5 hours ago, RNAVV19R said:

What are your thoughts on the changes they made to the flight model?

I'll jump in (I have no experience in a real 737) - the flight model has never bothered me too much other than the excessive ground effect which they have fixed...maybe over-fixed. Taxi behavior, on the other hand, is still atrocious. I made the mistake of buying the A2A Commanche after reading all the great comments here about it - it taxis just like I remember from flying one IRL, and now I want to throw stones at the PMDG 737's for their "like-it's-on-rails" taxi behavior. WHY can't they seem to program in any inertia when taxiing into a turn or out of a turn...and nosewheel skid if trying to turn too sharp at too high of a speed is NOT what I'm talking about.

4 hours ago, RNAVV19R said:

What are your thoughts on the changes they made to the flight model?

I'll agree with Somiller, the flight model for the most part didn't bother me too much.  I mean I could find quibbles, like the backwards change in trim state that occurred around 220-230kts - you'd find yourself all of a sudden needing some nose down trim / pressure as accelerating.  I know why they did it - they had a problem with running out of nose down electric trim authority at high speeds while hand flying, so they introduced an artificial trim state change accelerating through this band, so you could take off at a correct trim setting and still have enough trim in cruise.  Knowing didn't make it less annoying though.  But I honestly didn't notice during my testing if it was still there. 

Taxi behavior / nose wheel scrubbing at ridiculous speeds was my largest complaint, and I didn't taxi last night so I don't even know... Can you still not make a full deflection turn below about 1/8kt?

I guess my most general in-flight complaint would be that the plane never felt heavy or stable enough.  Transport aircraft in-trim just don't wander around like the PMDG did.  That was my immediate reaction to flying the iFly (sorry, but it's the obvious point of comparison) - it actually felt like a transport category jet, at least to the level a desktop sim can.  I wasn't too annoyed with the PMDG when I took off last night, so have they maybe smoothed some of that out?  I wasn't paying attention, I was just on a mission to test nav performance.

23 hours ago, Stearmandriver said:

...like the backwards change in trim state that occurred around 220-230kts - you'd find yourself all of a sudden needing some nose down trim / pressure as accelerating.  I know why they did it - they had a problem with running out of nose down electric trim authority at high speeds while hand flying, so they introduced an artificial trim state change accelerating through this band, so you could take off at a correct trim setting and still have enough trim in cruise.  Knowing didn't make it less annoying though.  But I honestly didn't notice during my testing if it was still there.

I guess my most general in-flight complaint would be that the plane never felt heavy or stable enough.  Transport aircraft in-trim just don't wander around like the PMDG did.  That was my immediate reaction to flying the iFly (sorry, but it's the obvious point of comparison) - it actually felt like a transport category jet, at least to the level a desktop sim can.  I wasn't too annoyed with the PMDG when I took off last night, so have they maybe smoothed some of that out?  I wasn't paying attention, I was just on a mission to test nav performance.

On my first flight after the update and thinking WOW, I think the taxi behavior might be worse, it seems as though I ran out of nose down trim when accelerating from 230 knots on climb-out. Maybe I'm just remembering it because it annoyed me BEFORE the update, but I don't think so. Will have to test it again. On my flight tonight I had already selected AP before accel from 230 knots so I didn't have a chance to experience if the down trim limit was there or not.

And yes the PMDG does seem to flop around and I notice it especially on approach when I can NEVER seem to get it trimmed so it doesn't go above or below glide, or my pet peeve on EVERY approach, when it seems to be trimmed and then floats on short final and I have to push the nose over.

6 hours ago, somiller said:

On my first flight after the update and thinking WOW, I think the taxi behavior might be worse, tt seems as though I ran out of nose down trim when accelerating from 230 knots on climb-out. Maybe I'm just remembering it because it annoyed me BEFORE the update, but I don't think so. Will have to test it again. On my flight tonight I had already select AP before accel from 230 knots so I didn't have a chance to experience if the down trim limit was there or not.

And yes the PMDG does seem to flop around and I notice it especially on approach when I can NEVER seem to get it trimmed so it doesn't go above or below glide, or my pet peeve on EVERY approach, when it seems to be trimmed and then floats on short final and I have to push the nose over.

I noticed a bit of that on my last two flights (after the update had been installed), but I do not recall it being like that prior to the update. As for the ground handling, it was fine on my last couple of flights. I assume that the update to v3.0.105 would have replaced the modified cfg file that I had in the previous version (courtesy of changes suggested by LRBS)? It does feel reasonably light, but at least it is controllable!!

