How does it compare to PMDG?
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Some good reading - It even explains MCAS operation in general.
They are comparable. I would give the iFly the nod in terms of cabin visuals and some of the nuances in flight deck lighting. I’d give the PMDG the benefit in terms of systems depth and complexity. The iFly’s EFB is good but, as it’s based on the old-style Boeing EFB “brick,” it’s clunky and has a poor UI. Simbrief integration is there in the iFly in terms of route and winds loading, but it is NOT there in terms of loading aircraft payload and fuel weights. The iFly EFB provides performance calculation but does not - as far as I can tell - give you optimums for given conditions, which the PMDG Performance Tool does. The iFly EFB has a nice airport moving map feature, but does not have an in-flight route/map display. The iFly EFB has integrated Navigraph charts viewing, but the interface for accessing them is also a bit clunky. While the PMDG tablet lets you “pin” charts for quick access, the iFly tablet uses “clip” as the terminology/metaphor, and navigating the clipping function wasn’t immediately clear to me.
In terms of flying, both of them hand-fly very well. The iFly seems slower to trim manually than the PMDG aircraft, but 737’s don’t need a great deal of trim usually - just a bit up and down during the climb and on final approach, usually. I’d give the PMDG the nod in terms of ground handling and stability while taxiing. The iFly seems a bit skittish or too sensitive when steering but that can probably be tweaked with rudder pedal curves in my case.
I will say I find the sim workflow to be more intuitive in the PMDG compared to the iFly, but part of that may be 2-1/2 years of familiarity. This is primarily related to having to use the EFB to load pax numbers, fuel weighs and cargo weights separately. As far as I can figure out, there’s no way to simply enter ZFW, fuel on board and payload weights, as you can with the PMDG. So for instance, on each flight you have to enter the number of passengers, then fuel on board, then manually put some weight in each of the two cargo areas to reach the planned ZFW. That process is clunky and prone to error. It seems like something that could be done by the tablet. Put in a button called “ADD OPTIMAL CARGO” or something which would subtract the current weight from the Simbfrief ZFW, then allocate that difference between the two cargo areas automatically.
Overall this is a solid aircraft most folks would enjoy but it has quirks. For instance, it absolutely relies on an external iFly companion program to be running and if that app crashes or fails to start, the plane stops working. The iFly Discord was full of complaints about that yesterday. It hasn’t happened to me but I’ve only made two flights so far - a 4 hour block time flight from KPAE to KBNA, then a 2 hour block time fligth yesterday evening from KBNA to KTPA.
Great review. I agree with almost everything here. Some additional issues that I posted on a Reddit forum:
- For me, quite poor performance, at best 30-35 FPS in cruise, half what I get with other airliners (ex, Fenix)
- Some LVAV and VNAV wonkiness. It ultimately works, but there are some raised eyebrows along the way (LNAV AP overreacting to some wind on a turn generated a bank warning for me, for ex).
- Throttle movement d/c’s the autothrottle. This cost me a flight when I stepped away from my PC and my daughter moved the joystick off my desk…
- Some features not working (ex: They obviously intend the EFB to copy to the FMC, but it’s not working yet). I too really want better Simbrief/EFB/FMC integration.
- Touchy, sensitive nose wheel and ground movements in general
- Cockpit spatial and zoom relationships feel off somehow? I still need to get comfortable there…
For me right now, my preference is definitely PMDG, but it’s my hope with some Fenix 2.0-like updates that this will be a top-tier plane.
I’d say it’s a mixed bag.
Some good things but some bad.
Sounds are generally excellent.
Manual flight feels nice and stable, on the ground less so.
Textures look very nice.
On the other hand:
There are so many errors in FMS and systems behaviour impossible to list them all here. But lots of basic commonly used functionality is wrong.
The EFB is a mess.
Simbrief integration very poor regarding weight and balance.
Take off and landing performance calculations don’t allow optimum calculations.
Auto-flight behaviour is off, for example acceleration, the aircraft does not command enough pitch change.
Laggy displays.
Incorrect fonts and sizes.
Engine spool up times completely off.
I’d say it’s OK for pre-release but it’s certainly not anywhere near the level of Fenix for example. Feels like it has a very long way to go before being a polished product.
Certainly not worth the huge amounts of praise that has been heaped on it by various streamers who seem to think it’s the best thing since sliced bread. But obviously streamers have their own agendas.
I totally love the nose wheel of this plane. It’s the only plane I know that can take tight turns without immediately losing traction and slipping. Much more fun on the taxiway than any other plane.
A330Driver pointed out several issues with FMS and other systems. After watching a few videos on YT this plane looks more like iniBuilds level than Fenix or PMDG. Thankfully I didn’t waste money on this.
Agreed, he was, to his credit, one of the few to point out some of these issues.
