I’ve temporarily removed all of the updates and add on scenery I installed over last week and had a successful 1hr flight from KLAX to KSFO flight with no CTD. Just on my 2nd leg now, a longer one KSFO to CYVR, fingers crossed.
There were a lot of updates available last week including for the 737 so it could be any one of them tbh.
I don’t use add on linker, but I may start having to if CTD’s continue.
EDIT: 2 hr flight done this morning and no CTD’s, must be another addon/update causing it.
It’s not a big deal. When they gives us a direct to a point, first they say the name expecting us to know the place. They’ll just say “fly to malbec”. If we don’t know it, we’ll ask them to spell it. But most of the time pilots fly the same routes repetitively so we normally know exactly which directs we’ll get by each controller.
You’ll say that’s a safety threat. Well, once we’ve entered the point or rerouted direct to it in the FMC, the controller can see which point we’re flying to. That’s the magic of ADS-B. They can see most of our autopilot’s settings too. So if we entered the wrong point, they’ll know.
Yes, agree without problems,
no big deal but sometimes it looks like invention with names is so far heh
To our fir, SAGAN fix near Zilina city says all hehe…
And there’s many with funny names too. I fly to “OFFUK” and “RA PED” every day. I’m based in Poland now and this place is full of NATO AWACS and Tankers lately.
It’s funny to hear the Polish controller saying “MULE10, fly ohfook” and the American tanker pilot going “Thanks, direct OH F*CK!”. Never gets old.
Since the second update when i introduce my arrival always contains vectors, and before the update almost never had? anyone has this “isue”?
That has nothing to do with PMDG. That’s Navigraphs navdata. Some arrivals have VECTORS transition and some don’t. You should draw the vectors you expect to be given.
It happens for real too, which is why it’s generally SOP (and at the very least good practice) to compare the uplinked route to the route on the flightplan as part of the pre-flight setup.
ACARS uplinks are certainly not foolproof, and often certain waypoints get kicked out for some reason, North Canadian routes being an example which is mostly down to the way the waypoint name is formatted. We’re also extremely careful when it comes to waypoints over the Atlantic (both on the tracks and on random routings) as they are very easy to get wrong. With reduced lateral separation and no radar control the potential for getting it properly wrong are exponentially bigger than when flying over Europe.
That’s how it should be. It’s called a “route check”. All pilots do it and every pre-departure briefing starts with one after you’ve discussed TEM. It involves checking the RTE page against the flightplan segment by segment and you end comparing total distance in the FMC vs total distance on the FPL and Fuel on arrival in the FMC vs Reserve on the FPL.
Just FYI, you’re not the only Airline pilot posting on this thread! 
I know. And in the PMDG forum there’s at least 15 people flying 737, 777 or 747.
My RL GA experience predates GPS and FMC but my simulator experieence has taught me the need to continuously check the automation and the FMC route at the outset. It is reassuring to learn that this is a RL issue.
It looks interesting, but seems quite expensive. The demo seems to be available until July before the subscription model kicks in, so not long to try it now.
Subscriptions are at 3 levels ranging from 1.99 euros per month to 5.99 euros per month (payable annually, presumably in advance). The subscription model is based on the number of calculations as well as different features - so even if you pay monthly, the usage is not unlimited. They say this is because they make the tool available through APIs that can’t verify that your sibscription is not being used by others. This may be true, but 1.99 euros gets you 150 calculations per month which they say will be around 15 flights - 5.99 euros gets you calcs for 60 flights. That doesn’t seem hugely generous and if the worry really is mass piracy, then usage would be much mich higher - so you’d think they could afford to make the limits a lot higher and still be able to stop piracy.
Even more off putting is that the pricing is per aircraft variant. Currently, the only aircraft available is the B737-800, and these prices get you the tool for that variant. They say it takes a month or so to add another aircaft type with the B737-700 probably next. If you want to use the tool for both, that’s two subscriptions you need to buy. At that rate, this is getting quite expensive!
Here’s a cost breakdown from their website:
These types of calcs are provided as part of the EFB in the Fenix, so it would be nice to think we will get similar with the 737 when the EFB comes along. The calcs will presumably be less comprehensive though to be fair, if they are included.
I agree, and anything that caps flights and per calculation etc is a no go for me. As long as the built in EFB’s does the job, we do not need 100% spot on, it never is anyway IRL. The base weights are always an assumption, so everything is based off of that anyway.
This needs a massive pricing model change, or greed will kill it.
Agreed - it’s hard to see they will get significant numbers of subscriptions, although perhaps I’m wrong. Their FAQs have a bit of attitude I;d say, for example:
The EFB in the PMDG737 for P3D did all this for free and it worked pretty much like the app that real Boeing pilots use in their company provided iPad (Boeing OPT). And it also included QHR and MEL penalizations.
Why would anyone want to pay extra for this when the PMDG EFB will be brought back to MSFS eventually?
Yep, once I saw the payment model, I had no desire to use the service, even for free. Hopefully, as has been said, the PMDG EFB will render such a service unnecessary. SAaS with a subscription makes no sense for this…
Can´t agree more. The question is: why they didn´t release this already. Almost sure this has something to do with the 800 variant… $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
I still didn’t update to new version,
will do on weekend probably because no free time still.
Until the EFB I use Toper737NGFree. Like the VPT it is only for the - 800 and the free version is only on Android but it works perfectly well for free.
Not at all. People are comparing release times of PMDG with the release times of airplanes that were developed from the ground up for MSFS. PMDG airplanes’ code was written for FSX/P3D. Most of the things of it didn’t work in MSFS so they need to rewrite a lot of code. If they haven’t released it it’s because it was buggy when they ported it. It will be included when it’s ready.
In the meantime, this is a good chance to learn how to calculate performance with the FPPM.
