From RSR’s post, here’s the writeup on the Universal Flight Tablet (NOT an “EFB”):
My read is hopefully - maybe - we get an initial version with some functionality within a couple weeks of the new year.
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What is the tablet going to do? I fly the 800 just fine without one.
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As I mentioned before, there are plenty of tools out there and more recently the Navigraph in game panel with quick access to charts and weather. Fenix has had that out for awhile and PMDG is just late to the party. Only thing ‘missing’ would be an updated landing calculator which TOPCAT seems to be the only one I know of. There’s not much NOW than their EFB would be able to provide that isn’t already provided.
Agree, efb/uft isnt really going to add too much for me at this point. Perhaps key to marketplace release though. Lots of new sales await and efb will maybe be more intuitive to learn.
I think anticipation is more the thing than function. 8 months of it.
It will also be useful having the FSACTIONS available on an efb rather then down all the sub menus. Pushback, sim rate, chocks, ground power, doors, loading etc.
Personally I’m more excited about seeing Navigraph 8 ingame panel progressing out of its current buggy beta than I am about the 737 efb/uft.
737-900 isn’t really going to add too much for me at this point. I already fly the 738 
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It has the OPT for performance calculations. You can’t really fly the airplane properly without either normal or NNC/MEL performance calculations.
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Yes, that’s exactly what I’m eagerly waiting for. Performance calculations. I don’t care about other EFB features much.
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I wasn’t planning to buy the -900 as I own all the other variants but seeing that preview video… I’m not so sure anymore
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You clearly know what I’m missing and I don’t (I know you actually fly these things, I’m a lowly SE IFR PPL, but I do all my flight planning in Simbrief and load the flight plan (including perf data) and the weather file, which gives you all the leg winds, etc. What’s missing in that case? Obviously I can’t update the winds in-flight, but beyond that?
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You’re missing take off, dispatch and onroute landing performance calculation for normal operation and for MEL and NNC situations. How would you calculate performance for a no-engine bleeds IC-EXT take off without an opt? Or how would you calculate brake cooling schedule or autobrake to vacate where ATC is expecting you to without proper on-route landing OPT calculations? Sure, you can use the tables in the FPPM or the tables in the QRH but that’d take an eternity.
In real life we use EFBs with an onboard performance calculation app. Before we had EFBs they provided us with runway analysis on paper.
Without an EFB you have nothing other than topcat, which I haven’t used in almost a decade and I’m not sure it does everything.
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I’m used to tablets in third party GA planes where they include statics (chocks, pitot covers, etc), passenger comfort levels, and checklists. Would it be safe to say PMDG would include these, or would they still rely on the FMC for sim functions?
Let me ask…
When your ‘other half’ asks… you just say…
“Oh its just a different colour plane I’ve downloaded… for fre..ixty…”
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Yeah mate those items would absolutely be removed from the fms and placed into the efb, which is and what was mentioned above, is why we are highly anticipating the efb release…
Streamlined and efficient…
No back and forwards with doing all the performance stuff and having to select/deselect the various services
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Not trying to be difficult but as far as FSACTIONS go I would imagine there would be very little gain over what the current process entails through the FMC. You have your fuel, payload, and then go in and click for your doors or ground connections. They might just be bundled in the tablet but with how things are structured in the FMC, it’s fine.
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I’d wager the amount of people who ACTUALLY want to fully simulate having MEL and restrictions would be less than 1% of the total PMDG userbase. I mean varying different takeoff configurations is ‘interesting’ but when you’re talking about very minute differences in vspeeds it seems negligible. TOPCAT does offer enroute/dispatch calculations for landing it just grabs the current aircraft payload data. MEL or the NNC stuff and using engine bleeds on or off just adds to the list of things people need to spend time doing (with many people limited on their flying time anyways) and since we don’t get paid (cough) for flying, seems like a lack of justification from an amateur simmers perspective. As for ATC and runway vacating, again, unless you fly VATSIM and even then, being told or needing to adhere to certain exits just doesn’t exist really.
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See that’s what you know and I don’t, and why I don’t ever kid myself that someone who can “fly” one of these in the sim ever could in real life ops. Thanks so much for the detailed reply.
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My other half can’t say if it’s -800 or -900, anyway. And I don’t plan to tell her, so technically I’m not lying 
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I completely understand and get what you are saying mate.
But I guess I can use the same analogy with people who buy iphone or Samsung over anything else…
The % of people that would buy them for 100% utilization of the systems the product offers but for the very fact that, that option is there, and buying a premium product
Same could exactly be said with why most here would buy the PMDG and lets say… over the bedrock max…
A very quick Google review would answer that. Not to mention the very reason why anyone, anyone would fork out almost 80 odd for a product.
Anyone who buys this product, buys it exactly for the same reason why they go for a galaxy S22 or the Iphone over anything else on the market.
Not all of us buy this product, to want to utilize every single emergency test, systems and what not.
I love the ability to rush through everything and get to do a quick flight, and do a proper flight that showcases RNAV and VNAV, but I love that option, ‘If I want to…’ of being able to go through every preflight tests, doing the full fms procedures and performances that a real world 737-800 captain would be doing, and many here would actually do those real world procedures. I would love to beable to put in the correct (A320 flex temp equivalent) into the take-off power page and not just make it up.
Also…
The EFB was something that was essentially promised, and something that most of us paid for with the intention of it being implemented ‘in the near future…’ so its very fair for those who paid for that promised feature (in the same way most wanted the marketed water masking drama…) to have it.
That is why we buy PMDG over bedrock in the same way that we buy the Iphone and the S22 premium edition (the one that comes with the headphones…) its wanting a premium product which showcases everything to the absolute real world product.
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People learn. As they learn, they’ll get bored of flying from A to B on uneventful flights. They’ll start wondering how non normal situations are managed and then they’ll be happy to know that PMDG has included an introduction to airplane malfunctions.
The fact that MSFS has brought to the simulation community people who were not into simulation before does not mean that with enough time some of those will become hardcore simmers and that a large percentage of them will pursue a career in real airline aviation. So yes, the EFB is as useful as any other real world functionality in a PMDG airplane.
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I may be an outlier but for me flying in FS does get monotonous at times but with as dynamic as it is there are still plenty of surprises even after 20+ years. Same can be said for real pilots as well. Everything after awhile becomes just simply ‘routine’. We could throw in everything counterpart short of actually becoming a pilot and there’d still be the same feeling because it exists on both sides. To put it plainly, humans are creatures of habit and we get bored easily. Even new features wear out their welcome quickly and just become part of the routine. I’m glad developers are wanting and devoting time to offer us features to further improve our experiences and immersion within FS and am not trying to downplay that. But at some point there’s a diverging line between the two and as I mentioned with this being a hobby and with time being limited or that we aren’t/don’t get paid for this hobby, some of the nuances such as MEL/failures are nice to have but when it comes down to what simmers would want as a whole this particular area of focus vs perhaps focusing on other areas like aircraft stability (the rocking chair at cruise) or things along that line would be more preferred. I’m not the developer or a developer so I have little or no say in how they want to develop things and I’ll happily accept what they offer. There will be a point where there’s nothing more to really add onto it. With PMDG being in the game since 2003 it’s surprising as well as with MSFS2020 being out for over 2 years now that this hasn’t really happened already. Weather radar I get because of the access issue, but everything else, well, seems like the development through FS and P3D would have made it pretty foundational and already given a roadmap to implement into MSFS.
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