How to use ground power

User Support Hub Aircraft & Systems
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1

I’m having trouble using ground power, especially on Vatsim. My problem is twofold:

  1. Ground power needs to be requested from the ATC menu.
    This messes with Vatsim ATC and is only available when the airplane has electric power. I need to request ground power without using the radios and while the airplane’s battery is empty.
  2. Ground power is not available everywhere.
    This could be due to buggy auto-generated scenery. There are stands where requesting ground power is not an option in the ATC menu, even though it should be.

So how do I get around these? I’m not aware of any solutions to the second problem except custom scenery, so please advise if you know otherwise. For the first problem, I came up with 2 possible solutions:

  1. Can I use a control binding to request ground power? According to this topic there is a way to create a keyboard shortcut to request ground power. I’d like help finding it in the settings as I haven’t found it.
  2. Can I use the SimConnect API or a WASM module to request ground power? If yes, please link some tutorial or guide on getting started.

Thanks.

2

Which Aircraft?

Some have it built into the EFB / or MCDU (FMS) to connect it.

GSX Pro is great for these kinds of things.

I only fly on VATSIM, but use GSX Pro so that takes care of the Pushback, Loading, Ground Power, etc… It’s well worth it for flying Airliners.

3

I’m talking specifically about the Asobo TBM930 but I’m guessing that other default planes have the same problem.

Maybe I could make an application similar to how in some addon planes ground power is requested through the plane. Help on this is appreciated.

GSX Pro is too expensive for me and therefore not a viable solution.

4

Have you given PushBack Toolbar a try?

It’s free and I believe lets you request GPU.

5

Ah yes I forgot to mention that in the first post. Unfortunately it hasn’t been updated in a long time so it may be incompatible with SU12 and I’ve heard of people having performance issues with it.

I will try it, thanks.

6

It works in SU12, and the developer is back and will be updating it.

I use it for GA without issue.

7

Just to add a bit of real world realism to this, you have to understand that not every airfield/parking slot will have GPU access. So I guess the key is to plan ahead for a battery start at those airfields that are known to not have a GPU. PNG flying for example.

8

Thanks. I tried toolbar pushback and it worked. I didn’t know that ground power is not available everywhere IRL. Just gotta look for custom sceneries that fix problems with the default scenery when they arise.