Introducing LSZB Bern Airport for Microsoft Flight Simulator!

[Orbx]

 

We are excited to introduce you to our newest indie - Massimiliano Addante, who will be releasing very soon LSZB Bern Airport for Microsoft Flight Simulator. Massimiliano has previously created airports for FSDreamteam and we are glad to have another talented developer in the Orbx team. Welcome Massimiliano and what a great airport this is!

 

Located just outside the Swiss capital of Bern, you will navigate your way through some stunning scenery in the Alps as you approach the airport. Seasonal flights by Helvetic Airways, Lübeck Air and SkyAlps operate to a small number of European destinations from Bern and the airport houses the air transport service of the Swiss Air Force. Air rescue organization, Rega, is also located at the airport operating a Eurocopter EC 145.

 

For those that enjoy a bit of a challenge, LSZB has a couple of circle-to-land approaches to runway 32, so be sure not to overshoot that extended centreline!

 

At a glance:

• Detailed modelling throughout
• Custom ortho/projected mesh
• Static helicopters and GA aircraft
• Crisp 4k & 2k textures with PBR

 

Enjoy these first previews of Bern Airport for Microsoft Flight Simulator - coming soon!

 

 

[mburkhard]

Looking good so far, I'm very interested in getting this.

However, I do hope that the developer will have another good look at the runway lights. The real runway is equipped with simple TDZ lighting only, which is completely different in layout and dimension compared to CAT2/3 TDZ lighting.

[Ed Correia]

On 2/28/2023 at 6:30 AM, mburkhard said:

Looking good so far, I'm very interested in getting this.

However, I do hope that the developer will have another good look at the runway lights. The real runway is equipped with simple TDZ lighting only, which is completely different in layout and dimension compared to CAT2/3 TDZ lighting.

 

We have had a look at the touchdown lights which have been added via the SDK. This is a simple checkbox to enable or disable and no other options to customise how long it runs down the runway as it appears to use a midpoint based on the runway properties. 

 

With the displaced threshold on 14, the TDZ lights run to 635m down the runway (621m on the charts) but for 32 they run to 850m down the runway (622 on the charts). So for 14 it works OK but not for 32. 

 

I'm assuming that is what is being referred to with the TDZ lighting remark.

[mburkhard]

1 hour ago, Ed Correia said:

With the displaced threshold on 14, the TDZ lights run to 635m down the runway (621m on the charts) but for 32 they run to 850m down the runway (622 on the charts). So for 14 it works OK but not for 32. 

 

I'm assuming that is what is being referred to with the TDZ lighting remark.

 

Hello Ed,

thanks for looking into this, however your assumption is incorrect.

The remark for TDZ lighting on the charts refers to where the lights are located AT, not how long they are running for from the threshold. Simple TDZ lighting does not run along the runway, these are simply a pair of lights on each side of the runway centreline. 

 

Chapter 5.3.14 in ICAO Doc Annex 14 describes simple TDZ lighting in detail, but here's the relevant illustration that summarises things perfectly:

 

 

So as you can see, just 4 lights for each runway landing direction. 4 lights for RWY14 and 4 lights for RWY32, located at the distance published in the charts.

If the SDK does not allow for these lights, and you're unable or unwilling to do custom lighting, then I suggest to simply DISABLE the Asobo TDZ lighting, as having no TDZ lighting turned on is a much more realistic scenario compared to having a huge carpet of lights that simply does not exist on the real runway.

 

Let me know if you need further info, I'd be happy to help. Also if you require lighting information out of the Swiss AIP publication I can send them over.

 

Cheers,

Markus

[Ed Correia]

24 minutes ago, mburkhard said:

 

Hello Ed,

thanks for looking into this, however your assumption is incorrect.

The remark for TDZ lighting on the charts refers to where the lights are located AT, not how long they are running for from the threshold. Simple TDZ lighting does not run along the runway, these are simply a pair of lights on each side of the runway centreline. 

