PMDG 777: Miscellaneous Questions

[aceridgey 330]

Gentlemen it's been a while. Hope you're all doing well!

 

I wanted to ask a few questions I had myself but also provide a topic with all the small miscellaneous thread [i.e. not release date, and is the 777 going to be made for Fs9?] that can hopefully be achieved in one place, rather than hundreds of topics being made. If I can, I will add your question to this original post with the answer if possible.

 

 

My questions to the PMDG team/masses.

 

1) Anti Ice

The 777 has an auto-anti ice system. I was wondering with the inconsistency in drawing icing conditions within FSX, is this going to be a feature? How are PMDG modeling it?

 

 

2) EFB

Much has been discussed about the EFB in recent times, and as it stands I am unclear on the final decision regarding charts etc [which is expensive and difficult to have in the sim]. However, my question is, will a basic EFB be in the aircraft to simulate the takeoff performance pages for example? 

 

3) Early Manuals

This is a question I see all the time and not a question I am asking personally, I just want to stop the potential future dozen topics asking for this. Will electronic  manuals/tutorials be released before the aircraft?

 

A1) Helo_Head, on 12 Jul 2013 - 11:59 AM, said:

I asked a while back about pre-release of the manuals in pdf and PMDG's Robert said categorically "no", due to copyright concerns with the extensive Boeing content.

 

 

4) 777-200ER

Where is the 200er on the release schedule? 

 

5) Fs2Crew

Q) Will Fs2crew be modelled?

 

A) Yes, it will be, although we cannot estimate how long it is going to take to finalise coding and finish the accent packs, it has been in the works since November 2012. We obviously need the aircraft to release so that we can get on board with the SDK. And no, we do not get the 777 early ;-).

 

 

6) Will there be a multiplyer option to increase the rate of service based failures?

 

A) Yes 

 

 

Gents-

 

We already added a feature that will give you a multiplier effect on service based failures.  It essentially works to more rapidly increase the amount of time you are putting on the airplane by a factor of, say, 2x, 4x, 8x, etc....

 

There is no plan to allow you to manually make the airplane "a certain age" however- as this wouldn't really do much for you anyway. 

 

 

That's all I have for now, I look forward to developing this thread further,

 

 

Regards,

 

Alex

[WotanUK 289]

1. PMDG have said in the past that displaying the icing effects take precious polygons and the effects are negligible on modern jets. I don't know for sure but i'll say no it won't be visually displayed or will icing have any effect on the aircraft.

 

2. Nope. PMDG have said numerous times that they don't want a "glorified JPEG viewer". They have said occasionally it may be included later but licensing the data remains a significant problem...this may have changed and would be a nice surprise for release.

 

3. No idea, would imagine so.

 

4. In Beta testing..."only weeks away" is a direct quote from RSR, of course the heat death of the universe is also only weeks away. Don't expect any better answers on this.

 

5. Good to know, was this Q and A an advertising stunt for FS2Crew?

[aceridgey 330]

[...]

 

5. Good to know, was this Q and A an advertising stunt for FS2Crew?

 

Of course not, I don't know why you would say that but ok.

[jetsflier 87]

1. PMDG have said in the past that displaying the icing effects take precious polygons and the effects are negligible on modern jets. I don't know for sure but i'll say no it won't be visually displayed or will icing have any effect on the aircraft.

 

2. Nope. PMDG have said numerous times that they don't want a "glorified JPEG viewer". They have said occasionally it may be included later but licensing the data remains a significant problem...this may have changed and would be a nice surprise for release.

 

3. No idea, would imagine so.

 

4. In Beta testing..."only weeks away" is a direct quote from RSR, of course the heat death of the universe is also only weeks away. Don't expect any better answers on this.

 

5. Good to know, was this Q and A an advertising stunt for FS2Crew?

#4, in red, is incorrect. The 777-200ER may or may not be included. If testing and debugging continues to take a long time, they may actually place the -200ER into the base pack along with the -200LR, but that is unlikely.

 

The -200LR is the base pack. Some time after the -300ER WILL come out as an expansion pack due to it's similarity to the -200LR [same engines, same wing style, just a lengthening and weight/payload changes]

 

The -200ER is TBD really. It seems like it's likely but there hasn't been any official statement that it WILL come out. If they get enough public support for it, which enough to them could be much different considering most of their fans aren't involved in the flightsim community itself, then it will be modeled, but as I said, we're waiting for a decision.

 

As with #2, they said that it for sure will not be available at release, but it may be released later. I however am unsure of whether it will be a complimentary update such as with service packs or whether it will be an entire expansion pack itself.

[Capt. Farhadi 5]

for efb feature of charts,you can use pdfkneeboard.dll (google it) and JeppView PC.jeppview is a program that jeppesen released for actual flying and more for briefing before flight(jeppfd-ipad is for flight).in jeppview you can print-pdf charts.i have both jeppview and jeppfd in my ipad and pc and i can print pdf charts you need(if iranair let me,i will ask them to make sure its not illegal to print them for other pilots-guys outside of iranair)!then you can use 'em in your fsx using pdfkneeboard!

[Budbud 227]

They have said occasionally it may be included later but licensing the data remains a significant problem...

