Ok, so I bought the thing, couldn't resist anyway
, and did my first flight (PADQ Kodiak to PACD Cold Bay, Alaska, as that was the next trip on my world tour with the 737NGX), and must say it's looking great.
I'm not an AES user so this whole ground service stuff is all new to me, and so far loving it.
Few issues I have observed, which I'm sure will be fixed in future updates:
Departing PADQ:
- Didn't need catering for such a short flight, so started boarding right away. Stairs and belt came, I opened the doors and the cargo pod, but the luggage never made it to the plane. It was like kinda stuck behind a truck somewhere next to a building. So the boarding took forever. Had to do a "reset position" and then try again. It worked that second time around.
Arriving at PACD:
- Pulled off the runway and called for the follow me car to take me to parking 8. Only problem is, I found out after I picked the parking spot, that parking 8 would require me to taxi onto the runway again, backtrack a little and take another runway exit. There was no other paved route from my current position to parking 8. The problem is that the follow me car wanted me to follow it right through the fence and right through the grass, directly to the other ramp where parking 8 is located....
- So I decided to pick another parking spot, this time one that was on the same ramp as I pulled on to. Took parking 1, but the follow me car was still waiting for me somewhere in the grass as it still wanted me to go to parking 8 I presume. However, the stairs and stuff were already waiting for me at parking 1, so I taxied to it, leaving the follow me car mowing the grass on its own. But when I pulled into parking 1, there was no marshaller present unfortunately. Even after a "reset position" and rechoosing parking 1, the marshall still wasn't visible. Is he supposed to appear there directly or does he have to come from the other side of the airport ? Anyway I parked by myself and then got the message "That was not such a good parking"... well duh, I expected a marshall to assist me on that lol
Hehe, I'm being a little jokey here, because I know this product has a wonderful potential, and probably will need a few more update to be perfect. I'm sure you'll sort this stuff out but just wanted to let you know.
Keep it up !
Mathieu