WolverineHusky

Only two issues I've run into. The Yoko Yoke doesn't play nicely with PMDG planes. My autopilot would light up with proper set-up and all that, but plane wouldn't follow course. Apparently for the Yoko you have to disable the yoke in the virtual fly software (which you usually load up) and calibrate and set axis' the old school way, i.e., via MS controller and MSFS axis set-up. Autopilot worked perfectly after that. Saw someone had the same issue with the PMDG 737 so thought it was my problem with the 777. Yep. Last night had the freeze issue. Was setting up my approach into Hong Kong about 45 minutes before the end of the flight, and pretty much immediately after loading the route and activating the sim froze. Frustrating but hopefully will be worked out soon.

LOL my bad! Was trying to respond to someone else and got multi-quote wrong and misread. Don't need a snickers bar. But I do need a coffee. Carry on don't mind me. 🙂

[Deleted as I don't know how to use mult-quote yet lol]

PMDG's numbers are impressive, and clearly the founders are making good money. With that said, it took them years to develop the 777 and probably cleared millions in operating expenses. Also don't forget the tax man gonna take 30%+ of the net income. I'm a small business owner and the company I founded cleared about $30 million in 10 years. But I have a mortgage like everyone else, live in an expensive city (Seattle), bills, and am pretty much upper middle class if that. I have business partners (so I don't get all the profits - just 37.5% - my cut - which used to be 50% but we added partners). Taxes no joke. Payroll no joke. Heck, last year one of my employees made more money than I did lol, and I hired her and she wasn't even a partner. PMDG is a profitable and well run small business. But it ain't Amazon and the head guys aren't Bezos. Very happy for their success though. Good for the flight sim community.

"Disaster" is a bit much. I wonder if people just expect perfection when in reality if you play pretty much the top video games and purchase add-ons, rarely are launches smooth. Let's take Heatblur for example. Healtblur is probably one of the most respected developers out there. They literally posted the day the F-4 was gonna release on their YouTube release video. Guess what? It released a whole day later past the scheduled and advertised release date. They just said, "sorry, have to wait another day...." https://www.reddit.com/r/hoggit/comments/1cx3er9/f4_phantom_launch_delayed_to_22nd_may/ In my case, I ordered the 777 on my iPhone while grocery shopping lol. Got home like 90 minutes later, received the email, download took like 3 minutes, and I was flying. I just can't get worked up over waiting 90 minutes for download link. Heck even a day and I'd be whatever. Just a little odd that Heatblur pretty much told everyone to wait for 24 hours for a download link and nobody really batted an eye. Some folks wait three hours and pitchforks come out. Perspective...

I bought the 737-900 on accident sigh (and I own the 737-800). Good times....

Every generation complains about the work ethic of the new generation. I do think there are unique circumstances though that the current generation takes advantage of, e.g., remote work, increased entitlement (which becomes more of an issue each successive generation), etc. I mean there are members here who grew up as teenagers or early 20s in the late 60s, and rest assured, the prior generation thought they were a bunch of hippies, lazy and outright crazy. So just more of the same nowadays.

I was going to upgrade my computer in anticipation, but after thinking about it, probably best just to wait. Hard to predict the price of components, but assuming tariffs don't become an issue, the RTX 4090 should continue to drop in price (I'm running a 2080 Ti Founders Edition). And of course the 5080/5090 will probably hit end of year or earlier. One thing I did do however is get a larger M.2 drive - 4 TB to replace my 1 TB drive. I was pretty shocked that 1 TB wasn't enough for MSFS and some other games (I have a lot of mods - freeware and payware), but I ran out of space. 4 TB will be hard to fill and very easy to move that drive to a new computer.

The 414 is great. I prefer the Duke, but a solid plane. The COWS DA 42 is also really fun. Good sounds and flight model, though as a modern plane with modern avionics (and a stick, not a yoke), she's almost too easy to fly and not much going on when in flight. Lately I've been flying her a lot. I also really enjoy the Black Square rework for the King Air 350 (analog gauges). Not a complete overhaul (just systems and flight model I believe - exterior the default MSFS plane), but IMHO solid performance and fun. As I think I've mentioned, love the Duke but the views out the cockpit are not good. I can still land her easily and she's fun to fly, but I value cockpit views a bit. EDIT: Also forgot about the OV-10 Bronco. Unique plane and flight model, and I just can't manage to land her correctly. But some folks love that plane.

For those that mentioned they are stuck in heading mode or can’t get the autopilot to work, be sure the pitch trim switch is in the correct position. Had the same issue and realized that was switched off when it should have been on. Turbine a dream to fly and wow does she climb nicely. Gotta watch over speed on descent. Only bug I ran into is if you raise you seat height by pressing the space bar half of your viewpoint will be outside the airframe. Very easy to land IMHO land between 80-85 knots). She does feel the wind though. My biggest problem with the plane is the cockpit view is bad. Tiny and narrow front window and engines block the views. But otherwise a great plane. Will it replace my 414, King Air 350 or even the DA 42? Not sure but promising for sure.

Rider here. My Harley Road Glide Ultra and Ducati Scrambler Pro Sport 1100

I like Beckett. I find his walk throughs for cold/start to be very helpful with complicated planes. I think he sometimes tries to be gracious to the developers who give him free planes, so sometimes he holds back on honest critique. But kinda easy to spot when he feels a plane is "mid"; and he gets really excited about quality planes. I trust his judgment generally. A330 Driver another one I like.

Awesome! One of my favorite planes but as a somewhat newbie pilot it is a bit tough for me so doesn't get regular flights. Lot of great quality of life features so this will for sure get more flight time now. Can't wait.

Paine Field (PAE) by Drzewiecki in Washington (Boeing's airport) is pretty well done. People walking around inside and fantastic hangar interiors. I'll probably make this airport my home base in OnAir. Currently at KBFI, a county airport but basically another Boeing airport.

I just picked up the M500 and it is amazing. The persistent wear/tear and damage is no joke. I blew the engine a few times when starting out. Finally just took the time to read the GREAT manual offered by the developers and managed to complete a flight from Seattle Area to Boise without any issues. It looks gorgeous, decent performance and handles well. Not very high maintenance with the G1000 Nxi glass. It may seriously content with my SWS Kodiak 100 for favorite non-airliner. I only have about 5 hours in it, but so far no obvious or annoying bugs that I've seen. Seems pretty polished.

Hi all, Excited to be an active member of the community. Been trying out flight sim products since my Commodore 64 days in the early 80s. Picked up MSFS on release and invested in some gear (Yoko yoke, new computer), but alas, life got busy and kinda forgot about it. Fast forward to today, and I saw my yoke and flight sim gear collecting dust in the basement. Thought to myself, "Hmm....I bet MSFS has a lot of good content," so I hauled my stuff up to the office and became completely addicted. Computer a little outdated (Nvidia 2080 TI and i9 9900K processor), but alas, slowly but surely I've been updating my flight sim hardware and software. New computer eventually. Currently addicted to the PMDG 737-800, Fenix A320 and Kodiak 100. I'm on Volanta (User - WolverineHusky) so feel free to add as a friend if you're so inclined. Again, happy to be here. An amazing wealth of information on these forums. Cheers, WolverineHusky aka NAte