Another evaluation was conducted by a real 777 pilot regarding issues with the PMDG 777 aircraft. Once again, individual(s) from PMDG without proper qualifications had to intervene. Many people cannot accept that something is wrong regardless of what they are told by the real pilots qualified in equipment. Hopefully, PMDG will listen!

 

Flight model manual and automatic flight

Today, 17:10

 

Hello

I waited a bit with this post because I wanted to see which topics come up before adding to it. Iam a real world 777 pilot and want to offer some thoughts about certain topics.

First of all, I like the product! Its nice to have a replica of the plane which is very accurate in a lot of aspects. Its great to practice certain procedures or just having a better alternative to chairflying by beeing able to realy click a switch. Iam also aware, that we are talking about a flightsimulation for leisure time and that we will never have a "real" feel of flying in a home simulator. Even the expensive level-d simulators cant replicate the feeling of the real aircraft. But Iam also confident, that there is realistic room for improvement.

I dont see alot of inputs to the flight model, which, in my opinion, is at the moment one of the weaker aspects of the product although we have some 777 pilots in the forum. In generel, one thing I dont like is, when customers bring up some valid (sometimes not so valid points) and beeing treated like they must be mistaken, because a "PMDG product can not be wrong" and they cant realy defend against answers because they never realy flew the thing. And frankly, some of the anwsers given by persons in the forum are just not correct and its sometimes hurtful to see how confident wrong information is presented. Iam not suggesting thats the intend of these persons but it happens. Sorry back to topic.

I have no idea about software engeneering nor do I know anything about the simulator capabilitys and so on. I can only compare to what seems to be possible with other products and developers. With that in mind, I want to offer some opinions and I am interested to learn about simulator limitations and maybe some of my inputs find a way into the simulation.

Manual Flying

This is a hard topic. Different hardware, different settings and a physics "simulation" which is by name, not real physics. But still, one of the main points which is included in all of the points is the inertia of the aircraft. As it is right now, it feels like a much smaller plane. For me this is most "visible" during landings. You can flare the plane at "20" and still make a smoothe landing. We would normaly do the first input between 40-35 feet. We can discus if 35 or 32 or 38, but when you give your first flare input at 20 feet, the aircraft will touch the runway in a violent manner. Maybe that has to do with the ground effect simulation, maybe its missing inertia in the MSFS but maybe you can do something to make the airplane act heavier.

The Pitch axis is too wobbly. Feels like the nose is moving upwards and downwards about a certain "middle value". Even in trim. The pitch axis on this aircraft is very stable. Even in rather violent turbulence, the pitch value doesent realy change, which means it doesnt move up or down by 2-3°. That should be point on. If you are not exactly on trim, it will raise or drop the nose in a gentle, "linear-ish" manner and not in quick motion. After disconnecting the Autopilot on final (without changing outside conditions of course) the pitch and trim is spot on. Of course you need to make gentle corrections. But the aircraft as a "fundament" is very stable.

The Bank axis seems pretty good to me. Could even be a little bit more sensitive I would say and also in this case, when stopping aileron input the aircraft continues its banking motion a liiittle longer. The bank is pretty lifely in comparison to the pitch but this is also in part due to more force is needed to move the collum in pitch than in bank. The aircraft (perfectly) compensates for nose drop in a bank up to 30°. In the PMDG it sometimes does, sometimes it seems the nose drops a bit, but then comes back... its strange to me an hard to describe but it is not as stable as it should be in my opinion.

Yes the speedbrake is very effective, and I think PMDG modelled it pretty well. Feeling wise, I would say the aircraft itself could be even less draggy and the spoilers could be a bit less effective. From my point of view, its still to easy to decrease speed during the descent without a lot of thought. But thats not a mainpoint, just an opinion.

The effects of increasing g-forces on the min maneuver speeds and stall speeds etc. are to fast. When doing a 25-30° bank turn at 2000 feet for example, and you pitch up to follow your FD you can generate a stall condition which should not be possible with the amount of pitch input. It all feels way to reactive.

To sum it up, for my taste, the aircraft could use a greater inertia and more stability.

Automatic Flight

The good thing is, most of the functionality seems to be accurate in terms of how it should work. The way the AP steers the aircraft is a bit on the fast and weired (in turns) side.

Turns: When turning in LNAV the PMDG behaves odd. The initial amount of Bank for a turn is pretty spot on. After about half of the turn, the bank increases and when the aircraft banks back to 0° at some point it does it in a way to violent input. I observe that behaviour at every LNAV turn. From what I see, the AC starts banking to late. Maybe thats one of the reasons for the behaviour.
As I said, the initial bank seems good and should be held for the whole turn. During cruise you seldomly see large bank angles. The highest I noticed to compare with the pmdg was 18° of bank for a 35° HDG change. The speed of the bank input might be a bit on the fast side as well.

