PMDG vs Real World

[Guest Philip Olson]

Hello everyone, Last night I returned home from a funeral for my sister, normally when I fly I do not go commercial but in order to ensure that all of my family members could make the trip I had to go commercial. On one leg of the trip I was in a 737/700 and after the flight I went up to the flight deck to check it out and speak with the pilots, the lady captain was very nice and started to point out the various sections of the overhead to me. I stopped her and told her what they where and she said "ok smart a$$ let's see what you've got" with a big smile on her face. They finished up their routines and the copilot left the plane so it was just her and I, I was given the left seat and she was in the right. She told me that she had some time before her next flight, I had a three hour layover, so she would show me the ropes. She walked me through her airlines normal procedures and had me perform the task, that is flip the switch, press the button, etc., of course some of it was simulated. Both she and I were amazed that I always knew exactly where the switch was and I had an excellent command of the procedures, she said that if she did not know better she would believe that I was indeed a 737 captain. At times she did not tell me what to do, she wanted to see if I could do it myself and I could. Thanks to PMDG and various tutorials I can go into a real 737 flight deck and perform the actions of a real captain, of course I was not flying it and that is a totally different beast. The captain expressed intrest in getting the PMDG 737 and FS9 because of the knowledge that I had with the 737, she was really amazed. It was nice to see just how closely the PMDG models the real world and I learned much about how the real pilots do things. I have been in many flight decks in my time but just looking is one thing, to be able to actually go through the motions was amazing. I will now be able to see the PMDG 737 in a new light, I always new that it was realistic but to actually experience it first hand opened my eyes. Thank you PMDG for this wonderful product and thanks to all of the authors of the various tutorials. I wish I could mention the airline and captain but I think that it is better that I do not as I am sure that some in the management would frown on such good customer relations. The captain and I are going to keep in touch as I will help her to get FS9 and the PMDG running well for her and she may be able to get me some more time in the real thing or a full motions sim. We hit it off as friends right away so I consider myself very lucky. Thanks again to everyone involved in making such a wonderful plane and a dream like this to come true. Philip OlsonI'm the luckiest man in the world, my girl friend has a yoke and rudder pedals! Eat your hearts out!http://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/supporter.jpg

[falcon999 24]

He gets to work with a captain on an NG flight deck, and he hits it off with HER AND his girl friend is a bigger FS person than he is. This is getting well beyond the luckiest man in the world Philip. Jealous... who me??? Naaaaahhh!! :-D

[MarkLawrence 0]

I'm extremely jealous as well Philip! Can you at least say if this was in the US, Europe or a continent??..:) A family friend why flies for SAA has also been hearing my comments on the PMDG...and who know what will happen on my next trip to SA :)..I hope that is! :)

[Guest Philip Olson]

Mark, This was in the US. I think that many pilots still love to share their love of aviation with those that have an intrest but with all of the recent rule changes it has become much harder for them to do that. I have never been turned down on a request to visit the cockpit either before or after the flight and most of the pilots will show you much if they have the time. I hope that you will have good luck on your next trip to SA, this experience was awesome and I hope you get as lucky as I did.George, Yes, I have been extremely lucky, although I need to remove that line from my signature because things did not really work out between us mostly due to my own stupidity and pride. That aside, you can not beat the chance that I had to spend all of that time in that NG cockpit! I really think that she will be able to give me many more chances to see her side of the NG. I think that I will try to document a lot of this for you all and provide some pics as well as my thoughts, if I can relay even a part of what I learn to you all I will be happy. I still can't believe that it happened, like I said normally I don't fly commercial so I should not have even been on a 737 much less get lucky enough to find a pilot who had time and the desire to share so much with me. Wow, I just got an email from her so now I know that she really is interested! Maybe I am going to have to go back to flying commercial now for my travels. I'll post here when anything happens along with the pics.Take care,Philip OlsonI'm the luckiest man in the world, my girl friend has a yoke and rudder pedals! Eat your hearts out!http://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/supporter.jpg

[victorlima01 2]

