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gweilo8888

Pushback to infinity, and beyond!

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Hi all Figured I'd report a relatively minor bug I discovered by mistake on my last flight. It's not a huge issue, but it'd be nice to see it fixed, nonetheless. After preparing for a flight in my NGX, I set up a pushback through the CDU. If I remember correctly, the distance was ~130 feet, and I had a 90-degree nose-left turn configured. I started the pushback, released the brakes when prompted, and the pushback commenced just fine. During pushback, I accidentally bumped the brake button once very briefly. Not surprisingly, the pushback was automatically cancelled, with the relevant audio clips being played telling me to set the parking brake, etc. The strange thing was, the actual pushback continued on nonetheless. Setting the parking brake didn't stop the plane moving backwards, and indeed, nor did firewalling the throttles -- the plane continued to pushback at exactly the same speed, no matter what I did. It took me a while to find the solution, which was to go back to the CDU, and request another pushback, but with a zero feet distance. (I think I left it at a 90 degree turn, not sure if I could've zeroed that too). When I clicked start, my pushback turn started, and at the end of it the aircraft stopped correctly. Of course, by the time I figured this out, I'd been pushed back 2/3 of the way across the airport and across two runways (!) but I know the solution should it ever happen again, at least. I've not tried to replicate this yet, but it seems to me that there's a bug somewhere which isn't actually cancelling the pushback properly if it's stopped early. When I have a minute, I'll try and reproduce the error, but in the meantime, I wanted to get this post up before I forget. Also, a (slightly) related question. Is there any way to do a single pushback turn greater than 90 degrees? On another flight I'd discovered that the gate I'd selected needed a ~120 degree turn to face the correct direction, but the CDU wouldn't let me enter a three-digit value for the pushback turn. I ended up solving this with two sequential smaller turns, but if there's some way to do a single turn greater than 90 degrees, I'd love to know how...


Mike Tomkins
Knoxville, TN
Flight Sim user since the subLOGIC / Apple II days

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I've also been in a situation that needed a pushback of greater than 90 degrees, so that'd be handy if it could be fixed some time. The main issue I've got is the calculation distance wise as it seems the radius of a 90 degree turn is too big. Often, despite the distance back to the taxiway centre line being about the same length as the aircraft again, I'm entering straight length values of say 5ft to get turned onto that centre line. Basically there's no rational way to make sure you end up on the centre line... all guess work.

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I've also been in a situation that needed a pushback of greater than 90 degrees, so that'd be handy if it could be fixed some time. The main issue I've got is the calculation distance wise as it seems the radius of a 90 degree turn is too big. Often, despite the distance back to the taxiway centre line being about the same length as the aircraft again, I'm entering straight length values of say 5ft to get turned onto that centre line. Basically there's no rational way to make sure you end up on the centre line... all guess work.
Could have been fixed with a visual representation of the push back path while defining the travel distance and angle. The visual would show whenever you get into the pushback page and disappear when the push back is started. I don't know if flight simulator imposes a limitation for this though (controling the external model variably through the CDU).(did that make sense?)

Omar Josef
737/757/767

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I have no idea if it's feasible, but that sounds like a great idea (as an option, of course -- I'm sure some folks wouldn't want to use it because it wasn't realistic, but for those of us who did it'd be a great way to visualize where the plane was going to end up.


Mike Tomkins
Knoxville, TN
Flight Sim user since the subLOGIC / Apple II days

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You can always push back with the manual FS commands if you really want to stay on that line.

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I have no idea if it's feasible, but that sounds like a great idea (as an option, of course -- I'm sure some folks wouldn't want to use it because it wasn't realistic, but for those of us who did it'd be a great way to visualize where the plane was going to end up.
Setting up a pushback right from the cdu isn't the maximum expression of reality you know? But this little feature would just be perfect. You use the top down view, calibrate the pushback to get you right on the yellow line (as ground staff would do), and then you just go back into the cokpit. Whenever you are ready to go, hit go and start doing pilot things instead of wondering who hired that horrible tow-truck driver.