 

Chapter 5.3.14 in ICAO Doc Annex 14 describes simple TDZ lighting in detail, but here's the relevant illustration that summarises things perfectly:

 

 

So as you can see, just 4 lights for each runway landing direction. 4 lights for RWY14 and 4 lights for RWY32, located at the distance published in the charts.

If the SDK does not allow for these lights, and you're unable or unwilling to do custom lighting, then I suggest to simply DISABLE the Asobo TDZ lighting, as having no TDZ lighting turned on is a much more realistic scenario compared to having a huge carpet of lights that simply does not exist on the real runway.

 

Let me know if you need further info, I'd be happy to help. Also if you require lighting information out of the Swiss AIP publication I can send them over.

 

Cheers,

Markus

Thanks Markus, that makes sense and should be easy to implement.

[mburkhard]

2 hours ago, Ed Correia said:

Thanks Markus, that makes sense and should be easy to implement.

thanks Ed, great to hear that!

[nnoobb]

i hope this swiss twin prop machine seen in other announcements is no longer present in the final version? 

or can I disable it?
swiss Int. Airlines does not have such planes 🙂 

 

im very local 🙂 and would love to buy this airport!

Edited March 3 by nnoobb

[Just Fly]

That looks amazing! 😍 I couldn't help but notice a couple of missing details, though:

• Is it planned to have the Green parking sector and the Blue parking sector markings represented as well? The Green parking sector overlaps with the Y5, Y6 and Y7 parking positions. The Blue parking sector is right in front of the fuel pump on the main apron.
• There's been a white tent installed on the south-eastern edge of Y7 for a couple of years now. It is used by the local flight school (alpaviation) as an ad-hoc hangar.
• A new hangar was built for LionsAir last year, and now fills the gap between the main GA hangar and the GA Center / C-Office.

Any chance to see these in a future update?

[nnoobb]

what i don't quite understand is why they don't ask the community for help with a project like this?
I am soooo very happy that there is now a (better? than the one on fs.to?) LSZB, but this is unfortunately not up to date and has various errors.
 

the creation of an airport is relatively time-consuming. why not try to stock up on current data, photos, etc.?
somehow great but somehow also a pity 😞

please!
do not misunderstand but why not do a greater effort instead of x- corrections?
ok for the price actually a no brainer - I will definitely get, but hope for updates...

[Mikael Cedergren]

Is there an option to disable the static aircraft? Its 2023 and the AI options are endless. I dont see why developers force is to have them This is absolutely a purchase for me but only if I can remove the static planes

 

[mburkhard]

@Max Addante

Congratulations on your first Orbx release, a lovely rendition of Bern it is indeed! I see good modelling and texturing throughout with a seamless integration into its surroundings. Some of the hangars you modelled look absolutely stunning!

I did notice some issues I hope you can correct soonest:

• The fictional ATR static aircraft needs to go. It just doesn't fit at all since Swiss never operated any ATR in their livery. Please remove it or make it optional through Orbx' customisation functionality. 
  If you want to have a static airliner that is more suitable than a Swiss ATR, you might consider doing a Helvetic EMB-190 instead? But with all the traffic add-ons available nowadays it might be easiest to simply skip any static airliner. 
• The ground markings are lacking in various places. Please consider adding the important markings for green area parking and its parking stands, as well as the blue area parking lines. Those are all clearly visible on aerial imagery from Swisstopo for reference.
  Furthermore, the holding point markings do not resemble the real ones. As I'm sure you've seen there are only single red/white markings indicating the runway ahead, yours are doubled.
  Also your heli spot markings are the wrong colours mostly.
  And also several lines on the main apron are the wrong colours, like the lines indicating the edge between taxiways and parking should be red-white instead of white only.
• The windsock next to the glider hangar is missing. You can see its position on the Swisstopo aerial imagery.
• Could you enhance the aircraft spawn positions somewhat? It would be useful to have a parking position in front of the glider hangar for starting in a tow aircraft. Also please add all parking spots on the main apron, there's plenty of them missing. Blue parking might benefit of more than one as well.
• The glider runway seems to have half of its white markings missing towards the north.