Hello Phillip, I am indeed very sorry to hear about your sister. But like they say here in my country, God will open a new door for every other one that He closes - an looks like that's what happened! Pretty exciting what you got for yourself. I have also been almost as lucky. A good friend of mine is a captain for the 737 and he'll oftem invite me some three times a year to fly the jumpseat. Since most times I frequently fly with the same crew I have come to know many pilots who respect my knowledge of that aircraft and who'll vacate their seats for a few moments during preflight and cruise so that I can "help" them a bit, with FMC and prelfight checklist stuff. I remeber the most memorable of these days when we were at cruise and I was sitting with the f/o upfront and my friend was riding the jumpseat. The f/o said he'd be using the restroom and got up and left when my friend said: "hey what are you doing? Leaving him alone like that! Wait for me to occupy his seat man!" The f/o got quite embarassed and said: "I'm so sorry, I just plain forgot he wasn't a real 37 driver and thought for a moment that he was one of ours deadheading somewhere! I mean, he can flick all 'em switches, and he was programming step-climbs and dodging CBs for Chist's sake!" Now, I'm pretty good as a private pilot with my light single-engine, but I still think of that mishap as the single greatest compliment I've ever heard. Not that I can actually fly perfectly these beauties but thanks to PMDG I have certainly impressed a few.I said I was almost as lucky because my friend is male and gladly we never hit it off :)So I guess I owe a lot to PMDG as well!Cheers, Victorhttp://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/800driver.jpg

[falcon999 24]

Sorry Philip, I read your post to fast. I am also very sorry to hear about your sister. My condolences to you and your family. Also sorry to hear about your relationship, she sounded pretty special.On a positive note, good to hear that the NG Captain is staying in touch. Seems like there could be further opportunities! :-)

[Orlaam 306]

Sorry about your loss http://instagiber.net/smiliesdotcom/contrib/lynx/bluesad.gif

[elprim 10]

PhilipVery interesting post. I often wondered how close are those who mastered PMDG to real flying. Can you or maybe some real pilot tell us what are the major systems in the real 737 that are not modelled by PMDG but are crucial for flying and so we would not be able to proceed with the checklist? I mean I suppose we could not really fly 737 having just PMDG-knowledge, could we?I remember I saw in the virtual cockpit some additional buttons/switches on the overhead panel, above those shown in 2D view. What are they for? There must be lots of other important things in a real cockpit we - the simmeres - are even not aware of.ThanksNeven

[rquick 19]

Philip,What a thrill that must have been. I'm sorry it had to be during such a difficult time.As for piloting a real NG...I guess if you were in one at FL350 and the crew passed out and there were no other actual pilots on board, a PMDG simmer would probably have the best chance of getting it back to earth. At least you would know what the help folks on the other side of the radio were talking about (the way Philip surprised the captain).Beyond that it would probably be insulting to a real NG captain to think you could approach there expertise by flying a sim.Nothing wrong with dreaming however...Bob

[Ken Pryor 0]

Philip,First, let me give my sincere condolences on the loss of your sister.Next, I wanted to thank you for posting this very cool story. I don't have the PMDG 737 (yet) but hope to get it soon. It's very interesting to read how much information you've learned about the real thing by using the sim version and it's a real tribute to PMDG as well.KP

[Guest Philip Olson]