Omar Josef
737/757/767

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...wondering who hired that horrible tow-truck driver.
Menzies no doubt. :(

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Menzies no doubt. tongue.png
Haha. I didn't know that handling company, but "replace with your local handling company fiasco" and the joke will work equally.

Omar Josef
737/757/767

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I've been using a very low distance straight back. Only between 0 and 50, then put "Left or Right" and the angle. It seems to work pretty good.

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Guest Turboblower
Hi all Figured I'd report a relatively minor bug I discovered by mistake on my last flight. It's not a huge issue, but it'd be nice to see it fixed, nonetheless. After preparing for a flight in my NGX, I set up a pushback through the CDU. If I remember correctly, the distance was ~130 feet, and I had a 90-degree nose-left turn configured. I started the pushback, released the brakes when prompted, and the pushback commenced just fine. During pushback, I accidentally bumped the brake button once very briefly. Not surprisingly, the pushback was automatically cancelled, with the relevant audio clips being played telling me to set the parking brake, etc. The strange thing was, the actual pushback continued on nonetheless. Setting the parking brake didn't stop the plane moving backwards, and indeed, nor did firewalling the throttles -- the plane continued to pushback at exactly the same speed, no matter what I did. It took me a while to find the solution, which was to go back to the CDU, and request another pushback, but with a zero feet distance. (I think I left it at a 90 degree turn, not sure if I could've zeroed that too). When I clicked start, my pushback turn started, and at the end of it the aircraft stopped correctly. Of course, by the time I figured this out, I'd been pushed back 2/3 of the way across the airport and across two runways (!) but I know the solution should it ever happen again, at least. I've not tried to replicate this yet, but it seems to me that there's a bug somewhere which isn't actually cancelling the pushback properly if it's stopped early. When I have a minute, I'll try and reproduce the error, but in the meantime, I wanted to get this post up before I forget. Also, a (slightly) related question. Is there any way to do a single pushback turn greater than 90 degrees? On another flight I'd discovered that the gate I'd selected needed a ~120 degree turn to face the correct direction, but the CDU wouldn't let me enter a three-digit value for the pushback turn. I ended up solving this with two sequential smaller turns, but if there's some way to do a single turn greater than 90 degrees, I'd love to know how...
I have had it happen once in the MD11, so it is not NGX specific. FSX issue maybe ?

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Interesting, could well be an FSX issue then -- anybody ever had it happen in a stock plane? Or maybe the MD11 and NGX share a bug... Either way it's a pretty easy workaround, and takes a user error for it to happen in the first place, so I'm not terribly worried. Thanks for adding a data point on this, Turboblower! :-)


Mike Tomkins
Knoxville, TN
Flight Sim user since the subLOGIC / Apple II days

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I've been using a very low distance straight back. Only between 0 and 50, then put "Left or Right" and the angle. It seems to work pretty good.
It works yeah, but unlike most everything else on the bird, its certainly no exact science. It's pretty much educated guessing. That said, the manual states they're working on a new more capable version for a future service pack. Perhaps we'll see it in SP1.

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The fact that the pushback implementation is a little buggy is no surprise. It's just a quick implementation of the old one, it's the same voice as the 747x captain. PMDG have already announced to implement an advanced type of pushback feature later, so we'd better wait for that. It should have an option to make smaller circles.


Antoine v Heck
---
Ryzen 5800X3D, 32Gb DDR4 RAM@1600 Mhz, RTX3090 (24GB VRAM). 2TB SSD - VR with Quest 2 via link cable 

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I must admit I wasn't aware they were already working on a new system. There's so much info available about this excellent model that I've been unable to keep up with even a fraction of it. Thanks for filling me in, Techinica, I'm confident the new system (when available) will greatly improve issues.


Mike Tomkins
Knoxville, TN
Flight Sim user since the subLOGIC / Apple II days

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