PMDG getting their act together

[Joe Lavery]

I know most of you will not be interested in the finer points of the PMDG 737NG, but it seems to be finally near release. I've posted below a quick report from one of our writers, together with a couple of screenshots he's taken.

Regards
Joe.

The aircraft is absolutely amazing! They have done the whole "accusim" type thing with it where components can fail with wear, but they monitor over 9000 components and base wear and tear on data from Boeing. Rather like accusim, you should ensure that the NG is regularly serviced from the servicing menu.

The depth of detail is incredible. One of the testers was sat on the tarmac in a very hot San Diego with the front door open and got an overheat warning in the air conditioning duct that had to be dealt with by reference to the QRH. They even monitor ambient sunshine on the windows in relation to cabin temperature! I have honestly never seen any sim this detailed. It makes accusim seem quite crude by comparison.

Every subsystem of the aircraft has been developed with support from Boeing engineers to exactly match the schematics and functionality of the NG series. One of the main aims of the sim is for airlines to use is for very in-depth systems training. The public sales are really secondary to making the aircraft for Boeing use. Another example is that there are over 400 components in the aircraft that draw power, some as little as 0.05 of an amp. The entire circuitry and functionality for all of those components has been replicated.

[XOrionFE]

Thank you Joe.

It is definitely on my "too purchase" list.    It will be used on my desktop sim with my 32 inch LCD and TrackIR.    My fear is that I will spend more time in it than my full size :-(

It looks and sounds simply amazing!

Scott

[fsaviator]

Well, that is great.  I'm not going to lie, if it has taken this long to develop NGX in order to get Airlines to use for systems training, then I'd be very interested to see what kind of price tag this will have.  All that is well and good, but we "public" have been sitting around for a few years gobbling up whatever scraps PMDG threw our way to pique our interest.  If we aren't the target audience, they should have told us a while ago.

Regardless, let's see what and when we get it...  I call dibs on the $225 to $250 price range.

Warren

[Nat Crea]

Yep cant wait...

All I hope for is a"good" flight model (dont mean to hijack Mau's thread!) and
killer sounds..

Nat

[Maurice]

Yep cant wait...

All I hope for is a"good" flight model (dont mean to hijack Mau's thread!) and
killer sounds..

Nat

I'm sure I'll be very tempted too but I'll wait for your report first. 

Maurice

[Aerosim Solutions]

Cheers Joe that sounds like a promising product!
I think I will be buying a copy and maybe setting up a desktop PC to fly with, (I hear some people actually do that!!!) I'm keen to find out what the interface capabilities are although I'm pretty keen on using SimA to go with the rest of my FDS gear.
Might be doing UK again to include the FS weekend in Holland!

Cheers Gwyn

[Maurice]

I call dibs on 1800 USD + for personal use and 10K plus for commercial applications

Not a chance in my opinion. They have been stringing people along for years now and there would be a riot at that price range. I think Warren's price is closer to it but my guess would be around $100.00 for non-commercial use considering that their 747 is still only $55.00.

For $1800.00, their only market would perhaps be the few nuts like us who have already spent multi thousands on our sims and they would lose countless thousands of desktop simmers. Not a wise move as far as I can see.

Maurice

[bussgarfield]

Hi guys,

I have been studying the PMDG forums daily as I have been waiting for the arrival of this aircraft for a while. There are all sorts of speculation with regards to the pricing and PMDG are keeping the actual pricing under wraps until the release date. The nearest they came was when one poster stated $80 - $100 and one of the development team came back and said that he did not think that we would be disappointed with the price.

A lot of work has gone into creating this software and whilst PMDG gained permission to use the 'real' Boeing manuals to use as there NGX manuals, unless they are creating two tiers of software (one for us - the public and one for commercial use), I feel from what they have said, the NGX will be geared towards the public. Do you really think that a big airline company would put it's trust in FSX?

$1800 is just laughable as PMDG's customers range from the high school kids to the retired.
I think those of us that are interested will be pleasantly surprised with the price.

Just my $1800 worth !!

Gary

[jackpilot]

Impressive soft for sure.
How will you interface it Guys?
I'm not going back 20 years and fly desktop!
Am I wrong ?

