PMDG 777 Update... coming soon

[Samaritano 304]

According to Randazzo the update and expansion pack is coming  soon.

" [09JAN21] 777-200LR/F and 777-300ER Update and 777-200ER Beta news!

Today, 05:49

 

Captains,

Welcome to the new year!

I hope all of you had a nice holiday season and that your 2021 is shaping up to be an improvement over what we have all experienced with 2020. I'm sure all of you are as tired as we are of being locked down, held in place, and unable to enjoy personal time with friends, family and neighbors. We remain optimistic that this too will pass and soon enough we will all be able to enjoy one anothers company again soon.

In the mean time, development work at PMDG continues apace. Even with the holidays we were hard at work on numerous projects in an effort to get some of the heavy-lift projects off of our agenda in order to free up manpower for other items on the agenda.

I am happy to let you know that tonight's update will be less words and more graphics, for a change- as the last few have been walls of text to give you lots of information on multiple topics. Tonight I am focused entirely on the 777 for Prepar3D.

PMDG 777-200LR/F & PMDG 777-300ER Product Updates:
============================================
This update cycle has been in discussion for some time and is nearly finished. To recap a few aspects of it that are important, we wanted to bring you the long awaited 777-200ER product (details below) but found that in order to do so, it would be important to update the core of the 777 product platform in order to bring it more into compliance with newer products such as the 747 and 737 product lines. 777 is nearly 8 years old and the code was becoming harder to keep up-to-snuff and it required a very significant overhaul that has taken a large investment of development manpower to complete. Market conditions created by covid, and the need to keep a significant amount of development resources dedicated to our upcoming line of MSFS products caused us to decide to conduct a massive, free update to the existing 777 rather than to do a full product rebuild and replacement with a new (and thus more expensive-to-users) v2.0.

You probably know that we have a very advanced system of collecting, managing and monitoring service reports for all of our products and we have continued to track issues for the 777 product line going all the way back to the day of publication. We have been clearing up items in that system, adding features, cleaning up inefficiencies, modernizing aspects of it's operation and preparing the code to survive another 5+ years cleanly within the Prepar3D v4/v5 environments. We are planning a full virtual cockpit replacement and work on that is underway but will take half the year to accomplish.

So this massive update is nearly finished- and we have just pushed another version to our beta teams for evaluation. I expect a few more build cycles before we release the updates to you, because there are still a few more items we want to clean up before turning the product over to you.


PMDG 777-200ER Expansion Package:
==============================
In even more exciting news for the 777 product line, our long awaited version of the 777-200ER airplane is moving into beta testing this weekend and we anticipate providing it to our beta team during the day on Saturday. The 777-200ER is easily one of the most asked-for expansions and we have struggled to find the right time to insert it into our development agenda. Given that oure teams are siphoned off to work significantly on our MSFS projects, it seemed a natural fit to dedicate time to this much loved airplane type at long last.

The PW Powered ER:
PMDG_777ER_PW.jpg

This package includes the 777-200ER with Rolls Royce, General Electric and Pratt & Whitney engine types. Each engine type comes with it's own customized engine model, accurately modeled engine instrumentation on the flight deck, accurate engine behaviors and of course a custom suite for each.

Along with the 200ER, we enable in the flight deck a fully functional EFB that is available to you in all of the 777 models (777-200ER/LR/F and 777-300ER).

For all of us on the PMDG team, working on the 200ER has thoroughly reinvigorated our love of this, one of the most robust and magnificent airliners fielded by Boeing- and it has truly been fun to take a deep dive back into this fleet type in order to bring it up to date with our 737 and 747 product lines in order to field this new variant for you.

The Roller Powered ER:
PMDG_777ER_RR.jpg

Speaking of things to love about the 777: In this image of the Roller-Powered 777, the image was taken just as the left landing gear was beginning to lose contact with the runway. I often wonder how many of you take the time to really examine just how detailed our ground-relationship is with the 777 and 747 airplanes. We put a huge amount of work into developing the physics models for the landing gear and their contact with the ground. If you look at the 777-300ER, you will find that we fully modeled the cantilevered gear that helps to give the tail of the airplane an additional 18" of ground clearance during rotation. (The 747 has a bunch of it's own animation beauty that you only see on PMDG models- so go take a look! There is some fun stuff going on down there!)

