Chock

Basically it amounts to being a glorified video player for a cab ride video, with the play and rewind buttons depicted as a forward/reverse throttle lever courtesy of some ropey graphics which clash really badly with the much higher definition video of the real view out of the lcomotive cab window. In short it looks awful and probably is awful as regards simulating a railway with any degree of variety, instead of literally being 'on rails' in regard to a lack of flexibility.

Since nobody knows the answer to 'the big question', you have as good credentials as anyone to discuss it; one might even argue you are actually better placed to do so, since you will not be a slave to any extablished common favourite theories and are therefore free of any bias on the matter. I however, strongly suspect it was all created by the Invisible Pink Unicorn, and have yet to be proved wrong about that. All praise her translucent pink mane.

Check all your USB connections.

Looks like the Cessna pilot was pretty switched on and did some very prudent evasive manuevering, I like the way he told the other person to shut up and concentrated on flying the aeroplane too, that's some outstanding airmanship. Even if they'd have got close to one another and not actually collided, the wake turbulence from a 757 is very strong (even though they are not actually heavies, 757s usually get treated as such for spacing for this very reason). There is a very good chance a light aeroplane would be flipped over if flying through the take off thrust wake turbulence from a 757, so I'm guessing the controller who gave that Cessna that initial heading will be having a fairly uncomfortable conversation with a few people and possibly looking for a new job. The Cessna pilot on the other hand, should be up for some kind of safety award. This reminds me of an incident years ago in the Manchester Airport control area, which I recall witnessing via hearing the ATC that I was monitoring. A little private aeroplane had taken off from Barton (which is near EGCC) and was heading toward the airspace over Manchester's final approach path to (at the time runway 24, which is now 23R). The pilot of the light aeroplane sounded quite elderly to me. The female controller at Manchester gave him a heading to turn and a direction of turn (left), but he read back the heading and said 'right' and commenced turning the wrong way, the controller warned him he was turning the wrong way, but unbelievably, he read it back and again said 'right'. It was at this point I started paying close attention to the radio, thinking 'what is this guy on?!'. Unbelievably, after the controller gave him an instruction to turn and expedite it, the guy read back the direction of turn incorrectly for a third time! At this point I was thinking the guy was clearly not a competent pilot. Wisely, the controller then switched to talking to the crew of a BA 757 on long final to 24, warning them about this guy. The BA crew were calm however and reported that they they had him in sight. The controller then spoke to the old guy in the light aeroplane, remonstrating him quite sternly, he somewhat foolishly answered to her that 'there was no danger at any time', to which she understandably lost her cool with him a bit and replied 'Oh, REALLY!?'. She then asked the BA 757 crew how close he got to them, to which the 757 pilot wittily replied 'Well, if he was any closer, we could have added him to the passenger manifest'.

In ramp jobs, as part of the intro training, new staff get shown few videos and pictures of this sort of danger to demonstrate how hazardous it is to be near jet engines. The pics and videos are so grim that the trainers usually say that people in the class don't actually have to look at them if they don't want to. Since the intake fan blades are spinning at several thousand RPM and are metal with a thin edge, if someone is unfortunately sucked into the front of the engine, bascially you end up with a big ring of blood spattered around the inside of the intake cowling in front of the fan, then a lot of very small diced bits on the ground, fired out to about 150 feet behind the engine. As horrible as this is, I should imagine it's a pretty quick way to go based on having seen all that stuff. You only have to see a jet engine running when the ground in wet conditions to know how much suction force there is out in front of the engine; there is often a little twister of water visibly being pulled up off the ground in front of the intake, and this is at comparatively low RPM too. It's a risk we have to be very aware of when headsetting aeroplanes, especially small ones such as the ATR-42 and the Dornier 328, because you are very near those engines when doing this task, but even the larger ones could present this risk if you were not concentrating, especially when walking away, passing the engine to give the wave off after the engine start. At EGCC, because of it being an old airport which has expanded a lot over the years, the layout is less than ideal, so there are several places you can only get to by driving across live taxiways. If I recall correctly, there are six locations where you can do this at EGCC, and you have to be really careful and especially observant near these places. Back with this accident, it seems to me that procedures and observation were not that great on the part of the motorcyclist if they actually rode across in front of a taxying aeroplane. Moreover, anyone who rides motorcycles should know, when you have a pillion passenger, some of your concentration is on riding safely with that person, which is inevitably a distraction; it strikes me as a very bad idea to allow any sort of potential distraction of this kind when driving near aeroplanes. We don't even let newly signed off drivers go within the footprint of aeroplanes until they've been driving for at least 40 hours on the airport, after which they get signed off on that. So I'm guessing that rules and procedures at the place where this recent accident occurred are not the best if you can just blast across a taxiway on a motorbike. This is a very sad incident, but it demonstrates that working at an airport is potentially very hazardous.

