed to be based on the Weight of the aircraft, but some terminals only have the smaller tow vehicles for 737 / A32xx  type aircraft. 

Thanks
Bruce
Thanks
Bruce

virtuali

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Re: Service vehicle starting positions
« Reply #1 on: December 11, 2018, 09:40:00 am »
The manual says that fuel truck will come from a Fuel parking  OR a random 'Parking space'   I Have a fuel parking and it does start there, however it only follows taxiways. I have vehicle links from the Fuel parking that runs to the  Gate parking, but it is not followed.

The Fuel Truck starts from a Fuel parking, if there is one and will follow vehicle paths, if they are available and can reach the airplane parking.

If you don't see the Fuel Truck starting from a fuel parking and/or is not following vehicle paths, and you are sure your AFCAD has both, the only possible reason is that vehicle paths are not connected to the airplane parking, so the program cannot trace a path that way, and must resort to using a standard parking and following taxiways.

Another possible reason is, your Fuel parking is too far away. Some users complained of having to wait too long for the Fuel Truck to arrive, and this happens because some AFCADs might have their only Fuel parking too far away from some parking spots, so we added a maximum distance check that, if the Fuel parking is farther away than 2000 meters from the airplane position, the Fuel truck will depart from a standard parking instead.


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Also,  The Baggage carts will go TO the terminal to pick up bags, then return to the gate.  How do I influence what is considered the Terminal.

Again, I have vehicle paths that link the gate spot with starting locations close by my terminal, but the carts seem to head toward the Fuel parking spot, then circle back the long way around ?[/quote]

The baggage carts will go to the nearest parking of the "vehicle" type, if there is one. If there isn't, they'll go back up to a Fuel parking as 2nd preference. If there isn't one, they'll go to a normal parking chosen at random.

Again, in order to be used, such parking spots must be properly connect using vehicle paths, and have a way to reach the airplane parking, with no missing/broken links.

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Is there also a way to hard select the Tow vehicle.  I am using a 737 and it seems like I get 3 different types of tow motors each time I start. Different one each time. I know it is supposed to be based on the Weight of the aircraft, but some terminals only have the smaller tow vehicles for 737 / A32xx  type aircraft. 

The tow truck is selected automatically based on the airplane weight. But, some of the largest trucks, that cannot easily maneuver in a small parking, won't be used there. The limit is a parking radius of 15 meters. Below that, only the smallest truck will be used, but eve the smaller truck we have, in real world can carry up to 170.000 lbs of weight, so it CAN tow a 737.

And, parking a 737 (with a wingspan of 35.8 meters) in a space that has a *radius* of 15 meters (meaning it should fit wingspan up to 30 meters), it's not realistic anyway, so having a limit for the larger trucks to 15 meters, is very sensible.