Good evening everyone! I’ve just published my full, in-depth review of Jo Erlend Sund’s Aerosoft Brussels. You can take a look at it here if you like: MSFS | REVIEW: Aerosoft Brussels (EBBR) scenery for Microsoft Flight Simulator - YouTube
Here’s what it incorporates:
00:00 - Introduction
00:28 - Airside scenery tour
11:20 - Ground textures
12:56 - Landside scenery tour
14:24 - Night lighting
15:53 - Snow
16:41 - Special features (VDGS, proximity-sensing gates & hangar doors)
21:53 - My opinion & conclusion
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I really like that they put the VDGS feature in, and using it is nice. But I’m just a little disappointed that you have to open the VDGS app, and manually choose the gate on it before the VDGS is active.
I mean, I come from comparing the VDGS feature from NZAA Auckland airport, where it automatically active as soon as you get close to it without any app or manual selection needed. NZAA also allows me to taxi to the gate after vacating the runway through the default ground ATC.
I’ve flown into Brussels twice, and both times the default ATC doesn’t give me the option to taxi to the gate, so I have to pick it myself, and turn on the VDGS app to choose the gate, and I had to manually taxi to the gate without any taxiway route, which is disappointing.
Everything else about the airport is amazing, just that little hassle with the VDGS in order for it to work.
When I first used the VDGS, I thought ‘nah, not for me’ for the reason you mentioned - it’s definitely better to just have it work, without having to open a menu. It grew on me though. I got quicker at clicking through the menu and, on balance, I think it’s worth it for the extra functionality. This might partly be cos I’m so used to doing similar in P3D with GSX though!
The thing is, there’s already a MSFS Visual Docking Guidance System tool made by Nool Aerosystems that’s available for use by airport scenery designer. This thing doesn’t need you to open a menu to select the gate.
You just taxi close to the gate, and it auto-detects your aircraft and activate the VDGS system. And the resource is pretty much generic, meaning you only need to install the tool once, and any airport designer that places the VDGS object on their parking spot will “just works” without any input.
This tool has been around for a while, and there’s a number of payware airports that utilises this, NZAA is one of the latest ones that I really enjoy using the VDGS.
I’m just a little disappointed that not only they make their own proprietary VDGS that we also have to install on top of the airport itself, but they make it so that it takes us a few extra steps to use, while there’s already another tool that auto-detects your aircraft without input.
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I’ve not encountered this. I’ve flow in into AS EBBR a lot (CRJ, A320NX) since release and I get assigned a gate after contacting ground every time.
The AS VDGS is a quick manual input after getting assigned the gate, but you’re right not as nice as say it being auto assigned.
On a similar vein I can set the departure up on the VDGS app ahead of departing where it reads the flightplan and gives me a countdown to departure time. Is that auto done too in Auckland?
It does seem a curious approach doing a proprietary app for VDGS, but it does seem to work. Maybe it costs too much to license the other one?
On a side note I love the AS EBBR mega airport. My only complaint is I keep getting assigned with a R07L approach with no ILS. I’m having to rapidly improve my VOR /DME approaches!
I haven’t tried departing from Auckland yet, I probably will do that once I have the payware Wellington Airport as well so I can try both things at the same time. But if I had to guess, it probably doesn’t do the same thing with departure time. But I’m still unfamiliar with setting the take off block time anyway. I just depart whenever I’m ready, since I use PACX, and FS2Crew app as well, my departure time is coming from those app, so I find it redundant if I had to manually set it in the VDGS, which I usually end up having to depart early anyway. It’s nice to have it in EBBR, I admit… but I’m not seeing the benefit of having it for my flight. In other words, I can live without it.
This is why I always set my approach into my flight plan. Simbrief also assigns me to RWY 07L approach, and looking at the charts it doesn’t have any ILS, so I always change my arriving runway to RWY 01, and I choose the ILS 01 in my world map flight plan. ATC will always follow the flight plan and always assign me this approach.
I wonder if it’s aircraft specific, both of my flights to EBBR were on the A330-900neo, and I don’t have the options to taxi to the gate, see here when I vacate the runway and tried to get taxi clearance to the gate. Without the taxi clearance to the gate, the taxi ribbon leads me to a ramp parking, which I had to ignore at the end and activate the VDGS on an empty gate that I can see.
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It could be. It also could be me having the taxi ribbon enabled in assists. That is another difference I can see. The blue taxi ribbon often seems to extend to the gates away in the distance, long before I get assigned a gate. When I request a taxi to gate the ribbon updates its path a bit, but essentially still points in the same direction as it originally did. If it’s not that then maybe try with the A320 to see if its aircraft specific and I’ve not had ant issues getting assigned a gate with the A320.
I’ll also try turning off taxi ribbon assist and see what happens.
On a similar issue, there are some airports I fly into that I only ever get the optiion to taxi to parking, never a gate. A bug perhaps.
I always have my taxi ribbon enabled… Along with this awesome mod. So I don’t think it’s that. But yeah, in my video the taxi ribbon appears and points me to the ramp, that’s why I ignore it in the end and pick a gate instead. It’s just that usually the ATC gives you the option to the gate, whic they will assign you to a gate instead of a pre-defined path to the ramp.
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