Blohm & Voss BV 141 😉

Me either.

If external power is available that would prevent pushback, for obvious reasons.

Okay, here's an interesting one which I thought I'd tell you all about which does sort of hint at there being more to life than we presently know or understand about life... So, a week or so ago, my mum died, she was in hospital for a few days but deteriorated owing to some complications and that was it. Now, I had been visiting her three times a day prior to this, but on the morning she passed away, I had a call from the hospital telling me she was in a bad way and I'd better get there ASAP, so I drove there as quick as I could at about 1.45am, and got there fifteen minutes before my mum passed away, so I was able to spend some last moments with her. But here's the weird thing... As noted, I had been visiting her numerous times each day in the run up to this, and across from her in the bed opposite on the ward, was another old lady, who apparently had dementia. As a result of her dementia, this lady (I think she was called Irene) would constantly ask for someone called Mary. Obviously it was not her fault, but much of the time when I was visiting my mum, this lady opposite would be constantly calling out 'Mary, Mary, Mary,', which was a bit irritating, but as I say it wasn't really her fault. On the night my mum died, when I got to the hospital, sure enough this lady was constantly saying 'Mary, Mary, Mary...' and I confess that I was a little bit annoyed by this when I was trying to have a moment with my mum who was very obviously not going to last much longer. But this is where it gets spooky... So my mum finally passes away with me holding her hand and talking to her, telling her it's going to be okay and I love her very much etc, whilst trying to ignore the 'Mary, Mary, Mary...' coming from across the ward. When my mum finally went, I waited a minute or so and then asked a nurse to fetch a doctor to confirm my mum had passed away, which he did, and right after that I felt I needed to get away from the constant 'Mary, Mary, Mary...' coming from the lady in the bed opposite, so I went to the end of the ward and into the corridor. This was literally a couple of minutes after my mum had gone, and what happens? The lady stopped saying 'Mary' repeatedly, and said my mum's name about ten times 'Margaret, Margaret, Margaret...', before going quiet. Now you have to understand that at no point in the preceding few days had this lady ever said anything other than 'Mary', but the moment my mum goes, she starts saying her name, and she didn't know my mum's name either because she really wasn't aware of much of her surroundings owing to the dementia, or at least that's what we'd think! By the way, there were curtains drawn around her bed and one drawn my mum's bed too, so she had no idea what was going on with my mum. You've got to admit that's pretty strange, isn't it?

No, we really can't be certain of that. We don't know for certain if that is the case either. We have no examples of this having occurred, but we cannot be certain that will always be the case, because we don't know everything about physics, chemistry, biology, the universe and so on. In short, there are loads of things we do not know yet and quite probably some things we will never know. For example, before we even venture off this planet, there are still reckoned to be a vast number of creatures on this one which are still unknown to us, which in universal terms, highlights the infancy of our knowledge. So, what you are using there, is known as the Holmesian fallacy, sometimes called the Process Of Elimination Fallacy, but more correctly described as an appeal to omniscience. It's summed up in a lot of Sherlock Homes depictions by the notion that 'if one has eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however unlikely, must be the truth'. This sounds very clever of course and is intended to make the Sherlock Holmes character sound super-intelligent, but the problem is that it is a completely fallacious bit of reasoning. It would be a true observation if we were ever in a position to be able to eliminate with absolute certainty, literally every potential possibility and be sure that we had done so, but this cannot possibly ever be the case, because none of us know, what we do not know. So sometimes, the only correct answer to a question is, 'we don't know'. In any case, If you think you can't get something from nothing, you've not met my ex missus, because she absolutely can conjure up an argument out of nowhere.

