Small issue, anyone else? In vr when trying to open the cockpit door the mouse pointer disapears over the door. Makes it hard (impossible) to click on the handle. I have a lame work around if anyone is interested.
We are not aware of this issue (though we do not use VR internally much), and I was unable to reproduce it. Can you confirm whether this is for FS2020 or FS2024? What VR Goggles?
Could you take a screenshot of the angle at which this occurs? With that info, we might be able to tweak the model.
Mathijs Kok
PMDG
I have the same issue do activate the stairs from the panel outside. It does not react at all, i.e. it is not possible in VR. The switch turns blue when hovering over it with the mouse pointer but it does not move the switch.
tl;dr: -900 next week, -600 by mid-month. -700 in early March.
3 Likes
[31JAN26] Release Plan for PMDG 737-900, PMDG 737-600 & Pending 737-800 Update
Today, 21:40
Captains,
This month has been interesting in the way of an ancient proverb. 
Iāll fill you in on a bit of that, but first lets talk through some fun release info!
PMDG 737-900NG for MSFS 2024: This product is ready for release, and will be made available to you next week barring unforeseen circumstances. (see: What happened to January Releases?! below) We have already commenced the intake process with Microsoft Marketplace, so we anticipate the product appearing, in relatively short order in the marketplace platform as well. The 737-900 livery packages for Marketplace have also commenced intake, and while they go through their own acceptance process, we are comfortable that they will be made available at-or-near release of the core product itself.
PMDG 737-600NG for MSFS 2024: This product is nearly ready for release, but needs a bit longer in the incubator before we shove it out of the nest. If you are planning any flying to go see your Valentine, the 600 should be able to take you there. (again, see: What happened to January Releases?! below.)
Now, also lets get you up-to-speed on some pending updates and information:
PMDG 737-800NG for MSFS 2024 Update 18: Concurrent to the 737-900 release, we have an update for the 737-800 rolling out to you as well. This update has a number of tweaks/improvements/changes- one of which is that we found and killed a micro-stutter that was being picked up by the MSFS console window as a pause/unpause event. This was creating some drama for certain vatsim and VA users, so it was viewed as a critical fix. This required a significant engineering effort to find and fix- but it is important to offer a public thank-you to many of our customers who worked with us in the background to help us collect the data we needed that helped sort this one out.
PMDG 737-700 for MSFS 2024: We anticipate this product going into beta testing by mid-February. Previously I have stated that I felt this would be a February release, and while that is still possible, beta testing will have to go near-perfectly for that to remain likely. If it isnāt released within the confines of February- it wonāt be long after.
PMDG 737NG for MSFS 2024: We have a significant exterior model update process taking place in the background of the 737 development effort. We mentioned this back in December, because we nearly held the 737-800 off market in order to complete this process, but decided instead to phase the changes in progressively post-release in order that all of us could enjoy the 737-800 during our holiday breaks. (You did, didnāt you?!!!) If you watch the change list for build 18 and beyond, you will start to see these changes rolling in. We anticipate the process being completed around the time the 737-700 releases. The change includes a significant refresh/update of model geometry, textures, animations and adds some feature to the exterior not currently present in the airplane. Weāll put together a highlight post to walk you through the changes, but I suspect youāll see them quite evidently when we finish rolling them out.
PMDG DC-6 for MSFS 2020/2024: For our 2020 customers, we moved DC-6 into Operations Center 3.0, so you should find her there. For our 2024 customers, the DC-6 has been rather ingloriously on ice, waiting for the darned 737 to get out of the work slot so that we can attach some modeling development assets to the project. We anticipate this happening once 737 is out the door. The move to bring DC-6 into 2024 is not a rebuild, like the other projects, but a port. The model did get reconfigured to make it work within the confines of the 2024 SDK and that created some drama. We needed an SU from Asobo to be able to fix it and by the time that arrived the dev assets were deep into other work. Wonāt be long now, your patience is appreciated. (This is my favorite PMDG product, btw- so Iām eager to have her done in 2024 as well!)
Other Projects & Titles: I donāt have any information that I am ready to share on any other projects or titles at this time. When there is information to share with you, I will.
Okay- now, those of you who have hung around here a while know that we do occasionally give you a glimpse of what it is like on our side of the process- so if you are interested in that type of thing, read on:
So what the heck happened to January Releases?!: I rarely give schedule guidance when it comes to release timelines, so you can normally tell when my comfort level with a product is high because I start giving vague hints about the release timeline. When we released the 737-800 for MSFS 2024, I mentioned that we were confident of releasing the 737-900 and 737-600 both during the month of January. 737-900 was scheduled for release on 15JAN, but we began to have some concerns about the number of customers who were reporting that they were negatively affected by the MSFS console reporting that the 737-800 was throwing pause/unpause events in bursts at regular intervals. There is plenty of information out there on the topic already, so I wonāt rehash it- but our support team, Mathijs and our Discord Mod Team (a trifecta that makes up your greatest customer advocacy, by the way) began to express concerns that the issue needed to be addressed before the 738 release because it was a critical failure.
