One thing I was disappointed though, and felt a bit lazy was the lack of integration with msfs 2024 charts in the on-board EFB. Feels like a miss. inibuilds A350 does it very well. I can just use the msfs EFB, obviously.

Otherwise excellent so far in terms of performance. The PW engines sound a bit quiet though ? No expert, I know they said they're working on improved engine sounds.

1 hour ago, SAS274 said:

One thing I was disappointed though, and felt a bit lazy was the lack of integration with msfs 2024 charts in the on-board EFB. Feels like a miss. inibuilds A350 does it very well. I can just use the msfs EFB, obviously.

Otherwise excellent so far in terms of performance. The PW engines sound a bit quiet though ? No expert, I know they said they're working on improved engine sounds.

Try the GE90s please. They are loud and sound incredible.

4 hours ago, SAS274 said:

One thing I was disappointed though, and felt a bit lazy was the lack of integration with msfs 2024 charts in the on-board EFB. Feels like a miss. inibuilds A350 does it very well. I can just use the msfs EFB, obviously.

Otherwise excellent so far in terms of performance. The PW engines sound a bit quiet though ? No expert, I know they said they're working on improved engine sounds.

I don't know what the cockpit sound of the PW variant of the 200er is like in real life. But for pmdg, the PW variant is too quiet, the sound of my computer fan is louder than it.

I don't know what the cockpit sound of the PW variant of the 200er is like in real life. But for pmdg, the PW variant is too quiet, the sound of my computer fan is louder than it.
 

On 5/2/2025 at 3:35 AM, alanw2005 said:

I bought the 777. They did a wonderful job. The reverse thrust is ineffective though. It does nothing to slow the plane.

 

Great news from me for me!! I have changed bindings and can now do beautiful power backs with the GE90 777. Thanks to all with their help and suggestions.

The downfall of these new bindings is that reverse thrust is at max N1. My old settings allowed me to vary N1 when the reversers were deployed and also gave me the option of idle thrust reverse.

https://youtu.be/zTSglljwuAo?si=UtURpvLJPLgwryH7

Edited May 4, 20251 yr by alanw2005

10 hours ago, Gilandred said:

You argued that you should expect a discount for any further variant of the 777 series since the lion’s share of PMDG’s cost (ie. full price) was baked into the original launch variant.  I merely presented an alternative viewpoint that PMDG is spreading the cost (and price) over all variants (current and future), and therefore no further discount should be expected.  You might find that silly, but that is not an unusual concept in the business world.

And dismissing that argument as absolutely ridiculous and I'm pretty certain you know it is too.

7 hours ago, alanw2005 said:

Try the GE90s please. They are loud and sound incredible.

No, they don't. The whole soundset is a huge disappointment again. The rest is fine, but the sound is still a mess.

21 hours ago, lwt1971 said:

Can you please elaborate? I'm particularly interested in the flight dynamics and ground handling improvements so any details you can provide would be helpful. Thanks!

I'm trying to hold out until the 2024 version of the -300ER comes but finding it harder and harder hehe
 

I was in exactly the same position as you….until I caved in last night !

I have a sim check at the end of May and don’t think my free -300 upgrade will be ready by then and I’ve stopped using 2020. The non-normal ECL is the same as on the 787, so I was able to justify the purchase in my own mind.

Anyway, glad I did, it’s nice. The PFD instrumentation looks and moves in an identical manner to the real thing.

It’s been some time since I flew the 2020 777-300 so I can’t remember how it handled so I can’t really comment with any certainty if this flight model is an improvement, however it certainly captures the feel of a heavy jet very nicely indeed, especially I found that period just after rotation where it settles nicely into the correct climb out attitude.

I spent about an hour or so last night doing a quick test flight out of Edwards which consisted of circuits, touch and gos and low go arounds, including engine out work. Some mid level and high level air work.

Overall it was very nice and felt like a familiar old friend , being the theoretical mid point between the 787 and 747. A small thing but something I really liked were the sun blinds, don’t ask about 787 sun blinds !

