New AI will not park in designated area

Heheh, well this is driving me insane.

I recently updated my JetBlue traffic. I go to JFK and all the a321s are parked out by the cargo ramps.

Parking radius: checked (gates are 25m, aircraft radius for these is 25 which I verified)

Gate code: checked (JBU)

Parking type: checked (GATE)

Other observations: a321s WILL park in 25m spaces, they just don't prioritize it.

They only have JBU and GATE in the entries respectively, but no matter what happens, they stubbornly decide to go park over by the ramp.

I just don't know why. Where they park is empty, NOT a gate, NOT designated as "JBU". It is also much larger than these aircraft and AFAIK, they find the smallest spot available.

AI don't go by radius in the air file, do they? I have never observed that. Only with user aircraft and often times it'll just say "N/A" in aircraft editor. I have other FAIB a321 neos and ceos and I haven't yet observed this, unless I haven't paid enough attention.

New information: after so much trial and error it appears that for some reason, the simulator is not even acknowledging the edited afcad file for KJFK (it's FSDT btw). When I remove the original file from the scenery folder, the aircraft revert to the default FS9 locations regardless of where the edited version is at (either in addonscener/scenery or in FSDT/scenery).

It's not a priority issue; FS9 is IGNORING the file and all my changes, plus no a321 can park where the parking is below 25 (highest is 24 for Jetblue). This can't be the case with the other FSDT scenries is it? Id on't think so..

Starting from scratch ain't very appealing :U ... if that even works.

Check that you don't have any other airport BGL file for KJFK in that folder or any folder higher in the Scenery Library listing.

If you have FS installed into any Program Files folder your OS may be blocking that.

Carlos Si,

Could it be that you are having problems with the difference between wigspan meters (specified in FS9 AIR files) and parking position sizes specified (in feet) in Afcad files ? E.g. An AIR file wingspan of 25 (meters) should fit into an Afcad parking position of 83 feet.

Conversion factor is 1 meter = 3.2808 feet.

Not sure though if ADE parking positions are also specified in feet because I've never used that program myself but I've did have the same experiences (with Afcad) as you are now having, but very long ago.

Regards and good luck.

Hans

Check that you don't have any other airport BGL file for KJFK in that folder or any folder higher in the Scenery Library listing.

 

If you have FS installed into any Program Files folder your OS may be blocking that.

It's in the C: drive. I did a search and no other AF2 files exist for JFK in the FS9 directory.

I wonder if there's something corrupted about this particular AFCAD file, because I could've sworn I had crossing runways before, and the original JFK af2 file only has one set of parallels active. If that's the case a new AF2 or mod of an older one will have to be made...

Carlos Si,

 

Could it be that you are having problems with the difference between wigspan meters (specified in FS9 AIR files) and parking position sizes specified (in feet) in Afcad files ? E.g. An AIR file wingspan of 25 (meters) should fit into an Afcad parking position of 83 feet.

Conversion factor is 1 meter = 3.2808 feet.

 

Not sure though if ADE parking positions are also specified in feet because I've never used that program myself but I've did have the same experiences (with Afcad) as you are now having, but very long ago.

 

Regards and good luck.

 

Hans

Actually I'm certain it's an afcad issue; I compared and contrasted the new and original files, and the simulator only honors the original one based on which aircraft are parked anywhere (example: UPS continues to park in the original spot instead of the new assigned areas). Plus reducing the size of the a321 to 24 makes them park back in terminal 5 with the rest of the bluejets.

Hi Carlos

Something you could experiment with to see whether another file interfering would be to temporarily put your AFD file in a newly created scenery file structure and put that in your Scenery Library so that it loads after everything else.

If that doesn't resolve the issue then there could be something drastically wrong with your AFD file but I think that's unlikely.

I would also recommend you consider moving to using AFX or ADE - AFCAD2 is dark ages stuff for FS2002 and can break things in FS9.

