PMDG review on Flightsim.com

[Guest Macs]

Oh my GOD. I just read the review..."Clearly, the FMC isn't up to the standard of addons supplied by Wilco, PSS or Flight1..."He is kidding right? I mean, the DF734's FMC is a joke, PSS dont even have the capability to enter routes in their 747/777 and the airbus dont have an FMC-it's a MCDU!UGH! The only FMC around which can supercede the PMDG FMC is that of WILCO'S(really WELP eh?) 767PIC, and PMDG are nearly there...I'm surprised, Andrew Herd is usually pretty good.JohnP 2.53 GHZ512 RAMWINXPGFORCE 4 128MB Ti4600http://homepage.eircom.net/~eamonnmca/images/logo_ba.JPGwww.bavirtual.co.uk Senior Captain Simflight.com Staff Reviewerhttp://vatsim.pilotmedia.fi/statusindicato...tor=OD1&a=a.jpg

[Guest wee_davie_2612]

>He is kidding right? I mean, the DF734's FMC is a joke, PSS>dont even have the capability to enter routes in their 747/777Considering that both the PSS747 and DF737 are both originally FS2000 aircraft there is no surprise that the new ones are more advanced.>and the airbus dont have an FMC-it's a MCDU!Talk about nit-picking, it's close enough for most!It's nice to see how open everyone is to a review round here...if the review isn't singing the praises then it, and the reviewers, are sent to hell in a handbasket.Nice one guys keep up that open mindedness :-rollDavid

[crvm 0]

Oh boy David, I see you took the minor point of John's post to respond eh? Let me see here, everyone except you agree that there are some bigger mistakes than just calling something a CDU insted of a MCDU. That someone is claiming to be fair and balanced and has some pull in the flight sim world needs to know what they are talking about (737 NG Aircraft) before putting out such a review. You think it's nit picking when the guy does not even understand LVL CHG and gives this miss-taken view on his review to unweary readers? I don't think it was Andrew but nonetheless to put such an incompetent reveiw based upon such miss-information is in very bad taste. [h4]Best Wishes,Randy J. Smithhttp://img.villagephotos.com/p/2003-8/196432/winglets_lg.jpg [h3] AMD XP 2200 |MUNCHKIN 512 DDR RAM |ECS[/b ][i] K7S5A MB[/i] |GF2 MX 32 MEG and still runs GOOD!|WIN XP PRO |MITSUBISHI DIAMOND PLUS 91 19"[/h3]

[Tabs 2,790]

The PSS Airbus MCDU itself isn't bad at all - the problem is that the plane doesn't follow what it's telling it to do half the time! There's serious problems with some of the psuedo waypoints disapearing etc - I've pretty much given up trying to get the managed NAV mode to control speed correctly in the descent etc. The 747/777 are old and I hope the reviewer wasn't trying to compare those because they surely don't have the features that any of the newer ones have. (you can't even enter airways into the RTE page on them for instance)I'm pretty confident after a couple more patches and surely with the 800/900, PMDG is gonna have a PIC-level FMS. Hopefully AVSIM's review will be done by someone actually familiar with how the Boeing AFDS/FMS actually works. I won't deny that the NG has some issues that still need to be addressed, but this guy really shouldn't have been reviewing this product.Ryan

[MartijnPleines 0]

To be fair, most if not all of the stuff that doesn't seem quite right was written by his co-author, Kris Hislop, who did the FM, FMC and avionics part. I'm puzzled, since it would seem he had flying training, yet in the stall, he describes how he keeps pulling back on the stick, never unloading the wings? Surely NOT the way to recover from a stall???One thing I can wholly agree on is Andrew's verdict on the ND. It IS absolutely beautiful-the way that exquisite, thin Pos Trend Vector is curling round in turns! I was stunned when I first saw how smooth that is, and once the linedrawing bug gets fixed, that ND will truly be perfect!Martijn

[Tabs 2,790]

Oh, and absolutely no issue with HDG SEL - I couldn't duplicate the reviewer's issue at all with CMD disengaged - the roll mode still drove the FD.Ryan

[Guest tmetzinger]

