2 hours ago, Drumcode said:

This better be the best EFB in the industry or they're going to get scorched all over the internet. 

They should all prepare to be disappointed.

2 hours ago, Drumcode said:

This better be the best EFB in the industry or they're going to get scorched all over the internet. 

If it turns out like they expect to be it is all but guaranteed it will be.

Edited September 6, 20232 yr by JBDB-MD80

11 hours ago, Bdub22 said:

what happens if it releases and it's just a sort of bland version of an EFB?

Objectively, is there such a thing as an EFB that isn't "bland"?  Oh, you bet the first time I looked at my 3 thick Jepp binders - not to mention company manuals - and thought about how many hours I'd wasted doing revisions, and then hit "update" on my newly issued ipad instead, I did a little happy dance.  There may have been gleeful cursing involved too.

But in a sim aircraft?  It's just a different way to do things that can already be done.  How non-bland could it really be?  I just don't understand the expectations some folks have for this thing.  In reality, it's a way to display electronically things which used to be on paper, and update them in real time from the cloud.  That's a pretty meaningful change.  But in the sim, it's "electronically" displaying things that have been computed and displayed electronically all along.

🤷‍♂️. I'll just be glad when it's done so they can get back to meaningful work on the aircraft.

11 hours ago, Bobsk8 said:

To me the EFB in the 737 is about as useful as a bicycle for a fish. As you stated, the 737 is a joy to fly. 

IRL don’t 737 pilots use an EFB (iPad usually) for take off landing performance calcs and displaying charts? Obviously they’ve also got other company functions like manuals etc. That’s my understanding of modern 737 operations anyway.

The load sheets usually come via ACRS.

Also the sim the EFB is usually for making changes (loading, closing doors, generally managing the turnaround) that in the real aircraft are done by speaking to cabin crew ground crew dispatchers etc

The aircraft I fly has an integrated EFB plus we also use iPads. 

We download the route and get the loadsheet etc via ACARS 

So the EFB is important for actual procedures realism and also for making up for deficiencies in realism between operating an aircraft solo in the sim vs as part of a team IRL.

With the chart functions (depending on provider) it’s also great for orientation with moving map and route charts etc. 

Sure all these things can all be done electronically on other apps and programs etc but to me an EFB is a more realistic way of doing it.
 

Plus on console a good EFB is really useful as we don’t have littlenavmap and simlink etc or many of these other programs on most aircraft. 

 

Edited September 6, 20232 yr by g-liner

11 hours ago, F737MAX said:

Let's simplify this whole topic. AIUI, PMDG took a gamble on continuing to write in a language that didn't do everything they wanted it to do in MSFS.

Rather than bring in someone at the start to support the team transition to using a new multi-language development process at the start, or call a halt to proceeding down the same path and transition, they continued to invest a lot of resource into this serialiser/deserialiser, which (thanks to Asobo) has now been made redundant.

So the gamble didn't pay off. They've spent way too long getting to where they are now, and now a lot of people are frustrated with them.

I don't mean to keep banging the same drums, but I genuinely still don't understand the logic behind this argument.

Someone with more knowledge may correct me on this, but in PMDG's current WASM aircraft everything works. The only thing that's a headache is the serialiser/deserialiser issue with the EFB. It may make sense to produce future, new products in JS instead of WASM, but there is zero business sense in rewriting 3 existing aircraft in a different language, only to be quicker in developing an EFB. The resources they would spend on rewriting all 3 aircraft would FAR outweigh the resources spent on the serialiser/deserialiser for the EFB.

If they had halted development to transition to JS and rewrite the aircraft, you would be looking at at least a year, if not more, of delay for all of them. This means they would have sold virtually (apart from the DC-6) no products for years while spending tons of resources on rewriting things that existed, meaning making no profit - but losses. That's enough to drive the business into the ground, especially since Randazzo has said they were low on cash before the releases for MSFS and needed to make some revenue. He also said that's why they couldn't expand the team at that time.

In the end, all of this benefits only one thing: The EFB. It's a decision between delaying everything and essentially redoing finished work and risk the business, or release aircraft as planned while delaying only the EFB.

From a business POV, there's no question about what option to take. Anything other than what they're doing right now makes no sense. And I'm sure the community's POV is the same, because let's be honest, who would actually prefer waiting years for an actual aircraft just so it has an EFB from the start over flying the thing in their sim as expected and wait only for the EFB?

1 hour ago, threegreen said:

From a business POV, there's no question about what option to take. Anything other than what they're doing right now makes no sense.

Yet somehow the option they have taken has meant well over a year of 'EFB wen?' comments and doesn't deal with the much bigger picture problem that not enough people seem to be asking:

Where is the PMDG 777?

RSR has been teasing its progress since 15th May 2022, which is some 16 months ago...

