I do respect your opinion quite a bit given that you fly the real thing, and I also really appreciate the knowledge you’ve contributed to this thread, which has added depth to all of our experiences in the 737.
I think it’s a bit hyperbolic to say that “real pilots” can’t have respect for the quality of work a company like Just Flight puts out. The guy behind the Into The Blue channel on Youtube continually sings praises of Just Flight’s product line, and he flies Airbus for a living. To your point about having different product goals, it’s important for consumers to be able to appreciate good execution within varying scopes, and determine what’s best for them.
But back to the topic at hand, I haven’t touched the 146 since I started learning the 737. I am just in awe of the cockpit and the systems, and my first successful flight with the 737 was such a tremendous moment. I would like to learn the a320 in the distant future but have always been a Boeing fan and PMDG’s offering will certainly keep me busy for a long, long time.
Unfortunately MSFS is not like FSX or P3D - all sounds are stored in a single encrypted archive - so access to all sound files is impossible for personal volume tweaking needs. I recommend the following MSFS sound settings for optimal audio experience … especially the two sound options.
I never said that real pilots wouldn’t respect JustFlight products. I also said that JustFlight is putting out great general aviation content. I love a good realistic GA airplane as much as I love a big jet but let’s face it, to develop a well detailed airliner takes a huge amount of work and only companies dedicated to a family of airplanes have been able to pull it off. PMDG have been working for decades on the airplanes that we’re using today. All of them have some code in there that was written at least 10 years ago. Then companies like Fenix, Leonardo or FSLabs are dedicated to basically one type and maybe variations on it (when you make an a320, most of the problems to make an a330 are already solved).
The fact that a real Boeing or Airbus pilot can use a PMDG/Felix as reference to not forget certain things about the airplane doesn’t mean that Justflight Airliners are bad. They’re just on a different level.
I know. I experienced it myself in real life one day we had a LE FLAP TRANSIT and went around. We raised the landing gear but left flaps at 15. Shouldn’t have retracted the landing gear. That horn is really unsettling.
Can any real pilots talk about the takeoff roll handling.
From my unexperienced perspective I’d imagine a heavy bird like 737 or a320 would pretty much stick where the wheels are pointed with little to no input needed barring ( heavy crosswinds) so long as your pointed straight, but that definitely not how it works in any sim I’ve ever flown.
What’s it like in the real deal?
I hope you don´t think I am superficial and shallow (or “graphics wh…re” some people also say *ggg) because of “visual standards” but I worked as graphics designer and painter for many years and do mods for various videogames. When having a special sense for visual arts you see graphics glitches as disturbance of perfection and as immersion breaker.
And when I notice very annoying graphics glitches and texture bugs in videogames and simulators… hm hard to explain… such things disturb the perfection the immersion and I always need to look at them and somehow need them gone…
That has nothing to do with “I am soooo special I am soooooo important” but the perfection of a beautyful and absolut precious product and masterpiece of art like a perfectly simulated airplane is lowered when graphics bugs occur.
That´s why developers should always also think of the little details and not only patch gameplay mechanics, but visual things too.
Oh WOW!!! Awesome!! Why has PMDG not added this beautyful feature (that´s an UV-protection layer imbedded in the glass) in the cockpit windows too?
And today a new threat appeared that PMDG has even simulated overheating of the hydraulic pumps wow this is absolute awesome and next-level! I thought only the Fenix Airbus has systems related to hydraulics and electrics simulated.
No they don’t wobble. In real life even GA airplanes don’t wobble as much. In MSFS, GA airplanes often pull to the right instead of to the left, contrary to what happens in real life unless the wind is very strong.
Big airplanes not subject to prop physics go completely straight but they cock into the wind slightly on crosswinds. The b737 has an incredibly oversized vertical fin so this effect is very noticeable. I haven’t flown an a320 but I’d assume it’d also behave like this to some extent. The real 737 will also cock into the wind but it does not wobble side to side during take off roll like a feather requiring a constantly changing input by the pilot. During take off roll we apply a constant pressure on the rudder pedal and keep it there and maybe a bit of opposite aileron if the winds are very strong. We don’t pump the pedals. There’s something off about how the MSFS engine throws airplanes around in the air and on the ground. It feels as if there’s some random disturbances added just so to make it feel “not on reels”.
The problem is also in pitch. Say you depart with a slightly wrong trim setting in a real 737 making it very nose heavy. You’ll rotate to 15º as per usual and let the airplane accelerate to a safe speed. If you would release the pressure, the airplane would want to lower its nose and it would accelerate. But it will not wobble up and down. These airplanes are sensitive in roll, but not so much on pitch. When the airplane is flying the speed it has been trimmed for, it takes quite a bit of pressure to change the pitch attitude by 10º. In MSFS, if you sneeze the pitch will change 10º. I hope they find ways around this.