Welcome to Avsim. There are indeed many real-world pilots here on the site as well as many pure flight simmers, but of them all, there is a wealth of experience and knowledge to benefit from, not just in aviation, but with the computers, hardware and software which makes it all tick, so you're definitely in the right place. As you note, aside from the fun aspect, the fidelity of flight sims these days means they are great for a bit of instrument and procedure proficiency. There are quite a few of us who use or have used them for real-world-related training or familiarity of things. Some of the reall 'hardcore' flight simmers you find on here probably know more about the real things than the ones who are flying them for real. 🤣

Prior to pushback clearances they would frequently release the brakes before being given the okay to do so, which is a stupid thing to do, they would sometimes crank the engines pushing back on stand without being cleared to do so, endangering the road man in the process. That sort of thing. But, unlike their own flagrant disregard for the rules, if anyone on the ramp did not follow procedures yo the letter, you could guarantee they'd be the first to report it to Air Ops. They were so bad that I stopped a push once and informed them I would tell the tug driver to pull their aeroplane back on stand and we would refuse to push them out if they did not start complying with instructions, and I know I wasn't the only one who did that either. As you probably know too, they frequently communicate with French ATC in French, which means other aeroplanes monitoring ATC in the vicinity, who are all using English, have difficulty with situational awareness. They don't get called Air Chance for nothing. You couldn't pay me enough to ever risk boarding an Air France airliner. It's no wonder Humphrey Bogart gives those Letters of Transit to Isla and Victor at the end of Cassablanca so they can board that Air France plane, I bet he didn't want to risk getting on the thing himself. 🤣

Yeah, I know that one with AF pilots all too well. Fortunately we don't do Air France stuff any longer, we lost the contract to Stobart Aviation (along with KLM), and most of us were pretty glad about that. Pretty much every one of us had got into a row with AF pilots at some point about their slapdash procedures. 🤣

I'm still waiting for the fuel I put in my car to reach acceptable paremeters. £1.80 a litre, ouch! 😉

We're starting to get more electric GSE at the airport, it has some plusses and some minuses. Most of the baggage tractors have been electric for years, but now we're seeing lifters and belts which are electric, they're a bit of a pain if they happen to be not charged and you are short of vehicles, but they do have some clever stuff on them, for example, the big high loaders used for loading pallets and cans onto widebody jets use electric power to raise the load platform obviously, but when you lower the platform, it does so purely with gravity and utilises a dynamo to get a bit of free charge on the way down.

Nope, but that is the low threshhold criteria, winds much higher than that are still over twenty knots.

They don't. doesn't happen often, but I have seen it once or twice. Usually the problem solves itself for the most part, because if the wind is that bad, the planes would normally divert somewhere else.

If the aeroplane is in line with the doorway opening of the jet bridge, but that is not extending all the way, then it is likely an issue with the airport scenery itself and its detection of the aeroplane type. Flight sims tend to simplify this a little bit by only having one stop point on the stand's centreline, so it is somewhat dependant on the AFCAD, but if it is stopping short of the aeroplane, that sounds like the AFCAD is erroneously detecting it's a widebody airliner. In reality, there are of course many different stop marks for various airliner types and its the stand's docking system or a marshaller which guides the aeroplane to the correct point, whereafter the jet bridge is driven onto the aeroplane manually. Although jet bridges can be moved around a lot (it's usually the dispatcher who does this), most service agent dispatchers prefer to make life easy and just move the thing in and out to a well-used position rather than driving it about all over the place and since most stands tend to service only a small variety of airliners, often only one type, this is normally pretty straighforward, for example, we pretty much exclusively use the jet bridge on stands 42 and 43 at EGCC for British Airways narrow-body Airbuses. You could try using some other software such as GSX, or even the built-in airstairs since the 737 usually does have these (not always, it is in fact an airline customer option); some airlines use the airstairs exclusively so they don't have to pay for using airbridges (Ryanair is probably the most famous example of this). Even if your airliner is in a livery where the airline would normally use a jet bridge, it is not unknown for these to go unserviceable and to have to use some narrow body mobile stairs or, as with the 737 the airstairs, so this is not an unrealistic choice in your sim. It's a slim possibility, but it is worth noting that jet bridges and mobile stairs have a limit on their use above certain wind speeds; when the wind speed is above this limit (if I recall correctly, it's when there are gusts over 20 knots), they cannot be safely used because the airliner pivots in the wind thanks to the big tailfin acting like a sail and this can make the stairs bang into the fuselage and damage it. In these conditions, the airport issues a wind warning and some operational options kick in (no cones on the aeroplanes and a lot more chocks on the wheels for example). I doubt this is something an add-on airport scenery would be able to do and I don't know of any add-on sceneries which have that level of AI sophistication, but I may be incorrect about this.

