PMDG UFT Preview. Just Published

[rjquick 234]

52 minutes ago, JYW said:

I take your point, but when people talk about, for example, the beginnings of fly by wire and the revolutionary A320, they refer to those exciting public test flight films of 1988.   No-one would call the A320 an aircraft of 1981, which was when it's development started.

But it's not really important.   We're just talking semantics here.   I take your point that it has a somewhat dated look. It's hard to believe that the 90s was 30 years ago.  Man I feel old.

I have no issue with how the flight deck looks. I only made the original post since there was earlier one that said it looked like it was from the 90s and was just pointing out that is was from the 90s so that's why it looks that way. I should've quoted it to make that clear.

I don't judge and compare older equipment to newer. I just look at it in the context of when it was designed. To say the 737NG has proven itself worthy would be an understatement.

[rjquick 234]

14 minutes ago, james42 said:

True, but in flight sims it works a little different. The pilot pretty much does everything. I'm not a user of GSX or anything that simulates the boarding process. But I do know all that stuff still has to be initiated by the user. So I think it's a good idea to have the tools available within the EFB to do that.

The PMDG 737 already provides fuel, cargo and passenger loading integrated into the FMC. While it would be fine to have that capability also in the UFT, I don't see why it would be any better or more realistic since it is already adding a non-existent capability to the flight crew. The FMC integration is both simple and flexible as you can load either straight away or simulate the loading over time.

[Tuskin38 6,635]

IIRC someone here said that PMDG said they would be moving some of FMC stuff to the EFB in later updates.

Edited October 29, 2023 by Tuskin38

[JRBarrett 3,121]

42 minutes ago, Tuskin38 said:

IIRC someone here said that PMDG said they would be moving some of FMC stuff to the EFB in later updates.

IMO, they should definitely move functions that one uses on every single flight to an EFB menu - things like opening and closing doors, setting or releasing chocks and ground power, calling stairs or jetway etc.

Aircraft settings options are another matter. PMDG has many many more user-selectable options than any other sim aircraft. The current main “options” menu in the FMS is 17 pages long.  Then there are “display” options and “simulation” options, each of which has multiple pages. No other sim aircraft has such extensive and fine-grained control over how a particular airframe is equipped or how it behaves. There are three or four pages just devoted to automated EGPWS height callouts for instance. 

Then there are multiple pages devoted to various failures and how often they manifest.

I think it would result in a cluttered and confusing display trying to put all those options settings into the EFB UI. These are not things one typically changes or accesses on every flight. Many of the options are airframe or airline specific. I myself would rather see them stay in the FMS text menus.

Re-watching the British AvGeek stream, I noted that when you import a Simbrief Flight plan into the EFB, it not only loads your route waypoints and waypoint and descent wind forecasts into the FMS, but it also sets your passenger count and cargo weights from the Simbrief load sheet into the aircraft automatically.

The more I see, the better I like it. I am looking forward to trying it out on Monday.

 

Edited October 29, 2023 by JRBarrett

[hhbrbg 141]

6 hours ago, JRBarrett said:

That is not needed. When you download a Simbrief flightplan into the EFB  the RTE and WX files are automatically placed into the PMDG “work” folders behind the scenes - the same folders currently used by the stand-alone Simbrief Downloader.

So, when you enter your departure and destination airport into the FMS, you should find the Simbrief flight plan ready to load.

😎 cool, thank you Jim!

[hhbrbg 141]

5 hours ago, DaWu said:

They really need to hire a ui guy. That looks like a website from 1998

Yes😂!

[anden145 2,299]

Interesting video. Not much functionality at the moment. But I guess more will come. IMO, they should move some (if not all) of their PMDG Options and Aircraft Options pages from the FMC to the UFT. The endless pages of configurations in (specifically the) Aircraft Options and Simulations Options etc is kinda (at least for me) confusing and I always loose the overview and cannot remember where things are located in these menues...

On a side note: What scenery for LFPG is used in the video?

[martinboehme 522]

2 hours ago, JRBarrett said:

Aircraft settings options are another matter. PMDG has many many more user-selectable options than any other sim aircraft. [...] 

I think it would result in a cluttered and confusing display trying to put all those options settings into the EFB UI.

Funnily enough, when I started reading your post, I thought you'd say it would make sense to put these options in the EFB rather than the FMS.

The FMS has pretty limited screen space, requiring the options to be spread across many pages. The EFB has more screen space, and more options in terms of UI widgets. Doesn't mean all the options should go on one page, but there would be more choice for the UI designers in terms of how to group the options on different pages.

I don't see how putting these options in the EFB would lead to clutter - they could be tidied away behind a single "options" item in the EFB interface (in the same way they are in the FMS today).

Not saying this should be a priority - as you point out, these options are accessed pretty rarely - but I can't help but think the EFB would be able to improve the presentation of these options.

Edited October 29, 2023 by martinboehme
Typo

[pmplayer 9,609]

10 hours ago, Dillon said:

It took them this long to release this and there's no options for aircraft adjustment features like every other decent MSFS tablet?  You can't open the aircraft doors, call the fuel truck, etc. from the tablet just the basics.  All those settings still sitting buried in the FMC.  For something so basic as Simbrief integration this should have been released along time ago.😐

The rest of the options then takes another year, these developers win first prize in “everything they do takes the longest” 🤣 🤪

cheers 😉

[danhenri 24]

37 minutes ago, pmplayer said:

The rest of the options then takes another year, these developers win first prize in “everything they do takes the longest” 🤣 🤪

cheers 😉

In french, we have a famous expression about jokes : "the shortest are the better" ("les plus courtes sont les meilleures"). The EFB will be available tomorrow, this sterile debate should be closed. And remember rule nb 1 in aviation : fly the plane first ! 😉

Edited October 29, 2023 by danhenri

[pmplayer 9,609]

37 minutes ago, danhenri said:

In french, we have a famous expression about jokes : "the shortest are the better" ("les plus courtes sont les meilleures"). The EFB will be available tomorrow, this sterile debate should be closed. And remember rule nb 1 in aviation : fly the plane first ! 😉

Belive me i know PMDG since beginning Flightsim at the jear 2000 and to say nothing change about them - to bad !

Now they took what, a jear or more for a half-finished EFB so yes, I think for the fully finished one it would take almost another year, that would be typical PMDG !

And to say that`s no joke from my side..

cheers 😉

Edited October 29, 2023 by pmplayer

[mryan75 281]

20 hours ago, rjquick said:

The FMC integration is both simple and flexible as you can load either straight away or simulate the loading over time.

Yeah, loading the 737 via the FMC takes literally 15 seconds. Very simple. 

[mryan75 281]

22 hours ago, Stearmandriver said:

They're not very important in a game, especially when the ground friction model is simplistic.  They're never going to be more than an approximation in a desktop sim. 

I will say this is one area where I’m of a different opinion. I do look forward to having those calculations. I personally sim to the most realistic degree that I can, understanding that I’m a PPL-IR-ASEL and not a 737 pilot, but look forward to the takeoff and landing calculations adding a bit of realism to my imaginary world. 

[btacon 1,848]

Looks like it just got dropped. Check your Ops Center.

-B

Edit:  it did just drop. Ver 3.0.80 all planes

Edited October 30, 2023 by btacon

[Barnes 212]

9 minutes ago, btacon said:

Looks like it just got dropped. Check your Ops Center.

-B

Thanks for the heads-up