I've removed a number of posts that were ad hominem--made against the person rather than dealing with the topic, as well as a few responses to the same.

If you can't address an issue without name-calling and/or disparaging those with whom you disagree, then please don't address it at all.

 

@killthespam I think you're replying to me here ? I only ask because I'm a Jon without the H not John, which obviously doesn't matter , I just don't want  to be presumptuous and reply if you're actually talking to someone else that's all 🙂

 

But if you were replying to me then, sure, you do and say whatever  you want to, I wasn't saying anything about you or your response    , I'm keeping well out of it.  I only mentioned in passing at the end that perhaps there had been crossed wires further up the forum posts, I haven't been following things closely so don't know the history of things.

I was just replying to @F737NG really as he mentioned me on another thread.

The only thing I've said myself about the PMDG 777 is it kind of  feels familiar to me and how I was expecting it to feel, but that's only after doing a few circuits and local flights in it , but I don't know anything about the 777 . I'm only recently qualified on the 787 and as I've explained elsewhere its far too early for me to be making subjective comments about even that aircraft as I'm just not familiar enough with its handling yet.

I've got more sectors in the QW 787 than the real one !

I can certainly sympathize with your frustration if perhaps you're being cross examined elsewhere ? I remember years ago in FS9 days someone on the forum was complaining the PMDG 747 flaps weren't realistic as they were far too slow to extend. I replied they were exactly right as I'd timed  the extension on the real aircraft. I was then chastised for doing that with the suggestion I was somehow being reckless with my aircraft !!

I pointed out that most of us on the flight deck actually have enough mental capacity to fly the plane and operate a stopwatch simultaneously  😉

27 minutes ago, jon b said:

@killthespam I think you're replying to me here

Something went wrong here, I did not reply to you.

All the best.

Then I was indeed being presumptuous 👍🙂

My apologies, disregard .

Cheers

So this is the reason for not answering, if the person doesn't have the proper understanding or not familiar with the airplane (systems) it is very difficult for the individual to get an idea of what is all about.

For a pilot to be nearly qualified in the airplane starting from 0, in a 777 it will take at least 1 1/2 to 2 month of ground school and a few weeks of a simulator with a check-ride before he gets on the line and has another 30 to 40 HRS of IOE. After all this, the learning progress never stops, and every day we will be puzzled about what we didn't know or of what we forgot.

 

So in our situation, my opinion, with him or anybody else will turn in a debate based on the above statements.

 

So that's why I mentioned reading the manuals (and reading the manuals sometimes is not enough, that's why we go through ground schools and have instructors to explain in details what is not in the manuals) and see the other complaints on their own forum, plus that he is way overprotective of PMDG.

 

The bottom line is that this is not the place where we can do ground school or flight training.

 

So there we have it, just a few issues related to :

 

1) flight controls very twitchily

2) after trimming for a certain speed the airplane will send abrupt elevator inputs.

3) after disconnecting the a/p the 777 PMDG airplane suddenly will become unstable and have to fight with it, after disconnecting the a/p as you know the airplane will be perfectly balanced and will fly for at least 10 to 15 seconds before will need another input.

4) after landing the nose wheel will stay up for a long time down to the low speeds.

5) sometimes the airplane can't decide if is airborne during touchdown and sleeping down the runway without losing any speed.

6) lnav problems.

7) vnav problems.

8) a/p issues varying from proper level off, turn anticipation for intercepts on lnav or loc.

9) some eicas and electronic checklist discrepancies.

 

Plus many other laundry items within PMDG forum

Completely agree with that summary with one addition which is the performance issues ie stuttering and pausing many including me are seeing.

The more i fly the 777 the more the trim issue rares its head with from time to time quite excessive pitch fluctuations but generally its just to pitchy.

The LNAV function dramatically cutting corners is another stand out.

Its quite interesting watching the Vnav system at play and love to hear from any 777 drivers "if" its accurate to reality particularly the "Hold" function.

The 777 Vnav was developed a long time ago and Boeing Vnav has moved on quite a way to the aircraft i fly the 787.

Ive seen several twitch "influencers" ripping the QW 787 for doing exactly what its supposed to do as there is some significant subtle differences in the way the aircraft descend on and off path.

The 747-8 and 787 are far closer in terms of flight management with LNAV and VNAV than the 787 and 777.

Assuming the 777 and 787 are basically the same even though they share a common type rating is hazardous ground.

 

I'm always interested to hear opinions from any of the RW heavy jet fliers here, so thanks to everyone for posting.

If you're an ATP, I don't think you need to be shy about sharing your thoughts, even if you don't hold a T7 type rating. Having flown a 787 even once puts you in the top 1% or so of Avsimmers in terms of actual experience. And, yes, a 737 NG is very different, but if you fly one for a living your opinion on T7 flight dynamics is likely better informed than the vast majority of forum users.

