Fenix A320, and why I've got to LOVE it...

[tweekz 2,165]

1 hour ago, jarmstro said:

Thanks for that. So in what way are X-Planes flight dynamics better exactly? For instance, in this respect, how is the Toliss superior to the Fenix with regard to flight dynamics? I need to know this before I consider buying XP.

I think V1 (RL A320 pilot) has once mentioned that the ToLiss has some advantages when it comes to things like asymmetric thrust, etc. But in a normal flight, the Fenix is at least on par, if not better. For example, he pointed out that battling wind on approach feels just like IRL in MSFS, whereas XP almost feels like "on rails" compared to that.

Edited November 23, 2022 by tweekz

[jcomm 5,929]

3 hours ago, jarmstro said:

How much better is X-Planes default depiction of clouds and weather compared to MSFS? I haven't bought XP12 so don't know.

Well, @tweekz already replied and I fully agree with what he wrote.

I use airliners procedurally in a desktop flioghtsim, most of the time without simulating failures (my working days are already stressful enough...) so, within their normal envelope, Airbuses behave pretty much the same between platforms.

I have to distinguish these type of aircraft by their functionalities and systems modelling, and how close to their real operations I can simulate, and in that respect the Fenix and the FSLabs are my preferred, but I believe that soon we will have an EFB update for the Tolisses, starting with the 340-600 which I do not own, and that will probably bring Toliss closer to MFS and FSLabs.

Asymmetric thrust / engine failure scenarios though make me prefer the Toliss, based on what I read in the manuals and watch in youtubes.

The big difference in terms of flight dynamics are noticeable in aerobatic aircraft, ww2 warbirds nicely modelled for both platforms, and even in most GA props, helicopters, and even the gliders which I find both sims do miserably, but XP a bit better.

This morning I shared something in a private message with one of us that is probably the best image I can give of what I think/feel about MFS, and I'll copy&paste it bellow. This somehow diverts from the objective of the OP, but I think makes sense here since I've been asked about what I find different and why:

"MFS is like if we visited the Louvre or Musée d'Orsay but replaced pretty much all of the paintings with sketches of the original paintings...

I'd say MFS offers sketches of what it would pretend to model correctly based on what they write and say they're using or planning to use in terms of flight dynamics and systems modelling.

But the overall ambience is so good, the place so special (as the Louvre and Orsay are) that we have to enjoy it very much, sometimes more than what we would if we had seen a original painting at some banal/ordinary place, particularly if we're not specialits in Art (or RL pilots on the corresponding types for comparison...)

 

Edited November 23, 2022 by jcomm

[tweekz 2,165]

22 minutes ago, jcomm said:

But the overall ambience is so good, the place so special (as the Louvre and Orsay are) that we have to enjoy it very much, sometimes more than whjat we would if we had seen the originbal paintings at some banal/ordinary place

I agree. The fascination of flying is much more than to exactly model how a plane behaves. One of the greatest experiences of flying is simply to be up there, looking down, enjoying the view. 🙂

Whenever I thought about firing up XP11, I actually ended up flying in MSFS, as it just feels more realistic overall. Unless you are practising some edge-case flight envelopes. Besides, MSFS is actually quite useful to train VFR flights in advance.

Edited November 23, 2022 by tweekz

[Mike S KPDX 597]

Kind or a tangent question...  Coming from the US, I don't really understand what I am looking at relative to the jetways.  I mean, how and what connects to the aircraft here?  Do pax walk off the plane down steps, then into the tower structure, then up stairs and then into the terminal?  I have seen this in many non-us msfs airport vids.

[Shack95 2,658]

1 hour ago, Mike S KPDX said:

Kind or a tangent question...  Coming from the US, I don't really understand what I am looking at relative to the jetways.  I mean, how and what connects to the aircraft here?  Do pax walk off the plane down steps, then into the tower structure, then up stairs and then into the terminal?  I have seen this in many non-us msfs airport vids.

Yes, that’s how it works. It‘s quite common in Europe when flying with low-cost airlines such as Easyjet or Ryanair, even if there are jetways. I guess it‘s just cheaper.

