I-fly 747-8 just released.

[Nyxx 6,993]

1 hour ago, jalbino59 said:

Edit: I almost forgot, my initial response to your post, while agreeing with you that it was, quoting you, "a little off topic" was nevertheless sarcastic, and I apologize if my attempt at humor offended you.  

Accepted, thank you,

You only got the reply because as you say, it seemed very sarcastic, it was uncalled for. But you have apologized and that's very kind and again I thank you for that. 

All I was doing is pointing out that there are huge performance gains to be had within the PMDG. I have nothing against the iFly and I hope they have the same options to help with FPS. Even if I do own the PMDG the price is crazy and with the feedback on the iFly it will make me take a good hard look at there NG MAX if it comes out before the PMDG. So the Topic has been a great one with really helpful info. So thank you for starting it.

Edited December 28, 2018 by Nyxx

[vonmar 123]

On 12/26/2018 at 10:43 AM, American 833 Heavy said:

Lots of misinformation being thrown around....

So taking off my developers hat here for a second, and from a purely personal perspective :

iFly makes a darn good product. They are a very talented outfit. If you take your f.a.n. b.o.y. glasses off for a split second, you'll be able to see that.

FWIW iFly properly simulates RNP with actual Radius to Fix legs with their L/R Arc and distance. It doesn't use fake placeholder wpts to draw RNP arcs. That is an impressive development feat. 

They also simulate GLS and GBAS as well on the 737 too. Not sure about the -8 but I know the real thing, like the 787 is GBAS capable.

Kudos to iFly on putting out another spectacular product.

 

" FWIW iFly properly simulates RNP with actual Radius to Fix legs with their L/R Arc and distance. It doesn't use fake placeholder wpts to draw RNP arcs. That is an impressive development feat. "

Very good!

[Patco Lch 1,465]

Following this thread compelled me to revisit the IFLY 737NG after putting mine in mothballs many years since NGX came out. After seeing the improvements made over the years including the free HD cockpit textures download I decided to take advantage of the 50% discount from previous FSX owners and buy the P3 DV4 upgrade.

This will definitely be my main NG aircraft. The cockpit textures are amazing and the window geometrics give me a very imersive feeling.The options are many and realistic AP engagement as well as other realism seems to make IFLY more challenging..

Personally don't want another 747  since I'm not a big long hauler but I highly recommend the NG. Don't see much advantage in the other NG product to justify the higher price if you want the -700 addition.

Edited December 28, 2018 by PATCO LCH

[ZKOKQ 984]

6 hours ago, PATCO LCH said:

Following this thread compelled me to revisit the IFLY 737NG after putting mine in mothballs many years since NGX came out. After seeing the improvements made over the years including the free HD cockpit textures download I decided to take advantage of the 50% discount from previous FSX owners and buy the P3 DV4 upgrade.

This will definitely be my main NG aircraft. The cockpit textures are amazing and the window geometrics give me a very imersive feeling.The options are many and realistic AP engagement as well as other realism seems to make IFLY more challenging..

Personally don't want another 747  since I'm not a big long hauler but I highly recommend the NG. Don't see much advantage in the other NG product to justify the higher price if you want the -700 addition.

I did the same, had mine mothballed. Have just updated, and will be my 737 of choice, Got FS2Crew for it too. The PMDG 737 has been parked at Victorville until further notice.

PMDG stated that the cockpit geometry was designed unrealistically to accommodate the HUD. They should have had an option like iFly, to have or have not the HUD IMHO.

[hohum 14]

The fact that iFly can do RF legs and PMDG can't is enough of a selling point; and as others have pointed out, at a fraction of the cost of PMDG too.   

ILS will soon be going the way of conventional radio navigation.    That is to say, the airline industry is walking back its usage on a major scale.   RNP approaches are being used at more and more airports these days, so the ability to support AIRINC 424 data records in your FMS is becoming rather important.   It's a shame that in 2019, PMDG still refuse budge on this issue.   

The reason major airports are still maintaining their costly and maintenance-heavy ILS systems is because ILS minimums are lower; thus preferential to RNP in CATII and CATIII conditions.   But you already can't have ILS everywhere.   Partly because it's cost prohibitive for smaller airpots and partly because it doesn't work in all terrain.  RNAV is satellite-based so it works literally everywhere.

