FlyByWire Simulations | A32NX | Chocks and Safety Cones

[holland786 504]

Hi there,

We previewed some high-quality ground equipment a few months ago, namely, cones and chocks.

Unfortunately, a delay in shipping meant that the ground service equipment ended up scattered around the world... teams of our dedicated developers have managed to track every missing container, and today, have delivered those cones and chocks to the A32NX Development version right in your installer!

Learn about ground service equipment here: https://docs.flybywiresim.com/fbw-a32nx/feature-guides/wheel-chocks-cones/
Get our installer: https://api.flybywiresim.com/installer

 

[RaptyrOne 1,411]

Texture quality on that equipment looks fantastic! A32NX just keeps on getting better.

[vin747 316]

Hallelujah!!

[Max Kraus 339]

I really am loving flying this plane at the moment, with the Thrustmaster Airbus sidestick and throttle quadrant, plus TrackIR.

 

 

 

[Chock 17,769]

Wish our chocks and cones were that clean in real life. 🤣

[scotchegg 4,186]

9 minutes ago, Chock said:

Wish our chocks and cones were that clean in real life. 🤣

That’s not a euphemism for anything, right…?😳

[TooLowTooSlow 214]

Fancy!

I couldn't find how to activate those on my bird. Not available on EXP I suppose, or I've turned blind once again.

Cheers,

2Low2SLow

Edited May 12, 2022 by TooLowTooSlow
fatty thumbs

[Cpt_Piett 4,649]

Just keeps getting better and better! Need to remind myself to keep flying this bird even though atm I'm quite busy getting familiar with the 737. I love everything about this aircraft - the sounds, the cabin announcements, the flypad, the VNAV integration which keeps improving. Add FS2Crew to the mix and it's simply outstanding. 

EDIT: I guess chocks and cones are available on the exp as well as the dev versions?

Edited May 12, 2022 by Cpt_Piett

[omarsmak30 4,068]

Looking here: https://github.com/flybywiresim/a32nx/commits/experimental experimental is not yet updated

[Chock 17,769]

1 hour ago, scotchegg said:

That’s not a euphemism for anything, right…?😳

Nope, they really are filthy and very battered. Many of the Menzies chocks at EGCC have some dodgy bit of filthy blue or orange rope threaded through them, if they even have any rope at all, having lost the original black/yellow rope years before, and I doubt there are two chocks at Menzies Aviation which are of the same type, they're a right mish-mash of different ones accumulated over years, with various chunks of rubber missing off them. Most airport cones have been driven over by a vehicle at least a couple of times and as a result of that experience, invariably scrapped along underneath that vehicle, causing them to get all scuffed up, dirty and often cracked and broken in some way, so they are very rarely clean.

People tend to use whatever cones happen to be in the clearway of the stand they are working on even though each service agent does (in theory at least) have their own cones with their company name on. But since you need four cones for an ATR (five for an Emerald Aer Lingus one), five cones for an A320 or 737 (nine for a 737 MAX because we put three cones in a triangle around the lower winglet), they're always getting nicked off the adjacent stands and moved about as people grab what is to hand. Nobody really worries about this 'whose logo is on it?' too much, for example, if someone happened to need a trailer and didn't have one of their company's own trailers nearby, they might use one from another company and nobody would be really too bothered about it so long as they put it back where they found it. Where flight simmers are concerned in regards to realism, if your flight sim doesn't have the right service agent vehicles coming up to it, this means it could - theoretically at least - still be realistic. It's not unknown for various service agents to officially ask to borrow stuff from another service agent, such as a belt loader, aircraft towbar, air start unit or whatever. Most companies will happily help each other out in this regard.

This cones malarkey and the picture below, is why we put nine cones on a MAX wingtip and why you have to be cautious driving near aeroplanes. Note the super-irony of the not very excellent driving resulting in smacking the word excellence on the Menzies truck dead centre (this incident was at Heathrow, so not any of us lot at Manchester, not that I'd be driving a catering truck anyway).

An interesting exception to all this cone malarkey, is Jet2's cones (which are blue with a yellow top); they have a little transponder built into them up at the top of the cone. Jet2's ramp vehicles have equipment which detects their proximity to these cones (a bit like a car's parking sensors) and warns the driver if they are getting too close to it. I don't whether that would have prevented the incident in that picture, but it might have done, however, the driver of the truck should have been more careful and used a colleague to guide him if he wasn't sure about whether he was going to pass clear of the wing, because it looks to me like he would have scraped the underside of the wing even if it didn't have that split scimitar winglet on it. You can't simply rely on the cones to keep you clear of potential collisions because if the wind gets up, the airport will declare a wind warning and then we don't use cones at all, put six rather than four chocks on airliners and we don't put steps on the back exit door (or even the front one if the wind is really strong).

Edited May 12, 2022 by Chock

[Konterhalbe 295]

@Chock really interesting insights in an other airports ground handing procedures!

Where I used to work on the ramp for years, we only had one handling agent and therefore only one company providing ground equipment, but every airline has it's own guidelines on how to turn the aircraft around. I thought on a big hub like Manchester, theres sufficient ground equipment available on every stand throughout the year. When you work at an airport that sees about 20 aircraft to come and go on most of the days but you have got like 20 days a year on which you have a hundred or 120 aircraft to handle, you can imagine that this quickly turns into "aaaaw sht has anybody got a belt somewhere that isnt planned to be used for the next thirty minutes or do we have to unload 240pcs of baggage from that A320 by climbing into the compartment and apply the throw-out-and-catch-the-bag procedure?".

As you mentioned, best thing around aircraft is to drive slow, not get into a hurry and always keep an eye on what others are doing right now around you.

Nice to see the FBW getting better and better 😎

Day 2 after the release of the PMDG 737 and still not feeling the need to invest in the 737 when I've got a load of fun with FlyByWires A320 🙂

[Fiorentoni 4,225]

That's chocking news!

Edited May 12, 2022 by Fiorentoni