Sorry, my english is not good enough, what do you mean by "licensing the data"? Aren't they all in the manuals already? What would prevent PMDG from making a EFB with this data?

[WotanUK 289]

 

 

#4, in red, is incorrect. The 777-200ER may or may not be included. If testing and debugging continues to take a long time, they may actually place the -200ER into the base pack along with the -200LR, but that is unlikely.

 

Ah my mistake...I thought he was talking about the base package

 

 

 

licensing the data"

 

I don't fully understand myself, but i believe that the charts are copyrighted or require licensing before they can be used in another product.  Here in the sunny UK you can download them from free from NAT, perhaps that isn't the same everywhere, or that using them in the commercial product requires somebody to pay money.

 

 

 

Of course not, I don't know why you would say that but ok.

 

Because Alex there was no need to mention that within your questions, since you already knew the answer.

[Budbud 227]

the charts are copyrighted

Ok, now, I get it. I thought you were talking about T/O data. But talking about charts makes sense.

Thanks for clarification.

[Don t moderate me this way 882]

(...) Because Alex there was no need to mention that within your questions, since you already knew the answer.

 

 

No offence intended, Ian, I think it makes sense to include the question for all the other people who'd ask anyway.

 

Why not just add the question about other crew simulations like MCE to make the 777 FAQ look even better?

[aceridgey 330]

[...]

 

 

Because Alex there was no need to mention that within your questions, since you already knew the answer.

 

You have missed the point of my thread then. It is about answering everyone's questions not just mine .

[Boomer 1,619]

I asked a while back about pre-release of the manuals in pdf and PMDG's Robert said categorically "no", due to copyright concerns with the extensive Boeing content.

[WotanUK 289]

 

 

No offence intended, 

 

None Taken

 

 

Why not just add the question about other crew simulations like MCE to make the 777 FAQ look even better?

 

Yes then Alex wouldn't have been able to answer it.  My point is that he was asking some questions from PMDG, then at the bottom <effectively> advertised that the product he works on is under way or being developed.  I don't have any issues with that at all, i was simply making a point.

 

 

You have missed the point of my thread then. It is about answering everyone's questions not just mine .

 

No i didn't as above, if it was "everyone's questions" then why not ask about MCE as Oliver suggested?

 

In any case, i am in no way upset by this, just seemed a little cheeky tagging that onto the end.

[aceridgey 330]

I asked a while back about pre-release of the manuals in pdf and PMDG's Robert said categorically "no", due to copyright concerns with the extensive Boeing content.

 

thank you i will edit that in

[scandinavian13 5,192]

Guys, the issue is not that charts (talking about NACO - the FAA charts in the United States) require a license, it's a matter of aggregation.  The charts are provided by the government, free of charge.  The only way companies (such as ForeFlight) are able to charge you for this data is that they're providing you with the chart delivery and management.

 

Managing the charts would be a task of its own.  How are you going to get them?  You could certainly download them one-by-one off of AirNav, but you'd then need to convert them to whatever format the sim would accept (however PMDG coded it).  After your initial download of everything (which is an enormous task), you would then only need to add in and replace charts that are new or updated.  The FAA does provide a function to see this information, but again, it's quite a task to keep up with this on a...what is it...56 day chart cycle?

 

So, in order to ensure you're flying with current charts, you'd have to either do all of this yourself, or get someone to do it for you.  Most of those willing to do this for you charge money for it (and rightly so - they developed some system to get you this data for you).  This would require you to have a subscription to do this.  For reference, my ForeFlight subscription is a good $75 a year (and that program uses the free NACO charts - again, I'm getting charged for their method of getting the charts to me and managing that info for me.)

 

The EFB and the manuals comments should be (and are, as I read it anyway) separate issues entirely.

[James Bennett 52]

Guys, the issue is not that charts (talking about NACO - the FAA charts in the United States) require a license, it's a matter of aggregation. The charts are provided by the government, free of charge. The only way companies (such as ForeFlight) are able to charge you for this data is that they're providing you with the chart delivery and management.

 

Managing the charts would be a task of its own. How are you going to get them? You could certainly download them one-by-one off of AirNav, but you'd then need to convert them to whatever format the sim would accept (however PMDG coded it). After your initial download of everything (which is an enormous task), you would then only need to add in and replace charts that are new or updated. The FAA does provide a function to see this information, but again, it's quite a task to keep up with this on a...what is it...56 day chart cycle?

 

So, in order to ensure you're flying with current charts, you'd have to either do all of this yourself, or get someone to do it for you. Most of those willing to do this for you charge money for it (and rightly so - they developed some system to get you this data for you). This would require you to have a subscription to do this. For reference, my ForeFlight subscription is a good $75 a year (and that program uses the free NACO charts - again, I'm getting charged for their method of getting the charts to me and managing that info for me.)

 

The EFB and the manuals comments should be (and are, as I read it anyway) separate issues entirely.

I don't think it would be that big an issue, if you're going to use a chart, you're going to download it and print it off anyway, so putting it into the aircraft would be no more taxing than printing provided the conversion wasn't time consuming.

 

You're only downloading the ones you know you're using, it's not like manually maintaining a nav database in the FMC.