GSX PRO is out

[MDFlier 2,031]

If you have never used GSX before, I have a couple of things that you should consider before purchasing it.

GSX is a program that allows you to customize your ground services experiences. You DO need to tinker with it (frequently) until you get things set up the way that you want them at the airports and gates you use.

At 3rd party airports created by the big developers that create their own jetways, living world and airport services vehicles (I'm thinking FlyTampa, FLightbeam, etc.), you will probably want to exclude the GSX jetways, airport services, and living world vehicles since the developers took the time to do it themselves. Try it both ways since you might like the GSX ones better.

The stop position of the aircraft (alignment and distance) at most of the gates for the default airports WILL be wrong and you will need to adjust them (only once per gate and you never need to do it again). Same for most of the service vehicle start points at each gate. For the first few months, I expect to be customizing every gate that I spawn at until they are all set up. I usually spawn an extra 10 minutes earlier than I need to, and adjust everything at the current gate, and then 2 to 4 other gates at the airport before I start my flight. I get the entire airport done after a handful of flights this way, 

If you use a lot of different airplanes, you will probably need to adjust the contact points for doors and fuel fills for a few of them.

My point is that proper use of GSX requires you to embrace the concept that it gives you a lot of control to set things up properly, but you will need to use that control to get it set up the way that you want. Do not buy it and then complain that everything isn't automatic. It isn't. Do not expect it to be. It is a program designed to allow you to adjust things. Do not be upset that you do need to adjust things.

[Tailwinds 52]

44 minutes ago, AnkH said:

Instead of blaming all giving you an answer or reacting on your statement, you might do what intelligent people usually do: self reflection. If several people (with quiet some experience here on avsim) give the same answer and get several upvotes and likes for their answer, it MIGHT be worth thinking about... Just as an idea. But of course, you can also be offended and accuse others being rude and aggressive. Your choice...

Thank you for taking the time out of your day to reply. You have a nice day now.

[Tailwinds 52]

16 minutes ago, edpatino said:

I think we are talking about the PMDG B737-700, -600, the Maddog MD-80, the CRJ's (4 of them), the A320 (FBW and Fenix) and the defaults B787 and B747 (they barely reach 10, I guess).

I believe the PMDG 737-700 is already working out of the box with GSX but not the -600 variant. Don't know about all the others though.

[Fiorentoni 4,273]

34 minutes ago, MDFlier said:

If you have never used GSX before, I have a couple of things that you should consider before purchasing it.

GSX is a program that allows you to customize your ground services experiences. You DO need to tinker with it (frequently) until you get things set up the way that you want them at the airports and gates you use.

At 3rd party airports created by the big developers that create their own jetways, living world and airport services vehicles (I'm thinking FlyTampa, FLightbeam, etc.), you will probably want to exclude the GSX jetways, airport services, and living world vehicles since the developers took the time to do it themselves. Try it both ways since you might like the GSX ones better.

The stop position of the aircraft (alignment and distance) at most of the gates for the default airports WILL be wrong and you will need to adjust them (only once per gate and you never need to do it again). Same for most of the service vehicle start points at each gate. For the first few months, I expect to be customizing every gate that I spawn at until they are all set up. I usually spawn an extra 10 minutes earlier than I need to, and adjust everything at the current gate, and then 2 to 4 other gates at the airport before I start my flight. I get the entire airport done after a handful of flights this way, 

If you use a lot of different airplanes, you will probably need to adjust the contact points for doors and fuel fills for a few of them.

My point is that proper use of GSX requires you to embrace the concept that it gives you a lot of control to set things up properly, but you will need to use that control to get it set up the way that you want. Do not buy it and then complain that everything isn't automatic. It isn't. Do not expect it to be. It is a program designed to allow you to adjust things. Do not be upset that you do need to adjust things.

While you are not wrong, you are not right either. I've been using GSX for P3D for years without ever customising anything. It worked out of the box for me, aircraft files were delivered for the all the 10 airliners I flew, and airports worked also perfectly. Now for more realism (like real life taxi procedures to specific holding points) I did download some ini files for the airports, but I didn't have to.
Of course for default airports it's another story, but that's hardly on GSX. GSX can only read what is there in the scenery.
 

[Chock 17,769]

Doesn't the B737-600 have built-in airstairs anyway?

Edited August 19, 2022 by Chock

[AnkH 2,271]

Is it just me or is each and every steered wheel of any pushback moving exactly in the opposite direction it actually should? Means: if the pushback truck is turning right, the wheels turn actually left and vice versa...

[GEKtheReaper 372]

@Tailwinds do not bother understanding how some folks think here...

I do own and enjoy previous version of GSX and I'm also going to hold off a bit till the sand settles. FSDT are great and offer great support. GSX was a higly anticipated product so just stating "nah....I'll wait" can set you on fire.

So just don't jump on that train (as I did many times before) and believe me it took me a while to understand what informations to process. 

[alepro21 154]

12 minutes ago, AnkH said:

Is it just me or is each and every steered wheel of any pushback moving exactly in the opposite direction it actually should? Means: if the pushback truck is turning right, the wheels turn actually left and vice versa...

Not just you. Was the case for the P3D version was well, so the logic didn’t improve. 

