Moving Jetways - How important are they to you?

[KPT747 0]

Without moving jetways,one feels so like a body without the arms

[officercrockey 196]

1 hour ago, DEHowie said:

Im using a flight simulator not an aerobridge simulator.

Many flights dont even use aerobridges...cream on top that i can easily live without and if it effects FPS i can always live without.

So you are only flying to default airports? Not more needed in a flight simulator, right? Who cares how the terminal building looks like... not needed for the flight...

[Ray Proudfoot 8,954]

10 hours ago, downscc said:

It is actually that easy.  At locations where developers have developed their own jetway models, the AFCAD has parking spots without jetways.  Add a jetway to a parking spot and it appears in the simulator. That easy.  Hard part is figuring out which file is the jetway model, but usually the name give it away.  Current ADE compatible with P3Dv4 is free at Scruffyduck, listed in the FSDevelopers forum.

But if it's as easy as you suggest why doesn't the developer add them? Unless otherwise instructed by Aerosoft because they want people to buy AES credits? For FSX only of course.

I've always struggled to work with ADE. Probably best I don't dabble with things I don't fully understand.

[Ray Proudfoot 8,954]

5 hours ago, Chock said:

I don't think any people are actually 'against' them so much as not regarding it as particularly important to them, and that could be for a number of reasons.

For example, if you fly GA aeroplanes or classic airliners all the time, you're not really going to regard jetways - or to use their proper name - passenger boarding bridges (PBBs), as a critical feature, since GA aeroplanes don't generally need any sort of stairs at all except in the case of larger private jets, and prior to about 1960, there was no such thing as a PBB at all, so old airliners tended to use either portable stairs mounted on a truck, or their own built-in airstairs. Or, if you like flying airliners which are the quick turnaround budget carriers such as Easyjet and Ryanair, you might have noticed that they often do not use PBBs, and that's because airports charge more for using those than they do for using airstairs at remote stands

And personally, I quite like airstairs and mobile stairs when flying on an airliner, because I like to have a good nosey at the aeroplane when I walk up to it on the apron to board it, and you can't really do that when boarding through a tunnel.

Fair enough. If you don't fly Boeings, Airbuses etc that mainly use air bridges then their omission probably won't bother you. And having flown into and out of Geneva I agree there are many airports where you walk on the tarmac.

But having spent a not inconsiderable amount of time designing a nice-looking PBB why would you not animate it? It can't be a fps or VAS hog surely?

[Ray Proudfoot 8,954]

3 hours ago, DaveCT2003 said:

Hello there Ray!

I've been told by two experienced scenery developers that adding movable jetways consumes a fair amount of resources, and under 32-bit sims the footprint of today's payware scenery is usually pretty large already - some barely leaving room for a payware airliner, so every bit a developer can save for non-essential items is important.  Now I don't know for sure, but I'm inclined to think that one of the design benefits of using SODE Jetways is that they consume less resources as they seem to be injected to one gate/stand rather than having them available at each position when the scenery is loaded.

I have to admit that I don't always use them even when I'm at an airport that has working jetways, but a part of the reason is that I'm used to airports that don't have them.  I use them 100% of the time when I'm doing a high-end stream or training or promotional video.

The short answer for me:  I'd like to have them  available, and if they were available at more airports then I'd likely use them more often.

See you on the other side my friend.

Hi Dave,

Is that really the case that they are fps/VAS hogs? That's the first I've heard of it. At some airports all the air bridges near my aircraft also move attaching to Ai and I certainly don't notice a fps hit. VAS seems okay too.

SODE is fine but only when developers follow the SDK. IDS who created NassauX didn't and it took the help of the SODE author to fix it. Also, only a few gates seem to get the SODE treatment (I'm thinking of LIRF) rather than lots.

As I start Concorde flights from a cold & dark situation I like to go through as real experience as possible including the jetway attaching and detaching.

[HighTowers 1,434]

Too much variance from airport to airport. They should either all work or none at all. That said, I dispensed with using them  , since the last bridge operator didnt make a very good connection to the aircraft and some PAX slipped and fell through down below suing me for personal injury. Hey the seatbelt sign was on.  Use the airstairs next time!

