Fenix A320 or PMDG 737

[joby33y 152]

On 2/23/2023 at 7:44 AM, Bobsk8 said:

PMDG has done a great job with the 737. 

Indeed they have. Now if they’ll just finish up & release the 777, all will be good. 

[RJC68 823]

I have had both the Fenix & PMDG 737 - 600 for quite a while now, To be honest I love flying them both (Currently climbing through FL280 for FL380 in the 737 heading for Naples) I tend to fly a few days in each of them. I am actually thinking of picking up the 737- 800 as well but as others have said if you are looking at getting into a PMDG for MSFS then the 737 - 600 is an absolute no brainer. Today will be a 737 day and tomorrow I will hop in the Fenix for a few flights for my virtual airline, British Airways Virtual. Happy Days 🙂

[JetCat 111]

On 2/8/2023 at 5:22 PM, JRBarrett said:

I have zero interest in going into the cabin to see a bunch of empty seats.

But have you ever tried flying through the Bermuda triangle in a thunderstorm at night while having the cabin light switched off and some nice eerie soundtrack running on YouTube while flying? You will enjoy the possibility of having a nice simulated empty and detailed cabin back there behind the cockpit seats. 😉

The Fenix has no terrible FPS, it runs good and fluent and smooth when flying in Canada and Alaska. On my computer the FPS primarely depend on the locations and airports where I fly, the airplane itself changes not much. Not much difference between the PMDG 737, a default Cessna 172 or the Fenix. But I cannot start from New York Intl airport with any of these planes without going down to 10 FPS *ggg

So it depends more on the airport addon and how big the cities are. What plane is used has not much impact on the framerate.

Edited April 10, 2023 by JetCat

[Ricardo41 5,958]

Fenix A320 all the way and then some. Carefully studying all available youtube video tutorials to get a handle on this bird. 

Speaking of visuals, going from the Fenix A320 to the PMDG 737-700 (which I own) is like going back to FSX and P3D.

EFB in the Fenix is truly great and intuitive to use. Love how you can "annotate" the charts. 

Performance is great, even with 8k liveries. 

The only real drawback: throttle calibration is a little finicky. 

[abennett 177]

PMDG 737 all the way for the time being.

Performance is substantially better and allows MSFS to be run on higher visual settings. Visuals are what MSFS is about. If not interested in visuals might as well use P3D or Xplane which are better 'simulations'.

Still waiting on some fixes for VNAV for the Fenix as well whereas the 737's is good.

[mholden020 31]

I purchased the Fenix A320 over the weekend and after two less-than-stellar flights all I could think about was this topic.  Coming from the Flybywire I expected something refined and an extremely obvious display of what I'd just spent a whopping $62 on and after a few days I've yet to find that.  I've yet to do a flight that wasn't marred by some kind of really silly issue on takeoff (Overspeed warnings after retracting flaps is my favorite so far), and I just don't see anything about it that makes me say that was money well spent.  The only thing, if anything at all, is the extra stuff in the EFB like the takeoff calculator, but the whole thing is nowhere near as nice to work with as the "Flypad" in the FBW320 in my opinion. 

I can't speak for the PMDG 737 because I've never used it before, but when it comes to the 320-series aircraft I can't think of anything I'd recommend the Fenix over the Flybywire A32NX.  The value is simply not there, in my opinion, especially when the FBW is literally free.

Edited April 11, 2023 by mholden020

[environmental_ice 240]

20 minutes ago, mholden020 said:

I purchased the Fenix A320 over the weekend and after two less-than-stellar flights all I could think about was this topic.  Coming from the Flybywire I expected something refined and an extremely obvious display of what I'd just spent a whopping $62 on and after a few days I've yet to find that.  I've yet to do a flight that wasn't marred by some kind of really silly issue on takeoff (Overspeed warnings after retracting flaps is my favorite so far), and I just don't see anything about it that makes me say that was money well spent.  The only thing, if anything at all, is the extra stuff in the EFB like the takeoff calculator, but the whole thing is nowhere near as nice to work with as the "Flypad" in the FBW320 in my opinion. 

I can't speak for the PMDG 737 because I've never used it before, but when it comes to the 320-series aircraft I can't think of anything I'd recommend the Fenix over the Flybywire A32NX.  The value is simply not there, in my opinion, especially when the FBW is literally free.

Ive never had an overspeed warning after takeoff and the Fenix320 is all I fly in MSFS2020.

 

Now as far as value if you just want a Airbus in the hanger I cannot recommend the Fenix320. The freeware FBW320 is more than enough. However as an airbus fan myself keep in mind the last 737 I flew was the PMDG back in P3D and I new flew it again after purchasing the FSLabs A320. I personally just needed the lower performance/wingtip fence itch taken care of which is what the fenix does for me. But I would be lying if I was blown away by the Fenix. I really still to this day think the FSLabs A320 is the best payware aircraft I ever had but the  Fenix is still very nice because MSFS is equally as nice and I will never go back to P3D. The Fenix does enough to satisfy me and I have grown accustomed to certain things it does that the FSLabs A320 didnt. It really is a good airplane. FSRealistic doesnt play nice with it and neither does icing in MSFS So you have to keep that in mind 

[BrammyH 449]

24 minutes ago, mholden020 said:

I purchased the Fenix A320 over the weekend and after two less-than-stellar flights all I could think about was this topic.  Coming from the Flybywire I expected something refined and an extremely obvious display of what I'd just spent a whopping $62 on and after a few days I've yet to find that.  I've yet to do a flight that wasn't marred by some kind of really silly issue on takeoff (Overspeed warnings after retracting flaps is my favorite so far), and I just don't see anything about it that makes me say that was money well spent.  The only thing, if anything at all, is the extra stuff in the EFB like the takeoff calculator, but the whole thing is nowhere near as nice to work with as the "Flypad" in the FBW320 in my opinion. 

