737 PIC Evolution - October release?

[Chock 17,769]

the (PMDG) product is approved by Boeing.

Just keep in mind the following... ''We were awarded 'official' Boeing status after a long and successful relationship with Boeing as a licensed partner. Working with Boeing means that their support to us will be reflected in the quality of the product we offer to our customers. The Boeing presence will accompany all of our products in the future whether it is placed on our packaging or sitting by the side of our products during download. It is both our assurance of good quality and Boeing's commitment to the licensing program.'' Which FS aircraft developer website is this from? Nope, not PMDG, that's a quote from the Ariane Design website, whose 737 NG is also approved by Boeing. In my opinion the Ariane 737 is actually pretty good, not as good as the PMDG one in terms of systems accuracy, or the iFly one for that matter, but I'm sure you will agree that does tend to indicate that Boeing approval alone is no guarantee of absolute fidelity to the real thing, since there are two other FS NGs out there which most would agree enjoy more fidelity to the real thing than that officially approved Ariane one. The truth is, if you look on the Boeing website online store, you can buy an officially approved Boeing manicure set, an officially approved Boeing coffee mug, an officially approved Boeing shopping bag, and an officially approved pair of Boeing cycling shorts, and no, I'm not making any of those up! That doesn't mean I don't think the PMDG NG is great, it most certainly is, but the shine kind of wears off that official Boeing approval when you see that it's not quite as exclusive an accolade as you might imagine. Al

[ubersu 78]

Just keep in mind the following... ''We were awarded 'official' Boeing status after a long and successful relationship with Boeing as a licensed partner. Working with Boeing means that their support to us will be reflected in the quality of the product we offer to our customers. The Boeing presence will accompany all of our products in the future whether it is placed on our packaging or sitting by the side of our products during download. It is both our assurance of good quality and Boeing's commitment to the licensing program.'' Which FS aircraft developer website is this from? Nope, not PMDG, that's a quote from the Ariane Design website, whose 737 NG is also approved by Boeing. In my opinion the Ariane 737 is actually pretty good, not as good as the PMDG one in terms of systems accuracy, or the iFly one for that matter, but I'm sure you will agree that does tend to indicate that Boeing approval alone is no guarantee of absolute fidelity to the real thing, since there are two other FS NGs out there which most would agree enjoy more fidelity to the real thing than that officially approved Ariane one. The truth is, if you look on the Boeing website, you can buy an officially approved Boeing manicure set, an officially approved Boeing coffee mug and an officially approved pair of Boeing cycling shorts, and no, I'm not making that up! Al

Not to mention the official Boeing coffee cup - I don't have that one, but I do have one from Lockheed...

[Chock 17,769]

Yup, I'm trying to get an updated airac cycle for my officially approved Boeing cycling shorts, but it isn't working for some reason. Al

[Chock 17,769]

Back on topic however, it'll be interesting to see how this one fares in the approval stakes after release when compared to the less than stellar approval ratings the Airbus Evolution received from many. I certainly hope it's more in the mode of some of Wilco's other stuff, such as their rather cool VTOL Harrier and RJ airliners. Al

[audiohavoc 24]

Just keep in mind the following... ''We were awarded 'official' Boeing status after a long and successful relationship with Boeing as a licensed partner. Working with Boeing means that their support to us will be reflected in the quality of the product we offer to our customers. The Boeing presence will accompany all of our products in the future whether it is placed on our packaging or sitting by the side of our products during download. It is both our assurance of good quality and Boeing's commitment to the licensing program.'' Which FS aircraft developer website is this from? Nope, not PMDG, that's a quote from the Ariane Design website, whose 737 NG is also approved by Boeing. In my opinion the Ariane 737 is actually pretty good, not as good as the PMDG one in terms of systems accuracy, or the iFly one for that matter, but I'm sure you will agree that does tend to indicate that Boeing approval alone is no guarantee of absolute fidelity to the real thing, since there are two other FS NGs out there which most would agree enjoy more fidelity to the real thing than that officially approved Ariane one. The truth is, if you look on the Boeing website online store, you can buy an officially approved Boeing manicure set, an officially approved Boeing coffee mug, an officially approved Boeing shopping bag, and an officially approved pair of Boeing cycling shorts, and no, I'm not making any of those up! That doesn't mean I don't think the PMDG NG is great, it most certainly is, but the shine kind of wears off that official Boeing approval when you see that it's not quite as exclusive an accolade as you might imagine. Al