It was nice to be flying a fully functional, deeply simulated jet again (please hurry up with that 747-400)

There were a couple of things I noted on the flight, just niggles really, not complaining, but if this is top of the line FS2024 state of the art jet simulation it could be better in a couple of areas to reach perfection.

LNAV: still does some strange things sometimes, coming off the pink string and just doing its own thing with some direct to close in turns.

Looking at some stalls at 10,000ft the clean stall was nice and crisp with a deliberately aggressive recovery on my part seeing the aircraft enter a secondary stall as the wing loading came back on, which was very nice to see. In the gear down flaps 20 config I ran out of elevator authority before I could activate the stick shaker. I was using a force feed back yoke at it was getting very heavy with full back travel , quite correctly here the aircraft’s envelope protection was inhibiting nose up trim when in the amber speed band, nice ! At least I think that’s what was happening, my yoke’s proprietary software was still allowing me to trim out some back pressure, but that’s completely separate to the aircraft, I’ll have to look again and have the yoke’s software hand off the trim force  completely to the aircraft. I was able to cheat on my second attempt by pre loading lots of nose up trim before entering the amber speed band and get stick shaker activation.

VNAV : I was setting up to look at an engine failure in the cruise at FL350, and the VNAV was determined to go onto the descent page, I couldn’t get it to stay in cruise. I kept re entering 350 as a cruise level on the cruise page, but as soon as it was entered the FMC would jump straight to the descent page, which meant I couldn’t perform the engine out function of the engine failure in cruise on the VNAV cruise page. I had the ILS approach set up for KEDW and was near enough overhead at FL350 so as far as the FMC was concerned I should be descending even though I hadn’t told it to. It should have really just gone to VNAV ALT and the FMC stay in VNAV cruise. I was eventually able to fool it by telling the FMC I was going to EDW via SFO first, it then happily stayed in a VNAV cruise and I have to say handled the engine out drift down in VNAV very nicely. It sort of looks like the VNAV is scripted to behave slightly different to how the aircraft would behave, however I must say I’m using the aircraft in a specific test scenario and not something most people doing normal A to B flights would ever see.

I transitioned the drift down into an emergency descent , FLCH , speed brake out, speed selected just below MMO red bricks, 2000ft above level off select 270kt, 1000ft above stow the speed brake. The aircraft again handled this very nicely being very stable with the speed, unlike some simulations which can get very squirrely.

Then in for a single engine ILS and GA which quite correctly for this FBW jet was a complete non event, with the aircraft maintaining its correct track well on the single engine go around with no swing or bracketing seen.

I relit the left engine on the downwind leg and set the payload to empty and short range fuel load to experience some sporty circuit work. A single tap of TOGA at 300ft agl and initially I was concerned at how little the engines had spooled up , however all was well  with the APFDS correctly limiting the climb rate to 2000 fpm, the extremely low weight requiring a much reduced thrust setting. A second tap of TOGA would have removed this derate and she’s be off like a scalded cat at that weight , so I didn’t !

Finally I set up for an autoland, I did notice on the approach with the wind down the strip with small gusts , wind speed from 18 to 21kts the autotrottle seemed to be having a hard time with the speed coming back to below REF at one point leading to a large thrust change to correct. Normally the real system would catch that way before getting anywhere near REF, and certainly wouldn’t be struggling to that extent in the relatively benign wind. The autoland also floated a little longer than I would have liked, otherwise all was good in that respect.

Anyway, just a brief flight and some very minor observations. Overall I’m very happy with making the purchase, even considering I’d have got a free one at the end of May (possibly)

2 hours ago, MaximumN2 said:

No, they don't. The whole soundset is a huge disappointment again. The rest is fine, but the sound is still a mess.

Refresh yourself on what a GE90 sounds like then compare to PMDG. Here you go:
GE90 Sounds

Edited May 4, 20251 yr by alanw2005

6 minutes ago, alanw2005 said:

Refresh yourself on what a GE90 sounds like then compare to PMDG. Here you go:
GE90 Sounds

Maybe you should do this yourself, since you can't even distinguish between a GE90 on a 200ER and a 300ER. In addition, PMDG has already admitted that the engines don't sound accurate.

