iFly 737 MAX Discussion

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I will have to disagree with this. The iFly has actually surprised me with its systems depth, and I’ve found quite a few things it gets more correct than PMDG, despite many of us raising these issues with them for, well, years.

On the HGS alone, the iFly has the runway remaining countdown, decel rate carat, actual rollout guidance after an AIII, will switch to primary mode with TOGA press, has the rotation cue, and probably more that I’m forgetting. Naturally it has modern navdata support with RF legs, but as importantly, the nav performance scales and CDI sensitivity actually RESPOND to a manually set RNP; what a concept! Other small touches abound; as a couple examples, the ILS ID and course set are shown on the upper left of each pilot’s PFD (PMDG does this), and if there’s a disagree the affected part (course, ID or both) will turn yellow with a line through it (PMDG doesn’t do this.). And the ground service bus is correctly modeled… Any dev who correctly models such arcane nuances of the electrical system is obviously paying attention to details. Their failures selection is at least as comprehensive as PMDG 's.

PMDG 's VNAV has been bad since the beginning, with a re-calculation at every waypoint passage. Their LNAV is similar, in addition to still being the old format (I know that’s coming soon though.). Their VNAV logic is an odd combination of basic and common, setting an RNP has no impact on nav performance, you can’t press to test individual lights etc., the HGS is missing all of the functions listed above in addition to their flare guidance being very sloppy in AIII.

Yes the iFly certainly has bugs too. I think the biggest are the behavior of the flight guidance in the HUD (it behaves as attitude vs flight path guidance, but is very accurate) and the engine spool behavior. I’ve not personally seen any LNAV issues, but I have seen VNAV get well below path - but it still honors restrictions, so it won’t put you into a mountain or anything. There are some display tweaks that can be done.

Overall, they’re pretty comparable aircraft; as in, both top-tier add-ons. I guess the main difference I see is, the PMDG has been out for a few years, and the iFly released the day before yesterday… And they’re comparable. See? Many of us with personal knowledge of these aircraft have been trying to get PMDG to fix some of their errors for years with not much willingness displayed by the devs; time will tell with iFly, but thus far they seem pretty responsive. So, I’m already enjoying the iFly at least as much as I enjoy the PMDG - but I’m optimistic it’ll be even better. It’s most definitely not just a pretty plane, there’s real depth here.

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In addition to the “show all traffic” selection in the EFB, note that if you do not have that setting turned on, the iFly TCAS has a realistically modeled “above or below” switch that allows pilots to bias the system to display traffic higher above than below you (for climb), an equal amount above or below (for cruise), or farther below you (for descent). I’m not sure I’ve ever been in a 737, or any other airliner, that did not have this feature, so nice to see it modeled here.

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Great post with lots of analysis and useful information as always, so many thanks.

Too much to go into yet at an early stage for the ifly.

I have seen it break vnav restrictions, target the completely wrong speed, even just climb straight through MCP selected altitudes.
I’ve seen it pretty much always not command enough pitch changes for acceleration/deceleration, for example when passing FL100.

There are also lots of little systems details it is lacking. Of course we all notice different things based on how we fly, and thus both the PMDG and ifly may expose where these are evident.

For example, one of the little tricks I use in the 737 quite a bit is to delete constraints temporarily before clicking (I think from memory) ERASE, to permanently delete the constraint. When it’s temporarily deleted the LEGS page should show the aircraft’s predicted altitude at that waypoint. You can then cancel the delete, and the constraint reappears, this is quite a useful trick for descent planning, and the ifly does not populate the speed/altitude section LEGS page whilst the constraint is temporarily deleted.

Suggested Vspeeds are missing from next to where they are entered on PERF page. Lots of little details like this are incorrect.

There are some good features on the HUD yes, but a lot of it is really jerky, maybe related to the laggy displays?

The PMDG actually does do some of the things you say it can’t, for example, the yellow line with ILS tuning/course disagreement.

I certainly think the ifly has great potential, I simply don’t see it as this unbelievable new aircraft that has blown everything else into the water, and I don’t just mean the PMDG, which is the kind of impression one would get from watching the popular streamers/youtubers etc., of course with some exceptions.

Yes there are some great things about it but in others it has a long way to go.

And a pre-release product that may then have to be paid for again in a new simulator in a few weeks…

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One thing I noticed Emi mention in one of his videos is that in the iFly, when climbing out on VNAV, the FD pitches too aggressively to maintain speed. I noticed that yesterday in at least one of my 2 legs flown, and I noticed it again tonight in the single leg I flew. In both instances, the FDs pitch was about a degree higher than it should for the commanded speed - the FMC speed was 290 or so but the aircraft simply couldn’t accelerate while climbing at that rate. By decreasing my pitch just that much, the plane was able increase speed while still maintaining a more than satisfactory climb rate on the SID.

