cparrott73

FWIW, I did a reinstall of Windows with FSX:SE as the only FSX on my system over the winter holidays recently. I installed the MD-11 into it, and it seems to work just fine. Though I confess, I have not spent a great deal of time flying it around in this setup. Such a shame the MD-11 was such a dud for PMDG. I rather like the plane.

Got the 727, 737, 777, and L-1011 for P3D. Already had them for FSX, and I balked a bit at having to repurchase them for P3D. (Yes, I get their reasons.) However, with the annual 9.99 sale, it was not as big of a deal. Looking forward to trying them out in P3D as I find time - particularly the 727.

Amazing work, PMDG. I never cease to be amazed by the level of detail you guys put into modeling the VC and other subtle details that I probably wouldn't ever notice unless RSR points them out to us. :-) You guys are like the BMW of flight simulation, amazing engineering down to even the finest details. Keep 'em coming!

Tom, I am so very sorry to hear the news. Know that we are lifting you and your loved ones up in prayer at this time. Thanks so much for all you have done, by providing this community a place to hang out and share online. God speed. Chris Parrott

My bad I actually meant NGX SP1c...been testing a lot of planes lately.

I actually got the NGX to install within FSX-SE. However, I had previously installed the retail version, installed the NGX, activated it, then uninstalled everything and installed FSX-SE and then reinstalled the NGX under it. I'm not sure if this makes a difference. I did not get the activation request when I reinstalled the NGX, so presumably it picked up the previous activation from the earlier install? However, now something is in a very funky state. It seemed to briefly work last night, then I tried to update everything to SP2. Now, when I launch FSX-SE, load up the NGX, but when the sim starts up, it doesn't go through its usual 20-countdown initialization sequence. All of the panels then fail to initialize. Of course, the plane is unflyable as a result. I know FSX-SE isn't officially supported by PMDG, so I don't know if it would be advisable to file a ticket on this yet. I am happy to do so if it would be the right thing to do at this time. On the other hand, I can certainly wait until updated installers and such are available for FSX-SE, if those would potentially fix the issue. This is a secondary test rig, so it does not affect my primary NGX installation on my main rig. Just wanted to start trying out FSX-SE without affecting my main FSX installation yet, until all the issues get sorted out. Thanks in advance for any advice.

Prayers for a successful operation and a speedy recovery, Captain! I am going camping with my son next week, so I don't mind the delay at all. It will be nice to enjoy some time away with my son, and then come home looking forward to this new bird from PMDG when we get back. Warmly, Chris Parrott

The litmus test for purchasing X-Plane (or any flight sim platform for that matter) is whether PMDG or similar quality aircraft will be available for it. I am very intrigued by X-Plane, especially now that PMDG is on board, and I will probably purchase X-Plane once PMDG's first project is available for it. FSX isn't going to last forever, and unless P3D opens up to more casual simmers, then I guess X-Plane appears to be the most promising successor long-term. I also have to say, as a Mac OS X user, I am pretty stoked at the possibility of flying a PMDG aircraft without having to reboot into Windows! -- Chris Parrott

As much as I would love to see a PMDG 727, I trust them when they say there is no business case for it. Personally, I would love to see them do a 757/767 series once their other announced planes are out in the wild. I know Level-D is supposedly working on a 757, but who knows when it will be available. With their Boeing connections, a PMDG 757/767 series would absolutely be the bee's knees.

I just took my son to the Boeing factory up in Everett last week, and we watched the workers assembling some Triple-7 airframes in person. Now PMDG appears set to release their Triple-7 this month. I'm certain these two events are related somehow. You're welcome, everyone. :-) -- Chris Parrott

You must be new around here! -- Chris Parrott

Anybody know if I can get a discount if I buy the 777-300 expansion pack at the same time? I know I have $200 million or so stashed in my sofa cushions somewhere... :lol: -- Chris Parrott

Ah, that's what I get for responding to hearsay. Thanks for clearing that up, Ryan. I know PMDG has expressed previously that they do not want to compete with other 757 projects allegedly in the works, but man, what I wouldn't give for a 757 with NGX quality. Hopefully someday one will grace my virtual skies. Looking forward to all the great goodies coming from PMDG! -- Chris Parrott

