The NGX Experience

[Yoda967 23]

No, no pictures. Sorry. Just a story.Flew from KLAS to KSAN this afternoon. We started from the executive terminal, sitting with the forward passenger door open for some time while I set up the FMC. We had ground power, ground air, and a ground air conditioning unit hooked up, but the door open on a scorching day in Las Vegas made it just plain hot in the forward part of the aircraft. We don't usually think of stuff like that in the sim.It took about ten or twelve minutes to taxi all the way across the field to the departure end of runway 28R, and with the engines running at barely above idle, the hot cabin only got hotter. Sure enough, climbing out, I got a master caution light. A quick scan of the overhead panel and there they were, two orange annunciators: duct overheat.It seems silly to refer to a checklist for this kind of thing. You turn the temperature down, right? But, to be on the safe side, I did refer to the checklist, and yes, that's the fix. Turn the temperature down and monitor the temps to make sure they go down. They did, after a while.Now, I have my NGX Failure Module set up for "Service Based Failures", which gives you mechanical reliability that's based on the actual airplane's Mean Time Between Failures, so I know that things can go wrong at any time. I checked the Failure page on the CDU, and to my surprise, this was not a programmed failure. It's just a normal part of the simulation.See, the temperature at KLAS when we took off was 39^oC, so leaving the door open for a long time while we were on the ground didn't help the air conditioning situation in the cabin, and leaving the temperature controls set to AUTO apparently won't cut it during the Las Vegas summer.I'm pretty sure that my passengers were plenty happy to get themselves and their soggy clothes off the plane in San Diego. Next time, I'll make sure I pay closer attention.

[Guy014 9]

Great story. Even flying the C150s outta here at 30C is a pain! I guess that's just another taste of how close the simulation can get to reality. Now I can't wait until the winter when the main passenger door won't open because it's been iced over!!

[Efussander 0]

Thanks a bunch for the story. This will be amazing! Take Care!

[Ruben1123 0]

That level of detail sounds like so much fun!Is the flight attendant who yells at you to keep the window shades closed and airconditioning vents in full simulated? You know, on those super hot days.

[NoahBryant 26]

These are the kind of posts I love. We've seen plenty of screenshots and videos, but stories like this really make me excited for this plane. Thanks for sharing.

[Tabs 2,790]

The duct overheat happens all the time in the summer at places like PHX or LAS - ask any SWA pilot about it!

[Jeff_B 8]

As someone said above - this is going to be a heap of fun as well as challenging. Going to be every bit worth the wait.

[ryanbatc 12,857]

I realize the NGX (the sime version) wasn't build for this, but I'm hearing about all this uber realistic stuff. Is it possible to get in a go without worrying about the cabin temp? When I say get in and go I don't mean C172 firewall the throttles... I realize I need to program the FMS, etc.

[Ruben1123 0]

I realize the NGX (the sime version) wasn't build for this, but I'm hearing about all this uber realistic stuff. Is it possible to get in a go without worrying about the cabin temp? When I say get in and go I don't mean C172 firewall the throttles... I realize I need to program the FMS, etc.

That's an interesting question, but PMDG's initiative is to make it as real as possible. I think that rather than avoiding these naturalistic failures, you take time to learn them! It just makes it that much more fun.

[ahsmatt7 1,199]

I realize the NGX (the sime version) wasn't build for this, but I'm hearing about all this uber realistic stuff. Is it possible to get in a go without worrying about the cabin temp? When I say get in and go I don't mean C172 firewall the throttles... I realize I need to program the FMS, etc.

Im sure you can. Not only does pmdg make extremely realistic aircraft simulations, they realize that some people want to have a little trimmed off tbe edges. That being said, i would wager to say that pmdg will have an option to where failures wont ever happen.

[SWA737 0]

Love this. Thanks for sharing. Can't wait to get my hands on this.

[Guest acezboy561]

Whats better than pictures/videos? This. Thanks alot, shows how detailed this plane is!

[frank1223 4]

Great to hear this from the 744 cockpit.

[WernerR 0]

Thank you! It's the small things like this that makes me really look forward to this bird :(

[Lenny 5]

Excellent story, thanks for sharing.