Guess piano music isn't for you then. 😉

Whilst I tend to agree with you in some respects, I'm assuming enough people do care about that sort of thing to spend the money and make the development and the cost of acquiring it and people paying that price, worth the effort on PMDG's part, and if that's what they want to do then fair enough. In truth there is actually a bit of a difference in how a 737-800 rotates on take off to how a 700 variant does, and this affects how they flare a bit too in terms of control inputs, it's not a massive difference, but some people do like these nuances. I do get that some ultra-realists want to have specific sim aeroplanes for the tasks they like to do in their sim, a good example being the B747-400D, which is the short-range version of the Jumbo that would definitely suit people who don't like doing long haul sim flights but want a massive aeroplane for the challenge of flying one in an authentic fashion. I'm just not personally nerdy enough to want to spend tons of cash on such differences when I can blag it with a broadly-similar variant such as the 700 versus the 800. That's why I regarded PMDG's B747-400 package as good value, because if I recall correctly, it worked out at something along the lines of each included variant (since you got quite a few in the package, including the 400D) at around 15 quid per variant. I'd be far more inclined to buy a 737-400, or a 200, or a MAX than I would to buy another NG from the same developer when I've already got one from them, whereas I would do so from a different developer out of curiosity and to enjoy two different treatments of similar things, but that is just where I'm personally coming from and others are free to have a different take on what their preferences are; it's their money. As far as people not liking the PMDG boss is concerned, and voting with their wallets, like most people, I've heard some less than flattering things about his demeanour, but these too are for the most part things I've heard from other people, so they might not be true at all, thus I usually take these things with a pinch of salt until I'd ever be in a position to confirm or deny the truth of them, particularly when he's not there in person to defend or refute such things. For all I know I might get on with the guy like a house on fire if I bumped into him, but since that's unlikely to occur, it's not really of any relevance. Even if one has such a dislike for the guy that they object to sending some money his way, given the general quality of PMDG's stuff, this seems to me a bit like cutting one's own nose off to spite one's face. It's not like the guy is coming round to your house for a cup of tea and a chat.

There is no way to know if it, or anything else existed prior to that event. Conceptually, we of course find the notion of nothing existing difficult to comprehend, since it is outside the realm of our own concept of existence. But things can definitely not exist, for example, there is no priceless Monet painting existing in my attic at the moment, but although very unlikely, it's not technically or physically impossible that this state could change to one where such a painting did end up existing in my attic, if someone put such a thing up there for example. So the really difficult to comprehend bit of this concept, is what, or who if you want to get theological about it, is the agent which caused this event to occur, and if there was such an agent, what caused that agent or phenomenon to exist? And then, what caused the thing which caused that to exist, to itelf exist, and so on. We could go all day on that concept and it's the chief reason why religions end up getting invented of course. This is why we'll probably never know the answer to the question, which might annoy or perplex us, but sometimes the correct and honest answer to the question is, we don't know, and quite possibly never will. A more important question than this however, is why, when you drop some toast, does it always land butter-side down? Anyway, I'm off to listen to the sound of one hand clapping.

The 700 does the job for me. I really don't care if some route actually has an 800 variant on it, and I certainly don't care enough to drop another 70 quid on it. If it was maybe thirty quid for another variant I might consider it, but even that's just a maybe.