 

[JoeFackel 760]

For me the passenger bridges are an essetial immersion factor during ground ops. Airports, even high priced ones, are already often very static and sterile and it doesn't feel like being at an place with buzzing work life. 

[Jaroberts 10]

I fly Boeings and Buses, so air bridges are part of the realism to me. Ctl-J or Sode  It is odd that the likes of FSDT and FT have always had the facility whereas Aerosoft not so, unless you had AES (FSX). They are missing out by not introducing that facility to P3D. But to fair to AS, they have now moving jetways in the recently updated sceneries like EDDF, EDDS, EDDH and ENGM so watch this space.

[ErichB 3,642]

Not important. 

[nealmac 260]

I like them too Ray, and I can see your point. It doesn't seem that difficult to add them, and there are more reasons to have them than not to have them. I accept the argument that they don't look "right" when they are connected, but if people are that worried about it, there's always the option not to connect them.

 

Having said that, non-moving jetways certainly wouldn't be a deal breaker if I was buying a payware airport. A small disappointment, yes, but as others have said, I'd be happier with an accurate layout and good frame rates.

[Chock 17,769]

3 hours ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

But having spent a not inconsiderable amount of time designing a nice-looking PBB why would you not animate it? It can't be a fps or VAS hog surely?

No reason not to really as far as I can see, and as noted, I don't object to them, just don't use them that much.

Personally I've only ever made some small bits of scenery for FS and so I'm not really au fait with how easy it is to do, but if I was an airport scenery developer, providing it was not too hard to create moving PBBs, I would certainly do it, and a lot more besides to give the airport some life, and judging by how many on this thread say it is a big deal to them, I think I'd be even more inclined to do so if I previously had not been. Especially since I think that AES Credit system is the biggest rip off I've ever seen in flight simming scenery add-ons (and that includes Ariane lol), I can't believe anyone bought into the idea.

[ErichB 3,642]

2 minutes ago, Chock said:

I think that AES Credit system is the biggest rip off I've ever seen in flight simming add-ons 

Ain't that the truth...

[niyoko 7]

Moving jetways are very important to me.

I'm a huge fan of every aspect of aviation. The job the ground crew does to turnaround an aircraft is nothing short of amazing. I love pulling up to a gate, putting on the parking brake, shutting things down and calling the jetway to unload my passengers. I like to put myself on the flight deck seeing the jetway come to load and unload passengers.

I also look back at where we have come in the quality of our airports, from the first Flight Simulator to Prepar3d v4. We started off with static buildings that gradually increased in visual fidelity. We then got animated ground services and jetways, and finally dynamic lighting. Not having these in a payware airport that comes out today feels like a step back, no matter how nice the modeling and textures may be. I know that having moving jetways is added work, but it completes the project. They're a lot of developer that put an amazing job into everything thing they do, and I'm thankful for it, regardless if they end up having movable jetways or not.

That said, when I'm flying GA it doesn't matter, but movable jetways are an essential part in my buying decision in 3rd party airports. I imagine that there is a lot of crossover of those that own GSX and like movable jetways.

[Drumcode 1,893]

They're important and surely add immersion, but I have a dirty secret to share. Sometimes I forget to CTRL+J on pushback. 

[Ray Proudfoot 8,954]

3 hours ago, Jaroberts said:

I fly Boeings and Buses, so air bridges are part of the realism to me. Ctl-J or Sode  It is odd that the likes of FSDT and FT have always had the facility whereas Aerosoft not so, unless you had AES (FSX). They are missing out by not introducing that facility to P3D. But to fair to AS, they have now moving jetways in the recently updated sceneries like EDDF, EDDS, EDDH and ENGM so watch this space.

That's encouraging. But really it should be there from the start when moving jetways are in many default airports. Aerosoft is different to FSDT, T2G etc because they only act as a shop window. They don't have in-house designers so are at the mercy of what the developer decides. But I would have thought with their clout they should be dictating what the standard will be.