Help with backdating AFCADs

[bensplanes]

 Hello again, gentlemen.

I am currently in the process of trying to backdate the T2G MCO afcad, but I am having trouble finding sources for parking assignments. To those who have experience with such things, what is the best method to sourcing this information?

[funk]

You can try www.departedflights.com/airports.html




Alex

[bensplanes]

Excellent resource- thank you!

[FSMuseum]

Departed flights is one of the best resources there is for that kind of thing. It's also worth simply looking for overview photos of the terminals for the time period you want. There usually aren't that many, but there are probably a couple over at Airliners.net and Jetphotos.net if you put in an advanced search for the category Airport Overviews or Terminal Photos.

Another excellent resource is aerial
photography, such as Historicaerials.net. While harder to make out on the images, it can tell you what types parked where, which may give clues as to which airlines parked where if your other resources haven't helped.

Other than that, just deep diving Google and Yahoo images for old terminal maps tends to bring up a couple of results with diligent searching. I have success by sometimes searching "xxx airport terminal 19xx" or "xxx airport 19xx". All kinds of photos and maps can come up depending on the airport.

An unexpectedly helpful resource has always been Flickr too, both for photos and for maps and aerials. Much of flickr's content is not indexed on other search engines, so it's worth diving in there too.

[bensplanes]

Thank you! These options are pretty sound.

[chasensfo]

Here is what I use:

- If possible, I start out with a terminal map from Departedflights.com or the 1998 July OAG book (ask me if you ever want a picture of MCO or whatever airport from it). This is a great resource, but often only tells you which airline used which terminal or concourse. Often, especially in the US, airlines have specific gates. So it's a good start, but more work is needed. Sometimes you can find gate numbers this way, too.

- Next, I look at Google Earth's "Historical Imagery" feature and see how close I can get to that time period. Historical Aerials is also great, but almost always is included in Google Earth (never hurts to check, though). Now I can get an idea of the actual layout (taxiways, runways, all terminal, remote, GA etc parking). Pre-9/11, many airports had dedicated commuter areas, these were often so crowded that one row of planes blocked the others. With the big Comair operation and USAir and Continental Express service, there was likely lots of turboprop parking at MCO beyond the current gate set up. Sometimes, you can scroll to later years and get clearer shots to be able to read some gate numbers and whatnot. You can also often verify which airlines parked where. Flickr also has many uploaded terminal maps.

-I then go on Airliners.net and Jetphotos.net and look at photos from that airport within a few years of what I am doing. Sometimes you get great terminal/ramp photos, and further narrow down who parked where. If you have P3D, you can also see what bridges were used and set a GSX profile with the correct types of jetways and even the correct jetway logos. Some other more obscure photo database sites often contain many more old photos of airports if you look around, as does Flickr. Sometimes you can find YouTube videos too. JustPlane videos captured so many 1990s and 2000s airports, the backgrounds are great resources for parking/layouts.

- I check the Airport History Lounge group on Facebook. It can take a bit of searching, but in the "media" section, most commercial airports have a gallery you can dig up, or you can use the search function to find member-uploaded content that may use the IATA\ICAO codes or the airport name in the post. They often have terminal maps, too.

- Finally, I ask people. I try to find planespotters or pilots I know who used or frequented that airport in that time period and see what they remember.

Keep a keen eye. If you are doing a payware scenery, it is more difficult to hide buildings and delete old taxiways, runways, ramp areas, etc. But if you end up editing a default airport (remember even in P3D many default airports closely match the late 1990s more than they do modern-day), you can change all this. I have been working on STL for over 1 year here and there and just today realized I had mixed up DL/US/CO/AA as I only had terminal-specific maps to go by but then came across 2000 photos of the gates which matched a 1991 terminal map with gate assignments and let me figure out the most likely 1998 lay-out for the non-TWA carriers.

Good luck, let us know if you need help. Remember, remote parking is very important, too! Big hubs like MCO easily could have had 20 planes towing off gates at night, if you don't have enough remote parking, they'll force themselves into other gates, general aviation parking, cargo, etc. Best to make the remote areas "Ramp GA Large" with whatever radius you need for that spot and assign "X XX XXX" before the airline codes (or leave it blank for any airline) so the planes take their airline's gates before parking there. You'd be shocked how many payware sceneries leave out the vast majority of the remote parking, GA parking, cargo, and even gates when they bother to create them in the first place! Not everyone has a real living airport like us RAI people, easy for them to just look at statics or a mixed bag of 2007-2020 traffic and just be happy lol.

[bensplanes]

Thank you for the thorough suggestion!

Right now I have a rough idea where airlines park, the problem comes down to identifying the individual gates in which airlines park. Some are more obvious than others. Right now I'm trying to figure out exactly where ATA, TRS, and some others park.

