Domestic & Intl flights by same airline

[707FAN]

This is a request from Ariel at Feelthere from a different post.

For Feelthere can this problem be investigated and perhaps a solution be found for the next version or a SP in the future

There are several occasions  where a US airline operates both domestic & International flights  from the same airport but from different terminals i.e. SFO. This is not handled by Tower3D as they need to depart & arrives at different terminals. The ICAO code in the terminal.txt file determines which terminal they operate from/to. Therefore it seems that to  ensure the International A/C go operate from/to the international terminal, it is necessary that the international flights have a unique ICAO code to that of the domestic flights. To achieve this, I have invented ICAO & IATA codes for the international flights by US airlines in this situation. The codes are below & are codes NOT currently used in the airline.txt file. This works OK but because the A/C do not have applicable Real Colour files, they appear as white A/C. With this scenario, you have the choice of them going to the domestoc terminal if you use the original ICAO & IATA codes or to the international terminal if you use the modified codes, provided the terminal.txt file is changed to reflect the ICAO codes.

The unique codes that I have come up with are:

ASB, AU, ALASKA, Alaska Airlines (Intl), United States

AAM, AB, AMERICAN, American Airlines (Intl), United States

DAI, DI, DELTA, Delta Airlines (Intl), United States

UAH, UH, UNITED, United Airlines (Intl), United States

NOTE: AB was Air Berlin IATA but it is now defunct.

Kev M

[FeelThere_Vic]

Please read my other reply about the cargo flights.

Vic

[crbascott]

Kev M,

I did something very similar for Tower!2011 because I wanted KDFW to operate more realistically. This worked fine for this confined situation and the fact that we had the ability to customize liveries & airports/gates. However, for Nyerges to implement this holistically would be somewhat unrealistic as to the hundred of airlines involved - including the massive number of livery updates needed. Also, for "real" traffic/color to have a bunch of "invented ICAO & IATA codes" kind of goes against the purpose of the products. 

Furthermore, without gate specific assignments we would still be lacking in the ultimate  goal of realism.

Craig

[ATControl -- Joe]

This is also not possible in this game as Tower does not support the “towing” of aircraft between gates.  You wouldn’t accomplish anything by having a jet fly into one terminal only to be stuck there with it never being moved again (therefore blocking a gate from being used by an airplane that actually needs the space).  I just see it as a bad domino effect.  

Put towing on the list for a future version of tower.  Otherwise I would scap this idea at this point due to limitations of the game.  

I also agree that creating false ICAO and IATA codes prob isn’t the best idea

[DeltaVII]

3 hours ago, ATControl -- Joe said:

Put towing on the list for a future version of tower.

[OT] One more entry on my wishlist for Tower!3D 20XX... ;-) [/OT]

[FeelThere Ariel]

Thank you guys. We are adding this to our list. :)

Ariel 

[FeelThere_Vic]

On 4/4/2018 at 5:18 PM, ATControl -- Joe said:

This is also not possible in this game as Tower does not support the “towing” of aircraft between gates.  You wouldn’t accomplish anything by having a jet fly into one terminal only to be stuck there with it never being moved again (therefore blocking a gate from being used by an airplane that actually needs the space).  I just see it as a bad domino effect.  

Put towing on the list for a future version of tower.  Otherwise I would scap this idea at this point due to limitations of the game.  

I also agree that creating false ICAO and IATA codes prob isn’t the best idea

Not a bad idea, but how would you make the rule to make sure the plane is not towed somewhere while it needs to departure from some gate? I love the idea of having more planes than gates (in fact I push for an open ended taxiway instruction where you can "park" the plane at any intersection) but we need to make sure this theory works in the sim too.

 

Vic

 

 

[ATControl -- Joe]

3 hours ago, FeelThere said:

Not a bad idea, but how would you make the rule to make sure the plane is not towed somewhere while it needs to departure from some gate? I love the idea of having more planes than gates (in fact I push for an open ended taxiway instruction where you can "park" the plane at any intersection) but we need to make sure this theory works in the sim too.

