1 hour ago, Lucky38i said:

Something I never really understood, buying several models of the 777 or the 737, cause x airline only flies that particular model. 

You can easily go down the rabbit hole simulating real-world flights.

I'm content picking a flight off one of the tracking sites and using the same aircraft, e.g., 73x, A32x, and livery. The variant and other minutiae of the flight don't bother me, but each to their own!

14 hours ago, fakeflyer737 said:

I’m pretty sure PMDG has already said they’re doing all of the variants of the max. 

Yeah we will see the PMDG max in 2028

3 hours ago, Lucky38i said:

Something I never really understood, buying several models of the 777 or the 737, cause x airline only flies that particular model. 

We all are different and have different expectations.

I want to fly the exact variant used by an airline IRL. It is important for me.

Something myself doesn't understand is the fact that some simmers want to fly in real time, so takeoff and go to bed while on cruise, just to make the landing when they wake up the next morning. For me it is a waste of energy but for them, it seems important.

As somone who flies the 737 for a living, half the time I forget if Im flying a 700 or 800 the only reason I remember Im flying a Maxx is because of the big screens lol... The biggest difference is with the 800 you have to double rotate so you don't drag the tail and be a bit more careful on the landing flare other than that they kinda fly the same honestly. Just my experience after about 800hrs flying the 737.

Edited August 13, 2025Aug 13 by z06z33

1 hour ago, sdirand said:

We all are different and have different expectations.

I want to fly the exact variant used by an airline IRL. It is important for me.

Something myself doesn't understand is the fact that some simmers want to fly in real time, so takeoff and go to bed while on cruise, just to make the landing when they wake up the next morning. For me it is a waste of energy but for them, it seems important.

I mean of course by all means, we're all entitled to have fun how we want. Just my thoughts is all 🙂

I prefer to simulate real airline ops and in rare cases you need the proper equipment for the job.  I see subtle differences between them and wider differences from say a 737-700 and a 737-900.  Many airports you can get a 600 and 700 in and out no problem but an 800 may have limitations and the 900's forget about it.  

I like consistency in my models meaning in the long run it would probably be better if a developer like PMDG would have all the NG's and Max market.  Just subtle differences in how switches operate and minor differences in flight model interpretation.  Of coarse same can be said for iFly.  If they eventually do all the Max's and the NGs's than the goal can be achieved from them. 

I am somewhat positive the PMDG Max is closer than we think.  I am just speculating based on no real evidence that the Max will drop sometime in the 1st half of 2027.  Sometime after the FS2024 release of the NG's but before the first 747 drops.  Just pure speculation on my part but PMDG will need a filler between the FS2024 737 NG drop and the first 747 drop.  I think they are already at work updating the Max they originally built along side the NG's.        

 

7 hours ago, Christopher Low said:

This is one of the reasons why I recently purchased the 737-900 package for MSFS 2020. It is as far removed from my current -600 as I can get with the NG series. Of course, the cockpit will look virtually identical, but the approach speeds and runway performance will be vastly different. I am also hoping that it feels a bit heavier.....

It does, a bit.  It's the best flying of the PMDG offerings, but it's still much too reactive and unstable.  This has been the problem with the PMDG flight models all along; they not only don't feel like 737s, they just don't feel like airliners.  You can take your hands off the PMDG birds for 5 seconds when you're trimmed up in smooth air, and when you look back you're somehow in a 30 degree bank and descending.  It's weird.  I really didn't think I cared much about flight model for airliners in the sim, it just being a game and all... But then I tried the iFly.  The increase in... Immersion?  Suspension of disbelief?  Whatever it is, it was palpable.

But you'll like the PMDG 900 after being used to the 700, I think.

14 hours ago, Stearmandriver said:

We just announced SEA - KEF on a -8. 

As an aside, I fed this into Simbrief for the iFLY and got a "route exceeds range" error. Is this because of in the real world, the flight is dispatched differently? I remember hearing a talk but some American dispatches and how they will do an initial cross-Atlantic clearance to like Shannon, and then redispatch to EGLL.

7 hours ago, sdirand said:

Of course, it sounds stupid for some but I don't like to fly a 737-700 when the real airlines use a 737-900 on that route.

This isn't me telling you how to sim - we all enjoy the software differently and that's totally cool as long as we're enjoying it. 

But on the off chance this helps you enjoy it more, it's worth noting that any airline that operates multiple variants of the 737 will operate all of them to the large majority of their destinations, at some point.  There are obvious exceptions: you don't take a -900 or a Max 9 to a 5300ft strip, you don't run a -700 on ETOPs legs etc... But outside of operational limitations (which don't exist for the large majority of any airline's route structure), any variant can and will be subbed for any other variant on any given day.  So there's most likely nothing wrong or unrealistic about flying your -700 to any destination that might usually get a -900.  I guarantee you that if the airline also operates -700s, they've sent them to that place before.