Quote

Vin promises me we will be able to start previewing the 777 "soon™"

It saddens me that after all this time they *still* have not managed to produce a single preview of an EFB. Nor, more importantly, anything of their next aircraft.

15 minutes ago, F737MAX said:

Yet somehow the option they have taken has meant well over a year of 'EFB wen?' comments and doesn't deal with the much bigger picture problem that not enough people seem to be asking:

Where is the PMDG 777?

RSR has been teasing its progress since 15th May 2022, which is some 16 months ago...

It saddens me that after all this time they *still* have not managed to produce a single preview of an EFB. Nor, more importantly, anything of their next aircraft.

Imagine if they had chosen to rewrite the 777 (and every aircraft) in JS and how much longer that would take. We'd probably only now get the first 737 variant, like 2 years or so later than actual release (oof).

The EFB is taking ages, but we know the reason and it's much better this way than holding up aircraft for it, so I don't blame them.  As for 777 development time, I sure would like a preview but I'm not sure if the time it's taking is anything out of the ordinary. Personally, it's pretty much what I'm expecting.

2 hours ago, threegreen said:

but there is zero business sense in rewriting 3 existing aircraft in a different language, only to be quicker in developing an EFB.

I don't think anyone was implying to rewrite the entirety of the aircraft, that would be silly. It was more about finding someone to help with this transition to using another language to fulfil a certain need. Not that that language would then be used to fulfil all needs. I mean in all of Rob's updates, he insists on calling JS a scripting language, I don't want to assume, but it kind of demonstrates not knowing the uses that JS has. It sounds like he using it more out of necessity and not what benefits it can provide.

You won't see someone using C++ to design modern UIs and you won't see someone using JS to write time-critical systems. They have their applicable uses.

Edited September 6, 20232 yr by Lucky38i

6 minutes ago, Lucky38i said:

I don't think anyone was implying to rewrite the entirety of the aircraft, that would be silly. It was more about finding someone to help with this transition to using another language to fulfil a certain need. Not that that language would then be used to fulfil all needs. I mean in all of Rob's updates, he insists on calling JS a scripting language, I don't want to assume, but it kind of demonstrates not knowing the uses that JS has. It sounds like he using it more out of necessity and not what benefits it can provide.

I think that is what was being said or implied to be honest.

Seeing as they've expanded now (by more than just Kok, apparently), hopefully things will go quicker.

Edited September 6, 20232 yr by threegreen

3 hours ago, g-liner said:

IRL don’t 737 pilots use an EFB (iPad usually) for take off landing performance calcs and displaying charts? Obviously they’ve also got other company functions like manuals etc. That’s my understanding of modern 737 operations anyway.

The load sheets usually come via ACRS.

Also the sim the EFB is usually for making changes (loading, closing doors, generally managing the turnaround) that in the real aircraft are done by speaking to cabin crew ground crew dispatchers etc

The aircraft I fly has an integrated EFB plus we also use iPads. 

We download the route and get the loadsheet etc via ACARS 

So the EFB is important for actual procedures realism and also for making up for deficiencies in realism between operating an aircraft solo in the sim vs as part of a team IRL.

With the chart functions (depending on provider) it’s also great for orientation with moving map and route charts etc. 

Sure all these things can all be done electronically on other apps and programs etc but to me an EFB is a more realistic way of doing it.
 

Plus on console a good EFB is really useful as we don’t have littlenavmap and simlink etc or many of these other programs on most aircraft. 

 

I have been using Avliasoft EFB for years. It gives me everything I need.

Edited September 6, 20232 yr by Bobsk8

7 hours ago, g-liner said:

IRL don’t 737 pilots use an EFB (iPad usually) for take off landing performance calcs and displaying charts?

There is an EFB based perf calculator but it's not as detailed as several ACARS-based systems so that's what most airlines are using.  Systems like Dynamic Source do a lot more server-side calculating and just push the results to the crew.

22 minutes ago, Stearmandriver said:

There is an EFB based perf calculator but it's not as detailed as several ACARS-based systems so that's what most airlines are using.  Systems like Dynamic Source do a lot more server-side calculating and just push the results to the crew.

Yeah, I wouldn't think some iPad calculation would  be foolproof for the safety of a  $300 million dollar aircraft. 

Funny thing is i kind of liked the original EFB from 777/747 series.

Not a fan though of the 737 version

It got the job done and liked it being authentic.

Michael Moe

1 hour ago, Bobsk8 said:

Yeah, I wouldn't think some iPad calculation would  be foolproof for the safety of a  $300 million dollar aircraft. 

Both an EFB app and an ACARS based system are just software though. There's no technical reason why an EFB app couldn't be made to be as detailed as an ACARS server software, I would assume.

(Double post, here we go again )

Edited September 6, 20232 yr by threegreen