I’m thinking about buying an MCP for the PMDG 737. There’s a few options and I’ve found one in particular which looks a good deal at £350.
My question is, does this help with immersion a lot or just a little? Obviously it eliminates the need for a mouse but would the money be better spent on something like a Streamdeck or something else? i currently have the Cockpit Simulator CDU and this is great but just wanted some advice and/or opinions.
Interesting point. I have Logitech Switch Panel, Multi Panel and Radio Panel and use these a lot. Some aircraft types require tweaking through intermediary software to map the functions.
I recently bought a Streamdeck and so far am not finding much use for it (this may change) even with specific commercial flight panels, I get more value from having the physical switches available.
I think the biggest question is, how much time do you spend flying the 737? If it is and will be your main go to. Then I think physical hardware is the way to go for immersion.
That said, if you like to fly the 737 one day, the A320 another, bang around in some GA, etc… Then it’s limiting.
This is the reason I was drawn to Air Manager.
I have full cockpits for every Air Liner and GA I fly, mouse free!
You do need to invest in touch screens however, and knobsters make it much more immersive but then once you have it setup you just turn on the panels for the aircraft you are flying and away you go.
Just something to think about / research.
EX: 737 Cockpit
Thanks for your advice. I do occasionally swap between the 737 and GA but the 737 is my go to commercial airliner to fly.
I’ve heard of Air Manager although I don’t have any experience of it myself. Is it easy enough to control the MCP with it?
If you have a knobster and touch screen, yes, very easy. You just “touch” the buttons you want. Touch the dial you want to turn and then turn with the knobster.
Knobster also acts as a center “push” button on the knobs.
Does it affect fps having this setup with Air Manager?
Yes that is certainly a draw back, not so much with Air Manager itself, although there are minor fps hits with instruments.
The main issue is the performance degradation when you pop out displays within MSFS.
Hopefully this will be addressed in future updates / MSFS2024. They have had it on the list of to fix so it’s on the radar.
Yes, I can understand why since there are a large number of gauges/panels available.
What puts me off AM though is that you are only allowed a maximum of 3 resets per licence on a 65 euro product (which seems a bit restrictive/tight to me) and I am not sure how easy it is to get or how receptive the devs are to providing additional resets. Looking at their forum and their responses to certain customers queries I am yet to be convinced of their customer friendliness to some of their less experienced customers of which I would be one. Maybe my concern here is needless. I don’t know.
This is of particular concern to me at the moment since my intention is to move to another new build PC in the near future and enhance the hardware over time. If the number of resets wasn’t so limited I would definitely buy it.
There is a great community of Air Manager users on Discord called “Simstrumentation” they also develop freeware instruments and panels.
That said, there are allot of experienced Air Manager users, developers, etc… in there that help out daily so support usually isn’t an issue through that channel.
As for resets, I’ve had it for going on 3 years, have never had to do one so not sure that is a huge concern?
Yes, maybe not 
I agree that I could easily be guilty of over thinking here but it does seem just a bit tight and especially since I am moving to a new PC soon and potentially improving the hardware over time. I wonder a bit if the changes to the newer hardware will affect the licence and that I will eventually run out of resets due to hardware changes.
I didn’t mention this in my post but I did actually have version 3 of AM which I used a lot in Xplane 11 and it was admittedly pretty good. There does seem to be more panels and gauges now as well. I suppose I should really have taken the devs up on their 30 euros or so offer to upgrade to version 4 for MSFS but too late for that now unfortunately
There are allot of instruments and panels available for MSFS, outside of what you see on the site as other developers release freeware and payware in other spots.
For hardware changes, I’m assuming the license is tied to the MAC address, or a hardware ID based off that. Just changing out random hardware I don’t think will de validate, the MOBO / NIC I believe would.
Thank you for your comments. Much appreciated
I may buy it again when I have the new PC. In all honesty, as well, my current PC is 2017 based and with AAO, Pilot2ATC, Simhaptic and Passenger2 all running with something like the PMDG 737 or the JF BAE 146 another addon like AM might just prove a bit too much for my system.
Anyway, thank you again. I will revisit it in around 3 months 