>Hmmm, we seem to have trouble locating the SAVE LSK after>activating and executing our route eh? And in seeing the CO>ROUTE LSK on the RTE page, haven't we?Well, unless you happen to have a REAL Boeing 737 FMC user's guide (mine's by Bulfer), you'd never know how to retreive a stored flight plan. I was frustrated by this until I dug out the FMC manual and figured it out.Frankly, a lot of the misconceptions in the review can be traced to the frankly poor documentation that comes with the product. This is NOT a complaint - I'd rather have the product as is than an inferior product with better docs, but for someone new to heavy iron, the docs given leave a LOT to be desired.As I said, it was a mostly fair review.-Tim Metzinger

[Guest Macs]

Dave, you should know that I wrote a review for Simflight.com on the PMDG737NG. Read it. Then come back to me and tell me I can't stand to see the NG get criticised.You're right on one thing though, the PSS747/777 was developed for FS2000. And so was the WILCO 767PIC. Ah...but that's..that's PIC! Well, the author(s) of the review put the PSS747/777 in the same class as PIC767. Downright outrageous!JohnP 2.53 GHZ512 RAMWINXPGFORCE 4 128MB Ti4600http://homepage.eircom.net/~eamonnmca/images/logo_ba.JPGwww.bavirtual.co.uk Senior Captain Simflight.com Staff Reviewerhttp://vatsim.pilotmedia.fi/statusindicato...tor=OD1&a=a.jpg

[Guest OneTinSoldier]

Hi Tim,Agreed. As I said, much, if not most of the review was pretty good. If they wanted to know how to SAVE and IMPORT a saved FMC flight plan, they could have asked here. But they did say 'there seems to be no way', they didn't flat out say 'there is no way to do it'. But the more I think about it, they should be raked over the coals for the full wing stall bit. Several others have pointed out what they found to be discrepencies too, but I still thought it was pretty good. :)Regards,Jim Richards

[Guest wee_davie_2612]

Hey Randy,>Oh boy David, I see you took the minor point of John's post>to respond eh? And what exactly was the major point, could you please clarify it for me? As far as I could see it was a post purely to slag off the reviewers.>Let me see here, everyone except you agree that>there are some bigger mistakes than just calling something a>CDU insted of a MCDU. Maybe I'm reading this wrong, are you saying that the PMDG 737 does infact have more serious problems than a miss named FMC in a review? Would that not make the review a more accurate report of the product.Also I can neither agree nor disagree about the models' glitches as I don't have the product. I was considering getting it but was hanging off to see what the community had to say before parting with my cash, I'm glad I did considering that these issues have come to light.>You think it's nit picking when the guy does not even understand >LVL CHG and gives this miss-taken view on his review to unweary>readers?No, I think it's nit picking when a reviewer is blasted for making a small error over the name of a management computer. Also I'm sure if people want to find out the true function of LVL CHG mode they can read up on it using the product manuals. For the use in a review I'm pretty sure that most peple will not mind this error, all they have to know is that this mode changes the planes altitude. I don't think it's of any consequence if those "unweary readers" don't know if the autopilot gets to that altitude through the use of one set thrust value and pitch changes to maintain the climb speed or if it uses a fixed pitch and varies the thrust... just so long as it gets there. >I don't think it was AndrewCorrect, it was the other reviewer who wrote the flight performance review.David

[Guest wee_davie_2612]

>Dave, you should know that I wrote a review for Simflight.com on the>PMDG737NG. Read it. Then come back to me and tell me I can't stand>to see the NG get criticisedNot quite sure what your talking about, I never criticised the product at all, and would not as I don't own it. I criticised the way people in this forum reacted to a not-so-shining review and then blamed the reviewers for citing an opinion and for making some minor mistakes.>And so was the WILCO 767PIC. Ah...but that's..that's PIC! Well, the>author(s) of the review put the PSS747/777 in the same class as>PIC767. I don't own 767 PIC so I can't make a comment there either.David

[Guest Ray CYYZ]

It is kind of funny that he is complaining that PMDG went with Richard's free navdata (you know, the very same data used by PIC and FSBuild and ...)/sarcasm onGee, thats it, scrap the plane for using a database format that allows people to use all their other FS goodies and implement something that doesn't work with anything else so we can all start writing more converters and complain that PMDG doesn't support navdata and we can't upgrade our AIRAC cycles!!!/sarcasm offRay