John

Hi,

Loading up your airport ICAO in AFX will show all active files. I've had it happen several times that an old version I forgot about was still active as well...

In FS9 the aircraft radius (not wingspan) is defined in the .mdl file, not the .air file, IIRC in meters.

AFCAD2 and AI-Aircaft Editor (and probably others...) can make those changes to the .mdl file.

In ADE options one can choose to use ft. or m. for parking.

Also, parking spots have an order index, which can be seen and changed in ADE, or AFX.

If you create a new parking spot it's index is added to the end of the line. So that spot will be filled last, but still taking into account the aircraft radius and airline code...

Screenshot from ADE1.65 manual.pdf

When I redo an airport (with ADE), I always reorder the parking spots in the index table, from small to large. Then depending on the airport, I can reorder same radius spots, gates first, then ramp. E.g. all my B737/A320s will fill the gates first, and only then the ramp spots.

Regards,

DDP.

Could it be that your default APnnnnnn.bgl file, which contains your default KJFK airport and it's basic Afcad data, is somehow positioned at a higher scenery priority level than your Afcad (or ADE file), which you evidently keep editing but to no avail ?

In your scenery.cfg file, ALL these default scenery files should be positioned down near the bottom, i.e. have a very low scenery priority, in any case (far) lower than any scenery file which contains your edited Afcad file.

Hans

Hi Carlos

 

Something you could experiment with to see whether another file interfering would be to temporarily put your AFD file in a newly created scenery file structure and put that in your Scenery Library so that it loads after everything else.

 

If that doesn't resolve the issue then there could be something drastically wrong with your AFD file but I think that's unlikely.

 

I would also recommend you consider moving to using AFX or ADE - AFCAD2 is dark ages stuff for FS2002 and can break things in FS9.

 

John

I suppose the problem is still unresolved, but I did a go-around and just did my edits on the sole, original AFCAD file which worked.

Heheh, well the problem with ADE is that often times with certain addon sceneries, it ends up breaking things. I lost a chunk of concourse C of FSDT's ORD when I used a compiled file from ADE. I tend to start with AFCAD, then test out ADE to see if everything works just fine.

Hi,

 

Loading up your airport ICAO in AFX will show all active files. I've had it happen several times that an old version I forgot about was still active as well...

 

In FS9 the aircraft radius (not wingspan) is defined in the .mdl file, not the .air file, IIRC in meters.

AFCAD2 and AI-Aircaft Editor (and probably others...) can make those changes to the .mdl file.

In ADE options one can choose to use ft. or m. for parking.

 

Also, parking spots have an order index, which can be seen and changed in ADE, or AFX.

If you create a new parking spot it's index is added to the end of the line. So that spot will be filled last, but still taking into account the aircraft radius and airline code...

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]230923[/ATTACH]

Screenshot from ADE1.65 manual.pdf

 

When I redo an airport (with ADE), I always reorder the parking spots in the index table, from small to large. Then depending on the airport, I can reorder same radius spots, gates first, then ramp. E.g. all my B737/A320s will fill the gates first, and only then the ramp spots.

 

 

Regards,

DDP.

Thanks, though I identified the problem as not being related to parking at all.

Could it be that your default APnnnnnn.bgl file, which contains your default KJFK airport and it's basic Afcad data, is somehow positioned at a higher scenery priority level than your Afcad (or ADE file), which you evidently keep editing but to no avail ?

 

In your scenery.cfg file, ALL these default scenery files should be positioned down near the bottom, i.e. have a very low scenery priority, in any case (far) lower than any scenery file which contains your edited Afcad file.

 

Hans

Actually not. I could try experimenting later, though for the time being this problem has been "patched".

Appreciate ya'lls input.

Interesting thread. I have this problem with 3 FSDT Airports (KORD/KLAX/KFLL), where not everyone behaves and parks in the correct spots. Every other add-on airport (lots) park perfectly.

Posts here give me some things to examine.

Thank you all,

Neil