I can't speak for the PMDG 737 because I've never used it before, but when it comes to the 320-series aircraft I can't think of anything I'd recommend the Fenix over the Flybywire A32NX.  The value is simply not there, in my opinion, especially when the FBW is literally free.

By and large, I agree with you. I thought that warning was underspeed, but I could be wrong.

After the new lighting upgrade this weekend, I took the old FBW out for a spin and I did enjoy it. The FlyPad is nice how it puts everything on the screen. There are some minor things I do like better on the Fenix:

• This weekend I flew the Fenix, FBW, and 737 from OPIS to OPSD (Islamabad). The Fenix was the only one that grabbed all the waypoints on the STAR. It doesn't happen often, but their database of waypoints is better. 
• It's easier for me to create liveries for the Fenix. I don't know Blender, but I do know Photoshop. I can learn.
• I do like the texturing a little better in Fenix.

That said, my biggest headache with the Fenix is the external app for copy protection. Frequently I have to do a shell game of relaunching the App, restarting the flight, or restarting the SIM to get the dang thing connected to each other. I do sometimes hit an authentication bug with PMDG, but not nearly as much.

Which means I am giving the FBW a more serious look again. 

[mholden020 31]

2 minutes ago, BrammyH said:

By and large, I agree with you. I thought that warning was underspeed, but I could be wrong.

Mine was definitely an overspeed because it was right on the heels of a "Landing Gear Up" warning after I took off.  Once that warning finally cleared I checked the airspeed and then retracted the flaps and there was about 3 seconds between the barber pole going away and another siren going off.  I checked the display and it clearly indicated Overspeed, but cleared itself after a few seconds.

I can only guess the Landing Gear warning was because the plane went into Go Around mode again on takeoff when I pulled the throttle from FLEX to CLB.  On my flight yesterday it did that, didn't show any cautions, but somehow my flight plan was switched from the one I programmed into a route that went from my destination to the Alternate.  I actually have that recorded on video!  For a first flight it's not great to have to re-program a flight plan while climbing away from where you took off from IMO.

[Ricardo41 5,958]

1 hour ago, mholden020 said:

I purchased the Fenix A320 over the weekend and after two less-than-stellar flights all I could think about was this topic.  Coming from the Flybywire I expected something refined and an extremely obvious display of what I'd just spent a whopping $62 on and after a few days I've yet to find that.  I've yet to do a flight that wasn't marred by some kind of really silly issue on takeoff (Overspeed warnings after retracting flaps is my favorite so far), and I just don't see anything about it that makes me say that was money well spent.  The only thing, if anything at all, is the extra stuff in the EFB like the takeoff calculator, but the whole thing is nowhere near as nice to work with as the "Flypad" in the FBW320 in my opinion. 

I can't speak for the PMDG 737 because I've never used it before, but when it comes to the 320-series aircraft I can't think of anything I'd recommend the Fenix over the Flybywire A32NX.  The value is simply not there, in my opinion, especially when the FBW is literally free.

I recommend checking out this tutorial series:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3cb4SXaJw9Fe-Y8nQF2lxITAeCJvZqTk

[mholden020 31]

1 hour ago, Ricardo41 said:

I recommend checking out this tutorial series:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3cb4SXaJw9Fe-Y8nQF2lxITAeCJvZqTk

I watched these when I was learning the FBW 320 but I'll go through them again and see if there's something I missed, thanks very much!

[Aamir 2,907]

8 hours ago, mholden020 said:

(Overspeed warnings after retracting flaps is my favorite so far)

If you retract the flaps near to their overspeed limits with the red band, and the aircraft is still accelerating, there is a FWC delay to triggering the overspeed warning while the flaps aren't locked in position despite the red "overspeed" marker disappearing. 

[Aamir 2,907]

8 hours ago, BrammyH said:

my biggest headache with the Fenix is the external app for copy protection

It isn't for copy protection - it runs all the systems for the aircraft. 

[Aamir 2,907]

8 hours ago, mholden020 said:

Landing Gear warning was because the plane went into Go Around mode again on takeoff when I pulled the throttle from FLEX to CLB

I checked with the support staff on this one - it happens when your throttles aren't calibrated in their detents properly. A couple of suggestions would be to run the throttle calibration again, or widen the detent nullzone so that the detents themselves are larger. I'd recommend starting with 4% and going from there. 

[BrammyH 449]

1 hour ago, Aamir said:

It isn't for copy protection - it runs all the systems for the aircraft. 

Fair point, and poorly worded on my part.