[crvm 0]

David, No issues with you on the other aspects of the review. But when part of the reveiwer's opinion for the overall product is based upon these wrong ideas (LVL CHG, AUTO-LAND etc.) it gives everyone who does not know a very slanted picture. I feel that needed to be addressed. I hope you see my point here, flightsim.com has a lot of people who visit and will read that review and some who will base there opinion upon what is said about the flight dynamics, that's fine if it's fair but as you can see there is more involved here.[h4]Best Wishes,Randy J. Smithhttp://img.villagephotos.com/p/2003-8/196432/winglets_lg.jpg [h3] AMD XP 2200 |MUNCHKIN 512 DDR RAM |ECS[/b ][i] K7S5A MB[/i] |GF2 MX 32 MEG and still runs GOOD!|WIN XP PRO |MITSUBISHI DIAMOND PLUS 91 19"[/h3]

[rsrandazzo 6,353]

Captains-I'm probably the last one around here with any expertise on reviews.... :-lolKris Heslop, (the fellow who wrote the flying portion of the review) is a pretty decent fellow. I've exchanged a few email with him and he seems like a pretty bright chap. I don't know Andrew from anywhere....There are a number of factual inaccuracies, (minor mistakes, neither of these guys would make errors intentionally, mind you) in the review- as well as some severely outdated information. But there was also some strong points- and even a few keen observations!I was exchanging email with Kris on this tonight- and I mentioned to him that it was amusing for me as a developer to see Kris and Andrew get caught in the "knowledge/technology trap."As reviewers, neither Andrew or Kris have much experience flying an airplane of this type- so they set out to do a "review" based on their past experience with other MSFS addons and Kris' real world flying experience.When either make observations of a behavior that they believe not to be correct- they add it to their review... If the behavior is actually correct (but they do not know it) then they find themselves in the same "box" as most addon developers. Namely: How do you accurately model the behavior of a sophisticated machine when 99% of the usres will never have touched the cockpit door of the real thing?That is just they way the market works... You can't hold that against either of them!Personally I would have liked to see less discussion about stall characteristics (given that MSFS doesn't model the top/bottom edge of the flight envelope very well for swept wing airplanes!) as most users aren't using the product to practice stalls in a 737...and maybe less discussion about the "state of the add-on market." I'd like to have seen more discussion about the meat and potatoes of the airplane: how it handles....what makes it a good add-on for a user interested in systems, avionics, etc. Some highlight to the fact that while we charge more for the initial product- we do provide free access to a few dozen liveries and a paint kit....But then again- I'm not a reviewer...so my wishes can only be voiced.Not much different than a reviewer who wishes PMDG had done a few things differently with the 737....It's a small, circular world! ;-)So don't be too hard on them... They are good fellows who try hard and aren't correct 100% of the time. Just like all of us here at PMDG- and just like (most) everyone else here in the forum! ;-)

[Guest]

