JaneRachel

thank you Aamir, Learn something about this bird everyday. Appreciate the response! all the best Jane

Loving the update.. A couple of things I have noticed. The aircraft seems to often spawn at the gate with the gear up and promptly slams in to the ground, requiring me to go back to the main menu. I have tried Heathrow and Manchester, same result. It is not every flight so looking for an obvious cause and will report back. A slight bump on the taxiway and the aircraft sometimes goes a few feet in to the air, even at very low speed (just had this again at the payware Manchester a few seconds ago). I keep getting repeatedly asked to enter DEST data in the MCDU, even when already entered (I saw this on the previous version also) Pedantic, wishlist item - button repeat on the MCDU pls so I can scroll through the flight plan etc by keeping the button pressed as per the real unit :) Fantastic work guys. Such a lot of hard work here that is appreciated by many, all the best Jane

A head up for anyone having issues with tablet functionality. The 787 mod (787-XH) needs to be removed from the community folder and you should be good to go. This particular mod creates conflicts, which are currently under investigation. all the best Jane

and Jon's advice is really always good! He is one of the most experienced "real-world" pilots here for a major airline I will not name 🙂

I agree with you. If you have P3D only fly the FSL, if you have the new sim fly Fenix. If you have both, feel free to fly both 🙂 Are both perfect, of course not. They are though, both incredible pieces of software and we have to realise that both are developed in a completely different environment within each sim, which imposes limitations and quirks courtesy of the coding of the host sim. I spent over 15 years as Deputy Editor of PC Pilot magazine and reviewed every airliner release during that time (including the very first release by PMDG way back when). I also spent a large part of my career getting paid to do flightsims for major publishers. My honest opinion is that right now we are in a new golden age of airliners in simulation. We are flying on the desktop with an unprecedented amount of realism. The standard right now from many developers including Aamir and his team is just incredible. It is great giving feedback to developers to help them grow (nearly all quality developers love you to feedback to them!). Just remember though the incredible standard we are at now from all of these guys. When we can nitpick over minor variations in N1 to the keyboard repeat rate on a CDU, we know we are in a really great place! It is a great time to fly regardless of your choice of sim and aircraft. Jane

Agree with Aamir here, Some years ago I led a team with a Red Arrows simulation with the Hawk. We had the entire current Red Arrows team try it out and they were mega impressed at Alpha stage (it was a sim for the RAF to use internally).They were really gushing. I pointed out their team leader that actually there was a lot still left to do including flight dynamics tweaks and we weren't happy yet. His reply was that they had no idea those things could be done to that standard on a home computer. They were totally in love with the sim as not one of them had any understanding of just how realistic things could be and set their expectations of a high bar lower. Once we told them what we could do, their perceptions changed considerably and we went from gushing to real technical feedback. Happy New Year everyone, Jane

this is active on all liveries. Whether you have failures enabled or not, it is required to keep topping up hydraulic fluid. It is a "gotcha" with the current PMDG releases that you need to keep on top of this, regardless of failure settings. all the best Jane

I have never seen that happen. I will ask at work and ask Valve as you have me curious. Normally it just runs a file comparision from the server builds.

With my programmer and software engineer hat on, this can happen. Your mention of Steam points me in the direction that you are using the PC version of the software. It is not unusual for data to corrupt on the hard drive as you switch on or off a machine. Most of the time that is barely perceptible. Sometimes you end up glitching a key disk sector and you end up with all sorts of problems. Downloads and updates can sometimes corrupt in transit to your machine which then propagate the problem, but most of the time it is simple corruption of disk data. With Steam and if the problem is the app itself this is usually a relatively simple fix. Rather than delete the whole software, simply verify the integrity of the files from the option within Steam (Right click on the app name in the Steam library and select properties and there is an option to verify the file integrity). It will normally fix any corrupted data and get you up and running again. If the problem lies with Windows or drivers and all the support files that the app relies on, rather than the app itself, this gets a little more complex to fix. Most of the time though, the good news is, just asking Steam to verify and fix the files will get you up and running again with a Steam based app.

If you think about it an aircraft even now could be flown without an onboard pilot. The industry, spurred on by the military need, has got very good at drone technology and control of the drone from huge distances away. We are not far from creating a drone with seats! The technology is there, if not the will to implement it right now.

