PMDG Update 20FEB22

[Keirtt 574]

20FEB22[ Put this on your calendar for 26FEB22

Today, 03:26

 

Captains,

As we near product releases, I generally receive a number of interview requests from various streamers/pod-casters/organizations that I eschew in part because I have traditionally been a very private person, and in part because I am certain there are many folks who are far more interesting to listen to than me. For a good portion of the years in which I have run PMDG, I have also been involved in or otherwise held official capacities that were important to keep separate from my "PMDG Hobby" as they wouldn't appreciate me generating any sort of interest from social/online channels. As a result I have become quite accustomed to keeping to myself, except for my presence here at PMDG.

With the advent of MSFS, the role played by streamers, pod-casters and content creators has fundamentally changed the landscape of how we all see and learn about products in the simming marketplace- and that has me subtly finding ways to participate a bit more frequently in ways OTHER than posts here. I have long been perfectly content to show up in the chat stream on Chewwy's channel, for example, harass him with a bit of good natured ribbing and then move on to whatever I else was doing in my day. (Chewwy is actually a friend, not sure you guys knew that?) Such drive-by-shootings have long been my way to have some fun without actually having to be part of the discussion. 

Over the past few months I've done a few appearances with folks we know and like. Fabio (TheFlyingFabio on Twitch) and I have been friends for (word not allowed) twenty years or so now? He is a great guy whom I admire personally and professionally so when he asked if I'd jump on his stream with him- I agreed because at least with a stream present, it might give us a reason to limit our conversation to less than three hours. 

This coming weekend, 26FEB22 at 2000Z, PMDG is participating in a live event hosted by the Flight Simulation Association that I am hoping you will find time to join. The panel discussion will be lead by Laura Laban of Infinite Flight, and will include Kieth Smith of Pilot Edge, Fabio Miguez (the aforementioned TheFlyingFabio of twitch fame) and some guy from PMDG who claims not to enjoy doing such things but always has plenty to say once the mic is hot... 

I have a running bet with Fabio that Laura doesn't stand a chance of keeping us on time or on-topic, so I promise the event will be entertaining at the very least.

PMDG have contributed two products to be awarded to active participants. You will have your pick of of any product currently available in the PMDG catalog, to include the soon-to-be-released PMDG 737-700 for MSFS if you win. There are a number of other prizes as well.

Come on out on Saturday and join us on the stream. Bring popcorn because when you get me and Fabio on the same stream it almost always goes to unexpected places.

You can join the event right from the PMDG Simulations Official YouTubeChannel, the link is at the bottom of the first page:

You can also find the links included in the official announcement from FSA is included here below. I hope to "see" you on Saturday!


>>>>>>>>>>>>>=================================== == ============= =======<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
Can Flight Sim Impact Real-World Aviation? Win a Thrustmaster Airbus Officer Pack in FSA's Cross-Community Panel Discussion!

Join the livestream at 2000 GMT on February 26 for Flight Simulation Association's third Cross-Community Panel Discussion. Panelists include Robert S. Randazzo (PMDG), Fabio Miguez (TheFlyingFabio), Keith Smith (PilotEdge), and Laura Laban (Infinite Flight).

In an emergency, could a flight simmer land an airliner if they had to? How is home flight simulation impacting real-world training today? And what more should we be doing? This Saturday, panelists from PMDG, PilotEdge, Infinite Flight, and 'TheFlyingFabio' will be joined by developers from around the community in a discussion about how consumer flight simulation can impact real flight training.

The 90-minute livestream is available to everyone, free. All live participants will have multiple opportunities to win more than 20 prizes donated by organizations like Aerobask, Infinite Flight, Laminar Research, PilotEdge, PMDG, SoFly, Thrustmaster and more. The grand prize, drawn at the end of the live event, is a Thrustmaster TCA Officer Pack Airbus Edition!

The panel will discuss topics like:

• What does home flight simulation do well? And what are its limitations compared to full-motion simulators used in real training?
• How might home flight simulation change real-world aviation training over the next 10 years?
• What more, if anything, should our community be doing to advance home flight simulation's role as a solution to the industry-wide pilot shortage?

Everyone is welcome to participate. We encourage pilots and flight simmers to watch the stream live on February 26 at 2000 GMT via Flight Simulation Association, on YouTube, or with any of the participating content creators. If you are a flight simulation developer or a content creator, please reach out to FSA for information on getting involved.

Win great prizes. Everyone participating live will have the chance to win prizes! There will be multiple prize draws conducted live during the stream.

Watch with your favorite content creators. We've invited content creators from across the community to host "watch parties'' on their channels. You'll be able to catch the livestream on multiple Twitch and YouTube channels, including with AviationLads, Chewwy94, FSElite, and HeliSimmer.com, and you can listen live on Sky Blue Radio. Several developers will also be hosting a "simulcast" on their social channels.

Flight Simulation Association: www.flightsimassociation.com
Stream Link on FSA: https://bit.ly/FebruaryCCP
Stream Link on YouTube: https://youtu.be/7Bs1qUIiXpg

 

https://forum.pmdg.com/forum/main-forum/general-discussion-news-and-announcements/162506-20feb22-put-this-on-your-calendar-for-26feb22

Edited February 20, 2022 by Keirtt

[turbomax 3,285]

7 hours ago, Keirtt said:

because I am certain there are many folks who are far more interesting to listen to than me

no Robert - son of a preacher man, anyone more interesting than you, there is no such thing!