Hello AllIt looks like Andrew and I stirred up quite a hornets nest of opinions, I will try to answer as many of the posts as I can and try to be as objective as possible in doing so, I'm sure I will get the odd post in reply that tells me that I am ignorant and the like and that is fine, everyone is entitled to their opinion in the same way that I am. I would like to say before I start, thankyou to Robert for such a diplomatic post. Firstly who am I? Well I'm a type rated F27 F/O with about 600hrs total time of which 300 is on type. I have logged hours in a variety of types including Beech Kingairs, Aztecs, navajo's etc and also in sims such as the F27 (for my type rating and proficiency checks), L1011-100/500 Tristar and B737-300 and 700. I have worked in the Ops department in a major airline prior to my flying career and dealt with the operation of 14 B737-300 aircraft and 4 A300B4-200 aircraft (all of which are now Cat3 for All Weather ops). My simming experience covers a few thousand hours having started on FS4.0 and continuing from there. OK so that my experience level for those in any doubt. down to the posts:Randy, My humble apologies for having a lacking in understanding of the LVL CHNG mode, I was actually in the VNAV mode and the LVL CHNG mode works as you described it. I would however point out that I was trying to see the aircraft and systems from the viewpoint of an average sim user and not from the point of view of a type rated B737-700 driver. I have enough technicalities about the F27 to worry about to have the time to wade through the tome of FMC manual to actually find all the technical details. The average simmer will not have access to most of this technical data so how would the average simmer have such an in depth knowledge? I am happy to admit I was wrong about what mode I was in, an event that happens to many type rated guys and has been the cause of many accidents. The up and down of it is that relaisicly anyone who reviews this product is not going to have a B737NG type rating and so will only have manuals and sim experience to go on, if you are an exception to the rule then feel free to contact Nels Anderson at Flightsim.com and write an 'Op-ed' to the contrary of any points that either myself or Andrew have made.Mats,In any All weather ops that involve an Autoland, the second channel must be engaged otherwise the autopilot will drop out prior to landing, I forget the specifics. So in an aircraft like the A320,A300,B737 etc in order to do an autoland be it to cat 2 or Cat 3 minima you would have to have both channels on line! Aircraft such as the ATR or Dash 8 only have one autopilot and are Cat2 approved, in this instance the crew must take the autopilot out and fly the aircraft when they reach descision. The discussion about how AWOPS (All Weather OPS) are conducted could be as long and drawn out as you wish if you were to look at Land2 or Land3 options as well so lets leave it there, my comment was that in order to do a proper autoland you should have both channels engaged and the PMDG B737 doesn't do this, unless I have missed something and I'm quite happy to be proven wrong.Neil,I like the term Capt. Cowboy, but alas it is not what I am. I said throttle to the firewall not to give the impression of hammering the throttles forward but in actual fact to show that I had fully advanced them to the forward position ie against the firewall, I was trying to demonstrate the fact that the N1 computer limits the N1 so you don't overtemp/stress the engines for the given conditions and that the power levers could be moved freely to the end of their ranges without fear of damage to the engines. Incidently where did you do your sim course, Oxford or CTC in Southampton?John,As the company I work for actually operates 14 B737-300 aircraft I have had many discussions with frinds who have recently converted from the F27 to the B737-300. Many of these firends bought the DF737 to get some familiarity with the FMC and while it isn't completely accurate it does a pretty good imitation of the basic operation. all of the crew I spoke to who used it said it really hepled them become accustomed to the logic and routine of the real FMC. Jim/Martijn/RobertI flew the stalls in FS02 and Andrew did the FS04 part both platforms had the same problem, if it is then PMDG have no choice but to accept that as part of the limitations of the system but I personally have never had it happen in any other aircraft. I performed stalls both recovering at the warning and also recovering below the warning, in both I recovered in the normal way (unloading the wings, nose down, power on then climb away at a sensible speed).I agree with the other posts that not everyone will want to stall the aircraft but lets look at the real world for a moment, we train for stalls in real life not because we want to go and stall the aircraft but in order to know what to do should you end up in that situation. I ended up slow and low going into Edinburgh and had it not been for the Capt intervening and bringing the speed to my attention then we probably would have stalled. So my point is that should a user end up in a similar situation he/she should be aware that if the stall goes beyond the stick-shaker/warning speed then chances are their flight will end with a fairly exciting descent followed by a loud bang! Finally Ryan,My issue with the F/d was not in CMD mode, I was hand flying and my experience is that the F/D should command a roll in the direction if the heading bug(assuming that the HDG mode is selected). While hand flying I found if I set the bug to the right then rolled left the F/D just rolled with the aircraft datum rather than commanding a roll in the correct direction. It may well me that the clockwork f/d I use in r/l is different to the one in th B737NG but I think F/D's pretty much work as they always have. On the whole we felt this was a fair review, technical errors aside. We didn't slam the product and had a lot of positive things to say about it, we felt that there were shortcomings and things that needed to be addressed but we also said that PMDG seemed to be working on this and were coming up with the goods in the form of patches as they solved the problems. The review didn't include the new mini patch as it was released the day the review was published but if there are any revisions to be made we will endeavour to do them in as fair a way as we did the original review. Thank you for your time, feel free to e-mail me any comments to boxjockey99@hotmail.com in the mean time but I am away on my annual leave till the 15th sept so please be patient for a response I will do so as soon as I can!RegardsKris HeslopFlightsim.com reviewer