19 minutes ago, Lord Farringdon said:

Seriously jarmstro, I think you're just trying to get your post count up 🙂 ?  

"...the plane cannot be called study level as we understand the term because important systems are INOP". 

I used to fly as military crew on B727s and I can tell you that some of the word not allowed hole places we flew in and out of demanded a great level of understanding of the minimum equipment list (MEL) because we just did not want be there over night or for even more than a couple of hours in some cases!  

Take a look at this B727 MEL below and count up how many systems can be 'INOP' at dispatch. Of course it wasn't just 'Yep we can fly without one of those...'  We also had to know what restrictions that placed on the operation of the aircraft for the entire flight. You will note that weather radar is just one system of many.  Engine start valves, bleed air systems, air con packs and a host of important navigation and air speed system INOPS are permitted ...with restrictions.   So here's your study level study for tonight jarmstro. Look up the MEL for the B737 and confirm all the requirements you must comply with if the weather radar is INOP and fly the aircraft accordingly. Then look for any other PMDG oversights and determine their MEL status. If you find some serious ones that mean the aircraft can't be dispatched according to the MEL, then we might start taking things a little more seriously.     

https://fsims.faa.gov/wdocs/MMEL/B727_Rev_49a.pdf

IRL there a specific time frames in which a MEL has to be repaired but not for all MEL's. We used to fly with some permanent ones!  In MSFS life, PMDG as the aircraft manufacturer will fix these MELS when they get to it.  In the meantime we're just the tech flight crew and need to study those MEL restrictions and fly accordingly.   

I know we can set up random failures in MSFS but it would be interesting if after meticulous flight planning we arrived at the airframe with a couple of unexpected MEL's to factor in as well. like...oh I don't know....say...evening departure out of Singapore with towering Cu to 70000 feet and ......wx radar INOP🤔.

Cheers

 

Terry 

I appreciate your reply and expertise. But I think you may have misunderstood me. I'm not sure that system failures during service is quite the same thing. Can I put it this way- Would you prefer that the plane came with working Radar and TCAS? If the answer is yes then should the price reflect the fact that it does not?

I would hope that PMDG offer it as a V1 at a reasonable price and then a V2 when it is fully featured for which I would have no objection to an upgrade charge.

(I fully understand that nothing anyone here says will have the slightest affect on the price anyway.)

7 hours ago, jarmstro said:

Of course I haven't been ripped off. Its not a question about being ripped off. I am not doubting that it will be a quality product. It's a discussion about the price we are asked, or choose, to pay given it's acknowledged shortcomings.

ie: If you buy a new car and it's heater is missing  (a non essential item), what is the price differential you would expect compared to a fully functioning and properly fitted out new car? 

By "ripped off", I mean "charged more than was fair."  This seems to be what you're claiming PMDG would be doing in this case, since they'll be selling an aircraft that doesn't have a proper simulation of radar at launch, yes?

No aircraft you've used in any other sim has had a proper simulation of radar. Thus it seems that by your definition, you were charged more than was fair for all of them, right? 

3 hours ago, jarmstro said:

I appreciate your reply and expertise. But I think you may have misunderstood me. I'm not sure that system failures during service is quite the same thing. Can I put it this way- Would you prefer that the plane came with working Radar and TCAS? If the answer is yes then should the price reflect the fact that it does not?

I would hope that PMDG offer it as a V1 at a reasonable price and then a V2 when it is fully featured for which I would have no objection to an upgrade charge.

(I fully understand that nothing anyone here says will have the slightest affect on the price anyway.)

Why do you keep mentioning TCAS? I know of no reason why TCAS would not work in the PMDG 737 - the fact it is written in C++/WASM should pose no problem.

I still find it funny people argue about these things like this was a REAL simulator. Its a game, get over it. you want TCAS? Go fly a real plane!.

4 hours ago, jarmstro said:

I would hope that PMDG offer it as a V1 at a reasonable price and then a V2 when it is fully featured for which I would have no objection to an upgrade charge.

I don't think PMDG will do this.  As far as I understand, Aerosoft isn't doing this either for the CRJ. Aerosoft have gone on the record and said they will implement weather/terrain radar when the SDK supports it at the WASM/C++ level, and the update would be free (I don't have the link, but you search for it, it was in the Aerosoft forums and it was a comment by Mathias I believe).

PMDG will likely do the same thing as Aerosoft, offering the weather/terrain radar as a free upgrade when it's supported by the SDK.

Mind you, Fenix said their A320 won't have a working  weather/terrain radar either, for the same reasons as Aerosoft and PMDG.  But if the Fenix A320 turns out to be the most high fidelity aircraft ever made for a flight simulator, IMO, it would be unfair to say it is not "study level" if the Fenix A320 is also missing the weather/terrain radar.

(oddly enough jarmstro, I agree with you on so many other topics, especially your criticism of X-Plane, and I probably agree with over 90% of the viewpoints I have seen you posted here at Avsim, but I kind of disagree with you on this particular topic)

 

1 hour ago, wiler said:

I still find it funny people argue about these things like this was a REAL simulator. Its a game, get over it...

What?     Really?  Now you've gone an' spoilt it.  WAHHHH!...  Mum!..

But seriously, if it gets WR and TCAS then great.  If not, it won't stop me buying it if I think the price is about right.  It's not a deal-breaker for me personally.

If Jarmstro looks at the functionality and it doesn't match his price expectations, then he won't buy it.  Simple as that really as it is just down to everyone's personal preference. 

Reasonable discussion about what features may or may not be included is interesting, but I am not personally interested in who is going to by what. 
It makes no difference to me as long as I am happy with my purchase, and I don't think I have ever lost my shirt on a bad purchase decision anyway.

On that note, does anybody want to buy a load of Betamax video recorders? 

