Aircraft like the 737 are of course meant to be operated by 2 people, not 1. When systems are modelled comprehensively, this makes the workload very high when you are trying to do it all yourself - almost twice what it is in real life.

 

I'd like to put in a shameless plug for FS2Crew - solely as a satisfied customer. This will give you an automated co-pilot who shoulders a lot of the load as well as checking most of what you're doing, based on real-world airline cockpit procedures.

 

You'll do less actual button pressing and instead focus on the most important items involved in actually flying the aircraft as opposed to operating its systems in the wider sense. Flying the NGX will become more difficult and easier at the same time - in a good way I think.

 

http://www.fs2crew.com

 

Their support forum is here http://forums1.avsim...-support-forum/

 

For the 737NGX, FS2Crew can be controlled either by button presses or directly by your voice through a microphone.

 

There are a complete set of YouTube vids here - http://www.youtube.com/user/frooglesim - there are a couple of things I'd say about the first, which I have watched:

 

1) There are long gaps in the start-up procedure. Provided you are ready to move on yourself and you don't do it while the FS2Crew panel is saying "Wait" because the FO is busy, you can advance the clock as required to speed things up.

 

2) The videos are based on a pre-set tutorial. In reality, you'll have a bit more to do in setting the fuel load & flight plan for your specific flight, working out the reduced thrust settings [if you want to use them] etc etc, so the gaps will be taken up by stuff you need to do as Pilot Flying.

 

3) If you use the FS2Crew pre-flight button, the aircraft is reset to standard cold & dark state. From there, you don't need to go through every single item of the Boeing PF flows if you don't want to and don't mind cheating a bit. There are several flow/checklist user documents out there which list only the essentials - and much shorter they are too.

 

4) This is probably the best set of vids I've seen, covering a whole flight, but there are a lot of options in FS2Crew which aren't covered - e.g. starting with external air instead of the APU, taxi-ing with the flaps up if there is snow on the ground, go-around procedures etc etc.

 

5) For those that want an even fuller experience, FS2Crew are working on an emergency procedures add-on to the NGX which will allow the co-pilot to do his part in the case of engine failures etc. There isn't a release date yet.

 

PS I see I'm not the first to recommend FS2Crew for NGX!

I had my fair share of hot starts and blowing engines during take-off! :D It didn't make it any easier that the developer had absolutely nada support for the product.

Don't worry, I can feel your pain on the engine stuff. The Maddog forums sum up some (user) tips on how to handle the throttles and the startup procedure. This may very much be a handling problem only, just speaking from my personal experience.

 

The throttles are motor driven but there's no FADEC preventing the worst stuff, so some hardware throttle may well override the auto-setting (especially after 'clamp'), leading to 100% commanded thrust whereas the engines can't handle that value. The engine instruments flash, then you hear the bing from the gen switch tripping and fly single or zero engines. :lol: I'm using that smiley because that is a very common situation.

 

The starts often are a problem of too low pressure being available to start the engines. So really check that gauge on the overhead before commanding any start attempt. As said, the forums should list some of those to-watch things. On the pressure gauge, that's page 30 of the tutorial if you like.

 

As for the remaining bugs, fully agreed, there currently isn't much drive to rule them out. Well, that state is there for longer. :mellow: Nothing stopping you from flying pretty detailed though.

 

For the folks which tried to fly her with two pilots, there isn't anything better I guess.

FS2Crew is indeed a gift from the flightsim gods! My only beef with it is that is refuses to recognize when I say "on" and stubbornly insists I say "armed" - never had this issue with the other Voice-activated FS2crew's add-ons. Personally I prefer to handle the MCP myself - I do have a hardware CPFlight MCP unit and the EFIS - and instead just say out loud what I do and get a "check" in response. Some companies have the PF handling the MCP and others let the PNF do it. For some reason, what I like most about FS2Crew is the "cockpit to ground"-bit :D I could happily be pushed back all over the apron all day long! :D

 

Don't worry, I can feel your pain on the engine stuff. The Maddog forums sum up some (user) tips on how to handle the throttles and the startup procedure. This may very much be a handling problem only, just speaking from my personal experience.

Absolutely related to the operator (except when I couldn't move the fuel levers anymore). Getting an engine out during take off when participating in a MASSIVE fly-in at KLAX on Vatsim certainly raised the pulse! :D

I read that the rule is that if the PF is flying by hand, the PNF sets the MCP according to voice commands from the PF.

 

If the autopilot is engaged & the PF's hands are free, then the PF sets the MCP him [her] self.

Well thanks for your "initial impressions"!, you do know its been out for around a year and talked about a lot....a hell of lot within the last year.

 

Anyway Glad you like it and make sure to get FS2Crew addon for it.