 

Edited December 29, 2018 by hohum

[Chock 17,769]

4 hours ago, hohum said:

The reason major airports are still maintaining their costly and maintenance-heavy ILS systems is because ILS minimums are lower; thus preferential to RNP in CATII and CATIII conditions.   But you already can't have ILS everywhere.   Partly because it's cost prohibitive for smaller airpots and partly because it doesn't work in all terrain.  RNAV is satellite-based so it works literally everywhere.

Not always. GPS is great, but it's not infallible. It's not very often, but sometimes you do see NOTAMs which inform pilots that satellite navigation will not be available in a certain area; an example of this which I've personally seen in the UK, is when NATO were doing some exercises off the East coast; the NOTAM said that they would be jamming/shutting down satellite coverage over that area for quite a while, so in that circumstance, pilots literally could not use/rely on any satellite-based navigation in and around that area for a 24 hour period, including of course GPS.

I was in the tower at EGCC last week talking to the NATS ATC shift supervisor about their systems, and I asked him if they had completely got rid of the paper strip system. They have not, they keep it as a back up and I saw that they still had all the paper strips and little wooden blocks in the bottom drawer of a desk, just in case. They had not had occasion to use it for over three years, but it was still there as a back up.

It's interesting to note where back ups are concerned, the old control tower at EGCC is still capable of being made operational within less than an hour should an emergency occur, and I do know that they had to take advantage of that contingency about a year and a half ago after systems failures when lightning strikes knocked out some facilities, it also knocked out the underground fuel pump systems for the stands and they had to use tankers instead for a day or so. It's quite impressive that they they had the old tower up and running within 45 minutes of the problem occurring.

[jon b 2,047]

1 hour ago, Chock said:

 

It's interesting to note where back ups are concerned, the old control tower at EGCC is still capable of being made operational within less than an hour should an emergency occur, and I do know that they had to take advantage of that contingency about a year and a half ago after systems failures when lightning strikes knocked out some facilities, it also knocked out the underground fuel pump systems for the stands and they had to use tankers instead for a day or so. It's quite impressive that they they had the old tower up and running within 45 minutes of the problem occurring.

That's very interesting , I bet there aren't that many airports around the world with that level of redundancy.

I'm based at EGCC myself, I'll ping you a PM if I ever get an empty ferry flight and if you can, race over to stand 73 in your electric buggy and I'll show you around the 747 flightdeck, it's easier to do when there are no passengers to take care of.

[Chock 17,769]

5 minutes ago, jon b said:

That's very interesting , I bet there aren't that many airports around the world with that level of redundancy.

I'm based at EGCC myself, I'll ping you a PM if I ever get an empty ferry flight and if you can, race over to stand 73 in your electric buggy and I'll show you around the 747 flightdeck, it's easier to do when there are no passengers to take care of.

Race over? Have you seen the state of Aviator's EBTs? They don't race anywhere lol. I had one the other night which conked out on the tiny incline up to the T1 bag hall, I actually had to get out out of it and use the inching button on the back to get it up to level ground 🤣

I'm guessing that's a Virgin 747-400, that's usually what is on 73. Was looking at that the other night when I was up there sticking a GPU on a Thomas Cook A321.

Edited December 29, 2018 by Chock

[jon b 2,047]

On ‎12‎/‎27‎/‎2018 at 1:26 AM, cowpatz said:

Nice to see another RW 747 driver involved in flight simulation and your knowledgeable comments on the iFly/PMDG 747s. RW I flew the 747-200 for 4 years and the 747-400 for approx 14 yrs Some 10,000 odd hours between them. They are fantastic aircraft in every respect. A pure joy to fly. I helped out a little bit with the iFly team when they put this together along with a little bit of beta testing as well. Their dedication to accuracy was surprising and really challenged my own knowledge of the systems. I did a type change back to the 767 during the development process so trying to remember the systems and procedures was a challenge as my head was now filled with 767 details, and although similar to the 747 in some systems, it is quite different in others. It is a bit like being asked to recall the colour of your wife's eyes, after having stared at them for many years! I'm now on the 777 but would still prefer to be on the Whale.

I was interested in your comments on the aborted start with autostart engaged. I have attempted this on both the GE and RR engine variants and found that it works correctly with the Fuel flows reducing to 0 and the start discontinued with N2 or N3 reducing to max motoring or 0 depending on whether the start was aborted before or after starter cutout. I did not check to see, that despite the zero indicated fuel flow, that fuel was actually still being consumed from the tank. I can see that there is a slight error in that when a fuel cutoff switch is placed to cutoff, prior to starter cutout, the N2 or N3 should register max starter speed where as they are indicating the %RPM at cutoff selection. Not a biggie and may be a P3D simulation limitation.