Speed stability: This is maybe the biggest weakness compared to the real aircraft. The 777 has a wonderfull autothrottle system. Its very accurate and Iam really not sure that I have ever seen the Speed droping below the selected speed (of course except in gusty conditions during final approach). The A/T reacts quicker when the speed is about to drop below the selected value and reacts slower when the speed increases above the selected value. I constantly get speeds way below my selected value during something like localizer capture. In this phase of flight I have never seen that. The speed control of this aircraft is magnificant. Of course this also plays into the inertia theme. In some situations, the A/T moves the throttles very accurate speedwise. In other situations its waaay to fast. The speed the A/T commands to retard the throttles when starting a VNAV descent seems about right. The system is capable of moving them a little bit faster but not as much as it does in the pmdg. Iam sure this is a simulator problem as well but its just something I observed and Iam wondering if you could tweak that.

Glide slope capturing could use some more tweaking as well. Feels like the AC dives a little to strong for the GS.

I think the aircraft follows the AP a bit to quick. It could all be dialed down a but from the speed of the throttle adjustments to the way the aircraft pitches and the VS reacts to that. In terms of reactivness, the iniBuilds A300 does a good job in that regard. The 777 is more on the faster side here.

A good situation to make my point clearer: When starting a VNAV descent, the thrust reduces correctly from what I see there, but the aircraft pitches down to fast. This always resultes in a higher speed onces established on the path, and if you where cruising close to the max speed, you can even produce an overspeed way to easy. I think more gentle AP movements and the provlem is solved.

Taxi behaviour

I know, difficult topic. The first time I taxied with the pmdg I thought "wow! They absolutly hit it". Then I made the experience, that the aircraft behaves nearly the same with 340t and with 245t after landing. I still think you did a great job and its fun to taxi around but its to unsensitive to wheight changes. In my example we talk about 100t of difference. I cant see that reflected in the ground behaviour.

Touchdown behaviour

The landing characteristics of the 777 are great. Its the "easiest" aircraft I have flown to that date but some aircraft behaviour is missing in my opinion and Iam wondering if that could be implemented. After touch down, the spoilers deploy to a somewhat "middle position". After a few moments the spoilers fully deploy. When this happens, you get a strong nose down moment. If you dont apply back pressure on the collum the nose hit the ground rather hard. That should not be a problem for the nosegear but its still adviseable to "land" the nosegear as well. Would be great if such a behaviour could be implemented.


Thats all for the moment. I hope some of the points are helpfull and that some of you having the feeling that something "might" be off can find some reference here.

If I missed something pls add and If I mentioned something stupid, I might made a mistake or dont know better.

If you want assistance you can message me. For some of the Points I can supply data and/or film.

Cheers
Florian Rhode

A "real" pilot that doesn't understand 'alot' is not a word? I have doubts.

53 minutes ago, RichieFly said:

A "real" pilot that doesn't understand 'alot' is not a word? I have doubts.

There were a lot of minor errors like that.  I have to wonder if English was not this pilot's native language.  Or maybe it was and he's just not a really good writer.  One problem that stood out to me was "Iam", one word and not two, eight times, although once he got it right.  Several misspellings.  Many other errors.

You have to remember that a PILOT is someone who is trained to fly an airplane.  He is not a god.  Look instead at the quality of his information, not just the way it is presented.  Is it correct?  I have no way of knowing.  What are other real world 777 pilots saying?

Hook

1 hour ago, LHookins said:

There were a lot of minor errors like that.  I have to wonder if English was not this pilot's native language.  Or maybe it was and he's just not a really good writer.  One problem that stood out to me was "Iam", one word and not two, eight times, although once he got it right.  Several misspellings.  Many other errors.

You have to remember that a PILOT is someone who is trained to fly an airplane.  He is not a god.  Look instead at the quality of his information, not just the way it is presented.  Is it correct?  I have no way of knowing.  What are other real world 777 pilots saying?

Hook

It seems evident that English is not his first language, and it's common for people to make spelling errors in any language. However, our main focus should be on addressing the issues with the software's quality/accuracy rather than criticizing minor spelling mistakes. As a previously qualified pilot with experience on the 777, I can confirm that he is accurate in pointing out important issues that need to be addressed despite resistance from those unfamiliar with the airplane or those seeking to disagree. Let's direct our attention towards urging PMDG to fix the issues rather than nitpicking at misspellings. It is disheartening to see people making statements like "I have doubts" when this pilot is offering help with documentation, even small movie clips, to prove the findings and hoping for product improvement. This is so wrong. 

