Unofficial Shared Flight Deck for PMDG

[V1ROTA7E 718]

Your Controls
PMDG Profile

Tried this out yesterday, and it worked surprisingly well. Flying jets is a team sport, and it's great having someone else in the cockpit with you. The functionality is fairly rudimentary, however, core functionality is there. I don't think it can handle emergencies or other complex scenarios (yet). Hopefully the developer continues to mature this since it's a fantastic free addon. It also appears that the host software (Your Controls) has matured quite a bit. It's no longer a direct IP connect, rather it's hosts the connection via a cloud server, so security isn't an issue.

Installation is very straight forward and there are tutorials around for how to get everything installed.

With the PMDG, there are some issues though, as this profile for the PMDG was only released a few days ago. It was also designed using the -700, but we tried it with the -800 and it worked well with few issues. Here are some of the issues we found, and are also notated by the developer:

1) Transfering controls with the autopilot on will cause the plane to either dive or climb excessively.
       -Workaround- Don't transfer physical controls...i.e. the pilot flying hosts the session, the pilot monitoring can manipulate the Autopilot and other buttons, but not "fly"

2) Desync in the with the CDU
        -Workaround 1- Change the update rate to 15 or less (if you've got reasonably fast internet)
        -Workaround 2- Make sure both (host & client) CDU's are on the same page (recommend hitting the "MENU" button on both CDUs) when getting started so they're in sync from the get-go.
        -Workaround 3- Type letters and numbers in the CDU slowly (one missippi between numbers and letters). If you type too fast, letters and numbers can be missed on the other player's CDU - Cycling through pages of the CDU seemed to work well at normal speed. Data entry was where it got a little wonky. If you get out of sync, just press MENU to start from square one.
        -Workaround 3- Send the flight plan and .wx file to the other pilot so when you "send' for your route (from simbrief), you'll have the same info and there will be less "data entry" to mess up.

3) FLT and LAND ALT windows need to be changed VERY slowly. for some reason, those have a high probability of desync. Same with minimums -- make sure your Altimeters are set to "independent"

4) Just don't transfer controls with the PMDG. It's still too early to support it properly and can cause issues down the line. Everything else works very well.

It's really neat to see the pumps move, lights dim, heading, altitude, and speed bugs move. Seeing the gear come up, flaps go out. We used my company's procedures and to be honest, it felt like a live flight...it just works better with a team mate. Again, the profile is still in its infancy, but huge props/N1 fan blades to the developers. I hope they keep up the great work.

Hopefully some of you will be able to put this to good use!

[bigifooti 154]

Interesting! 

What is the lag between the two pilots? if you put the gear down it will probably take a couple of miliseconds before the other one sees it happening?

Or for instance on a ILS, is the plane position (and weather/wind) the same for both pilots?

[V1ROTA7E 718]

5 hours ago, bigifooti said:

What is the lag between the two pilots?

There really isn’t much lag, BUT depending on how far away you two are from each other, it could be very slight. Not really perceptible. The primary issues are with the CDU and typing things slowly. If you both have fast internet and are not far away from each other, it’s not bad. Sometimes a quick reconnect solves the issues. I recommend having the PF be the one connected as the host. Just did a flight with someone on the other side of the planet with few issues. It’s a good idea to have FS realistic disabled, at least for shake/turbulence effects.

I’m not sure, but I think it would also work better with both players on the same MSFS server in a private session to ensure weather, turbulence, and winds are the same. Will try that later. 
 

Also, because of how PMDG handles the parking brake, you have to both press the brakes to set them. 
 

 

[rob0203 689]

Cool stuff! 😎 

[captain420 3,099]

This is awesome! I really hope there will be support for shared cockpit in the Fenix A320 as well!

[suncoastflyer 685]

Going to try this out. TYSM!

[Dean19 11]

1 hour ago, captain420 said:

This is awesome! I really hope there will be support for shared cockpit in the Fenix A320 as well!

There already is a Yourcontrols profile for the Fenix. I haven't tried it yet but from what I've gathered, it seems to be working quite well.

GitHub - D1ngtalk/Yourcontrols-config-for-Fenixsim-A320: A share cockpit config for Microsoft Flight Simulator's Fenixsim A320, based on Yourcontrols. 

[Dean19 11]

18 hours ago, V1ROTA7E said:

Your Controls
PMDG Profile

Tried this out yesterday, and it worked surprisingly well. Flying jets is a team sport, and it's great having someone else in the cockpit with you.

Thanks for highlighting this! It's great to hear about the PMDG profile for Your Controls. Shared cockpit definitely adds an extra layer of realism and teamwork to the flight simulation experience. My buddy and I have had many successful flights using Yourcontrols, most notably on the FBW. It works well enough to use on Vatsim. There is a bit of a learning curve, and it does have a few bugs, but not difficult to work around.

It's encouraging to know that there are dedicated individuals pushing the boundaries of what's possible in flight simulation.

I hope the developers continue their excellent work and further improve the addon!

Edited April 3, 2023 by Dean19

[V1ROTA7E 718]

The profile was updated again today, and a dedicated 737-800 profile has been uploaded as well.

ALSO** Setting the refresh rate in YourControls to 60 cured 99.9% of all issues and the CDU problems were nonexistent.

Edited April 4, 2023 by V1ROTA7E

[abennett 172]

2 hours ago, V1ROTA7E said:

ALSO** Setting the refresh rate to 60 cured 99.9% of all issues and the CDU problems were nonexistent.

I am unfamiliar with YourControls, but would definitely like to give it ago. Presuming this Refresh Rate setting is something in the YourControls settings and not one's monitor or anything like that?

[V1ROTA7E 718]

39 minutes ago, abennett said:

I am unfamiliar with YourControls, but would definitely like to give it ago. Presuming this Refresh Rate setting is something in the YourControls settings and not one's monitor or anything like that?

Yep, that's correct. I edited the post for clarification.

[captain420 3,099]

On 4/3/2023 at 7:12 AM, Dean19 said:

There already is a Yourcontrols profile for the Fenix. I haven't tried it yet but from what I've gathered, it seems to be working quite well.

GitHub - D1ngtalk/Yourcontrols-config-for-Fenixsim-A320: A share cockpit config for Microsoft Flight Simulator's Fenixsim A320, based on Yourcontrols. 

Thanks for this! Didn't know that such a thing existed! Very excited to see shared cockpit support for the Fenix A320!

[abennett 172]

8 hours ago, captain420 said:

Very excited to see shared cockpit support for the Fenix A320!

You need two computers to run the Fenix anyway with the FPS..

I jest.