M. Kent

That is why I spoke to a dealer. I have told you what he said. In writing a review I am obliged to assume that most users will not have that particular 767 in their collection. I assume that they can only be guided by what is in the box. How do know the 767 - which I have not identified - the be only half-decent. Trolling? I am not Norwegian. You will see from an earlier response from me that I have.

If you took the trouble to see what the 737 NGX came with, you would find that it was accompanied by a booklet that described the FMC and little besides. I put it to you that most users do not want to have to trawl through a mass of pdf documentation simply to get the panel into the correct shape to start the engines and taxi out. None of the points I have raised are baseless since I have supported all my assertions with fact. The paragraph above can hardly be 'misinformation' since it is a matter of fact. The only point of opinion I have raised is that of the virtual flightdeck. In my opinion the 2D alternative is the more realistic of the two.

Thank you but it is academic so far as I am concerned. The 737NGX has been uninstalled, thrown away and the review written. I spoke to a retailer who specialises in FS software and he tells me that the rate of returns for PMDG is significantly higher than any other; the main complaint being the lack of basic instruction. As I suspected, the average purchaser wants first of all to get up and running (for which he needs a basic page of instructions) after which he can then take the matter to levels of greater detail. I believe that PMDG are making a grave commercial error in believing that the market are happy to trawl through hundreds of pages in the first instance. PMDG would do well to take a page out of a rival manufacturer - I forget their name - whose 767 is just as detailed (and with just as many pages of instruction) as a PMDG offering but nevertheless comes with a simple 'start' guide to ensure that the user does not lose interest during the learning process. Anyway, thank you for your help.

Well gentlemen. I have just completed a instrument flight with the 737NGX and I have come to the conclusion that it is a joke. PMDG are really scraping the bottom of the simulation barrel here. The instructions, as we have seen, are a disgrace (if PMDG seriously expect me to read through several hundred/thousand pages of instructions before getting onto the first rung of the ladder, then they should be paying me) whilst only someone who has never sat in the front of an airliner, much less flown one, would ever accept that the 737NGX has an especially high degree of realism. This is not a judgement quickly reached, in fact I enjoy using these simulators since they enable me to keep up to date with an activity from which I retired many years ago. Occasionally I am asked by the History Channel (etc) to contribute to their aviation documentaries and arising from that, I am sometimes asked to review books and simulators which is how I come to be grappling with the 737 NGX. I have, I think, given it a reasonable trial, spending three or four days (much of which was due to the inadequacy of the documentation and I think it fair to say that the product will get a drubbing,

Were someone top come on this group next week and ask the question that I put (ie a little straightforward guidance), the answer I would give would be along these lines. 1, Go to FMC : to FS action and disconnect Ground Cables. 2. To Upper Panel. Both IRS switches to Off and then NAV 3. To Lower Panel. 3a. (Panel Left Lower) All 6 pumps on. 3b (Panel Centre Left). APU to On. Watch EGT steady at 300. APU Generators (both) to ON 4. Air Con: (Panel Right). Upper diagram: LP to Off, Iso to Auto, RP to Off Lower Diagram : On, Auto, On. Start engine 1 and 2. When ready to move: To FMC. Remove chocks. Release brakes. The immediate object is to get the 737 running, moving and in the air. The refinements, which are contained within the thousand or so pages, can be read at leisure. It is (in my view) important to remember that Flight Simulators are a game and not the real thing. If fate had intended you to fly the real thing, you would be doing so.

Where did I say that there was no difference?

Have no fears about disagreeing with me! I know that the 737NGX has a 2D panel but my first flight was made with the VC just to give it a fair trial. I am not sure that three dimensions is always the answer. Sixty years ago an attempt was made to launch it into the cinema - and there have been several subsequent attempts - yet the two dimensional remains the standard with no complaints about the lack of realism. (No one ever claimed that B&W lacked realism). Thus it is with simulations because when you look at, say, the upper panel, you do so in isolation of everything else. When not looking at anything in particular you scan a variety of indications, not so much to read them as to be altered to the odd one out. This, to me, seems to be more readily accomplished in 2D with VC. As to the noise, the slipstream - I imagine that is what the noise is - seems greatly exaggerated to me although I will concede that accurate recordings of high intensity sound are difficult to make. When filming a take off, I have often noticed that as the throttles are advanced, the noise simply goes off the dial. Next time I fly,. I will take more notice of the slip stream. (It would be interesting to know whether the simulations of the Comet airliner - which I have never tried - give an accurate rendering of the noise from inside. Today's jets sounds pretty well as you would expect a jet to sound but this was far from being the case with the Comet).