I missed that, but can't say I'm all that surprised by it. I know PMDG has their hands full with the 777, the 747v2, the DC-6, and the remaining NGX variants. With the recent release of the Q400 elsewhere, there probably isn't as much of a compelling business case for PMDG to make a Dash-8 anymore. Might be best to just look around and see what else they could bring some of the PMDG magic to. My vote would be for a 757/767 or 787, personally! -- Chris Parrott

With all due respect, I have to say I find this premise just a little bit silly. Both are high quality, top notch products. I have gotten many hours of enjoyment out of the NGX, and I know I will get many more out of it. I have also gotten a few hours of enjoyment out of the Q400, and I know I will also get many more out of it. The ability to fly just about any aircraft in Alaska/Horizon Airlines's fleet with the exact same aircraft in FSX (modulo a good CRJ) is exciting for me. The fact that both products make the experience the next best thing to actually being in the aircraft itself is a huge plus. Sometimes, everybody wins. I think this is one of those times - we simmers all win when we have access to such high quality products. Kudos to both PMDG and Majestic for delivering the goods.

I am really looking forward to the MilViz 737-200 - it looks to be the best one of the lot so far. I would preorder, but I just blew the monthly flight sim budget on the shiny new Q400 that just came out this weekend. Still, I will jump on the MilViz 737-200 as soon as it is available...

I picked up the Majestic Q400 late last night (Pacific Time in the USA), and I have been really enjoying it so far. The Q400 is quite similar to the PMDG J41 in a lot of ways, but still rather unique in a number of others. I have not had a chance to read through all the documentation yet, but I did complete the tutorial today. For the most part, I didn't think the tutorial was too bad, but it is written in such a way that it is probably more intuitive if you have had prior experience with turboprops, such as the J41. If you are new to the realm of flying a turboprop, you will probably be a bit lost in the beginning. It would be nice if the tutorial did a better job of explaining certain things. Took me three tries to complete a successful proving flight from KPDX-KSEA today - using the Alaska/Horizon livery, of course. The first time, I made the mistake of attempting a flaps 35 landing, and the plane went into an unrecoverable spin when my airspeed dipped a bit too low. The second time, I stuck with flaps 15, but again, my airspeed dipped a little too low when I was focusing my attention on something else. (Common with me when I am learning a new plane...sigh.) The third time, I kept my airspeed on final descent right around 140-150 KIAS, and glided into a pretty easy landing on 34L at KSEA. Don't count on an easy go of recovering the plane if you stall - I'm not sure if this is how the real Q400 is, but it was pretty much game over for me whenever I stalled it in the sim. I have not quite mastered VNAV descents yet, though. I wish that were explained a little better in the tutorial. For my third (and successful) attempt at landing at KSEA today, I just armed my new lower altitude using ALT SEL, then selected IAS mode, and descended at around 220-240 KIAS. Worked reasonably well for me, although I have no idea if this is how real world Q400 pilots do it. I have noticed a few very minor glitches, but nothing that really got me very worked up. The main one for me was trying to figure out how to set on TCAS mode to TA/RA. Once I realized that the usual FSX shortcuts to set altimeter or transponder squawk code don't really work here, it was not a big deal to maintain those settings on my own. Just adds to the realism, I know. Kudos to the Majestic Software crew on job very well done on this one. I know I will be enjoying the Q400 for quite some time to come. I sure do hope McPhat or somebody does a really great livery pack expansion for this - I would love to see the Frontier animals (even though they don't use the Q400 anymore) and all the various Alaska/Horizon special liveries, including the college teams and the green machine livery.

Looks like daddy is going to be tooling around in a new Q400 this weekend! Woohoo!

In PMDG's defense, I remember thinking at the time (several years ago) that the MD-11 was a bit of a strange choice. I remember being a little disappointed that they weren't doing the NGX series before it. However, I quickly got over it when the MD-11 came out and I saw what a really awesome plane it was. It is still one of my favorite planes to fly long-haul missions on, at least until the PMDG 777 is released. Even then, I will probably still fly it on occasion, just because I like it so much. Truly unfortunate news about the piracy problems with the MD-11. I personally make it a point to buy just about everything PMDG puts out, mainly because I want them to stay in business and keep developing high quality simulation aircraft. I know they can't do it without our support. I do think a PMDG-quality 727 would probably sell better than the MD-11, only because many more people have had the experience of flying on a 727. It hasn't been gone for very long - and is still quite regularly used in cargo ops, and in developing countries like portions of Latin America or Africa. It's also a screamer - both in terms of speed and sound. I honestly hope the rumor posted here about the new 727 being done elsewhere is true - but if not, then I hope PMDG will take the time to do some scientific marketing research and see where the customer demand lies. Maybe they will be surprised, or maybe not. Either way, I know I will be lining up to buy the 777, 747v2, DC-6, and whatever other goodies are coming our way. -- Chris Parrott