I could be wrong, but I don't think any of the other 737 developers for FSX have had the access that PMDG had to Boeing documentation during the development of their products. Also, the documentation that comes with the 737 NGX is far and above any other 737 developer.

[Chock 17,769]

Oh I agree, the PMDG NG is indeed a tour-de-force of FS developement for sure, I'm merely pointing out that an 'officially approved' stamp is not necessarily an indicator of that kind of developmental expertise in itself, and may indeed be for another reason entirely. Fact is, most FS model aeroplanes that are sold commercially require the developers to seek some kind of official approval for several reasons beyond merely the promotion of its fidelity to the real thing. For example, check out the Lockheed Electra you get with First Class Simulations' Around the World in 80 Flights add on for FS. If you look on the back of the DVD box for that, you'll see that it has been officially approved by Lockheed Martin, and that's not because it's a super-accurate model which flies just like the real thing, but rather because the Electra model which comes in that add-on has the Lockheed logo appearing on the FS model's textures. Aircraft manufacturers are picky about that kind of logo use without approval, and in the case of the Electra, that's the old logo on an aeroplane that has been out of production for about 72 years! So it just goes to show that they won't even let that kind of thing go even when its depicting stuff they don't even make any more. Al

[audiohavoc 24]

Oh I agree, the PMDG NG is indeed a tour-de-force of FS developement for sure, I'm merely pointing out that an 'officially approved' stamp is not necessarily an indicator of that kind of developmental expertise in itself, and may indeed be for another reason entirely. Fact is, most FS model aeroplanes that are sold commercially require the developers to seek some kind of official approval for several reasons beyond merely the promotion of its fidelity to the real thing. For example, check out the Lockheed Electra you get with First Class Simulations' Around the World in 80 Flights add on for FS. If you look on the back of the DVD box for that, you'll see that it has been officially approved by Lockheed Martin, and that's not because it's a super-accurate model which flies just like the real thing, but rather because the Electra model which comes in that add-on has the Lockheed logo appearing on the FS model's textures. Aircraft manufacturers are picky about that kind of logo use without approval, and in the case of the Electra, that's the old logo on an aeroplane that has been out of production for about 72 years! So it just goes to show that they won't even let that kind of thing go even when its depicting stuff they don't even make any more. Al

I agree, licensed does not mean accurate. Anyways, I hope this remake of the 737NG is good. Unfortunately for me though, every Wilco/Feelthere product I have purchased has given me strange stutters that I do not get with any other add-ons, which is a real shame because I have the 737, E-Jets, and ERJ products, but don't use any of them because of this issue.

[777 340]

I don't understand how being a VA person means the NGX has no use for you? There are many real world and virtual airlines operating 737 NG's. I fly the NGX for www.swavirtual.com.

Simple the "VA" I fly for uses the classics 733/4, I understand there may be other va's that use the NGX but im not joining a new va just because they use the NGX. I think i'll wait till PMDG release the 777.

[Benjamin J 751]

I agree, licensed does not mean accurate. Anyways, I hope this remake of the 737NG is good. Unfortunately for me though, every Wilco/Feelthere product I have purchased has given me strange stutters that I do not get with any other add-ons, which is a real shame because I have the 737, E-Jets, and ERJ products, but don't use any of them because of this issue.

Yeah, that's what I'm a bit afraid of also. I'm not sure why, but Wilco/Feelthere stuff has given me some strange performance issues and stutters that I don't get with any of my other planes. I was too lazy to try and identify the problem, knowing that I have so many other planes to fly and I anyway don't really like Embraer aircraft (just not a fan of their design, is all).

