Stearmandriver

I never said they were just publicly available as in "free"; I said you can buy them. You can. Look up a 737 type from Flight Safety. Anyone can show up with a check, and get trained and typed. Access to this material isn't controlled by anything except money. They're just civilian aircraft... No different than a beech Baron or something. You could buy one tomorrow, if you have the money. No one will do a background check or anything. And then, consider the secondary study material market, like the one source I linked. Anyone will tell you this stuff is much more detailed than what's in the company issued materials, and obviously Boeing isn't controlling anyone's access to it. There's just nothing secret here.

It's all electronic now, but yes, that's what I linked. Also note that you can purchase paper manuals from several different training facilities... Or just enroll in their type program. They'll take anyone's money, you'll have your study material tonight and you'll be in a sim tomorrow. It's not "controlled". 👍

Where did I say you wouldn't have to meet requirements? Anyone can meet those requirements. Sure, might cost you something. But you see, it's not anything that restricts anyone from the info who is willing to pay. It's not classified information... You're willing to pay for it, you can have it. Boeing is in the business of making money. These are civilian, non classified products. Of course they'll sell the products, and the documentation, to whoever wants to pay, as that site says. Get a certificate, hold insurance, gimme your check and here's your manual. You guys are being silly, acting like there's some special knowledge here lol.

Ah yes, AI... The gold standard of accuracy, especially about a specialized industry that it's not been prepared to regurgitate info on. 😉 Truly, anyone can access a Boeing MX manual. But as I said, you don't even need to, because you can just download the Cockpit Companion app, which will tell you more than the Boeing manuals will. Entirely legally. I'll leave you a link. 😁 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/b737-cockpit-companion/id574292473 For good measure, here's the service where anyone can purchase access to all operational manuals and data directly from Boeing. The MX stuff has its own portal. https://services.boeing.com/training-solutions/flight-training/licensed-manuals These are just civilian airliners. There's nothing classified here.

Yes, the number of them that are FOs is pretty surprising too, only because I can't fathom allowing that in my flight deck as a captain. Even if it's not an explicit policy violation in their country / at their company (and I assume it's not since it's happening), there is no way I'd allow such a distraction. I mean, who are these captains that allow their FOs to play such a silly game??

This makes it sound as if there's some classified or non-public technical information to be gotten from Boeing. About an airliner? There absolutely is not. Anyone can buy a set of maintenance manuals for a 737. Anyone can buy the 737 Cockpit Companion app (which is probably even more valuable than the MX manuals for understanding how systems work.). None of this stuff is controlled. Any even halfway decent dev team is working off of 3d scans of real aircraft for their modeling, produced with the concurrence of an airplane owner (an airline), not the manufacturer (Boeing). So no permissions from Boeing needed there either. If someone wants to use a drone to scan my suburban, they don't need Chevy's permission, just mine 😉. Unfortunately I find your last point incorrect. There is a slew of airline pilot "influencer" types out there, seemingly disproportionately from European airlines, who absolutely do use flight deck operational footage in their videos. The existence of these folks kind of cracks me up... Like, really, you fly for a large airline, but the pittance you make off YouTube videos is a meaningful contribution to your income? Either European airlines need better contracts lol, or more likely some folks need a bit of an ego check. But yeah, plenty of that video out there. We restrict it in the US not because of company IP privacy concerns, but just because of crew distraction issues.

Saved states have some bugs right now. But this is mostly applicable to starting at the gate. If you start on a runway, then yes, it starts with the engines running ready to go.

That's kind of the only thing Boeing is good at right now, is subbing out simple tasks they didn't want to bother with doing themselves. But if PMDG still can't even have permission to include the extremely basic and common documentation they used to be able to use, they obviously don't have any real level of permission from Boeing to do, well, anything. I don't know how they managed to convince simmers they ever had any kind of special or exclusive access to, or permission from, Boeing to do anything. They're just a video game and modeling company. I can see Boeing subbing out some simple modeling or animation work to them, but beyond they... Boeing really couldn't be bothered with desktop flight sim.

They can't even use the Boeing manuals anymore... Not sure what kind of "relationship" they might have, these days...