Right, these were the ones that I see being a must to fix. Next some cosmetic ones that I think would not be too much work to also adjust:

• The green threshold lights of runway 32 do not match the position and size visible on the aerial image. Over at runway 14 it is all correct. So maybe you could duplicate this for RWY32?
• The public road going around the airport to the south features yellow lines marking the edge of the road. These should be white instead. Swiss roads usually do not feature yellow edge markings.
• Are you absolutely sure about the colour of the grass runway holding point and edge markings you placed? This would be a question for your sources I guess. I haven't been to the airport recently and I know there have been changes to the grass runway. But in the past those markings have not been yellow but white instead. Also a question for your sources; Should the grass runway taxi signs be lit? The grass runway is not in use during hours of darkness, so lighting those signs doesn't make sense. But who knows, just a question.

Thank you again for doing Bern and for looking into these issues.

Markus

 

 

4 hours ago, Mikael Cedergren said:

Is there an option to disable the static aircraft? Its 2023 and the AI options are endless. I dont see why developers force is to have them This is absolutely a purchase for me but only if I can remove the static planes

 

No option to disable any static aircraft unfortunately.

[Max Addante]

Hi guys, thank you so much! I'm really happy that you like the airport
 

You can expect an update for the next week, I should easy implement some of your suggestions.

Next time I'll ask for help from the community to get better information about the airtport.
 

The static aircraft goes away for sure! =D

[pidup]

Hi Max
I am at home in Bern and I am very happy to finally have an accurate scenery from LSZB, perfect after the promised update 😉

Thank you very much and good success

Pierre 

[mburkhard]

6 hours ago, Max Addante said:

You can expect an update for the next week, I should easy implement some of your suggestions.

Next time I'll ask for help from the community to get better information about the airtport.

 

Hey Max,

delighted to read that, it's good to know that you're listening to feedback and are producing an update.

 

While working through the issues, could you please take a look at your building textures. I noticed that in low-vis conditions some of your textures do not react well and cancel out any fog effect showing pure black through the fog. At first I thought it was the usual MSFS glass in fog issue, but then I noticed that the problem also shows on some wall textures, while various glass textures are unaffected. 

 

So just put some fog in your sim and vary the distance to your objects and you'll immediately see the affected textures.
Let me know if you require any screenshots though.

 

Thank you again, looking forward to the update.

[Ed Correia]

Hotfix 1.0.1 is out now for the quick fixes

 

- ATR has been removed
- Y6 parking has been added
- Added some taxi path connections

[mburkhard]

@Max Addante

Thank you very much for the hot fix, highly appreciated!

 

After having another look at your scenery, I'd kindly ask you to put some additional rather critical issues on your list for the update:

• Taxiway Lighting
  Please remove ALL green taxiway centreline lighting. There's no such lighting anywhere on the real airport.
  Remove the blue taxiway edge lighting on intersection A. No blue lights there in reality. C and F only.
• Runway Guard Lights
  Please add runway guard lights. All intersections feature runway guard lights at the holding point. placed left and right of the stopbar markings. 
• Red/white Runway numbers at holding points
  Further to my comments above regarding the white on red runway number markings. Please not only replace the default double runway markings with single ones, but also add the missing runway numbers painted at the holding points E and A. 
• Yellow holding point markings
  When adding missing ground markings, perhaps you could also beef up the holding point markings in general. The real ones feature dashed yellow lines running along the centreline on each side indicating to pilots that they are approaching a holding point.

And here's another somewhat cosmetic request:

• Yellow taxiway marking colour
  Your wingspan restriction ground markings have a different shade of yellow compared to the other yellow taxiway markings. In reality these markings are all of the same yellow colour. It would look quite a bit more realistic if these colours would match.

 

Thank you again for listening.

