777 first beta impressions

[JaneRachel 515]

Gang,

 

Capt Randazzo has kindly lifted the restrictions of those of us in the beta group to share our views of this wonderful aircraft with you! By his good grace, we have been allowed to discuss whatever we wish about the aircraft and be honest with our views. So none of us are writing paid infomercials here

 

Yet, I say wonderful completely genuinely. From the moment you enter the virtual cockpit you will find yourself immersed like never before. At first glance you might be tempted to think that with the familiarity of gauges such as the PFD and ND, that this is just a very big NGX. You would be VERY wrong. The 777 complexity is in a whole different ballpark to the NGX. Its an order of magnitude more complex. Does that mean that the aircraft is hard to fly? No, all of that complexity translates to making life easier for the pilot. An intelligent overhead panel, interactive checklists an autostart procedure and much much more. PMDG have modelled the whole thing in complete ENTIRETY!!

 

As Deputy Editor of PC Pilot magazine in my day job, people often ask me "how realistic is aircraft x". So, I will head that off at the pass right here. There is no weather radar, there is no Electronic Flight bag and of course electronic communication with ATC is not possible. Those things aside, everything and yes I mean EVERYTHING in the aircraft conforms to Boeing manuals and further than that, conforms to how this bird actually flies. There has been a lot of work done by the team to recreate the whole performance and flight responses of the aircraft. Personally, I find that the 777 flies more fluidly than the NGX, everything seems more realistic in the handling and that is saying something considering the work of art that is the NGX! You will not be disappointed with how she flies!

 

The guys at PMDG have the support of a  number of very clever 777 pilots and engineers who know this aircraft inside out, from every perspective. They have been through this aircraft with a fine toothcomb. How accurate are those systems, from the fly by wire to hydraulics pressures to landing gear heat dissipation? Let me just share a little secret, in the last month alone there were over 800 suggestions from the tech team to push that realism even further to reach the apex of what can be achieved in FSX. All of those suggestions have seen fruition in the beta plane I am privileged to be flying today. Rest assured that every last detail of this aircraft, every nook and cranny has been recreated with such incredible precision. I was impressed with the 737NGX, with the 777 I am blown away, seriously! Every last detail has been taken care of, and every detail of those little details!

 

There is just so much to discuss. I am open to your questions and I will try and post some screenshots later today.

 

Let me leave you with a little snippet of info on the sounds, Yes, we have all heard sounds when you press a button on the overhead etc, how about that sound changing depending on where you click the overhead button or the pressure of the mouse. The whole aircraft is organic, you will never hear the same sequences of sounds twice, that includes the engines that may be just that bit quieter or whine that little bit more depending on atmospheric conditions. This is not an aircraft of looped canned sounds, the whole aircraft responds to you as a pilot and how you treat her. From every cockpit click to those enormous engines you are not going to be hearing cut and paste sounds but an evolving, living breathing soundset that responds to you!

 

JaneRachel

[SpeedBird219 183]

what is life?

[Kerlix 99]

+1

[HerzogKraut 3]

Just wanted to say thank you, for this preview!

[JaneRachel 515]

Just wanted to say thank you, for this preview!

 

no problem, just working out how to upload images to share with you all

[stretch1365 40]

Hi Jane,

 

Great to hear that the 777 is just that little bit nearer for us all.

 

So with all the details you mentioned in your above comments would you give this a Just Flight Platinum award..............Just joking, like I need ask.

 

Interested in any comments you might have with regards the 777 running on average performance systems.............My PC manages the MD11 well and the 737 flies ok but with lower frame rates, A2A and Carenado it does great, even the Dash 8 Q400 is good............But with all these details packed into the 777, what kind of performance can I expect to see?

 

I'll probably still buy it though and hope it works well, looking forward to reading any more comments you might have.

[kaspern83 77]

Thank you for your post

[JaneRachel 515]

 

 

Non Normal checklist for an autothrottle failure

 

 

16 categories of non-normal checklist, each menu item spinning off in to further checklists for just about every eventuality.. The checklists are interactive too! responding both to pilot input and onboard sensors which monitor aircraft status

 

[InTheAir 44]

Thank you for the post, look forward to seeing your screen shots.

 

*EDIT.. I see them and wow! Thanks for posting.

[JaneRachel 515]

Hi Jane,

 

Great to hear that the 777 is just that little bit nearer for us all.

 

So with all the details you mentioned in your above comments would you give this a Just Flight Platinum award..............Just joking, like I need ask.

 

Interested in any comments you might have with regards the 777 running on average performance systems.............My PC manages the MD11 well and the 737 flies ok but with lower frame rates, A2A and Carenado it does great, even the Dash 8 Q400 is good............But with all these details packed into the 777, what kind of performance can I expect to see?

 

I'll probably still buy it though and hope it works well, looking forward to reading any more comments you might have.

 

Dave, as always everyone is going to see varying mileage depending on their systems. I am running it in Windows 7 on a new i7 Imac and seeing stunning frame rates. You know yourself though, that all hardware is different, so there is no definitive answer I can give. What I can tell you is that the 777 has significantly increased frame rate performance over and above the NGX. The guys continue to really find ways to optimise with every release. I can say that all the testers who have reported performance so far are finding it is beating the NGX hands down. I kid you not! By quite a margin too! Again, I drop in the disclaimer about different people with different hardware, but across the board all the testers are seeing better performance.

[EGLL77W 1,508]

Great read, Jane. I'll write one in a few days  ^_^

[Hirdy2013 104]

Wow! Bring it.

[JaneRachel 515]

I should point out too, as this is a really great feature:-

 

I was concerned (before seeing the aircraft) how easy would it be to use all those checklists, using the little joypad thingamajig that they have in the 777. I need not have worried. If any of you wonder how all this works, I can allay your fears. Whenever you mouse over the checklist screen the mouse cursor changes to the checklist cursor and you can just point and click at checklist items!

 

It is really clever because if you have another display on that display unit it acts just like a regular screen, ditto if you move the checklists to another display rather than the lower display, such as replacing the ND with checklists. The bottom line is that wherever you put the checklist screen, it automatically uses the new cursor feature when you mouse over. Click dead centre on the screen and it pops-up can be resized and still maintains the checklist cursor when it is in the screen region!

[tcas_climb 45]

all this seems too good to be true lol

[squerble 300]

I'd be curious to hear your impression of 'weight' when you're at heavy/max take off weights.

 

How do you find performance after a 14 hour flight? The "OOM" is obviously a big concern in the community (personally, I've never had one) and blasting a 14 hour flight could cause issues. Do you run any add-on scenery?