Thanks for sharing your experiences and reflections, chaps - keep it up! 🙂

 

 

 

According to Robert Randazzo's latest post, they have identified (and resolved) the "excessive pitch" issue with the updated 777 (and also fixed a very rare issue that caused the plane to accelerate after touchdown).

On a side note, I would like to point out that (in my own personal experience) PMDG aircraft (in both FSX and P3D) have been some of the most stable and bug free software products that I have had the pleasure of using in flight simulation. Any "issues" that I have had in the past have almost certainly been due to my own inexperience with flying complex airliners. Whilst I do not use half the features of these planes that some veteran "study level" captains around here do, I still consider them to be very well behaved, and a joy to both fly in the air and taxi on the ground*.

* Bear in mind here that I use the original 737NGX and the (not updated) version of the 777, and these both use the original ground handling physics.

Edited March 11, 20215 yr by Christopher Low

5 hours ago, DEHowie said:

Completely agree with that summary with one addition which is the performance issues ie stuttering and pausing many including me are seeing.

The more i fly the 777 the more the trim issue rares its head with from time to time quite excessive pitch fluctuations but generally its just to pitchy.

The LNAV function dramatically cutting corners is another stand out.

Its quite interesting watching the Vnav system at play and love to hear from any 777 drivers "if" its accurate to reality particularly the "Hold" function.

The 777 Vnav was developed a long time ago and Boeing Vnav has moved on quite a way to the aircraft i fly the 787.

Ive seen several twitch "influencers" ripping the QW 787 for doing exactly what its supposed to do as there is some significant subtle differences in the way the aircraft descend on and off path.

The 747-8 and 787 are far closer in terms of flight management with LNAV and VNAV than the 787 and 777.

Assuming the 777 and 787 are basically the same even though they share a common type rating is hazardous ground.

 

The one thing I think many simmers find extremely difficult to comprehend is real aircraft also come with a number of problems and bugs which are deemed low enough risk to allow for safe flight. All aircraft are supplied with publications that run into many pages which document problems that pilots should be aware of.

The greatest or perhaps worst example of this is what we saw with the 737MAX. If PMDG produced a 737MAX then several years ago they might of replicated code that results in the same catastrophic behaviour. People would complain about it and say why does my plane crash itself in this very specific scenario but bizarrely that would actually have to be deemed a good simulation.

The only manufacturer that I've seen produce a very close to real world replication is FSLabs but then this should be expected as they go to a level of detail that is not even seen in real simulators. The FSLabs is that one aircraft that can be flown and enjoyed fully in 2D because it's really that good. It's for this same reason that countless Airbus pilots use the FSLabs as a dependable training platform and it has proved very useful in their downtime due to COVID.

So really I think the whole community needs to relax and enjoy these platforms for what they are and not get so bogged down by what they aren't. Perfection is something that is never seen in the real world so we just can't demand that here.

7 hours ago, DEHowie said:

The 777 Vnav was developed a long time ago and Boeing Vnav has moved on quite a way to the aircraft i fly the 787.

Ive seen several twitch "influencers" ripping the QW 787 for doing exactly what its supposed to do as there is some significant subtle differences in the way the aircraft descend on and off path.

The 747-8 and 787 are far closer in terms of flight management with LNAV and VNAV than the 787 and 777.

Assuming the 777 and 787 are basically the same even though they share a common type rating is hazardous ground.

Hi Darren , this is really interesting to read , especially your last comment there as I think I have fallen into that trap.

I resurrected my PMDG 777 to practice real world ops,thinking it would fill in the gaps where the QW 787 fell short in its Flight management  accuracy. Perhaps counter productive then, maybe the PMDG 747-8 would be better suited from what you’ve said.

I have to say I really like the QW 787, it’s been a great help with familiarisation for me and I’ve Been flying it all year in VR while I was furloughed.

It’s also interesting to read your comments on the 787 VNAV having moved on. I’ve just transferred onto the 787 from many years on the 747-400 and I really don’t trust or like the 787 VNAV. Within 30 seconds of starting it’s descent it starts bleating at you that in needs drag and can’t maintain path. Well you decided when to start your descent not me , stupid box !

Maybe the trust will come with more exposure but I’m finding the common technique is to just throw VNAV away and go to FLCH or VS by about 15,000ft. 
I did hear from a reliable source  that Boeing are aware of the issues with 787 VNAV and are looking to re design it.

The 747 VNAV was typical 1980’s digital technology, a bit like 80’s and 90’s HIFI equipment. you didn’t have all the fancy extra features of modern day systems which don’t seem to work that well anyway but what you did have just got on and did the job and was rock solid.

Nice to hear your comments.

cheers Jon

3 hours ago, Christopher Low said:

On a side note, I would like to point out that (in my own personal experience) PMDG aircraft (in both FSX and P3D) have been some of the most stable and bug free software products that I have had the pleasure of using in flight simulation.