All the best,

Markus

[carlosqr]

Hi, I am here just to see if someone else is having morphing ground textures...but no comments about it

I'm having those and in the river

 

I'm going to uninstall and reinstall hoping this gets fixed, I purchased it on release day as I was very interested in having it

 

I'll get back in case the issue continues

 

Cheers

Carlos

[Rob Abernathy]

35 minutes ago, carlosqr said:

Hi, I am here just to see if someone else is having morphing ground textures...but no comments about it

I'm having those and in the river

 

I'm going to uninstall and reinstall hoping this gets fixed, I purchased it on release day as I was very interested in having it

 

I'll get back in case the issue continues

 

Cheers

Carlos

Hi Carlos,  you don't have a mesh for Italy from fltsim to installed do you?  I did and it caused morphing/terrain issues at Bern.

If this is the case I solved it by disabling one file to .off.   It was ItalyDEM/CGL/120/dem221.cgl

[carlosqr]

2 hours ago, Rob Abernathy said:

Hi Carlos,  you don't have a mesh for Italy from fltsim to installed do you?  I did and it caused morphing/terrain issues at Bern.

If this is the case I solved it by disabling one file to .off.   It was ItalyDEM/CGL/120/dem221.cgl

Hi Rob

 

Thank you for your feedback

I searched for the mesh in my addon linker and it doesn't show up in any place so I don't have it

 

I'm about to test again after the uninstall/reinstall, I'll keep you posted

 

Thank you!

Carlos

[carlosqr]

Hi again

 

It yer happens,you can notice in the approach. Most noticeable morphing of ground textures within the red line

 

 

So not sure if it is related to the airport or not

I wonder if it is happening to someone else

 

Cheers

Carlos

[Rob Abernathy]

8 minutes ago, carlosqr said:

Hi again

 

It yer happens,you can notice in the approach. Most noticeable morphing of ground textures within the red line

 

 

So not sure if it is related to the airport or not

I wonder if it is happening to someone else

 

Cheers

Carlos

I'll go fly that approach now and see if I see the same Carlos.   Have you tried it with Orbx Bern uninstalled?

[John Burgess]

Just went back for another look.

 

I think I saw this when flying to the airport in testing but it happens with an empty community folder.

 

I suspect an ASOBO problem, not Orbx.

 

All the best,

 

John

[Rob Abernathy]

Tried that approach to rwy 14 ILS both with and without Orbx Bern installed.  Saw the texture morphing in both scenarios.  Agree with John B that it's an Asosbo issue.

[mburkhard]

I see that as well when I approach Bern. Perhaps Orbx needs to report this to Asobo. Us users doing the same won't change a thing I'm afraid.

[carlosqr]

Thank you Rob and John

I appreciate your help, now I know it's the airport not me

 

Agreed Mburhand,

 

Have a nice Sunday (what is left)

 

Cheers

Carlos

[John Dow]

Some morphing (Alaska for example) is because Asobo/Bing uses different imagery for different LOD tiles. So, when the sim was developed, a particular imagery was used for all the different LODs, then updated imagery was introduced but often only for the LOD that appears as you get close. I suspect it's a failing of procedures in the updating, the developers might not even be aware of the problem. That's my assessment based on what I see in the sim, quite prepared to be corrected if anyone knows better. 

[mikkel]

sounds reasonable, have you sent a report to MS/Asobo on the issue?

[stiletto2]

Ground tile morphing is present on my system from ground level up to about 1 - 2K feet AGL in area around LSZB with a blank community folder.  Definitely an Asobo issue.

[carlosqr]

9 hours ago, John Dow said:

Some morphing (Alaska for example) is because Asobo/Bing uses different imagery for different LOD tiles. So, when the sim was developed, a particular imagery was used for all the different LODs, then updated imagery was introduced but often only for the LOD that appears as you get close. I suspect it's a failing of procedures in the updating, the developers might not even be aware of the problem. That's my assessment based on what I see in the sim, quite prepared to be corrected if anyone knows better. 

Thanks John

 

By the way I meant, " now I know it's not the airport nor me "

 

I hope Asobo can fix this.

 

I know this question is not related to this airport but do you know if the morphing textures of Paris and London landmarks would ever be fixed?

 

Thanks

Carlos

[stiletto2]

1.1.0 Update for LSZB is now available on Orbx Central.  

 

[Ed Correia]

Thanks to Massimiliano for taking on the feedback and addressing much of the feedback!