PMDG's 737 extension package - to buy or not buy?

[Skybird]

That question is rhetorical only, because look what since two days is sitting on my virtual parking position:



Right, it is a Boeing 737, and no, it is not the one in the base pack for the NGX published by PMDG, and that includes the 800 and the 900 version. The one on the picture is a 600.

The addon costs 25 $US and is a 150 MB download. It features the 600 and 700, the latter with and without winglets, and thus completes PMDG's fantastic recreation of the NGX line of the Boeing 737. It is not stand alone, but needs the base pack installed. After installation, the pack includes only the PMDG house liveries, but many more liveries - like the Boeing house colours introduced for the Dreamliner that are depicted on these pics - are available on PMDG's website or at AVSIM. At Avsim I recommend to take care you pick those liveries that can be easily installed via the livery manager, else you end up needing to tweak, paste and copy extensions for aircraft config files. I personally tend to avoid that.



The question people probably ask themselves most after they already bought the base pack is whether or not the addon offers value for the money that they do not already have. Well, for me it was a question of love. And I can say: the love was answered by the content I got.

If you expect something totally new and different, you are looking in the wrong place. The four models of the NGX lineup that started to appear on the market since the late 90s, all share very similar cockpits. Here and there, there are minor differences. A switch that is missing, a button moved, an instrument on the head-up panel being replaced against something that looks differently. This additionally to the carrier-options that you can faithfully follow if you want, and equipment choices possible via the cockpit configuration options - for example whether you prefer the old Honeywell MCP or the new one by Collins. PMDG has recreated these subtle differences between the various versions of the 737 faithfully, without adding something or leaving out something. The changes are subtle and in no way dominant, but they are there. But in principle, to 95% you get the cockpit that you already know from the basepack. Who wants to cry foul over that? It is a.) both visually and functionally the best virtual cockpit on the market today, and it is b.) as realistic as can be.



The aircraft models of course differ more decisively. Remember, a Boeing 738 and 739 scratch at the 40m-mark for hull length - the B736 is only around 30m in length - 25% shorter. These 737s in this package compare more to the Airbus A319 than the A320 and A321. They look somewhat stocky, compared to the more slender looking 800 and 900. The wings are slightly different, the engines thus are positioned differently too.



What it really decides, is the flight model. Here is where a cheap toy gets separated from a high fidelity simulation. And here is where you also will recognize the most obvious differences to the bigger Boeings in the base pack. The 600 and 700 are smaller, and lighter, they carry less fuel and passengers and cargo. As a result, they fly differently, and have different fuel consumptions. It already starts during taxiing. You can have the engines in idle, but just release the parking brake, and the 600 already sprints forward almost, accelerating very fast. "Hoooa!" I yelled and spent the rest of taxiing constantly putting my fingertip on the brake button. That already was different, very different to the 800's behaviour. The 800 also starts to roll by itself in idle thrust - but by far not that fast.

Next, takeoff and approach and landing speeds are different, too, and are lower, naturally. I think I need to widen my set of printed tables and charts to determine flaps and auto-brake settings as well as for selected-temperatures for engine limits, I feel that those I use for the 800 and 900 do not work optimal for the much smaller 600 and 700. I also noted that my usual way of estimating my fuel to get for a lfight in the 800 and 900, seriously missed the marks and means trouble if I do not change it for the 600 and 700



Once in the air, the aircrafts are a joy to fly, the best flightmodel in their class I thought about the base pack, and I think again with this addon. The airplanes are more agile, react faster, still are not nervous or over-sensitive - they feel decisively different to fly than their bigger cousins, still they feel like something you are familair with when having flown the 737s of the base pack. The planes are well-behaved and responsive, but do not over-react. Responsiveness is such that you can "feel" that the plane you fly is lighter than the 737 you have flown in the base pack.

To try the addon for me was result of my love affair with the PMDG737, but after having flown the new aircraft both manually and via autopilot, I became enthusiastic of what PMDG has accieved here. To make these new ones feeling different and familiar at the same time, to give them a different feel in handling yet sticking faithfully with a flightmodel that you still could imagine easily to be representative for something like a 737 and the base pack - I think that really illustrates some virtuoso mastery and intimate professional knowledge of the way FSX handles flight model physics and how it must be fed and treated to deliver this or that wanted results.



So, the final verdict: is it worth to get the addon and again putting money on the table? If you liked what you got in the base pack, then it is hard to imagine you could get disappointed here. Yes, it is worth to get it! The differences are subtle, but substantial at the same time. For me it is clear that from now on I will fly all seven versions (three of the four base versions have winglet options, which indeed makes a difference in fuel consummation) in turns, and frequently.