Thanks to all for your condolences, I do appreciate it very much. I think this experience really helped me to feel better about my sisters passing. I will tell you that I was shocked when the pilot told me that I probably could fly the NG without too much problem, with my knowledge of the systems and my real world flight experience. She said that handling a 737 is much easier and more stable than the smaller planes. I think that my real world flight time puts me at an advantage, I am not sure how one would do if they only had simulator time. Anyway, as a pilot she was not insulted at all that I may hold close to the knowledge that she has about operating the NG, but then again there may be other motives at work. :-) Well at least I could competently perform duties in the cockpit during a calm time, could I do them with the loss of the crew? Who knows, but I stand a pretty good chance, far more than anyone not familiar with the NG's systems. In answer to what is not on the PMDG NG, well the IRS is not on the overhead, the switch and gauge for the oxygen, the leading edge devices panel, and there are a few pages in the FMC that are not in the sim. There might be a few other things that I did not notice or I forgot but just about everything is in the sim. I was really impressed at just how close the PMDG bird was to the real thing though. I have to say that I agree with PMDG's decision to leave those parts out of the overhead, I like the readability of the overhead and I am sure that would have decreased if they had modeled more of the items on the top of the overhead. Yes, I would have liked to have all of that stuff but I am happy the way it is. If anyone is interested in what I really have learned through this, well, I want more time in a real 737 NG cockpit!!!!!! :-)Take care,Philip OlsonI'm the luckiest man in the world, my girl friend has a yoke and rudder pedals! Eat your hearts out!http://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/supporter.jpg

[Mats_J 2]

Neven,I'm not a real pilot but will give you my two cents worth anyway! ;-)To my knowledge there is no major system not implemented in this package to fly the NG. Some might say that the IRS is needed for flight but once you've switched two buttons and entered the current position in the FMS it's a setup-and-forget system. Unless anything unusual happens. And this is where the really big differences would show between a simmer and a real-world pilot.As far as I understand there is little difference between the PMDG NG and the real-world NG while everything is normal and in automated flight. When the #### hits the fan though... That's a completely different ballgame.We have some real-pilots frequently visiting the forum; Brad Marsh from down under and Kris Heslop from the Queen's island are two of the most active. The aft overhead panel contains backups to several systems as well as the IRS and LE annunciator panel which displays the position of the respective leading edge device.Cheers,

[Guest tmetzinger]

>Beyond that it would probably be insulting to a real NG>captain to think you could approach there expertise by flying>a sim.As someone mentioned earlier, as long as all systems were functioning properly I think any pilot could hand fly a 737 with out much difficulty - see my description of flying a 737-200 full-motion sim at http://www.metzair.com/images/flying/ATOP/index.html. i've done some flying in a -800 sim as well, and the airplane feels like a heavy Cessna 206.Where the real-life pilots have all the knowledge that we wouldn't (and lots of practice) is in the abnormal and emergency procedures. I've got no doubts that I could take off, fly, and land an NG. But I wouldn't want to handle an engine failure.

[rquick 19]

"Where the real-life pilots have all the knowledge that we wouldn't (and lots of practice) is in the abnormal and emergency procedures"That was pretty much what I was thinking about when I wrote that.Also that I was on a real flight last month and on approach into O'Hare the plane (a 757 in this case) was getting blown around pretty severely and seemed like we didn't break out of the clouds until just before touchdown. And it really sruck home that there is little or no room for errors in such real life situations.I also want to clarify that I would bet most of the avid simmers that check in and post here a lot could no doubt master the skills of being an actual NG pilot if givin the opportunity and proper training.

[JSACKS 0]

Phil:First, condolences of your loss. It is always a difficult one to bear. Sympathies.Next, great stuff and well done! But I for one am less than surprised because UNITED Airlines expressed much interest in and admiration at the AVSIM Denver conference for how much we "armchair" pilots had learned at our desktops. For my own part, I was nevertheless somewhat amazed at how we were in fact able to pilot the level D sims competently and I did only a small amount of cockpit control clicking and twiddling compared to what you did. Nonetheless, I departed from the conference and the level D sim reasonably confident that we had learned a lot and learned it well and probably could fly a real airliner if we had to do so.I've been spending time in heavy hand-flying FD mode on the NG and now that I am truly getting it better, I can say it feels just like the UNITED sim ! I am most impressed--and encouraged.I've been on several real world flight decks on the ground and in the air, and I've yet to meet a captain or FO who doesn't take notes on FS after I've explained who I am and what I do for my "second job" (!)I do agree, also, that PMDG has produced a thoroughly stunning piece of work and the systems aspect of it in particular is extraordinary and remarkable. Many thanks to them and hats off too.Well done once again and keep feeling good about it. It's well earned and well-learned.Jonathan