Airport Rescue and Firefighting Update (RFFS)

  • After a packed few weeks for the content team, we are pleased to announce the release of the UK Airport update to the community. I wanted to give you all a little insight into what the update is as it's not the same as any other Missionchief game. A large majority of the missions created will be POI based, so keep an eye on the requirements of any new missions.

    Expansions

    An airport expansion will be available in fire stations and police stations for the purchase of the following vehicles.

    Vehicles

    Fire

    Major Foam Tender (MFT) - this is the main firefighting vehicle used at medium and large sized aerodromes

    Rapid Intervention Vehicle (RIV) - a small airport firefighting vehicle used at small aerodromes

    Rescue Stairs - an optional unit that is used for the largest aircraft type (Code F / Cat 10 - I will explain below) - an Aerial Appliance will fullfil the requirement if you do not wish to purchase Rescue Stairs

    Airfield Firefighting Command Vehicle - typically a 4x4, this vehicle is used for medium and large airports as a point of communication for aircraft incidents - fulfills the role of an ICCU

    Airfield Operations

    A new division within the game; purchasable at fire stations or police stations and are required for incidents involving medium or large aircraft.

    Airfield Operations Vehicle - responsible for the safety of the airfield and attends all aircraft related incidents

    Airfield Operations Supervisor - oversees the airfield and is a point of escalation for Airfield Operations so will attend aircraft incidents

    Police

    Armed Cell Van - an Armed Response Vehicle capable of transporting a prisoner. Purchasable only with the airport expansion.

    Ambulance

    Medical Cycle Responder - essentially an RRV, but on two very small wheels

    Medical Equipment Trailer - used at aircraft crashes, should fulfill the Mass Casualty Equipment requirement (TBC) - available at fire stations

    Aircraft Incident Categories

    Aircraft Accident

    Essentially, the aircraft has crashed - either on airport or off airport. Could have the potential for a very large number of casualties depending on the severity and aicraft category. Some may not have so many.

    Full Emergency

    Emergency services on full standby as an inbound aircraft has an emergency which may pose a danger to life.

    Aircraft Ground Incident

    An incident that happens to an aircraft... on the ground. Essentially the emergency was declared while the aircraft was not in the air. There's a huge variety of things this could relate to.

    Local Standby Ground

    I'm not sure if I will use this yet or not but essentially this mobilises external services to a Rendezvous Point (RVP) as they may be required at an incident airside.

    ICAO Aerodrome Reference Codes

    In layman's terms, this more or less categorises aircraft by wingspan. This determines the emergency service response we have decided for missions, as well as other factors such as passenger count - so if you see this in the title of a mission, it gives you an idea to the size of the aircraft. I've given some examples of capacity and aicraft types so if you wanted to look up some photos of each one then please feel free.

    Code A - <15m - typically twin engine turboprop aircraft - up to ~8 seats (Beechcraft King Air 200)

    Code B - 15m to <24m - large turboprop aircraft or small jets - up to ~19 seats (de Havilland Twin Otter / Gulfstream G450)

    Code C - 24m to <36m - narrowbody airliners - up to ~240 seats (A320 family / 737 family)

    Code D - 36m to <52m - small widebody airliners - up to ~350 seats (767 family)

    Code E - 52m to <65m - large airliners - up to ~450 seats (A350 family / 747-100 to -400)

    Code F - 65m to <80m - super large airliners - up to ~600 seats (A380 and 747-8 only)

    While aerodromes also have a number associated with the code, for simplicity we have omitted these and simplified it to Small / Medium / Large. This is what we will base our missions on. This can be restrictive for a number of airports, but I'm sorry there's no way round this without making the game too complicated - sometimes we have to sacrifice some realism for playability. It's a game after all. The following table outlines which of the above aircraft codes will typically be present at what types of airport.

    There's a little bit of info on this link if you want to read it. You really don't need to though as I've explained it above. If you do read it, try not to overthink it too much as it may not make too much sense to someone outside of aviation - https://www.skybrary.aero/articles/icao-…-reference-code

    Some examples of aerodrome sizes are as follows;

    Small - Shoreham (Brighton City) (EGKA), Sywell (EGBK)

    Medium - Southampton (EGHI), Edinburgh (EGPH)

    Large - Heathrow (EGLL), Gatwick (EGKK), Manchester (EGCC)

    Hopefully this post isn't too overwhelming. I've tried to keep it simple but also provide the necessary basic information so it's not all completely alien. If you're still unsure then I'm sorry I can't have explained it better in this one post. We hope this update is worth the time we've put into it but it's been very challenging juggling real life and making a pack that's realistic but playable. All feedback is welcome and I'll be doing some tests over the next few weeks to see if anything needs tweaking. It's possible that some things we asked for altered or weren't implemented for a variety of reasons.

  • Any issues please report them here as normal. Lots more missions will be coming, we have all just been pressed for time IRL.

    Hopefully you can see how hard the team has worked on this pack. What was supposed to be a “small” content pack that was put to us in between SAR, I personally feel is now quite the decent update.

  • I've not tested out the airport bits and bobs yet but is this update still making use of POIs?

    It does. Unfortunately there is no way around this. I have spoken to the devs about overhauling it as they aren’t too happy with it either but it’s not going to be an easy change due to it being a Legacy feature.

    just one thing: worked for 7 yrs in an airport.

    It's called airside ops.

    This pack has been designed by people who currently work in the industry and in the relevant fields. You can rest assured that it’s realistic.

  • This pack has been designed by people who currently work in the industry and in the relevant fields. You can rest assured that it’s realistic.

    Then it's not called everywhere the same :)

    And these 2-3x HART base reqs?....

