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  • I remember last time one developer(Jan?) mentioned that the main difficulty of developing pushback is the adaptation over different aircrafts and different sizes of gates. Why not let the user themselves decide the distance of pushback and the angle and direction of nose turning as those PMDG models do? That may save a lot of work.

    Edited once, last by W.B. (February 10, 2019 at 2:31 PM).

  • If I'm at a gate I don't know how far I need to be pushed back. And as a pilot I usually don't tell the push back driver: give me 120m back and turn my tail right by 105 degrees. And I also don't want to open a pop-up menu just for that or even worse have a fake menu inside the CDU where I enter the precise distance (which I don't know), angle and turning direction. We want the simulation to be as immersive as possible and it should work in VR as well as on 2D as well as on a tablet. That means the push back driver will need to be smart enough not to push us off the taxiway or backwards into a building, it should have an idea of where you want to be pointing to (e.g. atc already told you where to face, or there is only one way out of the gate or you probably want to taxi to your planned runway or the active runway next on the shortest distance possible or the taxiway only allows one way flow, etc.)

    My ideal interaction with the push back: I release the parking brake, it does its thing and doesn't crash me, I set the parking brake, done.

    And I also want to be able to drive the truck myself. How cool would that be?

  • I always admire IPACS’ spirit of perusing perfection and that’s one of the reasons why I keep flying aerofly. However, isn’t it too idealized to achieve that “smart” pushback? The route of pushback can be pretty various and can be very complex in some crowded airports. For instance, in KLAX, planes will need pushback to leave not only the gate but also the whole terminal area to the taxiway, which means it involves two 90 degrees turns and much longer distance than a usual pushback. Of course it’s a long term goal, requiring some basic features like ATC or even precise data of each gates and taxiways of each airports. At the same time it can be a great challenge of you developers. This isn’t something that even large companies such as Microsoft or Lockheed Martin can easily do, and is very likely to lead to abortion. So is it possible to develope this feature step by step? Or we are unlikely to see pushback and many other features coming to aerofly in three or four years.

  • Or we are unlikely to see pushback and many other features coming to aerofly in three or four years.

    You really shouldn't be waiting for features because they will indeed take years. Three or four years is nothing in that regard. It's best to enjoy what you've got and hope that every new update (once a year or so) will bring something interesting. I think that 'big' things like pushback shouldn't be expected before ATC has been finished.

  • You really shouldn't be waiting for features because they will indeed take years. Three or four years is nothing in that regard. It's best to enjoy what you've got and hope that every new update (once a year or so) will bring something interesting. I think that 'big' things like pushback shouldn't be expected before ATC has been finished.

    Well a lot of this relies on 1) how difficult feature X is to implement, 2) what other priorities we have that are more important than feature X, 3) is feature X reliant on another feature, and 4) how popular feature X is in relation to other features.

    Not everything takes years to implement and a lot of it also relies on when we feel is the best time to begin work on it.

    Believe me when I tell you, even all of us want much more out of Aerofly than what is currently available and we all wish that programming was faster, but it isn't, so we have to be realistic.

    IPACS Development Team Member

    I'm just a cook, I don't own the restaurant.
    On behalf of Torsten, Marc, and the rest of the IPACS team, we would all like to thank you for your continued support.

    Regards,

    Jeff

  • Here's a pushback idea - make the pushback truck a driveable vehicle that the pilot can jump into and drive so he can pushback his own plane.

    That will most likely be the first implementation that we do. Just imagine holding onto the steering wheel of your truck in VR when you are pushing your 747

  • I always admire IPACS’ spirit of perusing perfection and that’s one of the reasons why I keep flying aerofly. However, isn’t it too idealized to achieve that “smart” pushback? The route of pushback can be pretty various and can be very complex in some crowded airports. For instance, in KLAX, planes will need pushback to leave not only the gate but also the whole terminal area to the taxiway, which means it involves two 90 degrees turns and much longer distance than a usual pushback. Of course it’s a long term goal, requiring some basic features like ATC or even precise data of each gates and taxiways of each airports. At the same time it can be a great challenge of you developers. This isn’t something that even large companies such as Microsoft or Lockheed Martin can easily do, and is very likely to lead to abortion. So is it possible to develope this feature step by step? Or we are unlikely to see pushback and many other features coming to aerofly in three or four years.

    The path that you get pushed back on can be as complex as you like. Because when we do the push back we will give it actual physics and an actual steering controller which means we can push you as far as we want for as long as we want to any place that we want. We could push and pull or lift the front gear up and taxi around the airport, e.g. bring your aircraft to maintenance after a rough landing LOL

  • That will most likely be the first implementation that we do. Just imagine holding onto the steering wheel of your truck in VR when you are pushing your 747

    Could also be the first piece of multiplayer ... Airport Operations.

    In the FS2 AO Hub there would several vehicles to choose from (pushback truck, fuel truck, etc) and a Work List of requests from live pilots at various airports. You then pick the request you want to work and the appropriate vehicle, and FS2 puts you in-game at that airport in that vehicle.

  • Is it possible to maybe first do „Lite versions“ of your visions? Like stuff that works for now and gets updated later on? I know IPACS always wants the highest level of perfection, but it takes a looong time and is simply not possible with a little team within a time where the players dont get bored.

  • Typically we aren't structured for providing 'lite versions' or features. For us it's normally an all-in process because many features are tied into something else already coded, or we have to re-code a section to implement a new feature (such as this).

    Please don't assume that just because one of us has a vision that it will be implemented in the near future. it all takes time regardless of how easy it appears.

    With this said, also please don't lose hope as we are continuing to develop and eventually you will see many of our visions.

    IPACS Development Team Member

    I'm just a cook, I don't own the restaurant.
    On behalf of Torsten, Marc, and the rest of the IPACS team, we would all like to thank you for your continued support.

    Regards,

    Jeff

  • Is it possible to maybe first do „Lite versions“ of your visions? Like stuff that works for now and gets updated later on? I know IPACS always wants the highest level of perfection, but it takes a looong time and is simply not possible with a little team within a time where the players dont get bored.

    This has been asked before about other features but doing lite versions now and full versions later on costs extra time. The work done on the lite versions possibly/probably won't be of much use for the full versions so IPACS considers lite solutions a waste of time. Which is understandable. Mind you, I'd also like to seem some lite versions of features but I get it that IPACS isn't into that. You can't (always) simply update lite versions: if you want to make sure a lite version is updatable you have to spend the time on it that you would also spend on the full version. And they don't have time for that.

    EDIT

    Jeff posted while I was typing. ;)

  • Since the launch of FS2 in my opinion a lot has been created and very good. Of course you can not compare it with the FSX from Microsoft. There you stood more at the airport than you could fly. I just wanted to know in my question how to reset from the terminal. The backward thrust is already enough.

    greet

    Wolfgang