 

Vic

 

 

From a programming standpoint, here are your hurdles with the code --   (for the example I will use Terminal A as inbound and terminal B as outbound) --

1.  It would be easy to designate Terminal A for the arrival of the jet, however you would have to make sure that your Terminal A does not permit outbound movements of a specific airline once they arrive.  You would also have to make sure that your code prevents the flight schedule system from spawning a flight in Terminal A for departure.  You would then have to further code the allowance for a tug to push the plane out of that gate and stay attached and drag it to somewhere else on the airfield (such as airfields like LAX over by terminal 8 where United parks a bunch of planes that aren't being used).  From there you would also have to make sure that your code allows for the jet to be selected for taxi at any given time (maybe a 30+ minute head start to allow time for the plane to be towed to another terminal).  Your code would also have to be able to evaluate if there is gate space available to even tow the jet to where the flight will depart from, which means it has to be able to evaluate the schedule to see what other jets still inbound need that gate space.

  -- In theory there wouldn't be a need to really "park" a jet somewhere else on the airfield.  As soon as the jet lands, pulls to the gate, spends a few minutes there, you could instantly give it tow instructions and tow it to the correct departure terminal.

 

2.  As far as the theory of having more jets than gates at an airfield, I would say you will most likely only get that scenario at early morning hours at an airport (if on the east coast) or (late night (if on the west coast).   Boston for example -- if you're at the airport 6-9am, you will see many aircraft being towed that were just held over at the international terminal side of the airport that were parked there overnight.   As others depart during the morning rush, more are rolled in to fill gates instead of waiting for jets that would be arriving from other cities.  Overseas, at an airport like Frankfurt, you see towing throughout the day, but remember that airport is sending jets all over the world, so towing there is a lot more active than in the US for the most part).

To put this in the sim --- wow, no clue,, you'd need a very sophisticated code that is constantly evaluating how many jets are inbound and how many jets are missing an aircraft.   You're not talking tons of jets either -- so the likelihood of having to tow something around is minimal throughout the day (aside from terminal changes, or rush hours).

 

***Based on your comments of 'parking' a jet somewhere on a taxiway -- I assume you mean aircraft that have landed for example  -- i.e. not having to take them directly to a terminal and instead moving them around and letting them wait for a gate to open?    This would be nice, but remember this would require you to do the following with your code ---

1.  Tell us where the gate is AHEAD of time -- the game currently doesn't tell you where the plane is going until you give it a taxi instruction to the gate.  I know this has been mentioned in the past but it's probably one of the more inefficient features of the game forcing you to taxi the plane by 'guessing' what side of a terminal it will go to, and in turn having to give a 2nd taxi instruction which is a waste of time.

2.  Allow your code to be 'free' -- and by that I mean the code should not force you to taxi the jet to the terminal as soon as it lands.  (ex. DAL23 taxi A-B-hold short of K --- nothing is said about a terminal) The code would have to be 'open ended' allowing the controller to put the plane ANYWHERE on the field they want and let it sit for as long as needed until the gate becomes open.  With this, you would also have to relax your code rules to not force jets into a 'penalty' for waiting  -- you would have to code to assess a penalty if the jet is late for a departure for it's next flight by not getting to the gate on time.

    -- take one step further on this you would also have to eliminate the lines that are drawn on the ground radar from having to find an endpoint at the terminal.  It would need to be able to end where the plane wants to stop.

Food for thought.  Hope your coding team is up for the challenge.

 

 

 

 

 

[crbascott]

6 hours ago, FeelThere said:

Not a bad idea, but how would you make the rule to make sure the plane is not towed somewhere while it needs to departure from some gate? I love the idea of having more planes than gates (in fact I push for an open ended taxiway instruction where you can "park" the plane at any intersection) but we need to make sure this theory works in the sim too.

 

Vic

 

 

Another option is less reliance on code and more reliance on the schedule. Below is a simple conceptual example of a schedule file.

Orig,Dest,Flight,Time,Activity,Tail#,Gate/Location
MUC,ATL,DAL131,14:52,A,N1234,A20
ATL,ATL,TUG100,15:52,T,N1234,HANGAR1
TPA,ATL,DAL1373,16:00,A,N5678,A20
ATL,ROC,DAL1584,16:58,D,N5678,A20

In this example, we no longer need a terminal file because the gate is assigned by the schedule. We would now need an inventory of tail numbers for each airline that would bring up the appropriate plane type and livery (this would also allow regional airlines to fly with different colors). 

