I am very sorry but we are playing with words here and it is a waste of time for everybody!
No, is that you are having your own idea of the very meaning of the "heavy gate", when that is ONLY a label, it doesn't matter at all, not for GSX or for FSX itself.
To conclude, since there is no possibility to choose a "heavy" gate, one needs to try any gate and - if lucky - GSX will accept it if the radius is correct
Please, check better how GSX works, when you select a gate in GSX, you will see a list of ALL available gates and, if they are too small, a "(too small)" indication will appear alongside the menu entry so you KNOW that gate can't be selected BEFORE you select it so no, there's no such thing as selecting in the blind and hoping for the best.
Umberto, there is no mention of "small" in the list, only as I mentioned in my message "Ramp GA" for ALL Gates, that does not say anything about the size, thus my query which I thought was simple indeed.
You are confusing the *FSX* selection list with the *GSX* selection list!! Now I see why you don't understand: we are discussing parking selection using GSX see my first reply here:
having GSX is exactly the opposite of what you say (you don't know where to park) because GSX obviously knows the wingspan of your airplane and the parking actual radius so, if it's not saying "too small", it means that parking CAN be used for your airplane.
Bold indicates the subject of the sentence which is GSX: so we are referring to the parking selection in GSX, not in the FSX "Go to Airport" menu!!! GSX can REPLACE the FSX positioning menu, because it's not used "just" to enable GSX service: have you noted the "Warp me there" option ? That option, as the name says, can be used to simply go to any parking.
The advantage of using GSX to position the airplane, over the default FSX menu are:
- GSX is much faster, because the "Warp me there" option jumps immediately to the desired parking, while the FSX default system re-loads the scenery even if you switch to different parking of the same airport.
- GSX can offer you a much clearer to understand and REALISTIC grouping of parking spots. See my previous example (which should have been even more clear we were referring to the *GSX* menu selection) at KORD, with FSX you have just a long and not easy to use list of gates, while with GSX they are nicely organized as in real world, which at KORD means some Terminals with Concourse names.
- FSX have serious limitations how parking spots are named. For example, it doesn't allow to replicate a situation like at JFK, where there are Terminals named Terminal 1, Terminal 2, Terminal 3, etc. and some of them have two set of gates, like A1, A2, A3, and B1, B2, B3 on the same Terminal. FSX can't do this, while GSX can, so the parking list can be renamed and regrouped exactly like in the real world.
- The GSX list is much easier to navigate, because instead of a long list of all parking spots, they are *grouped* in Terminals or areas, so it's much easier to find a gate, especially with very large airports with 200+ parking spots, in FSX you had to scroll a single long list, which is cumbersome.
- And, finally, which is the WHOLE point of the discussion, with GSX you KNOW if a parking is suitable for your airplane BEFORE selecting it, because it will add "(too small)" to the name in the list, if the parking is too small for the your airplane your are flying in THAT moment. With FSX, you have the lables "Heavy", "Medium", "Small", but they are JUST LABELS, nothing ensures that any parking will be ok for your airplane, because it's perfectly legal in FSX having a parking 15 meters in radius (which is on the Small side of things) but label it as Medium or even Heavy, there's no direct link between the Heavy/Medium/Small label and the actual radius, which is the only thing that really matters.
Which is why, is with FSX that you DON'T KNOW if your airplane will fit a parking (since there's no guarantee that something labeled "Heavy" is REALLY large enough for an Heavy airplane), so it's FSX that is creating exactly the problem you are reporting, and it's GSX which is exactly FIXING IT so, how we label the parkings in the AFCAD, doesn't matter at all, if using GSX, because GSX is offering a faster and more reliable way to position your airplane, than the limited and cumbersome FSX system, and it also allows us to recreate more realistic parking names, overriding the limitations in the FSX system.
Have you NOTICED that, at KLAX, for example, the GSX menu has groups that corresponds exactly to the real Terminal names, so you see "Tom Bradley International Terminal", or "Remove Overnight area" named as such, instead of something anonymous like Terminal A, B, C, etc ?