Yep, as Stearman said upthread, its really down to individual airlines. The majority of 737 operators disconnect the AT ahead of landing but not all. On the fly by wire Boeings, the situation is reversed with most using the AT into touchdown. The reason being the issue of pitch-power coupling oscillations is dampened by the software on the fly by wire Boeings which does a much better job of things than the earlier Boeings.

it does ignore the MSFS failure settings. The PMDG aircraft has its own failure settings accessible via the CDU. all the best Jane

come back if you get stuck still. I will help all I can. all the best Jane

you had APP mode armed first before hitting the other AP?

Totally agree with you Andrew! I have learnt so much over the years. I was talking to one of the senior vice presidents at Boeing a couple of years ago. He was talking about all the customisation in the 737 family, comparing to buying a car. Compared to a little car catalogue, he told me that they have shipped hundreds of mods and options, for customers.

yes to the above and a LAND3 annunciation 🙂 all the best Jane

What tends to happen at PMDG is that when they talk about tech/beta team, its not just simmers saying they like this or that. They actually recruit some crazy smart people. Experienced pilots, engineers and even designers of some of the aircraft and equipment. I had the pleasure to be involved in some pretty deep conversations with huge amounts of research from some top dollar experts. Everything is checked out in incredible detail by the team. I learnt more in a week than in the previous 20 years! I am a software developer in my day job and I have never seen such attention to detail elsewhere. I wish I could name just some of the people who have answered questions. It is like a who's who of the aviation business. When I was on the 744 group for example we had the pleasure of being around the most experienced 747 pilot in the world! (that was official - they have quite the job finding someone to do his checkrides with more knowledge!) On the autoland modes, rather than write copiously (one of my faults I inherited at PC Pilot Magazine 🙂 ), if you look upthread Stearman describes the differences pretty well. all the best Jane

Again, not a bug, some versions of the system software on the 737 will effectively autoland the aircraft on a single channel. It is just a quirk of the real aircraft. It is however, entirely prohibited to autoland this way. There was a big discussion on this in the PMDG tech/beta group some years ago on this, which led to advice being sought from some very senior Boeing engineers. I need to check which Boeing software the current PMDG is running and also dig out the revisions of the real aircraft which supported this. The upshot though is that some real NG aircraft would follow this exact same behaviour as it is a software quirk. A quirk that is prohibited to be relied on by flight crews. Stearman here on the forum (who knows his stuff and flies this aircraft) is giving good advice on the FMA annunciations and how autoland should work. As he mentions though, there are 2 types of autoland modelled, Fail Passive and Fail Operational, both of which display differently, dependent on the autopilot options you have chosen in the PMDG settings. Again, a real aircraft thing.As an airline you can get the cheap and cheerful autoland or pay some more and get the fancy autoland with centreline tracking etc. With the PMDG its all in the options menus of the CDU. Jane

the logic is that if it remains lit on the MCP, it can be cancelled in to another mode. If the lights go out (and the mode is active), it means it is safety locked and cannot be cancelled with a further button press. You can usually recycle with the flight directors. The rule of thumb is always check the active modes on the FMA rather than on the MCP. Again, lights out on an active mode is normal and just means it is intended not to be de-selectable.

I went straight over the top and all seemed fine

me and videos don't get on. I remember when we introduced them for the PC Pilot magazine coverdisk. Mine were consistently a disaster! 🙂

A sigh of relief here, fixed the issues I had with yawing on the runway. Flaring is much better now too, just landed in a crosswind at Heathrow with -28 FPM on touchdown and no sudden loss of control. Happy with the improved drag on the flaps and gear too, which is very reminiscent of the actual 320. Oh and that incessant rattling has gone too 🙂 Really pleased with the patch. A pat on the back for the Fenix team.

one of those airline preferences things Bob based on individual SOP's

Many pilots think the auto approach phase is too late, and a number of airlines have it in their SOP that this is to be done manually. However, not much further back. Activate it within 10 miles or so of your final approach (will give you plenty of time - can be shorter, but you might find that easier to handle). Certainly don't activate many miles from the airport. It is an approach mode and shouldn't be used far from your turn to final approach.

the data logging is very detailed, one of the advantages of having a live internet connection. Back in the day when I started this job people had to mail in crash reports. They have sophisticated event viewers and global tracking of client behaviours which should help narrow down. That said, I have seen bugs that can take quite a while (days) to fix even with tracking data... Let's hope this one is really apparent.