Driving the Pushback in Aerofly FS

Aerofly FS now has pushback!

Pushback is available for airliners with a steerable nose gear and can be used whenever the aircraft is on the ground and has come to a complete stop. When the aircraft supports pushback you will see new parking positions or stands in the location menu with a pushback icon. You can select these positions to start the simulation with the pushback tug already connected to the nose gear of the aircraft. But even if you select a different position or when you have landed and taxied to the terminal you can still use pushback to back out of the stand.

Pushback Sequence

Starting from the Stand

With an aircraft selected that supports pushback (e.g. all airliners) go to the location menu. In the location menu you navigate to an airport where you would like to start at and click on a parking position with pushback icon. On the right hand side you can then select what state the aircraft should be in.

Select one of the parking positions with a pushback icon
If you wish to start with engines running select “Push with engines on”.
If you want to start the engines during pushback select “Push and start”.
The “Cold and Dark” option can be selected if you want all engines off (cold) and all systems shut down (dark).

Pushback Controls

You can now go back to the main menu and start the simulation. The pushback tug should already be connected (except for cold and dark).

The pushback controls are quite simple: You can connect and disconnect the tug when you press the overlay button on the right hand side. On PC you can assign a key command for this action, the default assignment it “Shift + P”.

Move your throttle forward to start the push
Move the throttle to idle to stop the push
Move the rudder input left or right to control the direction that the aircraft nose wheel should be pointing.

Driving Backwards

Use your steering input to control where the pushback is going. The tug is automatically driving into position to rotate the nose wheel as commanded by your rudder control input.

The control direction is identical to the normal nose wheel steering control, so if you deflect the controls to the right the right hand wing tip will stop moving. Adjust the rudder input to control how tight the turn is going to be.

On PC, if you have the tiller axis assigned as an individual input then this input takes priority. If you have no separate free axis for a tiller then you should not assign it and instead should keep the default rudder assignment only. The pushback and the nose-wheel-steering will then be able to work just fine with your rudder input. Double assignments can cause issues here.

Stopping the Push

When you have finished the push move the throttle input to idle to slow down and stop.

Press the pushback disconnect button on the right hand side to remove the tug.
On PC you can press your assigned key for Pushback toggle to remove the tug.

Hold Brakes

When the tug is removed and when your engines are running the aircraft might start to roll on it’s own. To prevent this from happening make sure that you either set the parking brake or that the brake hold assistance is active.

Hold the brake slider down at 100% briefly or press and hold the brake assigned button on your controller
Check the flight information bar at the top, it should now show a cyan “HOLD” text below the wheel icon.
You can also go into the cockpit of the aircraft and set the parking brake as usual, or use an assigned key for this on PC.

Pushback Camera Views

Driver Cabin View

Optionally you can switch to the driver cabin view to steer the aircraft from the point of view of the pushback ground crew.

Open the camera overlay with the button on the overlay.
Then select the camera icon for the pushback driver view
On PC you can enable this interface in the settings or you can assign keys to see this view.

External Pushback View

Alternatively you can also switch to the external pushback view. Just like for the driver cabin view:

Open the camera view overlay
Select the camera icon for the external pushback camera view