[Sawyer 0]

Yeah, that's what I'm a bit afraid of also. I'm not sure why, but Wilco/Feelthere stuff has given me some strange performance issues and stutters that I don't get with any of my other planes. I was too lazy to try and identify the problem, knowing that I have so many other planes to fly and I anyway don't really like Embraer aircraft (just not a fan of their design, is all).

Same thing I got with the Airbuses. I noticed when using them the frame rate would jump all over the place, sometimes jumping into the 100s then back to 20s I would think it's down to bad optimization on the developers part.

[Tim_Capps 474]

Good point about the performance. For some reason the Wilco 737 is the biggest frame hog in my hangar. I don't understand why a graphically lush product like Captain Sim's 727 gets better frame rates than the largely 2-D VC that the Wilco 737 has. That will be the thing I am most interested in hearing about.

[audiohavoc 24]

I narrowed the shutters down and discovered that they only happen when I make control inputs on my Saitek yoke and pedals. Never did find a fix for it.

[Chock 17,769]

Good point about the performance. For some reason the Wilco 737 is the biggest frame hog in my hangar. I don't understand why a graphically lush product like Captain Sim's 727 gets better frame rates than the largely 2-D VC that the Wilco 737 has. That will be the thing I am most interested in hearing about.

That's almost certainly because the Wilco PIC 737 (in its older FSX form) is not a native FSX model, but a port-over from FS9. In spite of that it runs okay for me, but it can be an issue on some set ups, but in any case is not ideal from a development standpoint, and a native version would be less troublesome. Presumably it will have evolved into a fully-native FSX bird now with this upgrade, which should sort out the frame rate issues people have, with a bit of luck. Frankly, so long as they sort out the slightly naff exterior model of the original and tart up the VC a bit, that'd be fine with me, since features-wise I think it is okay, and it actually has a pretty good flight model already. Some people appear to have short memories where that is concerned though, forgetting that for a long time this was widely considered to be one of the best FS airliners you could get, which is true, because it was indeed. Al

[Benjamin J 751]

Such memories are usually marred by bad products following. In this case, the Airbus volumes, for the other planes aren't that bad. Regarding Wilco, though, I'm rather suer the support stuff also weighs in. They never had a good name to begin with, and sadly Feelthere is dragged down along with Wilco because of their long unclear relation with Wilco.

[Chock 17,769]

I've been on the receiving end of some less than stellar support from Wilco once, and it was when I was doing a review for Avsim too: When I was reviewing the Áviation and Mission add-on for the Wilco PIC 737 (which is excellent by the way, and one of the plus points for the PIC 737 in that it has so many dedicated add-ons for it), I was having difficulty reinstalling the Wilco 737 since I wanted it on a clean FSX install, and of course you need the actual 737 itself to use the add-on, so I'd contacted Wilco to confirm serial numbers for the PIC 737, but they could not find a record of my purchase even though I'd given them dates times etc that I'd bought the thing. They did eventually locate my details and then did believe me when I said I had actually bought the thing, but it took them a few days to do so. I must admit I found all that a bit odd considering the whole point of me trying to reinstall the PIC 737 was so I could review their new related product for it, which of course helps its profile and presumably sales as well (unless it would have sucked as a product and got a bad review), so it was definitely in their interest to help me and was thus somewhat weird that they were not quite as helpful as I'd expected them to be given those circumstances. Of course it was all sorted out in the end, I got it installed and did the review, but in comparison to most other devs you speak to when reviewing stuff, it definitely could have been handled better than it was. I certainly don't expect special treatment for being an Avsim reviewer, but I did expect them to get on the case a bit quicker than they did do for a paying customer, which I was for the Wilco 737, it was no freebie review copy. In fairness, that's the only time I've ever had an issue with a Wilco product and I've bought plenty of them, including the new RJs just the other week when they were on special offer in the Avsim store, but I know others have experienced difficulty with the slightly nebulous nature of who it is that offers the support for Wilco/Feelthere stuff. Al