JP

[Joe Lavery]

I'm told, (but don't hang me if I'm wrong)  That this version will be fully interfacable (is that a word?).
Anyway when I last spoke to Robert Randazzo he said that they were going to make this version suitable for cockpit builders, with open access to each element of the systems.

That was some time ago, so I agree things may have changed, but as Scott has said it may be useful to have a quick flight when you don't want to fire up your full size sim.  Regarding price, I think it will probably be a premium product but I'd be surprised if it went over the £100 mark. If it did it would significantly reduce any possibility of them making a profit from the public sector.

Once again more opinion than hard fact,  I'll keep you informed as I get more info.
Joe.

[blueskydriver]

About a month ago, while at a Best Buy store, found a PMDG B747-400X version on sale from the $40 to $20. This version of PMDG has been out for awhile, but the original cost of $40 was surprising.

The fact that PMDG is sold in Best Buy stores like X-plane and FSX has been sold in Walmart stores, the prices for the new PMDG 737-700NGX likely will not go over much more than what these items have sold for in the past. At first, it will cost more and likely more for that open access or SDK factor. However, if you wait a little longer after it hits online stores, you'll see it in the discount stores for less. Heck, a to wait after it hits the market is worth doing since the bugs will be there to fix...that is always a factor no matter how good the software.

By the way, we don't really fly the B747-400X, but just wanted to get a feel for PMDG's new-ness so to speak. Anyone, doing a B747-400 build?

BSD

[bussgarfield]

Jack, to answer your question about interfacing, PMDG have said that upon release, the SDK will be available to all software developers that want it, so hopefully we wont have to wait long to get the proper interfacing done.

At the moment, my MCP and radios work through FSX so I am hoping that until I get to the stage of completely getting rid of the keyboard and mouse, I will still be able to use it in my cockpit rather than on the desktop.

The snippets of info that PMDG have put out so far have led me and others to feel that this will be the most advanced piece of flightsim software to hit the shelves to date and looking at the videos they have released, I can see what they mean.

The NGX is currently in wide beta and most of the 'bugs' have been sorted out prior to this - hence it has taken so long to get to this stage.

I hope that with some video tutorials from Angle of Attack, I will be able to start to get the buzz that Mike Leavy gets when he sits down behind the controls.

They are even promising sparodic failures in the near future which could prove interesting.

So, I hope that the cockpit suppliers have already been in touch with PMDG so we wont have to wait for too long for the correct interfacing.

Gary

[Bob Reed]

This reminds me of another piece of software LONG awaited.. Duke Nukeum.... Like 8 years? Anyway it's out and most who I talk to are very disappointed in it..... Yes I played the original, loved it. Yes I have played the new one. Will not waste my money. Just seems like the longer the wait, the hight the expectations. Point, when the expectations are set high the letdown can be along drop......

[bussgarfield]

With all due respect Bob, I think a PMDG simulation is on a completely different playing field to that of a shoot em and blast em 'game'.

Thanks for the words of advice though.

Gary

[Bob Reed]

With all due respect Bob, I think a PMDG simulation is on a completely different playing field to that of a shoot em and blast em 'game'.

Thanks for the words of advice though.

Gary

Well we will see. I hope that to be the case. It has been a long wait and as of now, we are still waiting......

[Maurice]

I just had a horrible thought. Microsoft releases MS Flight and you can now get incredible frame rates with fantastic scenery but none of the addon aircrafts work and the default 737 is not that great, so we all wait again another 5 years for PMDG to release 737NGFlight.

Arrrrrggghhhhh!!!!  Stop this world, I want to get off 

Maurice

[fsaviator]

I just had a horrible thought. Microsoft releases MS Flight and you can now get incredible frame rates with fantastic scenery but none of the addon aircrafts work and the default 737 is not that great, so we all wait again another 5 years for PMDG to release 737NGFlight.

Arrrrrggghhhhh!!!!  Stop this world, I want to get off 

Maurice

Just when there was light at the end of the tunnel...

[Joe Lavery]

I'm getting seriously worried about you Maurice...

Joe.

[Maurice]

I'm getting seriously worried about you Maurice...

Joe.