 

Kind of hard for it not to by "My Initial Impressions" since I only got it yesterday :rolleyes:

Hello,

 

What will the difference be between PFPX and tools like AivlaSoft EFB?

 

PFPX/FSBuild are preflight planners.

Afaik Aivlasoft EFB is a moving map display that interfaces with FSX as you fly.

Another very nice utility for creating routes that you then export to PMDG and load as COROUTE, is Vroute. Your really don't use it to put together a route from scratch, but it has a giant database of routes OR you can, as I always do, pick a route from Flightaware and let Vroute assemble it. It gets the real weather that it incorporates into a flight card and also does fuel calcuation. Also, if you fly on VATSIM it brings a ton of very handy features! What controller is online, where do I find charts, what flights are operated in real life on this specific route etc.

PFPX/FSBuild are preflight planners.

Afaik Aivlasoft EFB is a moving map display that interfaces with FSX as you fly.

Aivlasoft EFB also has a flight planning capability as well, and it uses AIRAC. There are a plethora of tools these days. I suppose PFPX gives the combined options on a Take/Off Landing Perf. calc tool and flight planning.

Aivlasoft EFB also has a flight planning capability as well, and it uses AIRAC. There are a plethora of tools these days. I suppose PFPX gives the combined options on a Take/Off Landing Perf. calc tool and flight planning.

 

Aivlasoft can't export flightplans into various 3rd party aircraft, such as PMDG, Level-D, Feelthere, Wilco, etc.

FSBuild and PFPX can do that.

Hi,

 

First off, thanks for buying our baby! I'd like to try to address/comment on a few of your points if I may...

 

After weeks of reading posts and reviews of the PMDG 737-NGX, I took the plunge and bought it. I should have known something was different with this add-on when the download file is over 600mb :o . I was also concerned when the manual recommended installing FSX in its own directory. I have FSX installed in its default location and frankly have no intention of re-installing it as well as a bunch of other add-on's just to run one plane regardless of how good it is so I ran the install as an admin, crossed my fingers, and hoped for the best.

 

A large percentage of the download size is from two pieces of the product:

1. having to include 4 different visual models

2. having to include a worldwide terrain database for the EGPWS

 

The actual systems/gauge stuff is pretty small by comparison to those two items.

 

On the install location, the problems aren't specific to PMDG products but they tend to affect ours more readily because we write to a lot of external files - the options inis, the saved state files etc. FSX.exe and any another code that runs under its process name (which our products do) can be prevented from getting the proper file access permissions (write access is usually the issue) if FSX is installed in the default location on Windows Vista or 7 (and presumably 8).

 

The reason for this is that FSX was coded before those OSes were released and it doesn't "play nice" sometimes with the way all the post-XP versions of Windows handle security and permissions. The Program Files and Program Files (x86) folders get "protected" in a sense and there's specific ways the Windows team outlined for programs to request certain permissions from these OSes - FSX was never updated to fully support these methods and that's why you can see problems. Using the "Run as adminstrator" command usually solves the issues, but for whatever reason certain systems aren't helped by doing it. Custom made folders like C:\FSX, D:\FSX or whatever else you choose as long as it's not within Program Files or Program Files (x86) don't have this protection stuff on them and we've found it alleviates these problems. That's the more complete explanation for why we make that recommendation... If you ever find yourself needing to reinstall FSX, I'd highly recommend putting it in its own folder. No need to do it in the absence of other reasons to do so if everything's working properly though.

 

The install was pretty painless until I started FSX and was asked for an "Activation Code". That was another ##### moment as I can't recall ever being asked for that in any of my other FSX add-on's. After locating the code in one of the emails I got from PMDG, it was off to the races.

 

Anything by FSDT has this type of registration thing in-sim, Flight 1 requires you to essentially do the same thing during the install process and so on. Don't think we're doing something all that unusual here - I wish we didn't have to do it, but we do need to have some level of anti-piracy/sharing stuff in the product or people will go hog wild on the sharing sites with it. (speaking from past experience)

 

Loaded up the NGX and took a look at it. First impressions of the exterior is that its not very impressive, at least not to the level of the hype surrounding it. It was very nice, don't get me wrong but it didn't do anything for me at all.

 

Not sure what to tell you here - the model is built off the actual Boeing engineering diagrams, the textures are based on an absurd number of photos of the real aircraft (photos taken on a survey trip by us with a high end DSLR camera and lenses, not from aviation site photos) and the textures are the highest resolution (4096x4096) that the FSX engine allows. Can you be more specific as to what you think is wrong with the model?

 

The manuals are quite impressive. Very detailed and containing quite a bit of information. It'll take me days to digest it all. I loved the fact that the manuals come with 2 sample flights that take you through the systems on the plane on each step of the flight. This is something thats missing from other developers, especialy those that produce complex aircraft (are you listening Eaglesoft?). I suspect it'll take me less time to get to grips with the basics of the NGX's FMS due to that documentation than I did with the CX 2.0.