[chapstick 2,758]

I have to say, this has been a really rough launch, at least for me. I recommend holding off for a day or two. 

[NovemberUniform 156]

3 minutes ago, Fiorentoni said:

While you are not wrong, you are not right either.

I actually think he is spot on.

From my experience with the software (in P3D), there is customization needed if you want things to match the scenery nicely. Inibuilds roots go back to doing exactly that, building configs for GSX. 

That doesn't mean it's great software. I love it. But the out of the box results are often not good enough (for me at least).

52 minutes ago, MDFlier said:

The stop position of the aircraft (alignment and distance) at most of the gates for the default airports WILL be wrong and you will need to adjust them (only once per gate and you never need to do it again).

Absolutely correct, and not only that. What I always disliked is, if you spawn in on a gate that is properly configured with GSX (stopping position), you still end up in the default sim position of this gate. This lead me to always spawn on a different gate (not the one I really wanted), to then use the GSX menu and select the correct gate. I would love to just spawn in the correct GSX position without using this immersion breaking hack. 

Can anyone confirm, how is this working in MSFS? 

[Chock 17,769]

59 minutes ago, AnkH said:

Is it just me or is each and every steered wheel of any pushback moving exactly in the opposite direction it actually should? Means: if the pushback truck is turning right, the wheels turn actually left and vice versa...

Visually, yes, I've seen that too, but I think it is an unavoidable function of getting the sim to show the pivot point between the tug and the towbar animating since the default MSFS only really has one pivot point built in when using the default lifter tug.

From the cockpit when driving an airliner, you can see the taxiways and centreline very well and easily put the thing where you want it to go because you are very high up, but when driving a pushback tug with a conventional towbar, you are quite low down, so you do tend to jink it about a bit a fair bit to get the aeroplane where you want it to go because the visibility of the line you are aiming for is often not that great and some aeroplanes obscure what little view there is too. Often I will use the shadow of the tailplane as a guide and put that over the line as I push back through a turn. So seeing a pushback tug on opposite lock to the turn during a push isn't that weird and mostly forgiveable in a sim. You should also bear in mind that most pushback tugs can have one of three different steering modes too: They can have conventional two wheel steering, or all four wheels steering, or they can 'crab' with all four wheels turning the same way to allow them to go sideways. We normally just use four wheel steering, but since they can do this, you can just pretend the driver of the pushback tug is using one of these other modes if the visuals bother you. 😉

You can see me doing that jinking around business to get the plane where I want it to go on this video pushback of a Lufthansa Cargo A321 below, but you can also why I'm doing that because it is difficult to see the taxiway centreline you are aiming for (this is in daylight and good weather too, in the dark and rain it gets more tricky). So it's not uncommon to see pushback driver having to go wide on pushbacks or snake around to be able to see the line, or go what appears to be the wrong way in order to be able to see where they want to end up.

This pushback on the video does end up at the TRP (stand 70 centreline) with the nose on pretty much on the taxiway centreline to allow the crew to taxi away okay, but the fuselage is not parallel with the centreline, so it's not one of my best in terms of positioning. This was in fact the first time I'd ever pushed an aeroplane off that particular stand (69 on remote), and each different stand takes a bit of getting used to so I guess not getting it absolutely perfect was to be expected. The main thing is that it was safely done and good enough to get the thing out okay:

 

Edited August 19, 2022 by Chock

[AnkH 2,271]

13 minutes ago, Chock said:

Visually, yes, I've seen that too, but I think it is an unavoidable function of getting the sim to show the pivot point between the tug and the towbar animating since the default MSFS only really has one pivot point built in when using the default lifter tug.

Ehm, what? 😉 Should be not a big hassle for a dev to simply revert the wheel turning logic then... I mean, you can simply change the windsock parameter by 180 degrees and it always points in the opposite direction, so manipulating your pushback truck model in a way that the wheels turn in the right direction should not be thing, no? 

[MDFlier 2,031]

1 hour ago, Fiorentoni said:

While you are not wrong, you are not right either. I've been using GSX for P3D for years without ever customising anything. It worked out of the box for me, aircraft files were delivered for the all the 10 airliners I flew, and airports worked also perfectly. Now for more realism (like real life taxi procedures to specific holding points) I did download some ini files for the airports, but I didn't have to.
Of course for default airports it's another story, but that's hardly on GSX. GSX can only read what is there in the scenery.
 

I was specifically referring to the default airports in regard to start positions, parking alignment, and default GSX vehicle locations.

Yes, you absolutely can install it and use it as is out of the box. However, I'm not a big fan of seeing the GSX vehicles sitting on top of other objects or running through them on their way to their job, so I take a few moments at each gate to adjust where things start so that for example, the rear baggage carts can get to the rear cargo door without driving through static objects placed around the gate, or having the push back tug sitting there with the jetway support post going through it's driver's seat. 

[sd_flyer 6,072]

3 hours ago, Fiorentoni said:

 So he either has to do it himself 5 minutes 

If you read my post carefully, aircraft customization doesn't work for me. So there is nothing I can do

[Booms 43]

Has anyone been able to get it to work at KCLT? The ingame panel opens but it just gives me three airports to warp to.

Im using the trial version.

Edited August 19, 2022 by Booms