OK first things first!

—————————————————————————————————
————————————————————————————————
DECIDING WHAT SERVICE YOU WANT AND WHERE: PLANE-MAKER:
—————————————————————————————————
————————————————————————————————

Go into Plane-Maker.
Go to the STANDARD menu, then the VIEWPOINT item.
Go to the LAST tab: LOCATION.
Here, check the little boxes for the type of service your airplane like to get.
Enter the LOCATION that the ground traffic cars should drive to when
servicing this airplane.
If you make the window extra-wide, then you will SEE these points on the
airplane as you move them, which makes things a ton easier.
So, enter all the service parking-points for ground-service trucks for your
airplanes there in Plane-Maker. Very easy.

—————————————————————————————————
————————————————————————————————
DECIDING WHAT SERVICE YOU HAVE AND WHERE: WORLD-EDIT:
—————————————————————————————————
————————————————————————————————

NOW, if you go into WED (World-Edit) for X-Plane, then you will be able to
add a number of ground traffic trucks at the AIRPORTS!
These trucks are:

pushback -can push ANY type of plane

fuel_prop -can fuel recip engine aircraft only
fuel_jet -fuels jets and turboprops
fuel_liner -fuel HYDRANT truck, which takes fuel from ground hydrants to fuel
the liners
food -catering for the liners
belt_loader-belt-loaders for bags for the liners
bag_engine -baggage train engine for the liners
bag_car -baggage train cars for the liners
crew_BMW -crew car
crew_limo -crew car
crew_458 -crew car
GPU_engine -ground power unit engine for any plane
GPU_car -ground power unit car for any plane

You can add these trucks all about the ramps as you see fit.
I have added comments next to each truck type above.
You add the parking space for each truck type, and they will be parked in
their parking spot when the sim starts.

—————————————————————————————————
————————————————————————————————
DECIDING HOW THE TRUCKS WILL GET TO YOUR PLANE: WORLD-
EDIT:
—————————————————————————————————
————————————————————————————————

Now here is where it gets really interesting: ROAD GRIDS!

You can make all the little PATHS that the car follow all over the airport!
This, of course, is to keep cars from careening across runways, through
terminals, etc.
Build the grids that the cars will follow.
You should generally have grids that go from pretty close to the parking
spot of each truck to pretty close to the parking spot of each airplane.
The trucks will bee-line from their parking to the nearest bit of the road-grid
they can find, and bee-line from the road-grid to the aircraft parking spot,
so it is a good idea to have the road-grids go pretty close to the truck
parking and aircraft parking to minimize the tunnel-vision bee-lining the
trucks will do.
Trucks will service your plane, and the AI planes flying about as well.

Now here is something cool: You can add PIT-STOPS for each type of
truck!
This way, even if there re not many planes about demanding service, the
trucks will be buzzing about with something to do to keep things from
getting boring.
Trucks will randomly pick pit-stops to drive to from time to time.
Here is another cool thing: MULTIPLE GRDS!
Whenever a plane demands service, he will only accept a car if that car is
closest to the same grid that the airplane is closest to!
Here is what I mean:
You might have a single road-grid for AIRLINER parking. Trucks nearest
that grid will ONLY service airplanes nearest that same grid as well,
so any aircraft parked closest to that airliner grid will only ask for service
from trucks that are ALSO closest to that SAME GRID.

Then, on a DIFFERENT part of the airport, you might have a GENERAL

AVIATION grid.
Any plane parked closest to THAT grid will ONLY demand service from
trucks that are also closer to THAT grid than any other grid.

There might be a military aviation grid on the same airport, or helicopter, or

individual FBO, or any other break-down you can imagine.
The rules are simple: Cars will NOT go from one grid to another, and a
plane at a given grid will only demand service from cars on that same grid.

Knowing this, you can put cars and grids in nice little groups as you see fit
to keep push-carts from general aviation from coming over to the airliner
side of the field, wandering across runways, and things like that… just
make the grids that you want to keep the traffic on… cars will only leave the
grid for
close-by truck and aircraft parking spaces, not some other grid.

(NOTE: IF you make a grid that crosses a runway, that IS legal. But trucks
avoid other airplanes by creeping out of the way at 10 miles per hour when
an airplane gets too close. That will NOT be good ebnough to avoid a
conflict on any taking off or landing traffic).

—————————————————————————————————
————————————————————————————————
DEMANDING SERVICE: X-PLANE:
—————————————————————————————————
————————————————————————————————

Now, in X-Plane, go to the JOYSTICK BUTTON ASSIGNMENT in the

settings window at the upper right of your X-Plane screen in flight
and hit any button you want and for that button hit the EDIT button and type
in SERVICE or PUSH-BACK.
Assign the buttons to demand service or push-back as desired.

Now, when parked on the ramp, when you demand service or push-back,
then:
->IF your plane has been configured to demand a certain type of
service in Plane-Maker,
->IF your airport has been configured to provide a certain type of
service for that ramp area in WED,
then you will get service!

As well, if you go to the FLIGHT menu, and select AI FLIES YOUR

AIRCRAFT, then the little AI pilot that I wrote will demand service as he
sees fit before he goes flying.
The AI will only demand service available at that airport. No service trucks
of a certain type available? THEN WE FLY WITHOUT THEM!
We’re not cancelling the flight over a lack of peanuts, OK?

austin