longhaul747

I just finished the flight with the latest build as of last night being 1.05. Other than a minor issue with the parking brake which was not actually an issue the flight was flawless. It flew really nice and no more fighting the up and down movements and no more strange AP issues at random times. In fact it might be a little bit too easy now since I have read on an aviation forum (not the big one) that it is a bit sensitive in real life on pitch sensitivity. So TFDi might have to add a bit back in keeping it challenging but best to leave it for the experts who really flew it setting it right. My biggest issue was excessive flap drag which seems mostly fixed now. Before it had so much flap drag you needed 80 to 95% N1 just to keep in the air on landing and when you finely touched down it would almost stop on its own very quickly. Now landings are much more dramatic as they should be since the MD-11 lands fast.

I had an issue landing at SEA this morning. The Auto Throttle was going nuts and would not shut off no matter what I do. As soon as the wheels hit the runway the throttles would spool up to 100% + N1 and was forced to go around. Had this happen twice and on the 3rd try I think I got them off. However on approach flap drag was so excessive I let it get a bit slow and I could not flare on touch down. Ended up just getting a crashed screen but in real life I probably would have cartwheeled down the runway. I am sure I forgot a step and that is why the auto throttles were still working but the excessive flap drag was the real problem. Flaps 15 is not bad but beyond that it wants to fall out of the sky unless you really keep them engines spooled up. So I just discovered I had 1.0 installed and the latest version is actually 1.01. No idea if that is going to make any difference but downloading 1.01 now!

I am doing yesterday's flight in reverse flying ANC to SEA. This time more payload (fish) and less fuel. Getting to know the automation more and had absolutely perfect and stunning takeoff out of ANC. TFDi really captured that powerful yet at the same time HEAVY feel. This plane is quickly becoming my favorite in the sim!

I think its a real route at least occasionally. I have seen the MD-11 on that route. Likely just a stop over on the way to Asia would be my guess? The 777's probably don't need the stop over. A few odd things I noticed on descent and final approach. The distance from the airport was getting confused closer to the airport. It would be stuck on 105nm for the longest time and all of a sudden it would show 55nm out. About 20nm out from the airport the distance disappeared completely. For the record this happens on every plane in FS2020. Likely a limitation and for the record I don't fully program the FMS. I am not a real pilot and of coarse never flown a MD11 in real life but I have noticed extreme flap drag. I believe on final at Flaps 35 I had to maintain 70-90% N1 just to keep in the sky. Idle down and you loose a ton of airspeed and if you are not careful you will loose it. I know flap drag is hard to get right in any sim but I do believe it needs to be toned down a bit. Heaven forbid if I try flaps 40. Also on touchdown it seems to come to a stop very fast without the need for brakes or reversers likely from all that flap drag. Could be some auto brake action going on and I will need to check on that next time I fly it. Also occasionally the AP would decide to do its own thing on descent. Like I would dial in 1500 FPM and randomly it would just start descending at 3000 or 4000 FPM or more. Finely just killed the AP and flew in by hand. I think most of this is just user error and still got a bit to learn about about it. It does fly nice and if you get slow it gets squirrely which is a trait on the real thing. I also felt that it would not flare if you got a tad slow resulting in the possibility of a bad landing. Again a trait of the real thing from what I hear. Best to come in a bit fast and all will be well except all that flap drag. I really think it needs some tweaking but we will see what others say? Overall though its pretty cool!

I downloaded a new installer from the TFDi 3 or 4 days ago and that installs the latest version. Whatever version that is but its supposed to be the release version. Updated liveries were posted Sunday evening. I thought the version I downloaded was version 1.0 so they might have pushed another update so I will have to check on that. If you have 1.0.1 that might actually be newer than what I have? I will have to check when I arrive! Just about to start my descent into ANC. I loaded 100,000 lbs of fuel not knowing how much it would burn in route but have only consumed 40,000 lbs of fuel so far. Fuel flow has settled down to about 15000 lbs per hour. 85,000 lbs of bulk cargo loaded!

Yeah I picked it up a long time ago when they did that limited to 1000 people deal. I think my purchase date was Dec of 2022 and I got the 1st release of it about 6 months later if memory serves. Back then it was pretty much unflyable and over a period of time it went from bad to worse. Some builds were more solid but the next a bunch of stuff would be broken. Honestly it was not looking promising even in the build before the release candidate had some issues. However with this release build its pretty solid. I am sure it still has issues and some people will find them but it has come a long ways. I think TFDi was looking for a lot publicity with this strategy but I think it mostly backfired or at least kind of pointless. It was just not a completely plane early on not even a very basic one so most people (me included) put it on the sidelines and sort of waited it out. Again this latest build is by far the latest build. I am sure some issues will be found and updates will be coming. For starters is my understanding the PW version is still incomplete!

Started my inaugural flight from SEA to ANC. No problems so far and I got the FMS all figured out and the plane is tracking the route no problem. Currently at FL340 cruising at Mach .83. Fuel burn is 16900 lbs per hour. I would assume that is about right for a plane of this era. I am also not real heavy. ETA is 3 hours 20 minutes!

Tonight I took it up and got the AP all sorted. Its definitely different in operation but once you get the hang of it its almost the preferred way of using it. Tomorrow (Tue) morning I plan to take it from SEA to ANC in the FedEx colors. Will be my first acid test with the aircraft. I flew it off and on during beta but it had such big issues I did not bother much. Its pretty solid as far as I can tell now!

Looks like updated liveries have been posted.

