NZFF

I just purchased Godzone's NZCH, NZDN and NZNS last weekend. After installing them, I was blown away by what I saw ! With my newly upgraded PC and new monitor I am going to have some serious enjoyment around the Mainland.

I have however found a problem with all but three of the SODE jetways at NZCH, and with one at NZDN : when I try to extend them, they won't do so, for one or several of the following reasons :
Aircraft door and jetway misaligned
Aircraft door too far away for the jetway
Aircraft door out of jetway rotation range
Aircraft door too low for the jetway (during extension)
Aircraft door out of jetway elevation range
Aircraft door too low for the jetway (during dip)
All the above were observed with the PMDG 737-700 (haven't tried the PMDG 777 yet).

The only jetways at NZCH that I could get to work, are those at gates 27, 28 and 34, as well as gate 3 at NZDN.

I have just done a clean, fresh install of P3DV4.5 on a new install of Windows 10.

Sofar I have installed the following Orbx products :
Global Base Pack
Global Building HD
Global Vector
Global Open LC Europe
Australia V2
NZ North Island
NZ South Island
NZQN Airport
(and FlightBeam's NZWN and FlyTampa's Kai Tak)

I haven't got GSX.

Any ideas on what could cause this issue with the jetways ? Have I overlooked something ?
Thanks for any assistance !

Hi Emile.
Although sometimes SODE can have problems, I think this is just the way Prepar3d works. I assume that you always start at the normal 'AFCAD' gate position, but this is never going to allow for every aircraft to align with the jetway. To set the AFCAD stop position, you only have one choice, and this will place the nose wheel (or roughly where this would be on an aircraft without one) on the stop position. ('Stop' can mean 'Start' in this case.)

This is normally fine if it doesn't need to align with a jetway. So the actual position is always going to be a compromise. I have set the NZCH jetway stops to match what is normally parked there, in my particular case using Orbx Au/NZ AI. The 'normal' visitor to most of the smaller jetways are Airbus.

Some jetways have a larger degree of movement, which helps to align with a wider range of aircraft. Others don't move much, so it's trickier to align the door. Speaking of doors, this is really what is important here. SODE aims for the door all the time, while Prepar3d aims to place the nose wheel on the stop position. It would make a lot more sense for the sim to align the door with a set stop position, so no matter what aircraft you use, the door will always be in the correct place. GSX does this, (using its own stop position marker, although if you start a flight at a gate, it still uses the AFCAD position) and this is only one of a lot of reasons why I consider GSX a must-have.

One solution for those who normally use a specific aircraft is to adjust the AFCAD position using something like Airport Design Editor. First, though, you'd need to figure out the ideal start point for your aircraft. To get started, you can choose a fixed jetway, such as NZCH 29, start a normal flight and see how the door aligns with the jetway. (Forward/back only, the jetway can adjust the height itself.) Using Slew, move forward/back until the door aligns with the jetway, turn slew off, and see if the jetway extends. That should give a good idea of how far you would need to move the start position on the gates you are likely to use. Just roughly, though, as there are other factors with moving jetways, so you'd need to experiment a bit to find a position where the jetway operates.

It is possible to just align the jetway using slew whenever you start a flight, which isn't that immersive, but it does leave the start positions set to something which the AI can better handle. (I have SODE set to extend jetways for AI.)

I think that the few jetways which actually work for you are those more likely to receive a 737 in reality. Using the PMDG 777 will give a different result, as there are not many jetways set up to handle the size.

Using GSX, you would get a much better success rate when you use the supplied stop positions, such as when you arrive at a gate, or use 'warp me' to go to the GSX start position when you start a flight. The SODE developer has talked about a low-cost payware solution to tweak the position of different aircraft to align with jetways, but I'm not sure that this will be implemented. It would mean that those without GSX could get a better result, though.

Hi Rob,

I am very grateful for the time you took to explain in such detail how the jetways setup works. And it is good to hear that it wasn't something I did wrong during the install.

I regularly travel to NZCH for work (on ANZ's A320s) and I think you are right about the jetways that work : gates 27, 28 and 34 are all at International and that's where I see, for example, the QANTAS 737-800s docked IRL. Now I know at which gates the jetways work for the 737 as things are, I'll just use those, at least for now. Same will apply to the 777 in due course (that's all I fly, other than eventually the Majestic Dash-8).

Thanks very much again !