I am still debating whether to make the afcad for the older or newer version of MCO by T2G. The newer one features the brand new south complex that would be rather difficult to remove. I may just stick it with the old as it does not feature this project and it runs pretty well in V5.

And if you do have any information/pictures regarding MCO, I would appreciate it if you shared them with me.

[chasensfo]

Between this video (which also includes TPA) and this 1998 picture of an ATA 727-200 at a gate, it can be figured out probably though I haven't watched much of it:




Here is the July 1998 OAG terminal map (thank noob21 for that, he got this for the project. Only the desktop book has terminal and seating maps, my worldwide September 1998 Pocket Edition books are flights only and also exclude some smaller airports):



In the US, unless a specific airline handles another like how Delta did much of SABENA and Air Jamaica in the 1990s, international concourses were\are usually all common use gates.

[cgold]

NETR Historic Aerials is also a good resource. They have aerials that work almost like Google Maps.

[bensplanes]

Thank you guys!

Regarding the "free use gates", it might explain why I've seen images of AirTran at inconsistent parking spaces. Very helpful!

[chasensfo]

Nov 11, 2021 8:57:54 GMT -5 bensplanes said:

Thank you guys!

Regarding the "free use gates", it might explain why I've seen images of AirTran at inconsistent parking spaces. Very helpful!

Efficiency-wise, having worked some form terminal management at a major airport for years, I can tell you that having common use gates (also known in the industry as "CUTE") as well as "swing" gates that can house 2 narrow-body or 1 widebody jet make airports much much more efficient. "CUTE" gates are very common in most of the world's airports, though an airline may have a dedicated terminal like T5 in LHR for BA, it is uncommon for an airline to "own" gates. In 'Murikeh, there is more money to be made in leasing space to airlines vs having them pay per use, so they do it despite the hindrance it can cause on the operation. Where it gets complicated, for example, is the airlines usually pay more to lease the gate/facilities vs rent them, yet as the airport "owns" them, they still can't do what they want in some cases. Being part of OneWorld, Qantas had mostly AA and AS connections (even pre-OneWorld AS was in bed with AA with codeshares) at SFO as well as a long tow off. So, naturally, they explored the idea of towing the plane from the handstand to T2, where AA/AS parked, for departure instead of the A Concourse. Well, the airport had no interest in doing a 747 "gate fit" (drawing a chalk stop-bar, towing a 747 on, driving the bridges and GSE up to it, then noting any issues such as too tight a space for catering trucks/other equipment, fuel pit position issues, the proximity of the bridge to the tubes and engines, etc. ) so it never happened. By the time QF went to 787s, the response was "not this again" tho technically AA 787s fly in and are fitted for those gates, there was no interest to make the moves to relocate the airline. So, AA indeed did not have the final say in their "owned" gates. Conversely, if there was a situation on the international terminal, of which both concourses are 100% common use, we could ask the airport to fit whatever we needed on whatever gate when new planes like the 737MAX or A350 came in and had infinitely better chances of arranging that than an airline on gates used by no other "vendor". LAS is the only major airport in the US I can think of that decided to make their new domestic/international terminals (E/D) fully common use capable with only Southwest, Spirit, and Allegiant having "owned" gates, though some of those can be used by both Spirit and Allegiant as needed, too.

But, since money is king here in 'Murikeh, it is a safe bet that at most US airports in the 1990s did have assigned gates or, at the very least, concourses for carriers. Even tiny airports like MRY or STS with a few gates would assign them to a carrier. Another tip, however, is that often with the overnight stays and first flights of the morning, airlines will have more planes than gates, and will commonly rent gates from airlines near their operation for those flights, and tow their aircraft onto any vacant gate they are allowed to rent when overnight parking spots fill up or are too far. So, if let's say gates 1-3 are United and gates 4-8 are American, I will often code gates 4-5 as "AAL X XX UAL" or something so that if there are extra flights and no AA planes, the 2 gates next-door will fill in with UA planes as needed. MSP is a great example of this, few airlines have more than 2-3 gates other than Delta, so between maybe midnight and 6AM you'll see United planes on 2 or 3 different concourses, sometimes even departing off Delta branded gates if needed!

[bensplanes]

Good explanation.

From what I can find, MCO has gate assignments for AirTran but I find it hard to pinpoint exactly where. There are some photos which suggest airside 1 but that contradicts some other things I find. I may have to start asking around for such answers.

[bensplanes]

Past the airline assignments, I'm finding it rather difficult to get exact gate numbers for the many commuter spots that once were in the airport.. is there a reliable source for such information or is it just left to me to label them with fictional designations?

[bensplanes]

From where I see it, each of those spots has the same "number", but what is the best way to put this nomenclature in the AFCAD?

[chasensfo]

In real life, these gates are usually "A,B,C,D" etc. SFO today, for example, has Gate 84 split into 4 CRJ gates; 84A/B/C/D. However, ADE won't allow this, so I do "8401, 8402, 8403, 8404".