Enfin! I managed to start the engine, taxi out and fly a few circuits but I cannot say I am over impressed with the NGX. Having got the engines running, one wondered for some time why the brakes wouldn't release and eventually found the answer deep inside the FMC. (Which could have been made clear somewhere in the printed manual). As for the flight, I cannot see that the VC is any improvement over the 2D and I suspect it is an innovation made for the sake of innovating. What is important in a simulator is not what is actually around but what you see in your mind's eye and I think 2D reflects this the best. Still, I shall experiment with WC and see if I change my mind. Who knows. I am not sure that the engine noise is any more real in the NGX than it was in the NG but is that strange noise like a steam engine letting off steam? If it is supposed to be slipstream, it is a very noisy one - i thought for a minute the navigator was frying bacon behind me, Finally, did someone say that PDMG are producing a DC6? That is a type I well remember.

I am grateful for the trouble you are taking but I think the point is being missed. Once I can master the start-up process, the troubles should be over but it should not be necessary - and certainly not desirable - to trawl though a mass of pdf's and GKWE in order to get thought the essential process of switching the ignition on. This lack of basic documentation is all the more frustrating in that the 737 (or any of the modern jets) are far less complex than the stuff we used to fly in the 1950's. Even then the task was simplified by having a check-list which is precisely what is needed here. Having twice succeeded in getting the engines turning over- although by no means certain of doing it a third time - and getting the FMC up and running, the PC (which is a large one with 8GM of Ram etc) crashes which makes the whole thing rather tiresome. I have, actually, yet to get into the air. It is a great shame really because I have no doubt that the 737 NGX, like its PMDG predecessor, is in a class of its own yet I suspect that for every stalwart who has bored his way through the litany of extramural miscellany in order to get the engines running, there are fifty who have given it up as a bad job. Will they return to PMDG? I doubt it yet had PMDG included a simple guide/check list to get them over this first hurdle, PMDG would have profited thereby. (The basics I am looking for seem to be in 'tutorial 2 pages 9 -21 and 53 - 70. They could, I think, have been condensed onto a single sheet - as is done (or used to be) in real life. A simple aid-memoire. It is probably true that there are all sorts of films and video's to look at and no doubt they are of the greatest interest - if you have the time available to find and digest them.

You should do something about that cough. I have not yet found much in the tutorials that helps but perhaps you could quote the page numbers. In order to wind the 737NGX up I had to try and remember what we did in 1957 and adapt.

Well. After eight hours and a considerable amount of tobacco, I have succeeded in getting the engines to start..................... I appreciate the sentiment but it does seem to me that if your purchase a relatively expensive piece of software - expensive in relation to similar offerings by other software houses - the least they could do is to provide coherent instructions on how to get of the ground (figuratively and literally). Except to hone one's basic skills and gain a deeper understanding of the technical side of matters, buying additional manuals and printing out reams of paper should not be necessary in the first instance. One can draw a fair contrast with a 767 simulation - I forget the manufacturer - where the manual tells you in clear and simple terms how to switch the thing on, taxi out, take off and navigate your way from one part of the globe to another. The deeper stuff one can take in afterwards at one's leisure. I think PMDG could well look at this aspect: it would certainly do nothing to deter sales and could well enhance them.

I have enough experience of the software world to know that the first thing you do after buying a piece of software is to download the amendments. If there is a less reliable element of production than software, I should be interested to know what it is............. I am grateful to you - many thanks - for drawing my attention to Tutorial No.2: hidden between pages 29 and 21 seem to be the bit and pieces I am looking for. I shall spend some of today trying to make the thing work but if not by tonight then back it will go. I notice, incidentally, that in the bowels of the interminable small print, is a note that you cannot speed up the 737NGX by more than eight times. If this is the case it is a severe setback. On the 737NG you could set the FMC to to nearest navigation point to the point of descent and speed the thing up by 64 times. The fuel warning system would tell you that the tanks were empty but as long as you cancelled this off, there was nothing to worry about and the position returned to normal when you reduced to normal speed. The interest in Flight Simulation is the take off, climb to cruise, descent and landing. The bit in between can be safely dispensed with.

Well, I only have one - that is all that came with my disc. It is entitled 'PMDG 737 NGX. Manual' and deals almost exclusively with the FMC. What is the other one called and I will ask PMDG to send me one. I am afraid my past experience with simulators (as opposed to the real thing) is confined to the FS2004 PMDG 737. That seemed reasonably real to me (and, apparently PMDG, according to what they said about it at the time). It seems that I am a manual short.

I am grateful for that (why on earth do they hide the things lie that?) and will read through them this week-end. What I really want - if you can give me a pointer to the section - is a run-down on the starting procedures apropos the panel. Thanks again. The poorly written manual I referred to was the booklet - the only one - that came with the disk. It runs through the FMC and ignores almost everything else.

The key to success with anything from tying shoelaces to landing a 747 is a clear set of instructions. The only manual - and poorly produced - that came with my 737 NGX is a small booklet that runs you through the FMC process but ignores everything else. Where are the thousand pages of manuals you speak of? The 747-400 had a folder which included a dozen or so manuals but I cannot locate an equivalent for the 737 NGX. Incidentally the manual is not a Boeing manual. It is simply a rather poorly written booklet by PMDG that has a Boeing kitemark. I imagine PMDG paid through the nose to get it on the cover in order to give a verisimilitude of oneness with the aircraft manufacturer.