Christopher,

 

You are so correct and it is not only your own personal experience.

I hope that the vast majority agree with you 100% about PMDG products, they "were" very good quality and just a few bugs.

 

This "study level" is a big stretch due to many issues. A study-level and used as such is Aerowinx, used by some airlines and approved for ground schools.

 

For some reason, PMDG didn't go to the next step to be there but some people like to vehiculate that idea.

 

Granted some systems are very accurate and some not, inconsistencies that matter are not fixed for a very long time.

 

And this is the main reason why people are upset about it when lately they keep on releasing products with so many bugs/discrepancies and they get upset when they are called on bugs and customer relations.

 

Me personally (I might be wrong) I didn't see any business owner or associates providing help fighting with the customer because of some valid software bugs or just because they can.

 

Very interesting mentality, the customer the one who's purchasing the product and puts money in their pockets is admonished and fought with.

 

Talking about price (money) I'm sure (but I might be wrong again) if the product wouldn't be affected by so many bugs we wouldn't see so many complaints.

 

And all this can stop very easily with minimum or no effort at all if they chose so.

6 hours ago, G MIDY said:

The only manufacturer that I've seen produce a very close to real world replication is FSLabs but then this should be expected as they go to a level of detail that is not even seen in real simulators. The FSLabs is that one aircraft that can be flown and enjoyed fully in 2D because it's really that good. It's for this same reason that countless Airbus pilots use the FSLabs as a dependable training platform and it has proved very useful in their downtime due to COVID.

I used FSlabs product to study my initial training of the A320 family. After several years flying the real one, I came back and raised my comments/suggestions and report the errors which could make their product better. To my surprised they don't care, no reply at all. So either they are happy with it, or they too confident with their beta testers.

 

1 hour ago, Hoang said:

I used FSlabs product to study my initial training of the A320 family. After several years flying the real one, I came back and raised my comments/suggestions and report the errors which could make their product better. To my surprised they don't care, no reply at all. So either they are happy with it, or they too confident with their beta testers.

 

I used FSlabs product to study my initial training of the A320 family. After several years flying the real one, I came back and raised my comments/suggestions and report the errors which could make their product better. To my surprised they don't care, no reply at all. So either they are happy with it, or they too confident with their beta testers.

 

 

I've been there and rightfully so I understand the frustration.

The problem I encountered working for a few developers (3) is as follows: they have some guys qualified and active flying the airplane and guys that are retired.

Unfortunately, both groups might have some bad apples that actually don't know the equipment well, and in the last group, it's very difficult to find someone that is still fresh within one year after retirement and still familiar with the airplane and the whole industry. I noticed guys retired for the last 2 or 5 years that will not let it go and insist that they know better even they don't have current books, not familiar anymore with the system, and completely away from the real stuff. But they play this card "I was qualified in the airplane and flew the airplane for so many years and I'm right", they keep on forgetting what is required by authorities and airlines to be qualified.

Unfortunately, most developers don't know or understand what it takes to be current and qualified and have a tendency to listen to these people, especially when they say that is ok or there is not a big deal.

 

For a guy like yourself flying the line and being exposed day by day to line operations and sees all these problems, it is very frustrating when you bring valid points (bugs) about the software just to help and somebody who's got no idea jumps in and says that is ok or the developer ignores or doesn't want to accept it.

 

That's many of us just decided to go, frustration is so high if you think about it, sometimes you are in between the rest periods and remember that something was wrong with the software and start looking in the manuals, next flight you take pictures and notes and when you bring back the findings you find one of these retired people for ages saying that is not true, either is not remembering or is something that he doesn't know.

 

I don't want this post to be misinterpreted, I do respect seniority, I do respect experience, and the retired pilots, just to mention I'm close to 65.

But after 6 months after retirement even I flew the airplane for thousands of hours I'm not qualified anymore and also away from the industry, it's time for the fresh blood to take charge.

2 hours ago, Hoang said:

no reply at all

As you can judge based on my singature image, I'm a diehard fan of FSLabs A32X. I believe it is THE best ever aircraft simulation for flightsim. At present I fly it 100% of time, as anything else makes me bored after a quarter.
But I have to agree, when it comes to support, it leaves much to be desired. For instance a few of my forum support requests have never been replied to, including the latest one still gathering dust instead of any reactions.
I have also seen replies I wouldn't call kind (still far from Kyle R. style fortunately). I just keep repeating to myself: you fly the plane, not its developers / forum mods.
Well, maybe it is the rule of universe balance: you can't have all the mass in one place.
Geez, first time ever I wrote something not 100% positive about FSLabs! I will have a sleepless night for sure.

silly question, have they released another patch for it then ? 

thanks