In the example above, DAL131 is scheduled to arrive (activity A) at 14:52 at gate A20. N1234 is a 763.
N1234 is scheduled to be towed (activity T) to Hanger1 at 15:52.
DAL1371 is scheduled to arrive (activity A) at 16:00 at gate A20. N5678 is an M90.
DAL1584 is schedule to depart (activity D) from A20 at 16:58.

This could possibly eliminate the need for loading 8 hours of flights and determining restarter planes. Obviously more thought would need to be into this, but I think it is a viable alternative to adding more complex coding. Although, we'd still need progressive taxi for added realism and to be able to "park" a plane somewhere while it's gate is occupied. 

Craig

PS - It would probably be nice to not have to specify the gate to incorporate randomness, but I added it to "reduce code" . :)

[ATControl -- Joe]

Manually seeking out an N# for each and every flight on a daily schedule that includes 1000-2000 flights depending on the airport would be straight insanity.  It takes long enough to write schedules w/ the current setup.   The current method is just fine.  Simply add a field to the schedule reader and you accomplish the same item.   Code is changable -- time is money.  No sense in adding in manual search and find.

As a programmer in real life, it makes no sense to me to write that much code for something that could be done with a simple modify to the current code.  I'm sure Vic and Gabor as programmers would also agree.  Simple changes for mass effect.

[crbascott]

18 hours ago, ATControl -- Joe said:

Manually seeking out an N# for each and every flight on a daily schedule that includes 1000-2000 flights depending on the airport would be straight insanity.  It takes long enough to write schedules w/ the current setup.   The current method is just fine.  Simply add a field to the schedule reader and you accomplish the same item.   Code is changable -- time is money.  No sense in adding in manual search and find.

As a programmer in real life, it makes no sense to me to write that much code for something that could be done with a simple modify to the current code.  I'm sure Vic and Gabor as programmers would also agree.  Simple changes for mass effect.

Wow, Joe,  just thought I'd add some "food for thought". Leave it to you to be closed-minded and bash constructive discussion. 

Joe, I am a programmer myself. The schedule is data ... it is not code. 

It is a programmer's responsibility to logically ensure every situation is taken care of. I personally don't think that is possible given the variety of airports layouts and thousands of scenarios. You mention a lot of theory and even brought up having "no clue" - and then you say it can all be accomplished "with a simple modify of the current code". I'm sure Vic and Gabor would agree that this is laughable.

I agree my idea is not custom schedule friendly, but that is irrelevant in my opinion. But then I don't have a YT channel that relies on my custom schedules. Besides, being a programmer, I have automated the current schedule making process - it only takes me a couple of hours and that's just to do some manual tweaking for playability. I would simply modify my existing code if FT decided to go down this route. I'm surprised as a real life programmer you haven't and wouldn't do the same.

FYI - my idea is not unique to the aviation sim world ... "straight insanity" already exists.

Again, due to my several years of programming experience, I'm just providing out-of-box coding alternatives. I don't care which route FT takes, as long as works. :)

[DeltaVII]

On 6.4.2018 at 4:12 AM, crbascott said:

In this example, we no longer need a terminal file because the gate is assigned by the schedule. We would now need an inventory of tail numbers for each airline that would bring up the appropriate plane type and livery (this would also allow regional airlines to fly with different colors).

Not too bad of an approach, but directly assigning the gate is a little too goal-oriented, since gate assignment in reality is fluctuating. In my opinion it would be fine, if the program would still calculate the arrival gate (and the controller being able to request what gate number an aircraft was assigned to - "DAL131 IS YOUR GATE OPEN?" - or at least the ramp entry point), but we'd need to have a definition of aircraft types available for every gate for the program to calculate whether there's a gate available or not.

Oh, and we'd need callsigns for the tugs, of course (as long as they don't act as stupid as some of them at JFK...), so we don't address them as "TUG100", but as "DELTA TUG 2", "LAN SUPER TUG", "JETBLUE TUG 1"...