The dev team was able to replicate the issue, but it took about another week to sort out āwhy is this happening?ā since we donāt actually trigger a pause/unpause event. About 08JAN or so we identified the root cause of the problem, and the dev team began to work toward a fix. (Short version: The sim was seeing a micro-stutter caused by a data-read process within the PMDG product, and reporting that via console window as a pause/unpause.) We pushed the release to 22JAN, and adjusted the 737-600 to 29JAN. Weād still make āRobās Promiseā and all was well.
When we put the beta version out with the pause/unpause fix- we found that it ran headlong into some complications related to the virtual file system in the platform- and these caused the Terrain Awareness System and EGPWS systems to provide bogus data under certain circumstances for some usersā¦ It took a solid 9 days of engineering time to ācode our way aroundā the issue and get a successful beta under our belt with the new fix.
With the release now scheduled for 27JAN, we slid the 737-600 into the first week of February. Not optimal, but still pretty good, all things considered.
The day before release, a member of the dev team was pulling on a thread of something that was nagging at himā¦ and he discovered a negative interaction that could occur if a user had a mix of locally installed and streamed versions of our 737 products in the sim. A bit more engineering and testing resolved the issue, and we moved to 29JANā¦
Overnight 27/28JAN, one of the vendors we rely upon for email communications was subject to a concerted attack by a known hacking conclave that was exploiting part of their operational system in hopes of extracting a ransom. While the intrusion didnāt affect us directly, it affected us indirectly because the vendor took down some operational services in order to protect their network while they fought off the intrusion. They had succeeded and their world calmed down by Friday evening, with all services returning to normal operation around midnight UTC on 30JAN. We rely upon a number of different communication services, and we experienced intermittent outages during this period- as some of you noticed.
Since we rely upon a number of globe-spanning services, we decided it might be best to just sit on our hands and wait until next week- as releasing on a weekend means we might not have access to the top-tier of resources we need if something goes sideways during a product release- and we also wanted to be certain things had calmed down with the vendor before we kicked offā¦ We didnāt need uncontrolled drama affecting the controlled drama. 
So this is why 739 will come to you next week in February and not January as I had suggested previously. 
Fun. Isnāt it? (no. it isnāt.)
I am always in favor of getting the product right so that once it is in your sim, you donāt have to worry about it acting up. That makes it difficult for us to communicate release timelines, and for some users the lack of a timeline and our apparent comfort ignoring a timeline already communicated can be frustrating.
We hear you on that- and you will notice that we are going to tell you quite a bit less about pending stuff going forward.
If I do tell you approximated timelines (see above!) then our confidence level is high that weāll make them- and barring unforeseen circumstances we will. (Who had "Global Hacking Conclave takes down Global Services Vendor on their bingo card for January 2026???)
Thanks for reading- it has been a hell of a month. Lets turn the page and get into February already!
8 Likes
Looks like I will start my BBJ1 MotoGP tour on MSFS2020.
If anyone has the PMDG 738 from the Marketplace and pink texture issues, the solution can be found in the topic linked below.
https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/pmdg-737-800-purple-checkered-wings/756436
2 Likes
Just as long as I can fly Avelo, AirTran and some old retro schemes on the 700 Iāll be happy to fly the 700 when it releases 
737-900 for MSFS2024 has just been released 
2 Likes
Probably my favourite variant of 737. I canāt wait.
1 Like
Too bad WinWing WINCTRL hasnāt yet updated SimAppPro. My L EFIS works with the current version, but thatās it, lol. My PAP3N MAG and PFP 7 do not work with the plane yet.
Iāll get to my PFP 3N next week. I hope it will be natively supported before then.
Fingers crossed! Sometimes theyāve been super-fast with updates, other times, not so much.
1 Like
Should be available soon, will talk to them this morning.
Mathijs Kok
PMDG
3 Likes
Ive only got into the airliners more this year, PMDG 737-800 being my first, I take It the new 737-900 is basically the same aircraft, just with an increased range, passenger count and so on?
Is there no discount on the 900 for those that bought the 737-800 (2024)?
Thatās basically right. The -900 has a bit of a different feel because it is longer and heavier but the systems are mostly identical. Range difference is negligible.
Unfortunately, no discounts across model variants. You only get a discount on the -900 for FS2024 if you purchased the -900 for FS2020.
1 Like
Mmmm, there are some interesting differences between the 800 and the 900/900ER. Emi made a nice video about it.
2 Likes
Hey, the PAP3N MAG does work with the PMDG 737. It didnāt work for me in the beginning, then i found out that the PAP3N has a firmware update available (V1.01) which makes everything work like a charm! Just open SimAppPro, click on the device and navigate to firmware upgrade. You should see a new version available. PC restart is required for it to work! Let me know if this worked for you too.
Or were you referring to the -900? In that case, iām not sure. It works for the -800 though thatās for sure.
Iām referrring to the -900 in MSFS 2024, but thanks.
1 Like