 

As the writer of the tutorial flights I'm very glad you liked those!

 

Problems? None so far. She's a bit heavy on the frame rate but after seeing the level of detail in the cockpit, I understand why. I'll be playing around with my scenery settings to find one that gives a good compromise on the frame rate in VC mode with decent detail levesl on the scenery. Is it worth the price? I'm on the fence here as I just got it and am still learning about it. One thing is certain though, its very well done. B)

 

Look into the cfg tweaks mentioned in the manual and look into overclocking your CPU if you're not doing it already. Those are the two biggest things.

Tabs,

 

Thanks for the response. I'm quite happy to hear from a developer, especially since I'm not complaining about something not working :lol: .

 

I do understand why the load size was so big, it was just so unexpected as I'm accustomed to aircraft downloads being under 100mb or so. I should have been more clear on the activation process. What I was surprised about was not that it had one, but where the activation key was requested. I've never been asked for a key when loading a plane in FSX as its always requested during the install process as you rightly indicated.

 

The looks of the aircraft are a bit subjective. It could be my system so don't take it personally. Besides, this is FSX and not Flight so all my flying is done from the VC which is pretty much perfect even though it was a bit overwhelming at first to get to grip with.

 

The manuals are pretty much faultless as far as I can see and really should be an example of other developers of aircraft add-on's that require managing so many systems. I'm running FSX on a laptop so overclocking is out of cards until I build a new system but as I'm getting over 20fps, I can't complain too bad.

 

My biggest issue with this add-on, funny enough, is not with the add-on but with trying to figure out how to enter routes it will accept without any problems. :rolleyes:

 

I can tell you one thing. For the past two days, I have not flown my two all-time favorite planes, the RealAir Turbine Duke or the freeware P180. That's never happened before so kudos to you and the PMDG team B)

 

Now, if I could only remember to press the ALT INTV button when I changed altitude selections........

Aivlasoft can't export flightplans into various 3rd party aircraft, such as PMDG, Level-D, Feelthere, Wilco, etc.

FSBuild and PFPX can do that.

I thought they fixed that and it does now do the PMDG format? Personally I never import them, as I like inputting my route manually. Keeps me busy in preflight while the FS2Crew co-pilot is setting up. :lol:

EFB is not great for actual flight planning, but nowadays with so many routes available on the internet, you don't really need to do it anyways. So basically, Aivlasoft EFB is fine by itself as long as you can find a real world route from somewhere. You will only really need FSBuild etc if you are doing a flight for which you can't find any route. There are some other benefits for using FSBuild like fuel planning, but I must admit, I very rarely bother to use FSBuild now instead of a real world route and Aivlasoft EFB.

Aivlasoft can't export flightplans into various 3rd party aircraft, such as PMDG, Level-D, Feelthere, Wilco, etc.

Not a current statement it seems. The export works fine since months and if there was a problem on the format or on special items, please feel free to report it to the support forums. :smile:

 

Here are the current formats being supported. You can define folders, naming conventions and so on, as you like. Tested with all the devs you've mentioned and more. :good:

 

If there was a wish or strong need for more handlers, I guess the best way to post them was in the support forums again. If there is some data on the format and syntax needed and if the plane/gauge dev reacts to emails, chances are high that it will be added.

 

I often get my routes from Vatroute or SimRoutes, import them to EFB and then export them from there to the formats needed. Since the two suppliers are already built right into EFB, that's a short mouse action.

 

For the planning itself on own routes, I guess FSC and FSBuild are still best. Or some websites doing this for you, including the fuel calcs.

My biggest issue with this add-on, funny enough, is not with the add-on but with trying to figure out how to enter routes it will accept without any problems.

 

That's a problem for all of us I'm afraid, whether we're flying PMDG or anything else. Most of the high quality FMC's use the Navigraph payware navigation database. The problem lies in finding a route planning method that uses the same up-to-date data.

 

The site I use to get routes is here: http://vataware.com - use the Top Routes facility. It's not guaranteed correct but it is current data from the last 12 months, so it's OK more often than not.

 

Failing that, you need a proper route planning tool of you own e.g. FSBuild [unless anyone has a better suggestion].

I was also concerned when the manual recommended installing FSX in its own directory. I have FSX installed in its default location and frankly have no intention of re-installing it as well as a bunch of other add-on's just to run one plane regardless of how good it is so I ran the install as an admin, crossed my fingers, and hoped for the best.

 

Just about every man and his dog recommends installing FSX anywhere but the default location. I have it installed in the default location, and it runs fine. Well, apart from the screen freezes when trying to run complex payware planes and masses of super detailed addons at the same time.....but I don't think that has anything to do with where it's installed.