[GUIDE] How to set up taxiways and parking so the ATC and AI use them correctly

Thank you so much for your excellent videos. There is noway i could have figured this on my own even if i spent a year trying to figure this out. And the current SDK help material is woefully inadequate.

You are a lifesaver!

Currently i finally made my own airport , which is a huge one ( KMDW Chicago midway airport) . I have some questions…

  1. To help ATC correctly give you taxiway directions to your runway, you mentioned (in a post above) about marking the taxiway paths over the runways as ‘runway’, but what about the designation ( i.e. which runway end do we designate them as ? ( for example 4R and 22L are both ends of the same runway)

Do i have to designate as ‘runway’ each and every taxiway path on the entire length of the runway or just that part of the runways where the taxiways enter into ?

My runways have multiple entry and entrance points , so the taxiway points and paths over the entire length of the runway are quite numerous with multiple taxiways joining and even crossing over. This airport has 5 runways criss crossing each other.

2nd question :

Regarding designating a taxiway parking as ‘vehicle’, you mentioned having it join your existing taxiway paths. Wont this make the vehicles drive over paths meant for taxiing airplanes ?

3rd question :

Any idea how i can stop vehicles from driving over the taxiway paths designed for aircraft to taxi on ? Currently, airport vehicles seem to drive over these also.

Do i need to make a separate parallel taxiway path just for vehicles or something ?

4th question ( thanks so much for answering all these when you have time!) :

How do i know the airport is at the right elevation ? KMDW has a field elevation of 620 MSL and there is a slight slope to all the runways . How do i set that for such a big airport ? I dont see any place in the ‘airport’ properties where i can put in an altitude or set a slope ( the whole airport is sloped 10 feet higher on the east side than the western edge)

Thank you,

Adnan

I just released my latest video showing how to add ground services, might help you out with your fuel truck issues:

SDK Tutorial #11 - Ground services

Thumbnail 11

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Thank you for the kind words!

Basically if you want a plane to go there it needs to have a valid taxiway path which is linked up to your network. This applies for both AI planes and the ATC giving you taxi directions. So every taxiway must have a taxiway path with type TAXIWAY, your runways should have type RUNWAY, and these should be linked up to a valid TAXIWAY.

I’m unsure exactly how the designation works. So far in my airports I’ve been naming each end separately, e.g. for a runway 02-20 I will split the runway taxiway path in half and designate one half 02 and the other half 20. I do not know if this has any effect though.

You should have a taxiway path with type RUNWAY along the whole length of your runway. Whenever a taxiway joins you should split the path to make another point and join that to your taxiway path.

RE your questions on vehicles, consider checking out episode 11. The taxiway parking type VEHICLE is just for the fuel truck at this moment, you will find other airport vehicles just spawn randomly at your plane parking spots and drive around.

They will drive along your taxiways, but if you place down taxiway path type VEHICLE they can also take that instead to drive around (you do not need VEHICLE paths, you can add them as an extra). I’m not sure if it’s possible to completely stop vehicles using normal taxiways, but they should prefer to take VEHICLE paths if possible.

You can set the elevation of runways using the Gizmo tool, and add a slope to them with the profile editor. I’ve got a video on terraforming which you may find useful.

I hope that answers your questions :grin:

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Thank you for your detailed reply. Helpful as always. I never even realized i could use the gizmo tool to raise and lower runways. Will look into using that. Hopefully the altitude in the Gizmo tool is in meters.

Thanks for your helpful youtube videos also!

Thank you very much, thanks to your tutorial and help in FSDEVELOPER I was able to make the taxiways and blue arrows work with ATC, together with the FUEL vehicle.
I have a question for you:
in the attached images you can see the blue arrows that go from the opposite direction to runway 25, where there is only lawn, and further on, on the right, there is the ILS LOCALISER of runway 07. Instead, at the entrance to runway 07 the blue arrows they are right. is it a bug or my mistake?
In the debug I don’t find elements that could create this anomaly.
Thank you so much again for your response and for your awesome tutorials that help me so much in building my airport.

I just made an airport and seem to be having this same weird problem. The runway guidance arrows point opposite to where my ’ runway start’ green arrow was set up for the runway.

I wonder if it is because in the SDK, when you create a runway, it has to be named only from one end. (for some reason, for example you can only name a runway 13L, rather than 13L/31R) "( which would be two ends of the same runway.