Edited November 23, 2022 by Shack95

[Mike S KPDX 597]

1 hour ago, Shack95 said:

Yes, that’s how it works. It‘s quite common in Europe when flying with low-cost airlines such as Easyjet or Ryanair, even if there are jetways. I guess it‘s just cheaper.

interesting... pax in wheel chairs? how do they get off the plane with exterior steps??  I assume there is an elevator in tower.  I can only imagine the large growing crowds of folk waiting in the tower base and standing in the wx because the tower lobby is to small to hold that many people.  Is it because the airport simply has no operating jetways? or is it because the LCC airlines go to a whole different part of the airport?

[SAS443 1,723]

21 minutes ago, Mike S KPDX said:

interesting... pax in wheel chairs? how do they get off the plane with exterior steps??  I assume there is an elevator in tower. 

Example from the airport I work at.

If acft is parked at remote stand (which is cheaper than occupying a gate btw) a PRM , short for pax with reduced mobility, will board/deboard using a highloader. In our case manufactured by Austrian firm Bulmor.

Ground service staff are monitoring all departure/arriving flights and their respective PRM needs (it's a separate column in the data field for any flight) so proper ground handling is dispatched to the aircraft.

[F737MAX 5,599]

13 hours ago, Mike S KPDX said:

Kind or a tangent question...  Coming from the US, I don't really understand what I am looking at relative to the jetways.  I mean, how and what connects to the aircraft here?  Do pax walk off the plane down steps, then into the tower structure, then up stairs and then into the terminal?  I have seen this in many non-us msfs airport vids.

12 hours ago, Shack95 said:

Yes, that’s how it works. It‘s quite common in Europe when flying with low-cost airlines such as Easyjet or Ryanair, even if there are jetways. I guess it‘s just cheaper.

Don't mind me, I was interested in the potential cost savings between use of a jetway vs. airstairs. Turns out, it's quite a lot!

Based on these figures from Simple Flying's YouTube channel, London Gatwick Airport charged an airline the (then) equivalent of $20.46 per departing passenger for use of a jet bridge. The use of a remote stand saw the cost per passenger reduced by $4.76 to $15.70 per passenger (again, using the exchange rate at the time).

Comparing two notable European LoCos (namely Ryanair and easyJet), I calculated that just 1 (one) aircraft on a 'W' pattern starting and ending on a remote stand rather than a jet bridge stand at Gatwick, would save Ryanair $566,749 per year and save easyJet $493,136. Quite a bit of cash!
Additionally, this does not include the parking premium surcharges they would incur if they were to use a jet bridge stand during busy daytime hours.

 

Spoiler

In case anyone is interested in my simplistic assumptions and calculation of the above figures:
 

Ryanair

170 pax (average pax per rolling 12-month average load factor of 90% [simple average using Nov '21 - Oct '22 l.f. figures and 737-800 at 189 seats])
* $20.46 (per pax cost of jetway stand)
= $3,478.20

170 pax (average pax per rolling 12-month average load factor of 90% [simple average using Nov '21 - Oct '22 l.f. figures and 737-800 at 189 seats]])
* $15.70 (per pax cost of remote stand)
= $2,668.56

Difference = $809.64
* 2 sectors (1 outbound at start of day and 1 inbound at end of day)
= $1,619.28 savings per day

* 7 days of flying per week
= $11,334.98 savings per week

* 50 weeks per year of flying (2 weeks downtime for repair and/or quieter travel periods)
= $566,748.84 savings per year.

 

 

easyJet

Bit more complicated this one.
First to calculate the average number of seats per aircraft.

Aircraft # of seats # in fleet Weighting Factor W.A. seat count A319 156 126 39.6% 62 A320 183 168 52.8% 97 A32N 186 20 6.3% 12 A321 235 4 1.3% 3     318  aircraft 174
Load factor of 85% for financial year 2022 (see 'Capacity' table on page 3 of 5).
Therefore, a rounded to 0 decimal place figure of 174 average seat count * 85% l.f. = 148 pax per aircraft.