The GE Powered 200ER:
PMDG_777ER_GE.jpg

Looking forward, we are sort of feeling our way toward a release for this product line that appears to be around the end of January. If it needs more time in testing, then it will be in February, or however else long it takes.

Right now we are planning to push the product updates to you prior to the 200ER variant, but we might collapse those on top of one another and do them simultaneously if that seems like a smarter way to handle the release once we see how things go. Either way- we are nearly finished and we can't wait to roll these out to you.

Okay- that is all I have for you tonight. I hope you have a nice weekend and are looking as forward to this update cycle of the 777 as we are looking forward to delivering it to you!

Robert S. Randazzo
PMDG Simulations"

 

 

Edited January 9, 2021 by Samaritano

[pilatuz 141]

Another month of waiting! Lol.

[mpo910 2,112]

This is amazing and I am waiting sol long for this to use. Doesn´t matter how long it takes. PMDG products are outstanding quality and high standard delivery quality tested products!

I can not recall when my last CTD with a PMDG plane was. Although in the meantime my whole P3D V5.1 HF1 platform is solid like a rock.

I will also buy the expansion package incl. the EFB as this is great for VR users, like me!

Thanks for sharing and kudos to PMDG!

Marcus

[pilatuz 141]

Just to clarify the EFB is only available if you buy the expansion pack? That's totally worth it to me

[Simicro 247]

The EFB is not part of the update.

The EFB will be provided with the 200-ER expansion. Once you get it, the EFB will be available to the 200-LR and F.

If you don't buy the 200-ER expansion, you get no EFB for the 200-LR and F.

[pilatuz 141]

52 minutes ago, Simicro said:

The EFB is not part of the update.

The EFB will be provided with the 200-ER expansion. Once you get it, the EFB will be available to the 200-LR and F.

If you don't buy the 200-ER expansion, you get no EFB for the 200-LR and F.

Thanks

[mpo910 2,112]

1 hour ago, pilatuz said:

Just to clarify the EFB is only available if you buy the expansion pack? That's totally worth it to me

Yes indeed. Like Simicro statet prior.

 

For me this is ok. Development costs time and I am willing to pay for updates and enhancements/expansions as I don´t take it for granted.

I think this will be a nice addition and P3D is working very well for me. 

Marcus

[pilatuz 141]

I agree I'm happy to give them a bit of $ for their efforts

[micstatic 4,314]

Also willing to pay for this.  In the past PMDG has done a great job with their EFB's.  They also have done a great job with PBR.  The NGXu is at the top of the list for exterior model quality.  Maddog up there also.  

[alepro21 154]

4 hours ago, pilatuz said:

Another month of waiting! Lol.

I admire your optimism 😉

[Christopher Low 5,332]

Multiple engine variants must require a significant amount of beta testing, particularly in something as complex as a PMDG airliner (which generally has a massive number of options and engine ratings). It is a credit to Robert and his entire team that these complex plane addons are released in such a stable condition.

[fluffyflops 1,846]

12 hours ago, alepro21 said:

I admire your optimism 😉

 

16 hours ago, pilatuz said:

Another month of waiting! Lol.

Ive been waiting for Taylor Swift for years and months to come sit on my lap. 

Same with this update. 

I'll believe it when I see it 😃

[DChockey08 299]

The 777-200ER will be a happy addition to my hangar. 

I fly a lot of UAL 772 routes and I've grown tired of using the LR model for these flights and having to double de-rate the engines to get some semblance of normalcy. 

That plus the EFB makes this a day 1 purchase for me. 

[pilatuz 141]

I love their EFBs. Paired with my iPad foreflight w/ my jepps it's a dream to sim..

[Luis Hernandez 567]

I only have the FSX version. From what I see, there won't be any 777-200ER for it. If the EFB has a 2D popup, I'll consider purchasing the P3D version. My wallet will cry 😛