I could imagine a turnaround procedure like this:

10:48 "TOWER, DAL1681 WITH YOU, RUNWAY 4R"
10:52 "DAL1681, RUNWAY 4R CLEARED TO LAND"
10:52 "RUNWAY 4R CLEARED TO LAND, DAL1681"
10:55 "GROUND, DAL1681 WITH YOU"
10:55 "DAL1681, TAXI ON FB, CROSS RUNWAY 4L, TURN LEFT ON TAXIWAY E, HOLD SHORT OF RUNWAY 31R"
10:55 "TAXI ON FB, CROSS RUNWAY 4L, TURN LEFT ON TAXIWAY E, HOLD SHORT OF RUNWAY 31R, DAL1681"
10:59 "DAL1681, CROSS RUNWAY 31R, TURN LEFT ON TAXIWAY A, HOLD SHORT OF TAXIWAY KE"
10:59 "CROSS RUNWAY 31R, TURN LEFT ON TAXIWAY A, HOLD SHORT OF TAXIWAY KE, DAL1681"
11:01 "DAL1681, IS YOUR GATE OPEN?"
11:01 "GROUND, GATE 34 IS OCCUPIED, DAL1681"
11:02 "DAL1681, CONTINUE TAXI ON A, HOLD SHORT OF TAXIWAY LA"
11:02 "CONTINUE TAXI ON A, HOLD SHORT OF TAXIWAY LA, DAL1681"
11:16 "GROUND, GATE 34 IS OPEN, DAL1681"
11:16 "DAL1681, TURN LEFT ON TAXIWAY LA, TURN LEFT ON TAXIWAY B, TAXI TO RAMP"
11:16 "TURN LEFT ON TAXIWAY LA, TURN LEFT ON TAXIWAY B, TAXI TO RAMP, DAL1681"
(11:18 DAL1681 SHUTS DOWN)
11:39 "GROUND, DELTA TUG 2 AT GATE 34, REQUEST REPOSITIONING"
11:39 "DELTA TUG 2, REPOSITIONING APPROVED"
11:39 "REPOSITIONING APPROVED, DELTA TUG 2"
11:41 "GROUND, REQUEST TAXI TO GATE C61 FOR DELTA TUG 2"
11:42 "DELTA TUG 2, TURN RIGHT ON TAXIWAY A, HOLD SHORT OF TAXIWAY LA"
11:42 "TURN RIGHT ON TAXIWAY A, HOLD SHORT OF TAXIWAY LA, DELTA TUG 2"
11:46 "DELTA TUG 2, ENTER RAMP"
11:46 "ENTER RAMP, DELTA TUG 2"
(11:48 DELTA TUG 2 STOPS AT GATE C61)
12:05 "GROUND, DELTA TUG 2 AT GATE C61, REQUEST REPOSITIONING"
12:05 "DELTA TUG 2, REPOSITIONING APPROVED"
12:05 "REPOSITIONING APPROVED, DELTA TUG 2"
12:06 "GROUND, REQUEST TAXI TO GATE 34 FOR DELTA TUG 2"
12:06 "DELTA TUG 2, GIVE WAY 2 TIMES AT TAXIWAY A, TURN LEFT ON TAXIWAY B, HOLD SHORT OF TAXIWAY KF"
12:06 "GIVE WAY 2 TIMES AT TAXIWAY A, TURN LEFT ON TAXIWAY B, HOLD SHORT OF TAXIWAY KF, DELTA TUG 2"
12:10 "DELTA TUG 2, IS YOUR GATE OPEN?"
12:10 "GROUND, GATE 34 IS OPEN, DELTA TUG 2"
12:11 "DELTA TUG 2, ENTER RAMP"
12:11 "ENTER RAMP, DELTA TUG 2"
(12:13 DELTA TUG 2 STOPS AT GATE 34)
20:26 "GROUND, DAL401 REQUESTING PUSH AND START"
20:26 "DAL401, PUSHBACK APPROVED, EXPECT RUNWAY 31L"
20:26 "GROUND, 31L PUSHBACK APPROVED, DAL401"
20:27 "GROUND, DAL401 READY TO TAXI"
20:27 "DAL401, RUNWAY 31L, TAXI VIA B, J, Z, CROSS RUNWAY 4L"
20:27 "RUNWAY 31L, TAXI VIA B, J, Z, CROSS RUNWAY 4L, DAL401"
(20:31 "DAL401, MONITOR TOWER"
20:31 "ROGER, DAL401" --- optional hand-off)
20:33 "DAL401, RUNWAY 31L LINE UP AND WAIT"
20:33 "RUNWAY 31L LINE UP AND WAIT, DAL401"
20:35 "DAL401, WIND IS 278 AT 4 KNOTS RUNWAY 31L CLEARED FOR TAKEOFF"
20:35 "WIND IS 278 AT 4 KNOTS RUNWAY 31L CLEARED FOR TAKEOFF, DAL401"
20:37 "DAL401, TURN LEFT HEADING 223"
20:37 "TURN LEFT HEADING 223, DAL401"
20:41 "DAL401 CONTACT DEPARTURE"
20:41 "ROGER, GOOD EVENING"