To PMDG, once again just this: chapeau!

[Skybird]

No wonder my fuel calcs were so terribly messed up - I forgot to switch the new planes' computers from lbs to kg.

I also found that I had a minor callibration problem, with my throttle showing the symptom. To correct what I said on the new planes: they roll easier indeed since they are lighter, but not that spectacularly easy as previously described. Indeed taxiing is a pleasure now.

[Herr-Berbunch]

Originally Posted by Skybird

No wonder my fuel calcs were so terribly messed up - I forgot to switch the new planes' computers from lbs to kg.

All very well in a sim, but numerous aircraft have fallen foul of just that error.

[Skybird]

Really!?

Well, I feel better now.

[Sailor Steve]

Looks gorgeous! I've loved the 737 ever since they first came out. The first time I saw one in the air I thought that if any airliner could look like a fighter, this was it. Beautiful.

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by Herr-Berbunch

All very well in a sim, but numerous aircraft have fallen foul of just that error.

Heck, a space probe fell foul of a similar error once!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Cl...use_of_failure

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

Looks gorgeous! I've loved the 737 ever since they first came out. The first time I saw one in the air I thought that if any airliner could look like a fighter, this was it. Beautiful.

Check the thread that I had set up few days ago, with the reposting of Nick's videos. One of them is 20 minutes just about the outside model. It should give you a sweet death watching it.

Whenever I launch this addon, I am always, every single time, totally stunned and blown away by the beauty and visual excellence in this. Today, I had a nightflight in a ruby-red Sterling.eu aircraft. The colours were awesome.

I could spend the whole day posting pictures of this addon. I have them by the hundreds now, literally. Well - many many dozens.

[Sailor Steve]

NO! Too much of a good thing! Besides, you might 'splode the system.

[Arclight]

Down with the system! Bwa? Oh...

I think I need this. Even the stock 737 in FSX was by far my favourite. Just need an excuse to blow $70,- on a single aircraft (well, I guess 2, technically).

[Skybird]

58$ for two, 73$ for four.

If winglets count, it is four and seven aircraft.

Plus various carrier options resulting in different configurations of the cockpits. These options hold 20 pages in a (fictional) section of the CDU. They all can be reset while being inflight. Don't need that HGS? Throw it out while being in flight. Prefer the Collins to the Honeywell MCP? change it while inflight. Want a different setup for various altitude anouncements? Change while inflight. No Windows menu at the top of the screen. Its all in the CDU.

The most money you already wasted when staying with the FSX default 737 for so long.

[Arclight]

Mm, fair enough. To be honest, I haven't touched FSX in ages, actually uninstalled it recently due to perpetual lack of disk space. Found it hard to get back into after getting into DCS; it all seemed rather primitive in comparison.

Fully modeled 737 though, that would tickle my fancy.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Arclight

To be honest, I haven't touched FSX in ages, actually uninstalled it recently due to perpetual lack of disk space. Found it hard to get back into after getting into DCS; it all seemed rather primitive in comparison.

FSX default IS primitive. It is a toy. Thw wonderful thing about it is that it is totally modular and almost every component can be taken out and replced withs omethign different. Textures. Sceneries. Weather calculations. Aiframes. Physical flight models. Systems. Avionics. You buy a toy. Get some knowledge and input on what is good on the market and what not, throw the gamestuff out as far your your system specs allow, put the good stuff in, and your toy has turned into a hardcore simulation.

I can only repeat it, there is a reason why they decided not to write their own documentation - what PMDG usually does, and quite extensively so - and instead put in several pdfs of 3000+ pages of original Boeing manuals instead - because you can transfer the stuff from the manuals to the sim.

So far I believe I found only one little bug, with the back cabin heating system in the 800 and 900. Unimportant for what you do in the cockpit, some virtual passengers will not get warm, that is all. If there are more issues, then I am still not aware of them so far - after over one year.

[Skybird]

B736 Leaving Oslo Gardermoen in a wintermorning's bad weather.



But up there, its getting better.

[Skybird]

I have avoided winter in FSX since always. Now I wonder why. The default land textures by FSX are terrible, but the winter ones melt nicely if you use a good weather and cloud package. You also get nice and slippery runways that look so much better.



Departure from Iceland. Not my last visit there, I like the sencery in winter and bad weather.

[Tchocky]

Funny you should post a B736 in SAS colours. I'm always pleased to see one climbing out of Brussels or Amsterdam - you can always count on the 736 for a good climb rate all the way up to ~FL400, makes it easier for me