148 pax (average pax using calc above)
* $20.46 (per pax cost of jetway stand)
= $3,028.08

148 pax (average pax using calc above)
* $15.70 (per pax cost of remote stand)
= $2,323.60

Difference = $704.48
* 2 sectors (1 outbound at start of day and 1 inbound at end of day)
= $1,408.96 savings per day

* 7 days of flying per week
= $9,862.72 savings per week

* 50 weeks per year of flying (2 weeks downtime for repair and/or quieter travel periods)
= $493,136.00 savings per year.

 

Edited November 24, 2022 by F737MAX
Slight edit to calc.

[Shack95 2,658]

10 hours ago, Mike S KPDX said:

I can only imagine the large growing crowds of folk waiting in the tower base and standing in the wx because the tower lobby is to small to hold that many people.  Is it because the airport simply has no operating jetways? or is it because the LCC airlines go to a whole different part of the airport?

I don't know about the airport in the video but often it's actually not that much of a hassle. Sometimes it's even quicker than boarding/deboarding via jetway bceause they can use both doors. At my local airport for instance (a rather small one), there are jetways but low-cost airlines don't use them. They use different parking stands and the pax just walk to the terminal building as you can see in the image. The jetways are only used by "normal" airlines.

[Shack95 2,658]

2 hours ago, F737MAX said:

I was interested in the potential cost savings between use of a jetway vs. airstairs. Turns out, it's quite a lot!

Impressive numbers. No wonder they avoid jetways. $20 at Gatwick is more than the cheapest flights. I once flew from London Stansted to Basel and back to London with Ryanair for the ridiculous amount of $23. 

[Bobsk8 12,711]

19 hours ago, tweekz said:

I agree. The fascination of flying is much more than to exactly model how a plane behaves. One of the greatest experiences of flying is simply to be up there, looking down, enjoying the view. 🙂

Whenever I thought about firing up XP11, I actually ended up flying in MSFS, as it just feels more realistic overall. Unless you are practising some edge-case flight envelopes. Besides, MSFS is actually quite useful to train VFR flights in advance.

If I had taken Intro Flight over 40 years ago in a C 152, and the scenery looked like it does in XP, I would not have bothered to get my pilot's license. The thing that hooked me about flying in real life was how great everything looked from the air. 

[Mike S KPDX 597]

9 hours ago, Shack95 said:

I don't know about the airport in the video but often it's actually not that much of a hassle. Sometimes it's even quicker than boarding/deboarding via jetway bceause they can use both doors. At my local airport for instance (a rather small one), there are jetways but low-cost airlines don't use them. They use different parking stands and the pax just walk to the terminal building as you can see in the image. The jetways are only used by "normal" airlines.

 

This is all starting to make sense to me a bit.  I have seen this before in the sim world and it becomes even more pronounced with our sim addons.  I could never figure out (especially with GSX Pro) why buses, follow me cars, elaborate stair equipment is included, this type of stuff is simply very rare in the US.  I have been flying commercially in the US my entire career and I don't think I ever had to use stairs on jets of size like the 737 and 320.  The last stairs that I used was on Horizon Airlines at Pendleton airport in Oregon about 10 years ago, and that was for a Dash 400.  For example, take a look at KEUG Eugene Airport in google maps and zoom in.  This is a very small airport in the area, even they have full jetways.  I understand that above a certain size aircraft (commercial pax flight) you must utilize a jetway at this airport. 

Could be a US security thing to, we simply cant have general population folks have access to the 'airside' of the airport in any way.  I know that in 2005 I was involved in a project that designed fully enclosed 'areas of refuge' for the emergency fire egress doors/route from the concourse to the ramp area.  They used to dump right out on the ramp. 

Quick side note; I occupied a cockpit seat once in a Kingair 350 charter flight into Boise Idaho, thick fog, ILS, no problem, got on the ground and requested taxi assist (follow me car) and was told no such service is provided.  Then requested progressive taxi and was told 'unable, we cant see you' - we were on our own.

Overall, very interesting, thank you for your responses, guess I gotta fly into Europe more 🙂

[bobcat999 8,477]

What is this Xplane people speak of?  Is it an addon to MSFS?  Is it freebie at flightsim.to?

[cavaricooper 2,615]

Rob- yes, perfect for viewing on your iPad whilst floating in your backyard pool.

Happy Thanksgiving Mate!

C