 

1 hour ago, abrams_tank said:

Mind you, Fenix said their A320 won't have a working  weather/terrain radar either, for the same reasons as Aerosoft and PMDG.  But if the Fenix A320 turns out to be the most high fidelity aircraft ever made for a flight simulator, IMO, it would be unfair to say it is not "study level" if the Fenix A320 is also missing the weather/terrain radar.

There are two ways of doing a terrain display in flight simulation  - reading the terrain directly from the sim, or using a custom stand-alone terrain database. The latter method is how a real EGPWS works - it contains a digital database of worldwide terrain, and uses GPS and aircraft altitude to determine the aircraft’s position in relation to the terrain, both horizontally and vertically, and to provide visual and aural warnings of terrain conflicts.

In MSFS, default aircraft written in JavaScript/HTML do have direct access to the terrain in the sim, but aircraft using C++/WASM do not, and for the same reason they cannot access precipitation - there is as yet no API exposing that data for aircraft using WASM.

In the PMDG 737 for P3D, they used a stand-alone custom terrain database for the simulated EGPWS. If they are able to port that system to MSFS, it is entirely possible that the 737 will indeed have a terrain display at release. Based on recent screenshots from Fenix, they do appear to have a working terrain display in the A320, so I assume that they are using a stand-alone terrain database as well - (unless their cockpit displays are coded in JavaScript/HTML - but I strongly suspect they are using C++/WASM for performance reasons).

Weather radar is definitely a no-go for WASM at this time, which is why the CRJ does not have it, and the PMDG 737 for MSFS will not either - unless Asobo creates the required API in the near future. 

Edited November 17, 20214 yr by JRBarrett

5 hours ago, jarmstro said:

Would you prefer that the plane came with working Radar and TCAS? If the answer is yes then should the price reflect the fact that it does not?

Can you provide the source for your claim that it won't have TCAS, please? Because to the best of my recollection no one ever said anything about it not having TCAS. This is just spreading - most likely - false information at this point as you keep stating this as a fact while ignoring everyone else's input on this.

As for the price cut: What makes more sense, charging the full price for for all 100 (number not accurate, just an estimation for the sake of the argument) systems while delivering the one missing system later when it's available - or trying to compute an appropriate price for one system and charge every customer a second time for just this one update with a cost that, realistically, would be less than 1$? The second option is nothing other than additional processing of orders and payments, etc. and even if this is fully automatic it's unnecessarily complicating the whole thing. Your point of adjusting prices for a lack of content in general is correct if the plane comes with a whole host of significant features not available, but since you keep going on about the WX radar - it's nonsensical in this case.

As a side note: no aircraft addon simulates all of the systems that the real plane has, so if one system made as much of a difference as you say, there would be by your own definition no such thing as a 'study level' plane, because they all lack systems and also don't simulate some of the ones they do have correctly.

1 hour ago, JRBarrett said:

Why do you keep mentioning TCAS? I know of no reason why TCAS would not work in the PMDG 737 - the fact it is written in C++/WASM should pose no problem.

Because both Weather Radar and TCAS are INOP in the experimental version of the FBW. But I'm grateful for the correction.

16 minutes ago, jarmstro said:

Because both Weather Radar and TCAS are INOP in the experimental version of the FBW. But I'm grateful for the correction.

The FBW uses JavaScript, so it should be able to access the sim’s weather data as the non-modded default A320 can. I assume there is some other reason why it is currently disabled in the FBW mod, along with TCAS.

TCAS should work in a WASM aircraft. The CRJ has it, so I assume the PMDG will as well.  The location of traffic (either AI or Vatsim) is accessible via standard simconnect variables that work the same way in MSFS as they did in FSX and P3D. TCAS does not require a dedicated API like weather radar or sim terrain would.

33 minutes ago, JRBarrett said:

The FBW uses JavaScript,

In the experimental version they have switched to WASM for the new custom LNAV and VNAV modelling as far as I am aware. Hence the Radars are INOP in the experimental version.

7 minutes ago, jarmstro said:

In the experimental version they have switched to WASM for the new custom LNAV and VNAV modelling as far as I am aware. Hence the Radars are INOP in the experimental version.

Ah! That explains it. 

11 hours ago, abrams_tank said:

Mind you, Fenix said their A320 won't have a working  weather/terrain radar either, for the same reasons as Aerosoft and PMDG.  But if the Fenix A320 turns out to be the most high fidelity aircraft ever made for a flight simulator, IMO, it would be unfair to say it is not "study level" if the Fenix A320 is also missing the weather/terrain radar.

 

Sorry to intrude, but just to clarify - we will have a Terrain on ND functionality - using the correct terrain DB method.

We, however, do require Asobo's cooperation with the Weather side of things, for sure.

Here's an unedited shot direct from sim, showing the TERR on ND functionality working 🙂

And just to expand on what others are talking about with regard to TCAS - there's no issue with detecting other aircraft in sim, so no blockers with that (for us, at least).

Here, an example of not just TCAS, but also TCAS Autopilot in action - the aircraft detected the threat, and responded to the resolution advisory without any pilot intervention required, one of the newer Airbus options. This was on VATSIM.


(please note the above image is from a VERY early build, with textures that are some 15 or 20 versions old now)

Edited November 18, 20214 yr by Aamir

Just now, Aamir said:

Sorry to intrude, but just to clarify - we will have a Terrain on ND functionality - using the correct terrain DB method.

We, however, do require Asobo's cooperation with the Weather side of things, for sure.

Here's an unedited shot direct from sim, showing the TERR on ND functionality working 🙂

God I can't wait for this bird. I think I speak for the entire community when I say:

That was a serious flex from Aamir there.
The Fenix 320 is going to be something else.