wrberg12

Commercial ticket instrument rated around 3,000 hours. Never flew as a professional pilot but I try to fly like one. Currently fly an SR22 turbo with lots of bells and whistles. Owned a V tail Bonanza for 10 years. Best handling plane I've ever flown.

Owned one for 10 years - best handling airplane I've ever flown.

The Jetliner folks are great. I've had one of their builds for around two years now - very happy with the product and the service.

Guess I’ve reached my saturation point in trying to mess with all this software to get it working properly. P3D v.3 is a nightmare – seems to work more poorly every time I boot it up. GSX and FS Dream Team are virtually unusable. All sorts of excuses with software representatives about what’s going on but the bottom line is that it just doesn’t work. I’ve got a top of the line Jetline system, plenty of power and I update all this software as recommended. I’m not a computer guy but I’m not stupid either and I’ve managed somehow to enjoy flight simulation since 1982 until now. PMDG’s stuff is great. Never a problem. Virtually everything else sucks. I’m not one to want to tweak all this stuff all the time – I enjoy aviation and flying – not fooling around with software settings all day long. I’m a real world pilot and find that flight simulation is a nice adjunct to that and can actually be useful in flight planning and instrument practice – at least when it works. Sorry for the negative tone but I’m frustrated – obviously. Guess I’ll turn off the computer and come back in a week or two – maybe some of it will have fixed itself in the meantime.

What a great bird! You guys at PMDG have knocked the ball out of the park again. The airplane flies smoothly for me at good frame rates even into the tutorial KSFO (where I have the Flight Beam Airport add-on). Very easy to hand fly which corresponds to what I've been told by RW 747 drivers. All in all many thanks for a great simulation experience. Only issue which is really a non issue is that something curious occurred when I went back to a saved enroute flight in the 777. I was flying a 777 flight when I decided to download the 747 so I saved that flight and did the download with no issues. Flew the new bird for a while then I wanted to finish the 777 flight, so I exited P3D, brought it up again and pulled the saved flight up and got blank instrument panel screens and gauges and the plane wouldn't respond to control inputs. Repeated this a few times with other enroute saved flights and the same thing happened. Pulled up a saved flight on the ground and it worked fine. Not sure this is worth messing with unless it signifies some issue that has a bigger impact. I'm fine with it and thanks again for a great simulation product. Walter Berger

Take comfort knowing that your instructor is confident that you're ready. That should give you confidence as well. Relax as best you can, and look forward to how proud you'll feel when you've completed your flight.

I've had one of their rigs for around six months. Couldn't be more pleased with the product and my experience with the company was excellent. Walter Berger

Believe that's where former President Bush lives.

My only surprise regarding PMDG's pricing and the entire sim world in general is how inexpensive products are. The realism and overall quality of products, and particularly PMDGs is astonishing for what you pay. The only other way to get a similar aviation experience is to go to qualified training sims or fly real world and the price differential is huge. I still fly real world and the fully costed price of one six hour trip in a nice SR22 approaches what an entirely new rig costs plus a ton of software. Just my two cents, but the sim world is a huge bargain. Walter Berger

Works perfectly after the SP1c fix.

I like it. The new 318/319 has some improvements, most notably the fuel and loading page is incorporated into the MCDU. Also seems to have a functional weather radar. Seems to fly a little smoother, too. Still has some rather abrupt heading and pitch changes when on autopilot on my system, but totally flyable and enjoyable. Would like to see a 2D cockpit but I guess I'm just a Luddite on that issue.

I've had that happen a time or two and I noticed that the flight plan in the FMC had not filled in with altitudes. Seems to happen out of Seattle going west more than other airports. Pretty infrequent, though.

I still fly the 74 and enjoy it a lot. The separate fuel and loading program is a bit of an annoyance but regardless it's a great plane. I gave up on the new version of the 77 because of the time compression problems and went back to the original. Hope PMDG conpletes the 74 upgrade - should be a nice improvement to an already fine aircraft.

1982 or 1983 for me. Ran the program on an IBM PC, Jr.

66 1/2. Been flying MS Flight Sims since the early '80s. Started on an IBM PC Jr. with what was probably the first version of MS Flight Sim. Also fly real world and love 'em both! Both worlds, that is.

Many thanks.

I accidently hit the RAT button and it was deployed. Couldn't get it back up. FCOM says it can't be stowed in flight - I couldn't stow it on the ground either. I'm probably missing something in the documentation but the message to self is don't hit the RAT button.

Dittos. A great plane and flies like a dream on my system. Love the auto time compression feature.

Got to admit that I struggle a bit with VC. 2D is just so much easier to navigate in times of high workload. I'm sure there's some combination of zooming and moving views around that will work for me but I haven't found it yet. I have learned to use both but I tend to revert back to 2D when things get busy.

I started flying with a friend in his airplane 30 years ago. He was a flight instructor and taught me how to get up and down but I never logged hours with him. Around 15 years ago I got serious and got my PPL, Instrument and Commercial rating. Flew a number of planes as a renter including a nice turbo 210 and then bought my own turbo V tail Bonanza. Flew the Bo for around 8 years and logged around 1,500 in that baby. Very sweet plane. Sold it three years ago and hooked up with a flying club that leases Cirrus primarily and have been flying with these guys. RW flying is great fun and a great way to get around but I'm surprised how much I still enjoy simming. Flying the big iron that I'll never do in real life is just such a kick. I love it.

I fly a Cirrus SR22 and I do think it's a challenging airplane to fly. In spite of all the safety features and neat avionics (which are very neat, BTW), its a very quick handling airplane and is particulary pitch sensitive. The avionics take some time to learn and need practice to stay current and proficient. All that being said, I enjoy flying it a lot and feel safer in it than I do in a Bonanza that I fly regularly. I've got a lot more time in the Bo and in some respects it's easier to fly but it doesn't have the redundancy the Cirrus has. And I gotta say, having that parachute is pretty nice if you really need it.

Not sure that the older avionics set up (steam guages) would make much difference to me. I used to own a Bonanza and had to fly partial panel in IMC once when vacuum failed and it's a pretty demanding endeavor. Regardless of the type of backup system they can fail as well, and flying single pilot IMC without an autopilot and questionable instrumentation is pretty dicey in my opinion. Anyway, glad the guy got down OK.

Not sure I have all the facts, but if TSRA in area, attitude indicator failed or failing, autopilot failing, in IMC, I'd have probably pulled the CAPS lever as well. The SR22 does have back up instruments, but they're electrically powered as well. Pretty unlikely that the back up instruments would fail also, but it has happened and that's one reason Cirrus put the CAPS system in their planes (the main reason had to do with spin recovery). I am a RW pilot with over 500 hours in SR22s and around 2,500 hours total and I can tell you that the SR22 is not the easiest plane to fly manually on instruments. It's very pitch sensitive, and I can't criticize a decision to engage the CAPS system in IMC with instruments failing.

Congratulations on obtaining your license. Combining real world flying with sim flying is a very neat combo that brings much more perspective to the sim world. I've been flying both worlds for many years now and can honestly say I love both. Just got back from some night currency this evening in the Cirrus which was loads of fun but I can't wait to fire up the Level D 767 and fly to some far away land. We pilots can be a strange bunch at times!