Fantastic. But will it blow up in FS9, too? Or just FSX? :Whistle: -- Chris Parrott

All of them? OK, if you had to pin me down, I would love to see all of these - even if some of them may be fictional with respect to the variant actually flown by the airline: Aeromexico Air Canada Air China Air France Air New Zealand (including All Blacks) Alitalia All Nippon Airways American Airlines British Airways Cathay Pacific Delta Air Lines Emirates Etihad Airways KLM Qantas Singapore Air TAM United Airlines Vietnam Airways I'm sure I could come up with others, but that's a good start... -- Chris Parrott

Just curious if the extra pounds gained by Santa as he tasted all the cookies and milk on Christmas Eve substantially affected the Reindeer's fuel burn. Did North Pole Dispatch factor this in? :lol: Anyway, a belated Merry Christmas to the PMDG team. Looking forward to the 777 and all the other goodies coming in 2013! -- Chris Parrott

Ditto on the manuals and tutorials. Though if you have spent any time in any modern jet sim, you will pick up the NGX very quickly. I love it - it is my favorite plane to tool around in right now. The -600/-700 expansion is a treat, too. -- Chris Parrott

Here are my thoughts on the Captain Sim sale: - 707 Captain: very good, a steal at €9.99 (or around $13 US). Pick this one up at this price if you have not already. - 737 Captain: ditto, also well worth the €9.99 sale price. No break on the 737-100 or 737-200ADV variants, though, so you can always just buy the base model today, and then spend the €9.99 on these variants at another time. The 737-200C/F model is normally €14.99, so you do get a €5 discount on that one today. - 777 Captain: this one depends largely on how you feel about flying unfinished planes. I think the €39.99 (around $52 US) is a bit excessive for this one, but €9.99 is OK. Plus, you get all the updates when they finally do finish it. So what you are really buying into here is the potential for a very good 777. Or, it might end up being rubbish. At €9.99, you are not out a whole lot one way or the other, though. It's actually flyable, and works decently well at this point. Most basic FMC functions work as of the 0.9 update. There are some indicators missing on the glass displays, such as the FD state and the ILS indicators, and a few other unfinished elements here and there, but I was able to complete a short flight from KAUS to KDFW last night with no issues. I figure if nothing else, it will be a good warmup to when PMDG releases their 777 series. - 727 Captain - this really needs some TLC from Captain Sim. It works, but I have a lot of trouble with its autopilot following VOR radials on a straight line - it seems to veer wide then overcorrect itself a lot. Plus, as others have pointed out, there are a lot of other things that you have to manually clean up about the flight dynamics to get the feel just right. I think this has the potential to be good, but it just feels like it needs a bit more polish to me. Still, it's really the only game in town for the 727 on FSX right now. €9.99 won't set you back much. - 757 Captain - my very first Captain Sim purchase. It's come a long way, but there are still features I wish it had - like the speed tape variant in the glass displays, for example. I have had trouble with 757 Captain in the past tracking the localizer on ILS - it seemed to want to drift - although I have not flown it in a while, so I cannot remember if it was still an issue. Captain Sim is supposedly working on a new set of fixes for this one. A decent buy at €9.99, I think. - 767 Captain - see 757 above, very similar There you have it.

I remember a post from Ryan or someone a while back that stated that PMDG would avoid doing a 757/767 out of deference to the Level-D developers, whom they consider friends. Probably for that reason, along with the fact that they have had much bigger fish to fry between the 777, 747X v2, 737 NG variants, DC-6, and who knows what else, they will not be doing a 767 or 757. 'Tis a shame, really - would love to see a PMDG-style treatment of the 767 and 757. The Level-D 767 is great, but a bit long in the tooth, and who knows when if ever they will finally unveil their 757. These birds are entering their twilight years, sure, but they will continue to be a fixture in the skies for at least another 10 years if not more. -- Chris Parrott