    Not to mention 2x arff extns. Lots of the medium airports has 1 station :/

    But the HART... i dont know who's got in his/her area more than 1 base.

  • It does. Unfortunately there is no way around this. I have spoken to the devs about overhauling it as they aren’t too happy with it either but it’s not going to be an easy change due to it being a Legacy feature.

    This pack has been designed by people who currently work in the industry and in the relevant fields. You can rest assured that it’s realistic.

    I don't really mind it I just didn't see anything on it in the update thingy so wondered if it had been changed lol

  • Any comments, thoughts on these?

    Ref HART: London Ambulance Service, South East Coast Ambulance Service, South Western Ambulance Service, Welsh Ambulance Service & Scottish Ambulance Service all have at least 2x HART Bases, and many players cover more than just one county, service area or even country.

    Ref ARFF: Most smaller airports only have one station, but most players will cover more than one airport. In the SWAST area for example, there's Bristol, Exeter, Bournemouth, Newquay, St Mary's to name a few, plus RNAS Yeovilton, RNAS Culdrose & Plenty of small airstrips, heliports could also be simulated with this update.

  • The HART and ARFF requirements aren't hugely mental to be fair, I started in Aberdeen - by the time a player is considering doing airports you'd at least be covering ABZ, RAF Lossiemouth & Dundee airport - as well as a HART base in Dundee, and Aberdeen (Inverness too)

    However maybe it is a fairly regional thing, let's just say I don't wanna be the guy in bloody Barra airport :D

  • Ref HART: London Ambulance Service, South East Coast Ambulance Service, South Western Ambulance Service, Welsh Ambulance Service & Scottish Ambulance Service all have at least 2x HART Bases, and many players cover more than just one county, service area or even country.

    Ref ARFF: Most smaller airports only have one station, but most players will cover more than one airport. In the SWAST area for example, there's Bristol, Exeter, Bournemouth, Newquay, St Mary's to name a few, plus RNAS Yeovilton, RNAS Culdrose & Plenty of small airstrips, heliports could also be simulated with this update.

    Fantastic. Then its only me who choosed areas awfully badly :/

    This update is not for me it seems :D

  • With regards to the Aviation Firefighting Extensions and Airfield Operations Extensions, we are looking to get these reduced to one each as it's (I believe) only Manchester and Heathrow that have two fire stations - and any airfield with a seperate Operations building will have just one as there's not the demand for more. As for HART, that will remain as it is. The vast majority of airports in the UK have two HART bases within a reasonable distance so we have had to cater for them rather than the very very few that are near none or one. I'm sorry to those that this doesn't quite work for - I suggest either coming up with a workaround, or sadly leaving out those little airfields in the middle of nowhere.

    I won't have time to properly test this until the weekend at the earliest as I'm very busy with work - although some people may call this a busman's holiday. I know this update isn't seamless - but we have worked on a short timescale and with a language barrier between ourselves as subject matter experts and the developers who actually have to put our words into code and then release out to you guys.

    I will do my absolute best to answer every question and query in due course if I can.

  • With regards to the Aviation Firefighting Extensions and Airfield Operations Extensions, we are looking to get these reduced to one each as it's (I believe) only Manchester and Heathrow that have two fire stations - and any airfield with a seperate Operations building will have just one as there's not the demand for more. As for HART, that will remain as it is. The vast majority of airports in the UK have two HART bases within a reasonable distance so we have had to cater for them rather than the very very few that are near none or one. I'm sorry to those that this doesn't quite work for - I suggest either coming up with a workaround, or sadly leaving out those little airfields in the middle of nowhere.

    I won't have time to properly test this until the weekend at the earliest as I'm very busy with work - although some people may call this a busman's holiday. I know this update isn't seamless - but we have worked on a short timescale and with a language barrier between ourselves as subject matter experts and the developers who actually have to put our words into code and then release out to you guys.

    I will do my absolute best to answer every question and query in due course if I can.

    Newcastle is not a small airport in the middle of nowhere.

    Just sayin' :D

    Ok... maybe in the middle of nowhere, but still not small :)

  • We can’t make content that works for 100% of players. The majority of locations in the UK have at least two HART bases. Ultimately it is the players choice to choose their play area, if they play realistically or not, and if players want to play realistically then they should build HART bases further away. For example for my setup I can have HART travelling 150 miles to jobs because they are the nearest team and I have bases way outside of my coverage area. Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Luton, Manchester, Glasgow and Edinburgh are the main airports in the UK and all of these have sufficient resourcing around them to makeup all the requirements. Other airports outside of those listed, it will be down to the individual players to work out how they want to proceed and if they want to build the airports

  • We can’t make content that works for 100% of players. The majority of locations in the UK have at least two HART bases. Ultimately it is the players choice to choose their play area, if they play realistically or not, and if players want to play realistically then they should build HART bases further away. For example for my setup I can have HART travelling 150 miles to jobs because they are the nearest team and I have bases way outside of my coverage area. Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Luton, Manchester, Glasgow and Edinburgh are the main airports in the UK and all of these have sufficient resourcing around them to makeup all the requirements. Other airports outside of those listed, it will be down to the individual players to work out how they want to proceed and if they want to build the airports

    It wasnt a complaint btw.

    I dont want to build bases out of my area: i dont want to deal with the missions generated by those stations out of my patch.

    And my HART still travelling a lot even now, the only base is in Newcastle... travelling up to the Scottish border, or over to Cumbira

    could be quite a fun :)

    Not an issue, but these things now adding up: hart, CG helis, now this. You always have to wait hours for a specific unit to be available,

    and send it again to another long run :/

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