Hi Mats!I know you have real 747 drivers onboard and of course no one can better judge the genuineness of the sounds in the sim but despite that I have a very hard time beliving that you actually don't hear a thing when starting the real engines. Would be very interesting to hear one of your 747 drivers comment on this personally...or any other real 747 driver for that matter!Wish I had a real 747 or at least have the chance to be in the cockpit when one is starting it's engines...and wouldn't mind staying there for the rest of the flight either for that matter...;-)

Dear Richard,your point of view is mine.Andrea

Mmmm... Maaaats... your pearls of wisdom are really full of significance and usefulness.Andrea

Hi I`am a bit pressed to comment on this one because although I`am on the beta team I`ve just moved house and am busy unpacking boxes,between going away for several days at a time,one of which contains my flight sim rig.So I`ve not flown the PMDG for a number of weeks,and cant quite remember the start up sounds.But I don`t remember anything jumping out at me during testing.The start sound from the real flight deck is very muted,Its one of those sounds that is only there if you listen for it,and even then only very quiet during the spool up.Normally the sound of the aircon,air traffic and the ground engineer in your head set drown it out.I wouldn`t pay too much attention to the DVDs because when the sounds get amplified a bit and don`t sound very much like gthe real flight deck.I`am back driving the real one tomorrow,I`ll make a special effort to try and listen for any start noise.sorry not to be of more help,should have my sim rig up and running again soon.regardsJon

Hi Jon,Thanks alot for taking time comment on this and I'm very much looking forward to hear you comment further on this!I'm also looking forward to hear your comments when you have you rig set up again so you can compare what you will hear tomorrow in the real thing from what you will hear in the sim when starting the engines. You say that the start sound is very muted and only there if you really listen for it but that's exactly what I've been trying to do in the sim and I'm sorry but I just can't hear anything at all...maybe should pay a visit to a doctor and let him check up my hearing ;-)Also another thing I find a bit strange considering what have been said on this subject, in the sim you can clearly hear the engines shutting down...how come is this sound so clear when you don't hear a thing when starting the engines?Again, thanks for your reply Jon - really appreciate it and looking forward to hear from you again!

Also on the topic of cockpit sounds does anyone else think the spoiler sound is a little over the top?? I'd suggest it's almost impossible to hear them when deployed in flight. Can I remove the sound manually?-Paul :-)

Its the changing pitch you can hear,so as the engines shut down quicker than they start the sound is more noticeable-I guess.Again I`ll try and listen out tomorrow,but as I remember the sim didn`t strike me as being unrealistic in the sound department.In fact I was talking about the sim only yesterday to a fellow capt and PMDG user,and one of his favorite features was the increase in wind noise as you accelerate on flap retractionregardsJon

OK Jon, that's interesting and thanks for sharing your knowledge from the real Queen!

Paul,with regard to the spoiler noise,this was talked about before on the old forum.Its true you wouldn`t hear the noise of the spoiler as such but what you can hear,and the sim recreates this quite well is a low pitched rumble which is partly from the airflow but also caused by the shaking of the aircrafts interior parts.Jon

Listened closely right now on the external sound (in spot view) when the engines are spooling up and in that view you can at least hear them but even there I think the volume is very low. And when it comes to the external sound from the engines at startup and taxi, I DO know what the real sound is like because I often go to my home airport (ESSA) and watch the Thai 747-400 depart for Bangkok on Sundays. Actually I watched her t/o a couple of hours ago and she's beautiful, what an amazing a/c!! :-) And no problem with the sound there, that's for sure...;-)

Alrighty, here we go -There is an obvious reason for the silence at the beginning... anyone want to guess? It's related to our plane being different than most other FS ones.The sound cracking that is slightly noticeable is a non-issue right now because the sound does not play on the outside. This is a code issue, has nothing to do with the sound.cfg (so please don't try to manipulate it) and I will look into getting fixed.

Sounds good, thanks for looking into it Marc!

And Richard, just that you've been warned ;)On the MD-11 it is even harder to hear the engines! Two examples: Even on ground you can NOT hear ENG #2 even at TO thrust! And once inflight with packs and wind sound present you simply can NOT hear the engines between Idle and CLB-thrust!Now if you think about that don't you think PMDG might have it spot-on on their 747?Regards,Markus

Cannot hear the engine on the ground at t/o thrust, you got to be kidding me right ;-)?!

He said you can't hear eng #2 which is the rear engine. This is probably correct because ERJ-145 pilot on this forum Kevin Au stated that there was practically no engine sound in this aircraft in the cockpit no matter what thrust setting.Michael J.http://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/pmdg_744F.jpghttp://www.hifisim.com/images/asv_beta_member.jpg