9 minutes ago, BrammyH said:

As an aside, I fed this into Simbrief for the iFLY and got a "route exceeds range" error. Is this because of in the real world, the flight is dispatched differently? I remember hearing a talk but some American dispatches and how they will do an initial cross-Atlantic clearance to like Shannon, and then redispatch to EGLL.

All airlines will use redispatch, but it's for outlier days with really unfavorable winds.  You wouldn't start a route with the intention of using redispatch on a regular basis, because then on the outlier days you probably couldn't go at all. 

Simbrief is a severely simplified version of dispatch software.  Very good for sim purposes for sure, but it's definitely not near real-world in terms of complexity.  It's obviously getting something wrong.  Maybe it's not recognizing a valid alternate, or screwing up flag fuel planning, etc.  Who knows, maybe it just has fuel burn wrong.  I do remember reading that SEA - KEF is only 200nm further than ANC - JFK, which we've been doing for a while and the Max -8 makes comfortably.  Well, in terms of fuel anyway 😉.

1 hour ago, BrammyH said:

As an aside, I fed this into Simbrief for the iFLY and got a "route exceeds range" error. Is this because of in the real world, the flight is dispatched differently? I remember hearing a talk but some American dispatches and how they will do an initial cross-Atlantic clearance to like Shannon, and then redispatch to EGLL.

Interesting. I just entered the same route for the iFly in SimBrief and did not get this warning.

Edited August 13, 2025Aug 13 by RNAVV19R

3 hours ago, Stearmandriver said:

You can take your hands off the PMDG birds for 5 seconds when you're trimmed up in smooth air, and when you look back you're somehow in a 30 degree bank and descending.  It's weird. 

From level flight? That's a little bit of an exaggeration, no? 

18 hours ago, Stearmandriver said:

I can't speak to any other variants iFly might be doing.  I always wonder, though, why simmers place the importance they do on these kinds of variants in the sim.  In reality of course there are economic considerations to right-sizing a market, but from the standpoint of operating the airplane, there aren't meaningful differences.  If there were, the aircraft would not share a common type. 

The -8 makes sense to be the first variant to model as it'll do most anything the other variants can do.  As far as range... We just announced SEA - KEF on a -8.  That certainly out does the range of the -9 or -10, and is close enough to the -7 (if those last two ever even exist.). We'll also send the -8 to SBP, SNA, PSG, WRG etc.  It's just the sweet spot of range and short field perf. 

 As far as flying though, if there weren't payload considerations, you could fly an entire flight on a -8 or -9 and never know the difference.  Sure there's a bit less tail strike margin on the -9, but if you're flying it using appropriate techniques for a -8 it won't even be close to a factor.  You'd have to be doing something pretty dumb for it to matter.  This is an aspect that I feel like PMDG overstates, presumably in an effort to chase sales of different variants.

 

Agree. The intense focus on which specific variant is “allowed” to be flown for specific airlines on specific routes by certain simmers has always mystified me. 

In a similar vein, I don’t necessarily think PMDG is chasing sales as much as responding to customer demands for multiple variants (in that it’s “easy” incremental revenue). 

I was perfectly happy to fly the -700, and continue doing so. Heck, I’m really not that interested in the MAX vs NG, other than iFly’s rendition has turned out so well…

In the end, I’m much happier to have the 77F and the 737-7, and someday the 744. 

9 hours ago, flyingscampi said:

You can easily go down the rabbit hole simulating real-world flights.

I'm content picking a flight off one of the tracking sites and using the same aircraft, e.g., 73x, A32x, and livery. The variant and other minutiae of the flight don't bother me, but each to their own!

TBH this is exactly why I generally fly freighters or BBJ/ACJ jet if available (and I’ve spent faaar too much time in pax cabins to have any positive associations). I tell that little voice in my head that they can go anywhere at any time. 😁

31 minutes ago, Kevin_28 said:

From level flight? That's a little bit of an exaggeration, no? 

Do you think so?  I don't, really.  I guess you could say a 15 or 20 degree bank instead of 30?  But yeah, the PMDG aircraft... Wander.  They just don't feel like they exhibit the inherent stability of a transport platform.  They strike me the same as most of the Xplane flight model: like the dev went too far in trying to prove his aircraft don't fly like they're "on rails", as the community used to complain.  The problem with that is, when you're talking about a stable platform like an airliner in smooth air, it *should* be closer to "on rails".