Feb 26 is our wedding anniversary, but my wife has cancelled it, she asked if instead we could invite all our friends to join "content creators from across the community to join the "watch parties''.

 

Edited February 20, 2022 by turbomax

[Alaska738 8,405]

After reading the title i thought it was the release date. I hope in few weeks?

[abrams_tank 7,397]

1 hour ago, Alaska738 said:

After reading the title i thought it was the release date. I hope in few weeks?

I hope so too. Randazzo said he may lift restrictions for beta testers within two weeks, to share images and share their thoughts on performance of the 737.  And Randazzo said the PMDG 737 has had an above average first week of beta testing, meaning it's going better than expected compared to the average of other past PMDG beta tests.  So perhaps if things stay as they are, the beta test period won't be as long.

I'm still sticking with my prediction of a 2 to 3 month beta, even with the supposedly positive news from Randazzo.  There is no point in expecting it to be released earlier, only to be disappointed when it's not (look at Quality Wings estimating their 787 would be released in Q2 of 2021 for MSFS, LOL).  Of course, it would be great if Randazzo surprised us all and was able to release it earlier, provided the quality is there on the release of the 737.  

Edited February 20, 2022 by abrams_tank

[turbomax 3,285]

11 minutes ago, Alaska738 said:

After reading the title i thought it was the release date.

Randazzo has announced the release date many times very precisely, for a year now he has been very clear about this: Soon (tm)

[Alaska738 8,405]

1 minute ago, turbomax said:

Randazzo has announced the release date many times very precisely, for a year now he has been very clear about this: Soon (tm)

I've been waiting for the release for too long. I know how to be patient but it is getting way too long.

[gb09f 298]

2 minutes ago, turbomax said:

Soon (tm)

Is that before or after eventually?

[Cognita 1,077]

I am interested in its capabilities and feature set. There seems to be consensus that weather radar will not be included, which is unfortunate and a step backward. That is a pretty core functionality of a commercial aircraft. Beyond the textures, are there any features not in the earlier iterations? Circuit breakers? Newer LNAV implementation to allow accurate RNAV approaches? Is there anything else besides weather radar that is not in this version?

I am looking forward to this aircraft, but would be more excited if I knew what was actually included.

[turbomax 3,285]

15 minutes ago, gb09f said:

Is that before or after eventually?

the PMDG beta will end abruptly the day the Fenix guys announce their Airbus release/price schedule. as real as it gets 😊

Edited February 20, 2022 by turbomax

[Noel 4,498]

7 minutes ago, Cognita said:

There seems to be consensus that weather radar will not be included, which is unfortunate and a step backward. That is a pretty core functionality of a commercial aircraft.

In due time...

[cmpbellsjc 2,960]

1 hour ago, Cognita said:

There seems to be consensus that weather radar will not be included, which is unfortunate and a step backward. That is a pretty core functionality of a commercial aircraft.

If you remember, the only way to use the weather radar in the FSX version was to use Active Sky. The weather radar wasn’t even compatible with the REX weather program. That being said, to have a true weather radar, they need to have a source to hook into to actually get valid precipitation and not just a “cloud finder” like what some lower end radar products essentially are.

If they don’t have a way to implement that feature it’s not because they don’t want to or can’t, but because it’s not possible. They’ve said in the past that they could more or less make a fake cloud based radar like what CaptSim does, but they’re aiming for actual precipitation based returns rather than just a cloud finder.

[Zangoose 1,631]

1 hour ago, Cognita said:

I am interested in its capabilities and feature set. There seems to be consensus that weather radar will not be included, which is unfortunate and a step backward. That is a pretty core functionality of a commercial aircraft. Beyond the textures, are there any features not in the earlier iterations? Circuit breakers? Newer LNAV implementation to allow accurate RNAV approaches? Is there anything else besides weather radar that is not in this version?

I am looking forward to this aircraft, but would be more excited if I knew what was actually included.

The weather radar will also be the same situation in the Fenix and other addons as the APIs aren't there to read the data from the simulator at this time. If you look at the latest MSFS development posts you'll see the top wish being:

 

So hopefully once that finally does happen - Addon developers such as PMDG will be able to use it.

Edited February 20, 2022 by Zangoose

[Cognita 1,077]

2 hours ago, cmpbellsjc said:

If you remember, the only way to use the weather radar in the FSX version was to use Active Sky.

Yes, and I think it was circa 2015 before the functionality was available. It was a big step forward and I will miss it, but I do not at all consider it a deal breaker -- I flew the NGX for years without weather radar and enjoyed it. 

 

2 hours ago, Zangoose said:

If you look at the latest MSFS development posts you'll see the top wish being

I am pleased to see it is at least being worked on -- something to look forward to when it arrives.

[virtualstuff 758]

On 2/20/2022 at 7:35 PM, cmpbellsjc said:

If you remember, the only way to use the weather radar in the FSX version was to use Active Sky. The weather radar wasn’t even compatible with the REX weather program. That being said, to have a true weather radar, they need to have a source to hook into to actually get valid precipitation and not just a “cloud finder” like what some lower end radar products essentially are.

If they don’t have a way to implement that feature it’s not because they don’t want to or can’t, but because it’s not possible. They’ve said in the past that they could more or less make a fake cloud based radar like what CaptSim does, but they’re aiming for actual precipitation based returns rather than just a cloud finder.

Remember all those debates and in the current context it makes it funny back then 😉

Edited February 21, 2022 by awf