I too am quite frankly surprised at some of the breathless praise of this by the streamers and that will give me pause in the future…
Great list of issues, I agree with everything. Thank you for noting the laggy displays, which is something I haven’t seen with any release since the early, early days of the early access FSS E-Jets (which they subsequently fixed). There’s a LOT of optimization presumptively to be done here.
I think, however, many have said the long engine spool up times are accurate.
Long start-up motoring time is not the issue; the issue is N1 spools up too quickly with changes in throttle position.
There are definitely some issues with LNAV - for instance, on climb out, I could not deactivate Heading Select mode even when cleared to continue climbing via the SID and selecting LNAV. But after a couple minutes of manual flight, the green light just went out on its own. What? Is that normal? Seems nothing like I remember for the NGs.
Ah, I see. I agree with that…
For 70 bucks I expected a much better aircraft than this. So many issue with this aircraft it’s hard to figure out where to start. I very much dislike how the switches and buttons work. The radio altimeter is a P A I N to use. The EFB is simply stupid. The Navigraph integration SUCK badly. The way the aircraft taxi is game like. Very much unpolished aircraft that really has many bugs. I’m extremely disappointed, not to mention iFly is bold enough to say you will have to purchase this mess again for 2024 if they are required to make changes.
What I read here from people I respect is significantly different than what the streamers said.
I can be sure the guys here are not paid by PMDG so I wonder if the streamers were paid by IFly, for some of them I know that is not true but it puzzles me that the most honest review was by A330 driver that IS a collaborator of PMDG.
Now I’m confused and I have no idea if I have to get this or not.
I own the All the Ifly 737’s and 747’s from FSX thru Prepar3D. Ive never had any problems. Only issues are your typical brand new shiny cars issues. Other then that performance wise Ifly works best for me over PMDG. So for me I prefer Ifly. I do own the PMDG 737-600 and soon the 700. There the only two PMDG’s I like besides there missing oddball JS4100 and B1900 lol.
Another odd bug on this afternoon’s flight between KTPA and KDCA - I missed TOD by about 2 minutes (totally my fault), so when I reduced the FMC altitude setting down below cruise level and tried to start the descent, the plane did nothing. I disabled and re-enabled VNAV and the plane refused to descend. I checked the VNAV Descent page in the FMC but had no option to descend now. I tried going to vertical speed mode and manually setting a descent rate, but could not do so. I even pulled the throttles back to idle but the plane simply pitched up a degree or so to maintain altitude as speed started reducing. I futzed around for 3-4 minutes and then suddenly the plane began descending aggressively, approaching 2,800 fpm to get back onto a semi-reasonable descent path.
During descent, I ran into a situation where the airspeed approached 300 knots and despite my full-extended speedbreak, airspeed got sort of stuck at 260 knots and simply would not come down. I was at almost 10,000’ before speed started coming down due to drag. I had to fly most of the STAR with speedbrakes extended to stay anywhere close to target speeds.
To it’s credit, however, the aircraft flew a pretty nice curving RNAV into Rwy 33 at KDCA. I didn’t take over manual flight until about 300’ simply because I wanted to see how the plane would handle that approach.
I’ve seen a video about the real 737MAX where the pilot said the engines produce a lot of thrust at idle making it difficult to slow down. He also had to use speedbrakes. It might still be too exaggerated in the sim but it seems to me it isn’t entirely unrealistic either. I’m not an expert though.
I think some people forget to take into account, that this aircraft is a “Pre-Release” version at the moment - which is an odd term, but nothing else than an early access. It is NOT finished. So dont buy it at the current state, if you expect a finished addon.
Here would be me test flight video in german language - https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/JPAD5K_zMtY
At the current state not necessarily worth its money, because some stuff isn´t ready or bug free. Biggest pro for me is the flight modell - in my opinion as a casual player - one of the best. I was in a professional 737MAX simulator a few month ago and the feeling is really close to it. Cheers
JayDee
I think everyone knows it’s pre-release, it’s just that I think based on the streamer feedback and videos folks thought it was perhaps somewhat better off than it is.
I think we really don’t have a standard for what “early access” (EA) really means on MSFS yet. I will say, for example, that this plane is in MUCH better shape as an EA than, say, the FSS E-Jets were when released, or the XP MK 787 was back then, or it sounds like the TFDi MD-11 was. I think those were all discounted, however.
I think this will be a top flight plane when:
- They clean up some AP and systems issues
- Deepen Simbrief integration
- Tighten ground taxiing dynamics
- Fix the display refresh
- (At least for me on my PC) optimize FPS (I’m at 25-35 at most in flight)
- Perhaps consider redoing the entire EFB into something more mainstream and conventional down the line…
I can see all of that taking 6-12 months a la Fenix 2.0 update release.