Highly doubt this. That licensing level from Boeing is for level D data (though it is simplified and most good operators will refine and maintain their own data for their sims). This data wouldn't be remotely applicable to a sub-$100 consumer video game. It wouldn't do them much good from a development standpoint, and even if it were helpful, it would be entirely cost prohibitive for a niche game developer. This is stuff Boeing markets to large corporate customers; a product they can't get anywhere else. You can imagine the cost structure. PMDG isn't buying that 😉. PMDG dropped their licensing level with the 2020 release of their NG, which is why the product no longer came with Boeing documentation (in previous sims, it shipped with a Boeing FCOM and QRH). At this point, PMDG isn't maintaining a licensing level any higher than anyone else - the ability to use the Boeing name. They aren't paying any more than Revell or any model kit maker... And they certainly never had any exclusivity agreement. You have to understand, a niche game market is absolutely meaningless to Boeing. I could see them enforcing a prohibition on damage modeling so they don't have to contend with photorealistic screenshots of their aircraft on fire etc. (though with advancements in AI image capability this is probably an obsolete concern), but otherwise... They absolutely do not care about anyone or anything in desktop flight simming.

In reality, unless otherwise necessary for traffic, your first descent clearance is usually "pilot's discretion"... Meaning start down when you like. You can then remain in VNAV and stay on your FMC descent profile. You'll usually get the "descend via" clearance somewhere a little farther along, once you've already started down. In all cases, it's good to remember that you fly the airplane, not ATC. You have a magic word available to you any time ATC gives you a clearance you don't agree with: "unable". I don't bother with ATC in the sim unless it's Vatsim because nuances like this just aren't handled correctly, and I'm not going to argue with AI ATC when it tells me to do something dumb. I can self vector a lot more effectively lol.

I haven't tried the 185 (or 2024 at all) so I'm not sure what this looks like, but just to clarify: like in a lot of taildraggers, you can't see over the nose in front of you when on the ground in 3 point attitude. The 185 has *ok* forward visibility compared to other taildraggers, but you still can't see in front of you without some s turning. About the only taildraggers with forward visibility good enough to not require s turning are the Aeronca / American Champion family: the Champ, Scout, Citabria, Super Decathlon etc.

Excellent, thank you. What you're talking about is FOQA data; it should be the only data commercially available so it makes sense you wouldn't be aware of the other type. They are different recording suites but again, no reason you would be familiar with it. I was sure that was the case but, you know, gotta ask. No reason to correct your verbiage; I'm probably the only one who would ever catch it 😁. I should clarify for everyone reading, I never had any suspicions of Fenix doing something unethical. They need data, they find the data available, they buy the data... They'd never have any reason to question it. My curiosity was about who might actually be collecting and disseminating a branch of data that should not be collected or disseminated. I was pretty sure no one was but, like I said, I'm one of the guys who would read this and have to ask 😉. But, all good.

Tagging @Aamir because after thinking about this some more, it's not just curiosity - this requires clarification. Did you really mean DFDR data, or did you perhaps mean FOQA? From a desktop sim standpoint the difference is negligible; either would have contained the information your team needed to adjust flight dynamics. But from a professional privacy standpoint for those of us who do this for a living, there are significant differences. FDR data should not be getting archived, and certainly should not be available to a commercial entity making entertainment software. If you really obtained DFDR data, I would like to know from where. I really suspect you meant FOQA, precisely since FDR data SHOULDN'T be getting archived; it's typically continuously overwritten on a 25 hour loop by the recorder, and never accessed except in the event of an accident. FOQA on the other hand is de-identified and aggregated precisely for commercial use. I understand that it seems a pedantic point to the sim community. I ask because I'm involved with safety data at both my airline and ALPA and there are rather strict agreements in place regarding collection and use of this data, and if it's somehow being made commercially available to a video game developer, we need to know the source. Thanks! 👍

Well, this is a video game, there's no "practical significance" to anything here, right? But it certainly will allow you to stay out of the heavier rain which would potentially indicate convection if it really existed in the sim... So from a simulation standpoint, I can see the point. Those recommended tilt settings are cute. They're also dependent on both the radar internals being calibrated correctly, and the dish being mounted with exactly zero angular error. Neither thing will ever be true. So you can throw them right out the window. There are real world, simple techniques to manage tilt if you have to, that don't involve arbitrary numbers since they're not useful in reality. As far as the sim radar, just pretend your airline isn't a ratty low cost carrier and has actually sprung for a modern system with automation, and it'll do just fine. 😉