Airstairs, doors, and jetways

[WestAir 2,522]

Hi.

I fly airliners in the sim, and often times the jetways arent in working order. (Facing the wrong way, etc).

So I try and load on the ramps, but the airstairs only connect for 45 seconds and then they automatically drive off. I use a PAX addon and if the boarding door is closed, pax can't load. Unfortunately I am unable to load a plane full of passengers in 45 seconds, which leads me to constantly stop my preflight to request ATC find and re-hook the airstairs.

Is there a file I can edit to remove the auto-disconnect of airstairs, or to just force open the aircraft door which auto-closes without a jetbridge or airstair? I'm not sure why Asobo devs decided to add an auto disconnect on something that should be a user toggle, and why they chose 45 seconds to load a whole aircraft, but it's entirely immersion breaking and frustrating. Thanks for any advice.

[Phantoms 800]

File a Zendesk ticket to hope they fix it in the future.

[cwburnett 1,809]

3 hours ago, WestAir said:

Is there a file I can edit to remove the auto-disconnect of airstairs, or to just force open the aircraft door which auto-closes without a jetbridge or airstair?

You may find that Pushback Helper, available on flightsim.to, gives you a nice solution to this.

Pushback Helper is a little app that runs alongside MSFS and can float on top MSFS and be hidden/un-hidden with a key command. Anyhow, it takes control of the ground services, like jetways, stairs, pushback, baggage, doors, etc... and I believe it will allow you to leave the airstairs connected as long as you like.  You can try it out here - it's super lightweight and easy to use. I use it with the CRJ with great success.

https://flightsim.to/file/853/pushback-helper-v2-0

[WestAir 2,522]

1 minute ago, cwburnett said:

You may find that Pushback Helper, available on flightsim.to, gives you a nice solution to this.

Pushback Helper is a little app that runs alongside MSFS and can float on top MSFS and be hidden/un-hidden with a key command. Anyhow, it takes control of the ground services, like jetways, stairs, pushback, baggage, doors, etc... and I believe it will allow you to leave the airstairs connected as long as you like.  You can try it out here - it's super lightweight and easy to use. I use it with the CRJ with great success.

https://flightsim.to/file/853/pushback-helper-v2-0

Thank you!

It boggles my mind that a Game Developer would include an auto-disconnect for something the user must willfully connect. They didn't connect the airstairs so why are they disconnecting them? They didn't open the doors, so why are they closing them? Just seems like extra program for no end user benefit.

Thanks again!

[quantumpion 39]

While pushback helper is great, it does not solve this issue. Services will still perform their actions and then leave.

[andyjohnston.net 617]

I've never seen the gates autodisconnect.  I'll have to watch for that one.

[WestAir 2,522]

7 minutes ago, andyjohnston.net said:

I've never seen the gates autodisconnect.  I'll have to watch for that one.

So the gates are the one thing that doesn't auto-disconnect. The airstairs do. If you open the door without either, the door will auto-close.

So if you want to load up passengers at Gibraltar, for example, you're sort of SOL as there's no passenger gate and the airstairs will only connect for 45 seconds before auto disconnecting.

EDIT: I've found a lot of gates, especially at smaller airports, don't function properly. They might be built with too short a reach, or they might try and connect to the R1 door and not make it. In any case, if you can't use the jetbridge because: 1.) None exist at the airport. 2.) Your aircraft is too small 3.) You're doing cargo ops, then you're pretty much screwed.

Edited April 21, 2021 by WestAir

[andyjohnston.net 617]

One of the things people have mentioned is the *doors don't open*

So you must be using an aircraft which has this built in, and has the closing of the door as part of it.