PMDG are aware chaps... http://forum.avsim.n...final-approach/

Gents-Not for nothing, but: One of the team was in the sim today checking data on a few things for the SP, and was able to verify that we may be pushing the approach idle slightly higher than it should be...We are investigating... Stay tuned...

I'm happy you quoted that most interesting part of the docs. Not exactly on topic here, but:

The N1 reference speeds are at the same thrust lever resolver and thrust lever angles for all engine thrust ratings and airplane models. These are the N1 reference speed names, the thrust lever resolver angles (TRA), thrust lever angles (TLAs), and reverse lever angles (RLA) (note: the angles are in degrees):

• Maximum reverse thrust (8 TRA, 104 RLA)
• Idle reverse (24 TRA, 62 RLA)
• Idle (36 to 38 TRA, 0 to 2.4 TLA)
• Maximum climb (72 TRA, 44 TLA)
• Maximum take-Off/go-around (78 TRA, 52 TLA)
• Maximum certified thrust (82.5 TRA, 58 TLA).

You can see TRA angles in engine BITE input monitoring pages on the CDU. See the training information point pages in this section for more information on input monitoring pages.The EEC calculates the commanded N1 speed based on the position of the thrust levers with respect to the N1 reference speed thrust lever positions. When the thrust lever is between two N1 reference speeds, the EEC does a linear interpolation to find the commanded N1 speed.

As we all know, there's this "issue" where the levers would actually move forward a bit during approach idle operation. BTW as you may have noticed they do the same when you slam them forward all the way, as they'll always come back a bit. I still propose: As the devs might very well be able to control their animations (thrust levers) in a completely custom manner, and they are also able to read hardware input before FSX via SimConnect (joystick/thrust lever), I'd still like to see my hardware position 'mapped' to the VC animation during manual flight.The approach idle issue would require a "remapping" of the full thrust lever control range, I suppose, that's probably the key aspect. What I mean is, e. g. a "zero" TLA corresponds to a higher actual thrust (=approach idle). But the lever shouldn't move, as indicated in the manual excerpt above. Idle, no matter which one, is at 0-2.4° TLA. Max TO/GA is always at 52° TLA, no matter what actual N1. See, that's what I mean with "remapping". Say G/A thrust was 98.5, and you're in approach config, so approach idle is active. Now what I would like is a mapping of "approach idle - GA thrust" on the thrust levers from "0 to 52" degs TLA.Same with different numbers, say GA thrust is 101.4 and we're in clean config. Still, the thrust lever positions are the same, namely full aft (0°) and GA thrust (52°), but now we need to map those different N1 numbers to these thrust lever positions. And obviously do the interpolation in between, also as indicated in the manual. Does that make sense? A bit hard to explain, yet I hope I get my point across. I think I just said what the manual says anyway. But it would be more than cool to have it in the add-on that way as well. I'd dearly hope for such functionality in a future SP. Yes I reckon it won't be SP1 however...

There are tables, few also on maintenance manuals, containing all the values of N1 setting for each temperature, flight phase and fligt conditions, in maintenance manual there are values referred to static, on ground, thrust at default thrust lever positions. These values are referred to ISA temperature, and must be corrected for external temperature. The tests includesidle, 60, 65, 70 and 75% of N1 (referred to ISA 15°C) with the respective values for all the range of temperature. These tests are made to check EGT for example so the tables includes also maximum egt values for each temp.It is clear that to simulate an engine that uses a lot of inputs to give a N1 value pmdg needs to have access to a lot of tables, and must then simulate them, but all things maybe needs more CPU power, probably too much.They can hopefully try to estimate a trend of N1 change in some conditions, it is far to simulate it exactly.