I’ve noticed that at EGLC, AI aircraft and the user aircraft park facing the gate, rather than facing away from the gate as they do in reality (see image below). AI aircraft then ‘back out’ of the gate as if pushing back, which again does not happen in reality - aircraft are positioned so they can taxi directly out of their parking space.
I’ve noted that this is also the case at ORBX’s EGLC. AI aircraft spawn facing the gate, which leaves the tail protruding into the taxiway. The ORBX EGLC versions for other sims (P3D, X-Plane) feature the correct parking positions.
Is this a problem with the scenery that could be fixed by Asobo and ORBX, or is it a limitation of the sim itself? I’m familiar with AFCADs etc for FSX/P3D but my knowledge doesn’t extend to MSFS and I don’t know how different the system is.
Going to reply to my own post… I think the problem may be that I’m using AIG and I’ve removed the default traffic file. There are images online of ORBX EGLC for MSFS with aircraft correctly parked. I’d ask at the ORBX forum only there isn’t one any more (this is a trend of which I do not approve).
I’ll restore the default AI traffic file and see what happens.
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Well, no, it isn’t AIG or the default traffic file.
Using the sim’s live traffic - BA E190 parked the wrong way (as is my CJ4).
Pushes backwards incorrectly
This is with the sim’s AI traffic (note GA aircraft where one should never be)
This is with AIG Traffic Controller injecting traffic. All spawn the wrong way around.
I didn’t repeat this test at the default EGLC but I’m quite certain the results will be the same. I don’t know whether to be mad at ORBX for not porting the airport properly or at Asobo for making it impossible for AI to spawn any way other than facing the gate… because I don’t know which it is!
But ORBX has this image as part of their advertising for the airport:
Now maybe those are static aircraft, but it seems to imply it is possible to park correctly at this airport.
Any clues anyone might have would be very welcome. This basically ruins EGLC for me and since it’s my local and favourite airport, that’s a big deal 
I’ve put a support ticket in at ORBX and I’ll see what they say but I’m betting that they’ll blame the sim…
lulz
BTW it has to be some limitation of the sim, if you look at the Prepar3D and X-Plane11 versions they show the planes facing the right way, in the MSFS version they seem to go to great effort to not show planes parked and there is only one, facing the wrong way.
I have to conclude ORBX is aware and unable to do anything about it.
Also are the planes too big or is the airport too small something is well off with the scale?
Well Orbx have said for a while they would be updating the EGLC apron layout to incorporate the missing extension at the airport that was already there before they released the add on. We are still waiting so don’t hold your breath of them fixing the issue. Maybe they could fix the parking when they update the whole airport.
That’s pretty much what they said in their reply to my ticket. Getting the extended apron and taxiway etc would be great, but what I don’t understand is why the parking is wrong in the MSFS version but is correct in the P3D and XP versions.
Unless of course there is some limitation in the sim so that you cannot model parking in the way that it is done at EGLC in reality. And if there is, then I would put that in as a bug and hope that people would vote for it, because it’s something that needs fixing. There are plenty of airports in the world with non-standard gate parking.
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So I asked directly - is this because of bad implementation in the scenery, or a limitation of the sim, and I got back ‘no idea, and we aren’t even planning the update yet so no idea when it’ll happen’ which is kinda what I expect from ORBX, TBH. Nick who does their support is a great guy (if occasionally tetchy) but he can only really toe the company line which is to announce nothing until it’s nearly ready to go.
I used to use Airport Design Editor from time to time to customise stuff and I sort-of understood AFCADs, but MSFS doesn’t use them, so while I’m reading the SDK docs to see if I can really understand what’s going on here, I’m suspecting that it was a relatively quick and dirty port in the early days of MSFS and perhaps ORBX just didn’t have the expertise at that time to port over the airport’s parking config so they took the easy way out. And since, if we’re being honest, ORBX is all about the new and shiny and no so much about fixing the old (remember how long it took them to finally make EGLC work in P3D v5? It was nearly 2 years!), I doubt this will get fixed anytime soon.
My one hope is that UK2000 will make an updated EGLC for MSFS, since they’ve left the P3D market. But I guess everyone has a favourite airport that they want an ultimate version of and EGLC doesn’t seem to be that popular.
Ho hum
Orbx just announced EGLC V2 (for an upgrade fee) and it looks like parking direction is fixed, at least from their screenshots.
Yes, they have oriented the parking spots correctly in the new version. UK2000 has also done a new version (which is already out) and they have modelled the parking properly.
Unfortunately, AI traffic still doesn’t taxi in or out of parking correctly, and doesn’t even park at the right angle when arriving; only when spawning directly at the gate. When departing, it ridiculously pushes back into the terminal building. This is down to limitations with MSFS AI traffic rather than the scenery. I’ve made a wishlist item to fix the AI taxi and parking behaviour.
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