Maybe the runway taxiway arrows point to the direction of the runway, per its naming in the SDK Scenery Editor ( without taking into account the other end)

Would love to know if there is a solution too

I’ve also been experiencing this issue lately with the airport I use in my tutorials. I’m not sure if it’s a bug or something wrong with my project. Things you could try that I’ve not got around to testing:

  • Move runway start positions around, double check they are at the right end (primary vs secondary) etc.
  • Play with taxiway points and paths, change where they connect to the runway
  • Make a test airport with just a runway and taxiway, see if you can reproduce the bug
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Thanks for your reply, I will definitely try

Hi, I did a test with asobo LIRF airport, and I saw the same phenomenon as attached picture, the runway is 34L / 16R (340° / 16°)
The primary is 16R, as shown in the indication while taxiing, so the blue arrows follow the direction of the primary runway. This is like in the case of my airport. Now I try with another airport but I think the flaw is this: they follow the primary runway.
Hello and thanks

Looks like it might be a bug then if you see it happening at default airports too. You could report it on Zendesk and in the Bugs & Issues forum.

hello, I confirm you with another LIPZ asobo airport of the primary runway and arrows that follow the direction.
Hi, to contact Zandesk I can’t fill in the required forms, if you can do it it would be an honor.
Hello and thanks

I’ll try and remember to do it the next time I play :grin:

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I sent the material to support

I wanted to ask you something that happens at the GATE, the MARSHALLER is not seen and when I arrive at the T stop at the GATE the JETWAY connects by itself without having requested it, all assistance such as AI co-pilot management and ATC LISTA AI are disabled.
This happens in my airport that I built, in the other Asobo airports the MARSHALLER can be seen and worked right.
It happens to me in 2 new airports in very distant locations.
I created a forum thread

Hello and thanks

I have a question,

I am looking at doing my first ever airport and I would love to fix Auckland International Airport and have correct taxi and parking bays. (For some reason there are no A320s using the domestic gates…?)
Anyway…
There is are a number of gates, namely 15 16 17 and 18 (which were the ‘A380’ double jetway gates) and all of them have Left and Right for A320/737 use…
Can I inject that same sort of realism into this project and have gate 15 as heavy/L and R so that the defult AI A380/A330 be assigned gate 15 or two A320s to use gate 15 left and right.

Cheers

I think I’ve found the solution. 1, make sure all your paths are smooth radius’s and not sharp 90degree or less turns. If your taxiway has a sharp turn, ATC will give you the smoothest route around. 2, make sure you’ve included any and all cross overs you might need at each taxi and runway. Think about how an actual aircraft would use and cross taxiways, pretend your making the taxi-paths for dumb AI and not just as painting the lines for players.


Hi.
is there a reasonable way that you might know of to simply adjust the parking radius of spots at an existing default airport?

The one I am trying to fix is KASE (Aspen, CO), but I have many others I would like to adjust since my aircraft are too big to get assigned parking apparently, so I never get the option to park from ATC. These are aircraft that I know fly to these airports in reality, so it is bugging me.

That KASE airport is a default bespoke detail airport.
I am just struggling to find a way to adjust these spots on an existing airport, so I am starting to wonder if it is even possible.

any help would be super appreciated.

There is a way, how reasonable depends on how much effort you want to put there

You need to exclude the existing parkings , then you can recreate them as you like

Basically you need to add the KASE airport to a project in Dev Mode, and use the deletecommands “deletealltaxiway”
Of course this will remove every taxiway, dependin on how the airport has been created will require some to a LOT of work to remake the correct taxi network (no, you can just modify the parkings.)

To avoid all the work, you can try to decompile the existing airport with some tools,
This app can help

https://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/threads/official-airport-to-sdk-project-here-is-a-small-app-to-help-you

Or you can use the Import from APX function in Dev Mode (the app above will locate the need filename)

Thanks so much for the information. I really appreciate it.
That does put the task into perspective for me, and it also gives me some good technical guidance.

cheers

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Thank you, I’m about a day in to trying to trying to fix up my local airport and have a pounding headache. I may be too much a perfectionist for this without enough skill.

I’ve been struggling with a few things and I’m not sure if I should delete or modify. The AI buildout of the airport is mostly good with a few minor issues but it’s also outdated and includes parking where there should be hangars, trees on the apron, huge, thick tree growth, etc. I’m noticing the existing apron seems to cause some of the tools to act a little funny.

Another issue that bothers me are signs on the runway. For that do I need to delete all signs?

I feel like I want to start with a simple iteration, but I may need to start with deletion of most base objects.

Also looking on tips for grouping and workflows, say like I want to split workflows into logical groups? For instance, cleaning up trees, tweaking apron and grass areas, adding heliports, etc.