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No, I wouldn’t say that it’s blowing everything else out of the water, the point I was making is that it’s on par with the PMDG state as of today, and PMDG has been out for a few years now and this is still not even a release version of the iFly. I think that speaks to the depth here. I’m sure we all remember when the PMDG would completely blow level offs and altitude constraints as well… And how long it took them to fix it (mostly).

I’m not bashing the PMDG, it’s just the obvious point of comparison. They each have their pluses and minuses as is, but the fact that the PMDG is not a clear winner in a systems comparison despite being a product with a few years of maturity on it does say something about what iFly has going here.

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I will add that I personally have not seen iFly violate a VNAV constraint, and I did a bunch of testing last night on a custom RNP procedure with some demanding RF segments and a 3.5 degree gp. It was pretty impressive.

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So I thought about it more. On my Boeing TCA throttle, I use the key binding “hold reverse thrust” with the reversers and then advance the throttles forward to set amount of reverse thrust.

This clearly confuses the ifly which then twitches between reverse and advancing the throttles (although it keeps the reverse levers up and the engines stay in reverse). Is this perhaps a bug, and should I post this on their discord?

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Yup, I actually lost my first flight in the plane when I stepped away during cruise and my daughter moved my joystick off the desk. Apparently I read somewhere there is, in the iFly manual, an EFB option to check to address this that isn’t actually in the plane, so it’s perhaps a feature being worked on.

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In the dedicated feature request thread for this on their Discord server, one of the devs said they had an option for this but it didn’t work properly so they removed it. They also later said they are testing some new code to see if it works for implementing this feature so fingers crossed it gets added back in.

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This plane is bugged. V1/V2/VR calculation doesn’t work (nanKT) and I can’t enable the A/T ARM switch as it immediately turns itself off again.

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Yes, very bugged. I have problems with IRS alignment, PWS fail, intercepting ILS, Yaw damper won’t connect, and autothrottle is not working (all on my last flight). Depending on how you load the plane: cold and dark (a lot of problems), on the runway (some problems). I have a lot of time in the NG, so I know what I’m doing. I did not have 1 single good flight.

No auto load of passengers and fuel is annoying, but acceptable.

I will like this a lot when the bugs are gone.

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Same, never had such problems with the PMDG 737. I even disconnected the throttles from my PC but I still can’t enable autothrottle. Yesterday it worked fine so I have absolutely no clue what is going on.
Guess I’ll need to fly with manual throttle this time.

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That’s why PMDG is taking ages to complete their planes. There are never such bugs when they release.

My MAX is going to the hangar to be updated…

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I think this thread has convinced me to wait a couple of months before considering a purchase.

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Someone else mentioned that problem in the iFly Discord. For some reason, the way they solved it was to change one of the EFB options regarding the TAT probe to “aspirated.” I don’t recall where that option is located in the EFB aircraft settings though.

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Thanks, you are my hero! It worked!

The setting is at System Page → General → TAT Probe

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Same. I am looking forward to a MAX. But for now I have a really good PMDG 738.

When the bugs are sorted out, and if nothing else significant comes along, I will happily purchase the iFly.

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To be 100% clear, none of the problems I’ve encountered have been show-stoppers. I have experienced a few quirks (such as VNAV overspending on descent, the climb pitch issue with regard to the target speed, etc) but none of the now 5 flights and 11+ hours in the plane have been wasted or “bad.” The plane is good but not perfect.

As I will reiterate whenever I can, I wish the team had spent fewer man-hours animating toilet seats, window shades and luggage bins, and put those hours (and presumably that development budget) into coming up with QOL stuff that matters for desktop simmers like a way to inhibit or at least limit physical controls from overriding AP and AT; etc.

However, it’s only been <3-1/2 days since early access release, and only about 10 days since streamers got the first pre-release copies to show off. I expect many of the quirks will get fixed in the coming weeks or months. Until then, it’s still fun to fly. Whether it’s worth $70USD at this time and in this state is up to you. But at 11 hours now in the plane, that works out to $6.36 per hour. I will make another flight after work tonight, and likely at least a couple this weekend. Viewed that way, it’s worth it. Your personal calculations will of course vary.

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Do you (or anyone else here) also fly the TDi MD-11? That’s got some quirks/bugs, and I guess I’ve gotten used to them. I’m wondering if the overall maturity level compares between that and the iFly Max.

My rule of thumb is whether a given plane is good enough to fly a busy event on VATSIM. :slight_smile:

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I do not fly the MD-11, sorry. I also don’t do VATSIM but I’ve seen numerous streamers flying the MAX on VATSM since the first previews. I don’t think that would be a problem, honestly.

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