Ground vehicle "Species"

[Joolde]

Hi all,

As far as I know, Virtual Radar Server assigns a 'species' to every ICAO code. But which code do I need to set, in order to get the 'ground vehicle' species?? It doesn't work when I try GRND, and other things don't seem to work either. Is there any way I can edit that myself?

As an example, a screenshot of my VRS yesterday, with an AMS Airport vehicle.


And the ICAO code G280 also doesn't get a species assigned.

I hope anyone can help me out

Regards,
Jordy

[CharlieAlpha]

As far as I can tell the species and mapping to aircraft type is held in the "Standing Data" database. This is an "internal" database VRS to hold codes and look-up data for routes, aircraft types, operators etc.

There are currently 7 'species' listed (well 8 if you count "none") in the species table. There is a field in the AircraftType table which links the type code to the species. There isn't any 'species' defined for ground vehicles; in fact I don't think there are any 'aircraft type' defined for ground vehicles (may be wrong didn't check every aircraft type code).

If you are brave and knew what you were doing you *could* in theory define your own aircraft type code (say VAN to use your screenshot example) and add it to the aircrafttype table with a species code of 7 (the current max species id is 6). You would then have to add the species to the species table - the id (7) and your description (say "Ground"). Finally you would have to make sure all the ground vehicles in your basestation database have the type code VAN.

You would need to manually "hack" the Standing Data database to do the above using an sqlite editor/database tool.

The problem is the Standing Data database is as I said an internal database. It is automatically updated by VRS to add new routes, operators, code changes etc. It is highly likely your manual changes would be overwritten when the database was updated. Alternatively, you could break VRS if either you get the database edit wrong or your changes are not handled by the program.

I really, really, really wouldn't recommend it.

Your best bet is to ask Andrew to add 'aircraft' types and species type for ground vehicles. However since I don't think there are any 'official' ICAO Type codes for various type of ground vehicle I suspect he might be reluctant to add them to the database.

The reason G280 doesn't show the species is that it doesn't appear in the aircraft type table - so there is nowhere for VRS to do it's look up. Andrew should be able to add that code to the database since it is an 'official' ICAO type code (ICAO type codes can be looked up at : http://www.icao.int/publications/DOC864 ... earch.aspx)

Hope that helps

Charlie

Charlie

[Joolde]

Thanks a lot for your explanation, Charlie! I think I'll ask Andrew first, and when that doesn't work, I'm going to try it myself (after making a back-up)

Jordy

[agw]

Oops - I completely managed to overlook this one! So this reply is coming in VERY late Sorry about that.

CharleAlpha is correct in that the species is derived from the ICAO 8643 code, and there aren't ICAO 8643 codes for ground vehicles. However, if you set the ModelIcaoType field for ground vehicles to "-GND" (or "-TWR" for MLAT beacons etc.) in the vehicle's Aircraft record in BaseStation.sqb then VRS will display an appropriate marker for them on the map and will, by default, omit them from the display once you zoom out enough so that you don't get a mess of follow me van icons on airports.

You can configure the custom codes that indicate ground vehicles and towers, but I've forgotten the exact details of how you do that If you want to use your own codes rather than -TWR and -GND then let me know and I'll dig out the details.

Regarding the missing species - ICAO appear to have ceased publication of the PDF that listed all of the ICAO 8643 codes a while ago, so the data has gone a little bit out of date. I have some plans to address this, hopefully I should get a bit of time after the release to put those into action.

[Joolde]

Thanks for your reaction
In the meantime I found out how to edit the database manually, and it works fine, ecxept that i have to re-run the script every time the .sqb gets updated.
In fact it's quite easy. I wrote a Python script that automatically adds those ground vehicles to each table in the StandingData.sqb. I just had to make sure not to forget a table, as there has to be an entry in 3 tables, I think.

I was indeed afraid there was no regular publication of the ICAO8643, but good to know you're on it.

Jordy

[loww]

I have the Problem that Ground Traffic in LOWW is show as Aircraft.
How can i chance it?
The a Range of IACO Code who is used for (all?) Ground Taffic in Austria.

[agw]

At the moment the only way to mark aircraft as ground vehicles is to edit their entries in the Aircraft table of your BaseStation.sqb file. Kinetic have an editor for BaseStation.sqb files - download the BaseStation CD from here:

http://www.kinetic.co.uk/basestationdownloads1.php

and then in there you should find BaseStationReporter.exe, which should let you edit entries in BaseStation.sqb files. For ground vehicles you need to set their ICAOTypeCode to -GND

[loww]

Why not IACO Based?

[agw]

For the same reason that aircraft type isn't determined by the ICAO. It's up to each country's registry how it allocates blocks of ICAOs, there's no reason why a country can't mix ICAOs for ground vehicles and test beacons in with ICAOs for aircraft.

[loww]

For Austria:
447[A-C] -> Ground
447D -> Austrian Airforce
Test Registrations:

Code: Select all

440137
440370
440371
440372
440373
440374
440375
440377
440378
440390
440398
440752
4400A7
4400C9
4400D1
4401C8
44036F
44040D
4405B9
4405F5
4406F4
4407E4

Temp Registration:

Code: Select all

440137
440204
440205
440206
440207
4400B8
44037A
44037B
44037C
44037E