I made a previous post about this before, but it seems like when taxiing the 777 I find that I need to keep the N1 at least 23.5% or more to keep the plane moving, and the plane will keep gaining groundspeed. But, lowering the N1 any less will eventually slow the plane down to a stop. There doesn't seem to be much middle ground and it seems that I always have to keep adjusting power to have it at the right speed. How realistic is this? The reason why I'm asking this question is two fold.

 

1)  I was recently talking with a person who was both an FO on the 747 and a captain on the 767 during his career, and he said that you could taxi both planes on idle power once they started to move. I know the 777 is a different plane but you would think that you could do the same with it once it starts to move.

 

2) I was on a 777-200ER going from Tokyo to Singapore not too long ago, and we taxied what seemed to be on idle in Tokyo. We were crawling because of all the traffic on the ground. If I tried this on the PMDG 777 the plane would eventually come to a stop. It seems like it would be hard to keep it at a speed of 10 kts or less. 

 

Maybe its an FSX limitation with the coding on how the plane interacts with the ground, but could anyone chime in who knows how the real B777 taxies and how it compares to the PMDG 777? From what Ive experienced on the plane and from what I've heard something doesn't seem to be quite accurate.  

It's mostly related to the FSX coding of how ground friction works. There are many posts regarding your question (check also NGX forum - long discussions there). Some simmers even try tweaking FSX files or aircraft.cfg to reduce the friction effect. Sadly this has some unwanted side effects on the airplane behavior.

 

Also you should note the RW 777 when fully loaded and fueled will require some thrust to keep it moving. Another RW fact missing from the FSX is the RW runways/taxiways in 99% of the cases have some incline, decline, humps etc. Those play major role into what pilots are using as thrust to move their planes around the airfields.

One thing to note; some pilots are more aggressive and power hungry than others. Some like to add near or more than 30% N1 to get moving - others like to slowly increase until she starts moving. 

So basically, with the 77X, we simulate the more agressive and power hungry pilots :lol:

On a heavy load I find the PMDG 777 needs some power and I am going from idle and thrust and back to idle.  On light loads I can taxi idle thrust with a nice tail wind.  It's hit and miss I find.  I had the greatest taxi with it tonight actually.  

 

I've tried the FSUIPC friction mod but didn't like it so I removed it. 

I taxi at up to 25 kts, and have no problem managing the speed.

The 777 is a very powerful aircraft, so at lighter loads (< 500,000 lbs) she becomes sensitive to power setting. Try taxiing her empty - idle is sufficient.

I'm in the "slowly add power" camp, which works well. I only go to idle once I have a reasonable taxi speed. It takes a little practice, but finding the correct constant thrust for taxi is pretty easy.

When I say "slow", I mean 0.1% N1 every couple of seconds. She is VERY sensitive to thrust lever position at the low end.

Best regards,
Robin.