Edited August 9, 20241 yr by LRBS

While I'm sure plenty could be improved upon because nothing can be perfect,  is this the difference between a $70-odd entertainment product and a $350 million aircraft?

41 minutes ago, DavidP said:

While I'm sure plenty could be improved upon because nothing can be perfect,  is this the difference between a $70-odd entertainment product and a $350 million aircraft?

I'm afraid that we're not discussing prices. Instead, we're focusing on the quality and accuracy in specific areas. It's important to note that the quality of the PMDG products is not up to par with the previous ones. It seems like they're rushing to release software that is still in a very rough stage, almost like beta versions. This was not the case before. On top of that, instead of taking care of bugs, they keep on releasing new stuff carrying over almost the same broken problems. It's not a good business strategy; I guess they are more concerned about making money versus quality control. As an example, now they are preoccupied with the freighter version versus fixing those outstanding issues with the pax version...........

You've missed my point.

I am no programmer and don't know what is or isn't possible.

My point is that when I read topics like this it makes me think people are expecting the quality or near quality of a Level-D simulator (how much? $50 million) or the real thing itself.

We defer the the collective genius of those of you who fly these things - I am a mere GA Instructor - the question is how much are they able to eke out of the sim platform itself?

I don't know and I won't pretend I know.

I'm sure your airlines would be grateful if that could be achieved as their simulator budget would be miniscule by comparison.

31 minutes ago, DavidP said:

You've missed my point.

My point is that when I read topics like this it makes me think people are expecting the quality or near quality of a Level-D simulator (how much? $50 million) or the real thing tself.

 

No, what I'm saying is that when I compare the quality of their released products with those of other platforms they developed, the quality was much better before. Since they started working on MSFS2020, their quality has significantly diminished, and their priorities have changed. I don't expect a Level D product, but after many reported bugs confirmed by real pilots, I believe there should be some acknowledgment and effort to fix them.

22 hours ago, RichieFly said:

A "real" pilot that doesn't understand 'alot' is not a word? I have doubts.

Florian is a common European name generally from Germany, you cannot expect people that are not native English speakers to have perfect spelling

21 hours ago, LHookins said:

You have to remember that a PILOT is someone who is trained to fly an airplane.  He is not a god.

Sorry Hook but I’ll have to refer this defamation to the moderators 😆

It didn't take too long to see this answer from someone involved with PMDG.

 

Florian,

Thank you for expressing your thoughts about the 777.
In the beta test team we have several 777 RW pilots, and some of your points are already noted. Fixing is something else because of limitations of the simulator and some things are just hard to simulate at all, e.g. the LNAV behavior.

 

 

We find ourselves once again resorting to the familiar habit of shifting blame onto others. 27 years, doesn't that sound familiar?

 

It is imperative for PMDG to openly recognize any knowledge deficiencies in comparison to its competitors. It is regrettable that PMDG consistently attributes issues to platform limitations, whereas other developers have effectively surmounted similar challenges. It is hoped that a new developer will emerge with Boeing aircraft akin to the Maddog X or FBW A320, and deliver a commendable product.

On 8/9/2024 at 8:10 PM, LRBS said:

Since they started working on MSFS2020

As a former modeler and gauge programmer, I quickly became frustrated at the complex and confusing way MS2020 was broken up into various "modules" that they chose to use. I suspect though that I was simply too old and set in my ways to embrace the new system... 😒

43 minutes ago, n4gix said:

As a former modeler and gauge programmer, I quickly became frustrated at the complex and confusing way MS2020 was broken up into various "modules" that they chose to use. I suspect though that I was simply too old and set in my ways to embrace the new system... 😒

I completely understand; although I'm not a programmer, I can see many issues on the "surface." It's just like anything else; some people are quick learners and are born with this gift, while others, no matter how hard they try, can't figure it out. It seems that this issue was present across every simulator platform for PMDG. They always blamed someone else instead of acknowledging their shortcomings, while other developers didn't blame anybody and just made their products work without throwing any tantrums.

They managed to closely emulate very complex systems, but it seems like they don't want to put in the extra effort to fix the obvious issues. Instead, they constantly move on to new projects, making promises of fixes that often don't materialize or are only partially completed, all in pursuit of quick profits. Unfortunately, they are not living up to their reputation or claims. What really hasn't changed is the arrogance and unfriendly customer treatment if you dare to mention any bugs.