There is something i noticed with PMDG’s DC6 and I am wondering if the same thing could be a problem with 737. Without any cargo and passengers, even with full tanks of fuel instead of half, planes center of gravity, because of low weight, remains “below” the lowest level for appropriate calculation in MSFS.
You can see this in the world map selecting the plane from top left and checking “weight/ balance” or whatever the exact name is. I flew the DC6 in game with that data/ without enough weight and it was all over the place because i think the engine cannot really calculate it.
PMDG planes are specifically designed to NOT use the default sim Weight & Balance calculations. Basically, just ignore that page in the sim and use the tools PMDG provides. In the case of the 737, it’s the FMC (plus usually Simbrief). Enter your fuel and payload weights to get ZFW, use that to get CG settings and take-off trim.
None of that has any real effect on the squirrelly ground handling physics in the sim, which affect most planes to some extent or another.
I’m not an expert in the DC6 but this could mean that this airplane shows a behaviour that many other cargo airplanes show. This isn’t something that passenger airlines face because the cabin furniture and equipment already adds weight in the airplane and moves the CG around.
When airplanes are cargo converted or leave the factory as cargo airplanes, they have a dry operating mass far lower than the passenger version and at this DOM the CG could be off. In the 757 cargo I used to fly, the airplane without any load had a CG outside of take off envelope so the airplane needed ballast. This ballast could be in the form of spare tires or a pallet with basically bags of sand. Maybe the DC6 is the same.
Still what LameLefty is saying is true. PMDG airplanes are not loaded through the sim weight and balance screen. Both fuel and payload should be selected through their built in weight page.
There is a hidden feature that “manages” your sim-rate to prevent your 737 from wildly maneuvering during high sim-rates. It will automatically increase and decrease your sim rate to for optimal flight smoothness so you don’t have to baby-sit your sim-rate. (Also: you can configure your sim in PMDG FMS simulation options to pause on top-of-descent)
Where: Chronometer upper left hand corner button… top-most button … you should see an UP arrow when you click it. You will notice the chronometer color darken slightly to let you know the auto-simrate is activated. To deactivate, simply click on the same button OR faster yet, click on the “Clock” button. I suggest you activate the “Clock” button before you activate auto-simrate to visualize the simrate speed on the chronometer. Hitting the “clock” button during auto-simrate will NOT stop any current elapsed time but will simply stop auto-simrate. Hitting the button again will stop the elapsed timer.
Appreciate the reply and insight, I do hope they can fix this as it’s been an issue in all sims since I’ve been using them.
Really kills the immersion for me when something weighing in at 150k pounds + acts like a paper kite on the ground.
Maybe this is also no correct set of control sensitivities.
I have set my to yoke and pedals and I can say it is also very like real in case of need do turns to final in Insbruck after circle approach Same on ground with turning. With set default sensitivity it is very sensitive to make a turns on ground but after it start rolling, that sensitivity vanished. Really I’m very ’ sensitive’ to not have correct +/- settings and now I’m quite satisfied how plane feels, on FL and also on ground.
I’ve tried making adjustments in the controls, the inputs feel fine to me but that’s not my issue, it’s the fact these extreme heavy birds want to move around so much and require constant input adjustment to keep straight.
I have a strong opinion about this. The sim and the developers should make the flight model in such way that a 1:1 fully linear setting of every axis results in the best control experience. If there are any input curves they should match the real airplanes’. But your yoke/joystick should move relatively by the same amount as the sim control column. That should work with any controller with a decent range of motion. If you need to start applying curves and lowering sensitivity of the sim controllers, then there’s something wrong with the flight model. Sadly, curves are required in all the default airplanes and in some 3rd party ones too.
In P3D/FSX, most of the people who were using FSUIPC did it to feed perfect 1:1 controller unfiltered input to the airplane and it worked amazingly (with the exception of the thrust levers sometimes).
not my case because I have my made yoke from steel and it’s quite heavy, I’ve built it as Cessna yoke and it feels very real with my set of sensitivity. Yes, I can only compare to that real cessna I flew but as I understand to B737 little bit, no problem here I think. With default 0 sensitivities rudder is very sensitive and not real, also pitch and roll to me. After my settings feel very real I can say.
Was flying the a320 a bunch but coming back to the 737 after last update I seem to be getting really bad porpoising like +- 2-3•
Anyone else having this issue?
