Custom Jetway disappeared

[Ray Proudfoot]

I am trying to customise the jetways for LatinVFR KRDU. Aircraft is PMDG737-800W positioned at Gate D5 which is large enough to take that aircraft.

I enabled Jetway Exclusion radius and 1 was automatically entered. I pressed Apply and exited P3D. Opened the GSX Control Panel and compiled the BGL.

Went back into P3D and the jetway was visible. In GSX - Customise Airport Positions the entry for D5 was Gate D5/JS. No other jetway had S as a suffix. Not sure why that is.

Anyway, I went through the customising process and finished it. Exited P3D and reloaded the saved scenario that placed my aircraft at D5. No jetway!

I loaded the Customise Airport Positions dialogue and when I clicked on Jetway(s) - Parking has 1 BGL jetway dropdown the jetway suddenly reappeared. But why was it necessary to do that in order for the jetway to appear?

I'm attaching screenshot and ini file in case that helps find the problem.

I'm sure I did everything right but unless there's something I missed there does appear to be a flaw in the process.

[Ray Proudfoot]

Here are two screenshots. The first is taken straight after creating a custom jetway. It definitely exists! The second is after exiting and restarting P3D withe the saved scenario. No more gate.

If I activate the jetway the message at top left say's 'default jetway' but no jetway appears. I go into the GSX Customise Airport and change my selection of number of jetways and lo-and-behold, the custom jetway reappears and acts as a SODE jetway, not a default one.

I hope you can explain what I'm doing wrong but given everything is saved automatically it's hard to see what.

[Ray Proudfoot]

Please consider this closed. KRDU is not high on my priorities and I’ve found in the Scenery section many contributions from those with far more skill than me.

Creating these custom jetways is a laborious process so I’m happy to leave it to those who know what they’re doing.

[Ray Proudfoot]

I hate being defeated on something like this. After installing the jetway files for UK2000 EGCC kindly provided by Cartayna the problem persisted of invisible jetways. Knowing the problem must now exist in my P3Dv4 setup I thought about what might be responsible.

AFCADs supplied as part of a scenery package are rarely 100% error free. On checking the one supplied with UK2000 EGCC the taxiway to 05L had a break in it so I repaired it using ADE. This generated a new BGL which replaced the original. I put these new BGLs in a separate folder that has the highest priority in Scenery Library. The original is disabled.

But when loading a saved scenario at EGCC the jetways were not visible so I renamed my BGL to the same as the original and placed it back in with the other EGCC BGLs. I loaded the scenario and even after rebuilding COUATL cache the jetways remained invisible.

I then disabled mine and reverted to the original. BINGO. Visible jetways. But why weren't they visible with a modified BGL? Scruffy Duck's ADE is a valid program for creating and modifying AFCADs. Is there some underlying checking process in GSX that compares the BGL used to create these jetways with the user's and if different won't display them?

[Ray Proudfoot]

Umberto,

Could you answer my last post please? I’m mystified about the disappearance of jetways when the AFCAD is changed.

[virtuali]

Could you answer my last post please? I’m mystified about the disappearance of jetways when the AFCAD is changed.

That's entirely normal: GSX saves the name of the AFCAD used in the customization file so, if you changed the name of the AFCAD you must redo the customization, so first be sure you are using the same name.

If you want to change the AFCAD name, depending on what you changed, you might spare yourself from redoing the customization, by editing the GSX .INI file for that airport and change the line that says

afcad_path =

by pointing to the new file name. Now, this might work or not, depending what you changed:

- If you changed minor things like airline assignments, it will probably work fine.

- If you only *added* new parkings, it should work as well.

- If you renamed parkings, removed parkings, or change their position, the old customization will probably not work very well.

[Ray Proudfoot]

Thanks Umberto. I only wanted to change minor things like a break in a taxiway meaning a moving map program could not see a route to the runway.

But I did rename my amended AFCAD back to the same name and the jetways still didn’t show. I’ll double-check tomorrow. Just as long as there’s no checksum involved that means it only works with the original file.

[Ray Proudfoot]

Just to finish this discussion. I edited the UK2000 EGCC AFCAD to correct a couple of errors near 05L from runway to link. Compiled the BGL and placed it in the UK2000\EGCC\Scenery folder. Edited the relevant .INI file to change the name of the BGL.

Started P3D, located to EGCC and pleased to report the jetways were generated. 

[vc-10man]

After installing the jetway files for UK2000 EGCC kindly provided by Cartayna

Could you kindly link me on that, please, Ray, as none or the majority of my UK2000 airports have the same jetway issues as yours.

Some airports I get that 'default jetway' message too.

[Ray Proudfoot]

Hi Rick,

Here's the link to all his work.  https://www.dropbox.com/sh/bdkjqee8x1w57lm/AAAl4p_7jyl6jBmHnH1gumjRa?dl=0

All UK2000 jetways still appear to be default (CTRL+J) even when there's a SODE option in the installer. I think the SODE files must be there as Cartayna's files don't include them. Just the files needed to generate them.

They make a big difference especially when you can see pax walking down the jetway into the aircraft.

[vc-10man]

Thanks a bunch, Ray.

There was me thinking that the SODE option would have all  jetways linked to the GSX drop-down menu 'Operate jetway', but as I have discovered, does not appear to be so.

Last night, at Orbx's ESSA(Stockholm Arlanda), the jetway is clearly there to be seen, yet no matter what I tried, be it GSX's 'Operate jetway' or the default Ctrl+J, the jetway would not budge.

PS. Forgot to ask, Ray, does that link fix GSX version 1, or does it only fix GSX2?

[Ray Proudfoot]

Rick, I’m not 100% sure but I think you need GSX Level 2 installed to take advantage of these custom jetways. Or maybe you only need it for designing them.

I don’t have ESSA from Orbx but their support forum should be able to answer that question.

[vc-10man]

Will do, Ray, as IIRC recently. Orbx re-updated a number of airports with SODE options via FTX Central