Thank you for this - I’m just trying to get to grips with the 737 and this at a glance guide to the approach is so helpful!
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For the sim pilot it is useful to fly a lot of the approaches by hand and for that being stabilized at glide slope capture is a good procedure. I flew the 737’s ages ago and for the 747’s we stabilized much earlier. It was an easy airplane to fly as long as you stayed within tight parameters. It’s also good practice to fly with the auto throttle off once you have stabilized hand flying. As mentioned fuel costs are diminimus in MSFS and a fully stabilized approach perhaps easier to do well. With the underslung engines thrust changes cause pitch changes and say a pitch change will cause a thrust setting change which will cause a pitch change which… on and on… Listen to the pitch of the engines, it’s a great aid in power setting.
Cheers: Tom
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I have asked two days ago to stay on topic. This thread is a discussion of PMDG’s 737 not about what was posted in the PMDG forum. Posts will be removed that are off topic.
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Establish a standard seating position (Point of View). Many Boeings have either lined up balls or in the case of the 747 a black cross on the side window post. Whatever make it the same every time. I was often asked if I had been a fighter pilot as I liked to sit high in the cockpit. Make a lot of approaches and you get the sight picture for 3 deg glide slope firmly entrenched. I an interview sim check I was flying an old 737-200 sim I had flown before and the guy had me do a black hole approach. His surprised comment was “that was better than your ILS”. Turn off the stuff and do some visual approaches. A useful skill and for many airlines, especially ones without a gen av presence, it’s almost an emergency procedure. It’s also good to do approaches without the auto throttle on though begin by getting everything stable with power and pitch helps you get a finer touch with only small corrections.
I’m still fine tuning my controls! Cheers: Tom
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I had a similar problem yesterday. Flying the Alaska Airlines 737-900 N309AS from KSEA-KONT. At cruise altitude just prior to decent near Bakersfield, suddenly a CTD. I wasn’t even interacting with the sim at the time. I have not had a CTD for over a year and rarely fly the PMDG 737 (about once per month) because something usually happens. previous flight one thrust reverser activated on landing causing me to do a figure 8 on the runway, before that the controls locked up on final following pause of flight. I get very frustrated with it.
I will give the same Alaska fldight another go today.
Sounds like a door issue to me 
Indeed, a careful examination of the exterior does demonstrate the presence of the plug door on the 737-900 and ER. Speaking of door issues I sometimes get a nuisance door warning at spool up? Only freezes I get are with loading a saved flight, sometimes…
I started out commercial flying at 36 as a second career, flying small planes for an Alaska bush carrier. Pretty good stick training. A lot of an airline career is due to happenstance combined with persistence. I was lucky and spent 15 of my 32 years flying as a 747 Captain. One thing I had going for me was I never lost the love of flying the airplane and never wished I wasn’t on a trip. The bush flying developed a feel for flying that was invaluable one several occasions. Somebody need to be able to fly the plane!
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It’s a transient caution for the overwing exits. It shouldn’t be there, but is intentionally modeled by PMDG. The background: on the 737 NG family (and now the Maxs), the overwing exits mechanically lock with thrust lever advancement (and a few other conditions.). Early on when the NG family came out, if those latches were just a little bit slow to engage, the PSEU would sense an open proximity switch and throw a doors caution. The caution would then clear after a second or two as the latches finally closed all the way, the prox switch closed, and the PSEU was happy.
Early on, it caused many low-speed aborts. Boeing corrected it pretty quickly by adding a few seconds of delay logic to the PSEU. PMDG has chosen to model it as a “clever” inclusion in their products, but unless you’re simulating the operation of an NG within the first few months of live flights, it really shouldn’t be there.
The real kicker is that it shouldn’t happen in the -900ER at all, as that variant did not even exist until long after this transient doors caution had been corrected. I wish there were a way to turn it off.
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Was doing a flight in the Caribbean, while out over the open ocean, got a “Scanning DME Fail” notice on the FMC? Never seen that before, any idea what it is / what I did wrong?
FMC position updates via DME/DME are not available. If GPS is still available your FMC position will remain accurate.
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Wow, this thread is getting close to 10.000 posts! Great to read input from real world pilots and experienced airline simmers.
I normally fly helicopters and small GA props. But after hearing so much praise of the PMDG 737, I decided to buy the -600. Like many others before me, I spent the first hour sitting in the cold and dark cockpit, simply admiring the wonderful modeling and trying to find out where everything is located.
A few days later, and I have performed some short flights without wrecking the plane. I am not even trying to do everything perfectly, instead relying heavily on the saved cockpit states. Simbrief is a big help as well, uploading the route and the performance data into the FMC without much manual input.
I just wanted to write this to encourage others to gives this plane a try. The learning curve is not as steep as I thought 
But mastering this plane can probably take a while 
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IMO all the Pmdg airraft are excellent. Heres a link to a Real world pilot who is also a member of the PMDG TECH TEAM. Definitely check out his numerous youtube videos on the 737. All excellent! This is just onie example so subsctribe to his channel and you will definitely find it a great help with the 737.
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A substantial bit of digging to model the door warning on spool up! Just a transient but pretty strange. Mostly a pretty convincing sim experience, still control tuning for the most authentic presentation. Not doing perfect flights yet.
It’s not just the over-wing exits that can cause nuisance warnings in the flightdeck. If when the cabin crew close the main doors they don’t push the door handle down firmly the proximity switch can also wiggle a little during take off. It’s a safe state but it can trigger a door light in the flight deck. It’s happened many times. So much that we always remind them of this during the pre-flight briefing to avoid unnecessary rejected take-offs (Below 80kts we’ll stop for anything).
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2nd time in the last 10 flights that my right engine failed. First time was on the ground, taxying to the runway, 2nd time was on final approach. I didn’t get any master caution alerts, just noted that the autothrottle disengaged and when I looked down to figure out what was going on, noted that the right engine had shut down. Any thoughts on what the issue is?
Maybe any button with shut down function assigned…and you don’t know about that. Check “Controls Options”
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It’s not a PMDG issue. Never had it. Most probably a controller binding or some AI stuff
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If you have a throttle quadrant with mixture control levers (used for flying piston aircraft), be aware that they can shutdown the engines on the PMDG 737 if they move out of the “full rich” position.
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