As you stated for some reason the stick shaker/buffet is happening some 20 to 25 kts below the top of the bricks (GE FL340 225T 28% MAC). I cannot recall this happening during the beta tests. Buffeting may occur at some speed below the top of the bricks (depending on flight regime) but certainly not to that magnitude (that I could recall from sim details and If a simmer were to get themselves into that position in the first place then they sure have more problems to deal with other than sim fidelity!!). The secondary stall works for me as it did in the RW sim.

Safe flying.

Hi Steve, I've tried the aborted start a couple of times now and the same results,with the fuel control switch selected to off the fuel flow drops to zero but the EGT N1 and N2 stay on. I'm using the new update so maybe it's something that's crept in there by mistake,I'm sure it's an easy fix.

You're in a good place on the 777, looks like it might be Airbus for me in a couple of years.

[jon b 2,047]

On 12/26/2018 at 4:23 PM, SAX702 said:

.  Since we don't have too many real-world B747 pilots in the forum, would like read about how what it offers functions compared to what they advertise and how well it does function. 

There seem to be at least 4 of us lurking on this thread alone !

Times have changed, years ago these and the Aerowinx forums used to be populated by school kids pretending to be 747 pilots😉 - by that I mean they were telling other forum users they were real pilots and giving flawed advice, they were always found out in the end though!

Edited December 29, 2018 by jon b
Clarified “pretending to be 747 pilots”

[Steve Dra 7,588]

17 minutes ago, jon b said:

There seem to be at least 4 of us lurking on this thread alone !

Times have changed, years ago these and the Aerowinx forums used to be populated by school kids pretending to be 747 pilots😉 

It is good to see RW pilot's validating what most of us non-pilots and owners of the software already knew about the iFly aircraft.  I always honor paint requests from real-world pilots, especially ones who've flown the model and contributed to the accurate development of the great simming software we pilot wannabe's get to fly every day.

Although my time to paint is limited due to real world activities, if you guys have a paint you'd like to see just let me know and I'll see what I can work in.  If I can't get to it...I can commission one of the other RW 747 pilots here to help who's also a nifty painter himself (you know who you are, hehe).

Thanks for your contributions to our hobby, passion, and way of life. 🙂 

Edited December 29, 2018 by Steve Dra

[jon b 2,047]

9 minutes ago, Steve Dra said:

It is good to see RW pilot's validating what most of us non-pilots and owners of the software already knew about the iFly aircraft.  I always honor paint requests from real-world pilots, especially ones who've flown the model and contributed to the accurate development of the great simming software we pilot wannabe's get to fly every day.

Although my time to paint is limited due to real world activities, if you guys have a paint you'd like to see just let me know and I'll see what I can work in.  If I can't get to it...I can commission one of the other RW 747 pilots here to help who's also a nifty painter himself (you know who you are, hehe).

Thanks for your contributions to our hobby, passion, and way of life. 🙂 

That’s very kind Steve and thank you for your comments, simming is also my hobby and passion too I’ve been at it since Mig alley ace and solo flight on the Commodore 64 before RW flying.

I’ll try and help out on the things I know about where I can because there’s lots of things in this hobby I don’t know about where I have to come asking for help, I currently can’t get the  P3D V4.4 update to intall for example, so it’s a case of give and take🙂

[David Vega 348]

8 hours ago, jon b said:

I currently can’t get the  P3D V4.4 update to intall for example, so it’s a case of give and take🙂

jon b,

Good to have you and the other B747 pilots around.  Now, about problems with installing P3D 4.4, how can we help?

Dave

[jon b 2,047]

Thanks Dave, very kind of you. I’ll try and research what the problem is and get it sorted , I’m sure the answer is simple and already on a forum somewhere. To be honest I’ve not been in a hurry to upgrade anyway, I’ve been waiting for all my add ons to be made compatible ,and I can get my PBR fix with X plane if needed.

Thank you for your kind offer though ,and a very happy new year to you.

Jon

[Shomron 251]

mmm was never aware of ifly will check them up! Wonder why the difference in price between their 2 offerings? Is the 747 an older product?