Edited May 4, 20251 yr by MaximumN2

Personally, I would have preferred that PMDG released the 777-200ER first. If they had, it would have been the only PMDG 777 I would have purchased, now or in the future. I did purchase the 300ER when it came out because I really wanted “some kind of 777” to fly, but the primary mission of the 300ER, (long-haul international flights) does not appeal to me because of the time required,

I typically fly primarily in the US, and only fly r/w flights using the schedule, city pair and actual “flight plan of the day” for those flights (taken from Flight Aware). Both AAL and UAL have multiple US domestic flights each day using the 777-200ER, but almost none for the 300ER. AAL does use the 300ER between MIA and LAX, and LAX to MIA, but that is an exception.

I will of course transfer my already-owned 300ER to MSFS 2024 when that update comes out, but I don’t see myself using it anywhere near as much as the 200ER.

It’s the same with the 737-700. I emulate Southwest flights exclusively, and using only the 700 variant. That one I “purchased” using the PMDG credit (which is unfortunately no longer available), so it cost me nothing. Southwest does fly the 737-800 and the MAX, but the 700 is the only airframe that appeals to me. In that case, I was very happy that the 700 came out first.

I can understand those who object to paying “full price” for each 777 variant if they absolutely have to have the complete 777 lineup - but that is not the case for everyone who may want want or need the full lineup.

I strongly suspect that when PMDG finally gets around to releasing the 777-200LR, that they will offer it at a substantial discount, like they did with the 737-600, and for the same reason: only a comparatively few were ever made, and they are little-used any more in the real world.

1 hour ago, jon b said:

It’s been some time since I flew the 2020 777-300 so I can’t remember how it handled so I can’t really comment with any certainty if this flight model is an improvement, however it certainly captures the feel of a heavy jet very nicely indeed, especially I found that period just after rotation where it settles nicely into the correct climb out attitude.

I spent about an hour or so last night doing a quick test flight out of Edwards which consisted of circuits, touch and gos and low go arounds, including engine out work. Some mid level and high level air work.

Overall it was very nice and felt like a familiar old friend , being the theoretical mid point between the 787 and 747. A small thing but something I really liked were the sun blinds, don’t ask about 787 sun blinds !

It was nice to be flying a fully functional, deeply simulated jet again (please hurry up with that 747-400)

There were a couple of things I noted on the flight, just niggles really, not complaining, but if this is top of the line FS2024 state of the art jet simulation it could be better in a couple of areas to reach perfection.

.....

Anyway, just a brief flight and some very minor observations. Overall I’m very happy with making the purchase, even considering I’d have got a free one at the end of May (possibly)

Thanks so much for the detailed report and insights even from your brief flight! Good to hear an IRL 777 pilot's opinion here. Was especially interested in single engine behaviour so that's good to hear, also about the stalls behaviour. Ya their 747 can't come fast enough. Alrighty then, you've effectively pushed me to the brink here with the purchase button 🙂 
 

Edited May 4, 20251 yr by lwt1971

From Blackbox711's stream, some of his quotes/observations:
- hand flying definitely feels better than 2020
- landings and flights I've done so far have felt nice
- rotation felt nice, was not overly sensitive, felt very nice indeed
- hand flying: not twitchy by any means
- on approach, contrary to 2020, landings felt stable

I see V1-Simulations and A330 Driver already did a few streams, need to check those out for their opinions/findings.
 

20 hours ago, carlanthony24 said:

FSLTL works no problem.

It used to but in SU2 beta no liveries show for me?

2 hours ago, jon b said:

 

Anyway, just a brief flight and some very minor observations. Overall I’m very happy with making the purchase, even considering I’d have got a free one at the end of May (possibly)

Wondering what your opinion of the sounds is with the 300 ER or the 200?

Edited May 4, 20251 yr by Bobsk8