So is my therapist (wife that is) 

Maurice

[jackpilot]

Too bad , because Mau had  words of wisdom when he said that he was happy with his 737-8!!

One thing which can backfire for some in this hobby is the constant "End of the Rainbow" chase for a better mouse trap. At that rate no one will ever fly or be happy and satisfied with his Sim.
Improving is fine, going  back to square 2 or 3 every odd year is self inflicted misery.

I am OK with Fs9 , a flight model with appropriate dynamics (the  look of the airplane having zero value) and a sophisticated enough soft like  SimA or PM, all enclosed in a nice shell with liners. My dreams: going from one projector to Mau's wonderful visual.

Funny enough, there is one limit  to the real appeal of "Accusimizing"...  assuming that we get a 100% copycat of a 737, with all systems and dynamics impeccably working and properly interfaced, none of us except the ATP and  Type rated Guys here, will be able to fly the machine  properly and react instantly to those random failures or malfunctions, unless of course we can afford  full pro training!!
I may be wrong or biased ..of course.

Someone on Ebay has a sense of opprtunity!
[ebay]360380356049[/ebay]

[bussgarfield]

Hi Jack.

To pick up on your point about an aircraft being unflyable unless one is Type Rated (which I have to concur - to a degree), take a look at this post in the AVSIM PMDG forum.

http://forum.avsim.net/topic/339657-give-us-a-brake/

It is from an NGX Beta Tester.  Reading between the lines, I think that we will be able to pick how indepth we are going to want our new plane to be.

I have to say, I am really looking forward to it's release.

Gary

[Maurice]

.  Reading between the lines, I think that we will be able to pick how indepth we are going to want our new plane to be.

Gary

Well, after reading that post, I'm more & more convinced about how ridiculous this all is. Frankly, I don't give a a rat's ass about the type of brake pads they use and how it affects braking and I would venture to say that 99.999% of the buyers of that software won't care either or if they do care, will never have the knowledge required to fly that airplane properly anyway unless they are airline pilots.

And the only 'maintenance' I plan to do on my 'aircraft' is fix the mistakes I made when I built it and/or repair the parts that fail. I'm certainly not going to change the oil or replace brake pads nor do I want to pretend to do that by flicking some switches. I just want to fly and have some fun and not complicate my life with the worries of a real airline pilot.

But then again, I'm just a lazy simmer and not a hard core professional. I don't want another 'job' now that I'm retired...I just want a nice hobby to fill in a few hours during the day and/or week 

Kuddos to PMDG for their accomplishments and to those of you who will use them to the max but for me, I maintain I will just be happy with decent flight characteristics and predictable behaviour that matches the behaviour of most jet airliners.

And for those of us who have flight decks, the ability to change the looks of  the instrument panels or add/remove eyebrows to match a certain airline or whatever other customization, that is all useless in out fixed cockpits anyway. This to me confirms that the target PMDG buyers are really the multitude of desktop simmers and therefore the price of that software will match the target audience....< $100.00 I would say.

Maurice

[Joe Lavery]

I have to say, I agree with both Jack and Maurice about the depth of knowledge needed to fly a more accurate sim and also the price the new PMDG is likely to fetch.
I'm also happy with my FS9 sim but having reviewed about 50 airport and scenery products over the past two years, I am in the throes of transferring to FSX so I can make use of them.
I will keep my FS9 machine in it's current state, just in case the flight experience is degraded too much. It may have to be pressed back into service. 

However my new machine is a 6 core AMD rig with 12 gig of RAM and a video card I can only just carry. So I'm hoping for some better visuals on arrival and departure. I don't care what the external view of the plane looks like either and I don't see me taking an ATP exam so I can monitor a system that's probably not going to make any difference anyway.

At the end of the day we all have different goals and expectations; for myself I would love the room to make a wrap around display and enclose my cockpit like many of you have.
Now that my system is fully operational I'm refining different areas to make the flight experience even better and ultimately more realistic; which I think is the path that most of us take. 

Joe.

[jackpilot]

Unless you already have it, download this manual, read some of the +2000 pages and
see how sobering it can be ...
http://www.firstload.com/?ir=1&fn=continental+737+manual

[Joe Lavery]

I have the manual Jack but that link is broken anyway.

Joe.