20 hours ago, Stearmandriver said:

Got a chance to test the update last night.  I have a few technically demanding RNP procedures I use to test an aircraft's handling of LNAV.  I can report that the current LNAV logic pushed to the 73 is exactly the same as the stuff in the release version of the 777.  It exhibits the exact same bugs in the same places, the most noticeable being an inability to handle an RF leg in one direction that transitions into a tighter RF leg in the other direction.  The plane goes the wrong way and you end up in a mountain.  (There's still plenty of bank oscillations etc, but that seems less important than where the plane actually goes.)

This kind of thing won't be a factor in the large majority of public RNP procedures right now, but there's some future-proofing concerns here if they don't improve it, because as these procedures (and the ability of aircraft to fly them) become more proven, we're going to see increasingly complex RNP (AR) procedures in the public sphere, and PMDG 's logic is going to struggle with them. 

Hope they're working to further refine it.  I would expect that releasing it in the 737 when they did may not have been coincidence, even if it weren't 100% ready, so I'm hopeful that they're aware of that.

Stearman, were you, at least at one point, part of the beta team in the past (I don't necessarily mean on any of their current msfs offerings)? I thought you were at one point, but my memory is spotty at best. I, you, and I'm sure many others, find it quite odd that they take the route of, "oh that's the way the plane is," or "our test group of RW 737 pilots say that's accurate," when other RW pilots say differently. Have you ever recorded footage of the planes lnav behavior and sent it over to them for review? Just curious. To be fair, they may very well not be open to that kind of thing.

40 minutes ago, Kevin_28 said:

Stearman, were you, at least at one point, part of the beta team in the past (I don't necessarily mean on any of their current msfs offerings)? I thought you were at one point, but my memory is spotty at best. I, you, and I'm sure many others, find it quite odd that they take the route of, "oh that's the way the plane is," or "our test group of RW 737 pilots say that's accurate," when other RW pilots say differently. Have you ever recorded footage of the planes lnav behavior and sent it over to them for review? Just curious. To be fair, they may very well not be open to that kind of thing.

I never was part of the beta team, but I believe LRBS was.  I've never tried to show them any videos, but when it comes to things as straightforward as behavior in LNAV, there's no shortage of videos available of both the real airplane, and level D sims.  It's completely implausible that they don't know it's not supposed to be like this.

I experienced that "float on short final" this evening in my third successive landing since the update

Edited October 28, 20241 yr by Christopher Low

Yeah, the plane definitely feels more floaty to me after this update.

I noticed that the nose pitches up when you're about 200 ft above the ground.

Edited October 28, 20241 yr by RNAVV19R

1 hour ago, Christopher Low said:

I experienced that "float on short final" this evening in my third successive landing since the update

 

55 minutes ago, RNAVV19R said:

Yeah, the plane definitely feels more floaty to me after this update.

I noticed that the nose pitches up when you're about 200 ft above the ground.

PMDG knows, it will be addressed 

7 hours ago, Christopher Low said:

I experienced that "float on short final" this evening in my third successive landing since the update

It's important I point out that the float on short final was there BEFORE the update, it's still there after the update - I was relating it more to what Stearman driver was talking about regarding lack of stability in flight.

Is anyone getting really stuttery, juddering pushback?  All ground connections are off, chocks are off.  Weird.  

8 minutes ago, Langeveldt said:

Is anyone getting really stuttery, juddering pushback?  All ground connections are off, chocks are off.  Weird.  

Yes, happened to me at KLAS (FlyTampa). I thought something was still attached or the parking brakes were stuck.

I have no addons like GSX.

Yep. I also had stuttering pushback (Dont use GSX or any push back add-on to interfere either) . They must have broke that with this update

Pushback (PMDG737-600) goes e.g., 30 feet, pauses for a few seconds then 30 more feet , pauses for a few seconds then 30 more feet (repeat) until finished.

Edited October 31, 20241 yr by vonmar

I just loaded the 737 on a GA airfield, Cold & Dark panel. Immediately started a straight pushback and it still yerked backwards as vonmar described. You can't get a simpler test than that?

It even makes your 'head' bob in the cockpit.

Edit - they've found the bug and the fix will be included in the next update.

PMDG Pushback - PMDG Simulations

Edited October 31, 20241 yr by flyingscampi