Took it up for a quick circuit around SEA and I thought it flew pretty well. I did not tinker with the systems yet so I can't comment on that. I thought it was a bit overpowered but I was also very light so probably just that. The real thing is overpowered at light weights as well! During my brief experience with this new release build its finely mostly together. It was a fairly large train wreck during some of the beta builds but it slowly got better. This release build is the 1st time it felt together. Some automation going on which I will have to figure out? For example on climb out the auto throttle automatically kicked in but despite the airspeed set at 250 knots it went way past 250 and was pegging 320 knots before I noticed and reduced the throttle manually. Also at one point even though I never engaged the auto pilot the plane randomly started banking right even though I never programmed anything. I think its just a semi automated aircraft and it will take some tinkering to figure out. I had the same issue early on with the Fenix A320.

I had this issue on my first flight with the 777. I figured out that I have to hold the brake button on my joystick and at the same time press the Control and Period keys on the keyboard. Basically the default commands! This works everytime except I could use a third arm sometimes. I appreciate the accuracy but I need an option to make that process simpler on my setup. I am sure it's a bug and will be fixed soon!

Yeah I tried it with the old FedEx Livery I had installed. It seems to work using the default TFDi livery. I forgot about that minor detail. I searched the TFDi website for the liveries and sometimes they seem to hide them but for the life of me I could not locate any MD-11 liveries like before. So I am guessing they are in the process of updating them. Won't have time for an actual test flight so I can't comment on the changes. Hopefully tomorrow but can't promise anything!

I downloaded and installed V1.0 but something went wrong. I have the exterior model but no interior. Must be a botched install or something? I did select upgrade option in the installer so perhaps that is the problem? I will try it again this time doing a completely fresh install but won't have time to mess with it until tonight!

Downloading the release version (1.0) as I type this. I am one of the folks that got in on the first 1000 deal they did a few years ago. It was pretty rough around the edges but has slowly improved. Curious to see how it is now?

Pretty sweet.....took it up for a quick circuit around the Bay Area and decided to give the fuel jettison a shot to see if it works? It sure does and if you go to external view you actually get the fuel dumping out of the wings. Its a pretty slow process but it is in real life as well. I would guess it would take 30 minutes plus to dump 150K pounds of fuel. I think only a few other planes in the history of flight simulator have actually had the fuel dump actually work. I think FSX had it as an option as a key command for some aircraft but it never showed it visually and the dump rate was extremely fast!

Just took off in the 773ER in UA colors on its inaugural SFO-NRT flight. Other than the parking brake issue which I sort of figured out accidentally everything went well. What I like about PMDG products in that they are study level but are actually easy to figure out. If you own the PMDG 737NG series this is pretty much right at home. I thought it taxied really nice. Better than the 737NG series in my opinion. The plane is massive and flying mostly smaller planes since the inception of FS2020 it takes some getting used to especially in tighter spots. Takeoff roll was surprisingly brisk and the power from those massive engines is amazing even derated. No problem climbing out either and it was not until higher altitudes that it started to feel heavier. Overall pretty happy with it other than the parking brake issue which might be more user error than anything else.

Over at the PMDG forum some interesting stats were released between different threads. At launch they were selling 2000 units per minute and that pretty much held up for the 1st few hours. I am sure it has settled down some by now but shows you just how massive our hobby is. As the world turns and people around the globe find out its officially out the demand will stay up for at least 24 hours. The PMDG 777 has already outsold the 737NG by 2 to 1 apparently. This demand has far exceeded even what PMDG thought it would do. Its kind of hard to forecast this type of growth but despite the issues that has occurred to some it indicates our hobby is thriving. Just wait until 2024 comes out if its as good as it looks!

Purchased this about an hour ago. It took about 25 minutes to get the download link email and about 3 minutes for the verification key email. Finely downloading it took 3 or 4 minutes. I would not expect anything different with such a sizeable release. Only PMDG knows what the sales numbers are so far but it must be massive. It does not really bother me and indicates that our hobby is healthy. With such great sales number we can be sure we will get many great products from PMDG and many other payware manufactures. Have not tried it out yet as I am in the middle of another flight but will once I land. I did install the UA livery without issue or any delays. I would say its going about as well as can be expected!

I just got off the phone with Boeing. Things have not been good for them so they are willing to cut me a deal on the real thing....its cheaper than what PMDG wants 🤣

I am glad we are getting a 727 finely but I am a bit bummed no 100 is planned. In my opinion the 727 is one of those classics that you need all the trimmings to go along with it. Historically the 727 was often released like this in the FS world. I can get that in this day and age its may not all be coming at once but when they said no 100 is planned it sort of makes me want to wait for the next guy who does all the variants.

Since the server issues that started last week I have had some potentially serious problems with MSFS. A lot more random stutters and I am now getting severe memory leakage issues. First the sound goes by randomly cutting out and after that 5 to 10 minutes later MSFS starts locking up. At first very long 20 second pauses and after a few other long pauses it gives up the ghost completely. Before the server issues not an issue at all except for maybe the random half second stutter a few times during a session. I suspect M$ is still having server issues!

Any theories when the MAX will drop? Its rumored to be 99% complete and PMDG has said themselves it will drop during the 777 release cycle. I am guessing August - September time frame.

This is really good news. I am usually a longhauler most of the time in the past but it seems in MSFS I was sort of forced to do a lot more flights that are much shorter. I think my first flight will be SFO-NRT in UA livery if its an option on release day. I am sure it will be available shortly if not.

For the past few weeks almost daily I get an error when try to launch MSFS. Usually pretty much 100% of the time logging out and back into the Microsoft store and XBox apps seems to fix it. Have been a lot of XBox App updates lately as well and that probably has something to do with it.

Just attempted to do a quick flight from SEA to RNO. A lot of stutters during taxi and during takeoff. When I took off I quickly discovered a bunch of generic buildings around the SEA area. No warning was given that I was offline. Stuttering was so annoying I just ended up terminating the flight!