(The next step: Random incidents with aircraft that need to be adressed; including asking for "ANY SERVICE VEHICLES ON THE FREQUENCY?", sending "CAR99" down to "HOLD SHORT OF TAXIWAY J", then "ENTER RUNWAY 4L, FOLLOW AIRCRAFT", followed eventually by "RUNWAY 4L IS CLOSED" or "RUNWAY 4L IS CLEARED", probably having to issue "GO AROUND" and "FLY RUNWAY HEADING" commands to incoming aircraft while it happens, and, of course, the request to be towed from the runway to the gate...

Hey, Vic, how about you open a pinned wishlist thread? Right now seems to be a pretty good moment... ;-) )

[FeelThere_Vic]

The current code has a two steps of verification for any plane for a free gate to try to help the user who may forget or simply delays a pushback request. What we plan is a single verification for the next version where your job would be harder but we will also provide you a solution as well in form of non ending taxi routes. So far this is what we are discussing for the terminals. Oh and as an added benefit you will see the target gate much sooner than the current version allows it.

So many times when I was spotting planes at LAX I saw those QFAs were towed away from the terminals but I wonder how often they do that with other flights?

 

Vic

[ATControl -- Joe]

4 hours ago, FeelThere said:

The current code has a two steps of verification for any plane for a free gate to try to help the user who may forget or simply delays a pushback request. What we plan is a single verification for the next version where your job would be harder but we will also provide you a solution as well in form of non ending taxi routes. So far this is what we are discussing for the terminals. Oh and as an added benefit you will see the target gate much sooner than the current version allows it.

So many times when I was spotting planes at LAX I saw those QFAs were towed away from the terminals but I wonder how often they do that with other flights?

 

Vic

Towing is minimal.  You are more likely to get an announcement inside the airport that your gate has changed and people walk to where the plane is gated.  You only really see towing mid-day if there is a long break between flights (ie Fiji at LAX always moved out by the birds nest and sits there until the departing flight comes up and it gets towed back).  Like I said in the prior post towing mostly happens for early morning rush at east coast airports where you have a lot of outbound early movements or late night on the west coast.   

Maybe at an airport like LGA or BOS that have inbound intl/dom and tow to the new terminal where departures of the same airline happen.  

[Avwriter]

21 hours ago, ATControl -- Joe said:

Towing is minimal.  You are more likely to get an announcement inside the airport that your gate has changed and people walk to where the plane is gated.  You only really see towing mid-day if there is a long break between flights (ie Fiji at LAX always moved out by the birds nest and sits there until the departing flight comes up and it gets towed back).  Like I said in the prior post towing mostly happens for early morning rush at east coast airports where you have a lot of outbound early movements or late night on the west coast.   

Maybe at an airport like LGA or BOS that have inbound intl/dom and tow to the new terminal where departures of the same airline happen.  

I think it really depends on the airport.  Procedures of this sort seem to vary widely.  Towing seems relatively rare at my own hometown airport.  However, those of you who have flown to/through Frankfurt (EDDF), know that the aircraft towing activity there goes on constantly and appears to make up a significant part of the overall ground traffic.

 

Andrew