If you have a VR headset and want to get about as close to being on the ramp messing around with a real airliner as you can may wish, then this is essentially the same software as the (considerably more expensive) Aviar training software with a gaming EULA on the front end as a bit of a disclaimer. Graphically, since it is meant for real-world job training, the models of the aeroplanes are about as close as you can get to the real thing in terms of switches, panels, levers, buttons and all that malarkey, because they have to be, so if you fancy working all that stuff in exactly the same way you do on the real things with very accurate models of all the bits on the A320 and the B737, then this might interest you. This Steam version is early access, so it still doesn't yet have all of the stuff the full on pro training versions of this software have (i.e. pushbacks are not yet in this version, but will apparently be added at a later date). It does have all the other stuff such as marshalling aeroplanes on stand, doing arrival walkaround checks, connecting various bits of GSE such as FEPs, air starter hoses etc, operating the cargo doors, doing pre-departure walkaround checks etc, and these cover the Airbus A320 and the B737, so if you wanted to know what doing all that stuff is like on the ramp, this would actually give you a good idea. Since it is based on the pro training software, it has 'exams' after all the training scenarios, which is kind of where the game aspect comes into it I guess, in seeing how well you did and whether you 'passed'. this is not dissimilar to a lot of the real training in terms of how you get signed off for stuff. For the full-on simulated-in-your own-home ramp experience however, after doing the arrival checks and putting the FEP on in this software, I'd recommend then getting your girlfriend/wife/partner to pack absolutely everything she owns and absolutely does not need to take on holiday, into a massive suitcase to the point where it can barely be closed, needs duct tape to keep it shut, and weighs about as much as a motorbike. For added realism, pour something horrible onto the case, such as a four-week-old curry which has been left in the sun, so the case smells really bad too. You can also try snapping one of the wheels off the case to make it harder to move, or perhaps breaking the handle a bit so it has a dangerously sharp wire or perhaps a very pointed rusty bolt sticking out of it which might easily cut your hand and get it infected. Now pick this case up, carry it up a flight of stairs, put it down, then immediately pick it up again, carry it back downstairs, put it down. Repeat this a further 200 times, then get about six more cases of equivalent weight, go inside a really small cupboard with very little headroom, then try to stack these cases on top of one another without hurting your back. Allow yourself no more than ten minutes for this task. Next, give yourself no more than thirty seconds to do an entire pre-departure walkaround whilst the anti-collision light is already flashing on the airliner, then having done this, tune into a foreign radio station news broadcast, to simulate trying to understand a pilot whose English is not very good, as you go through the pushback and engine start procedure with a massive language barrier, or if you prefer, imagine the headset is broken and use hand signals instead whilst backing up forty feet away from the aeroplane to try and get to an angle where the pilot is not obscured by reflections on the rain-soaked cockpit windows which keep doing that purple rainbow effect which laminated airliner glass does, so you can't see through it at all. For added additional realism, sit in a bucket of water to simulate having sat on the soaking wet seat of a belt loader, then throw more water all over yourself to simulate being out in the rain for six hours. Rush into the kitchen at some point, eat a bag of crisps in about twenty seconds or some other unhealthy snack you might get from a vending machine, then do the entire process all over again until about 12 hours have passed, then pretend to drive home for about six hours of sleep before getting up and doing it all again. After four weeks, pay yourself the kind of wage a Victorian chimney-sweep would be disappointed with. 🤣

Most of the time you find the tricky airports are in quite out of the way destinations, but one which is not - being located in Europe, albeit out in the Atlantic some way - which has been mentioned by a few people already, is LPMA (Madeira), colloquially known as Funchal Airport, but officially named Christiano Ronaldo international after the Portuguese footy player. On most lists of 'dangerous airports', it usually makes the top ten and it does require some additional training for crews in order to operate from there. Over the years there have been a number of fatal landing accidents there, which is really not that surprising when you see the place. It sometimes gets tricky weather and it's not that great with regard to close-by diversionary airports either (typically the diversion airport is Gran Canaria), which means flights sometimes get cancelled to that destination if weather at alternates doesn't look good, which is not unknown since these are out in the Atlantic. Worth bearing in mind too, that one potential diversionary alternate would be Los Rodeos airport (GXCO), which as most people know, is the location of the worst airliner accident ever, when two B747 collided with one another (largely as a result of very foggy weather, but also some ATC confusion and poor crew decisions), so this general area is not the easiest of location to be operating an airliner. In diverting, you'd either be forced to land at LPMA, or find yourself right on the ragged edge of having enough fuel to make it to a mainland European airport if those other islands were socked in. The airport used to be nicknamed 'the Kai Tak of Europe' because of the requirement to make a late and low altitude tight turn to avoid mountains for a line up, and the runway was originally notoriously short too, before being extended (twice). The final straw, with regard to prompting changes, was the crash of a TAP Boeing 727-200ADV in 1977 (TAP-425) which was making its third attempt at landing there in poor visibility and stormy weather, causing it to touch down approximately 2,000 feet past the touchdown point and unable to stop in time to avert going off the end of the runway to encouter a 200 foot drop down to a beach where the thing ended up in pieces. Here it is pictured at the time of that accident in the 70s, and it's not difficult to see how dangerous it was back then: As noted, the crash of TAP 425 finally prompted the decision to extend the runway significantly, which is now over 9,000 feet long, meaning you can get a 747 down in one piece there nowadays, but it is still a very tricky airport to land at, not least because of the operational difficulties owing to the weather conditions. LPMA is actually worth a look in MSFS, because it has an unusual runway which is built out over the water on a raised platform in a fairly unique feat of engineering; one which has won many architectural and engineering awards, but you can see that this is still a runway which is going to be difficult in any sort of crosswind or bad weather and will be prone to downdrafts on short finals what with that severe terrain drop just before the threshold; not to mention your radar altimeter is not going to be of much help either. Vref will be fairly high to quickly penetrate any downdrafts, so you probably will need to stomp on the brakes and use reverse thrust if you land long.

Very sorry to hear this, and you have my condolences. Having lost my mum just last week, I'm presently only too aware how you must be feeling right about now, but if you keep your loved ones in your heart, they do stay with you.