Third-party developer PMDG Provided news about its popular line of Boeing 737 aircraft for Microsoft Flight Simulator, including released and upcoming models.
We start with two lovely screenshots of the upcoming 737-800 (in Boeing Business Jet version) and the much smaller 737-600.
Speaking of the -600, we hear from CEO Robert Randazzo that it could be released next week if everything goes well.
First up, lets talk about the Babiest of Baby Boeings: The PMDG 737-600!
“I mentioned last month that we had decided to use the 600 testing period as an iterative test program to bring in our new Lateral Flight Path model. This decision was made knowing that it would cause a slightly longer development period than the originally planned six weeks for the PMDG 737-600, but it has proven to be a good use of development and testing time. We are just about ready to release the 737-600 and it will include the new Lateral Flight Path model, along a significantly updated vertical path model that is finally able to leverage the improved accuracy of the lateral model into it’s own computational process. Specifically, bringing in the new LNAV and F/D roll channel model allowed us to unlock some advanced behaviors in the vertical path, with significant improvements to CDA performance and other vertical path computations that really have the 737 behaving like it’s real world counterpart.
We are chasing down a few last minute annoyances and we hope to wrap up testing early in the week with one or two more conforming builds. If those go well, we anticipate she will be in your hands by this time next week. <<NOTE – STANDARD DISCLAIMER APPLIES: If we hit any hiccups we don’t like- we will slide the release out as needed but we’ll keep you posted here!>>”
Moving on to the much more popular 738-800, it appears that it’s still on track for a mid-August release (once again, if everything goes well). Apparently, we’ll see more of it soon.
“Development work on the 737-800 for MSFS continues apace. This includes the 737-800 passenger variant, the BBJ2, the BDSF and BCF versions of the airplane for a total of 8 models in the package. With the release of the 800, a number of equipment changes have been made to the flight deck to reflect the systems differences between the smaller siblings and the larger pair of airplanes in the fleet type. This work continues and we will turn our beta testers loose very soon to begin showing you the airplane from their own perspectives.
The 800 is really the “ultimate” 737 variant from an adoption standpoint- being the most popular variant yet built by a wide margin, we are looking forward to putting her into your fleet in/around Mid August. <<STANDARD DISCLAIMER APPLIES: This timeline, like all timelines is an estimate based upon current progress and remains subject to change.>>
One funny anecdote from inside PMDG for you: We have all been looking at the 700 and it’s much shorter 600 sibling for so long, that we made Jason go back and re-measure the 800 a dozen or so times because by optical illusion and familiarity- the 800 (or in this case the BBJ2!) looks like a 900 by comparison!”
Speaking of the already-released 737-700, today a sizable update has been released, with plenty of improvements. PMDG plans to update it again at the same time as the release of the -600 to add the new Lateral and Vertical flight path systems.
“This week we have a pretty nice update for the 737-700. The team has been hard at work continuing to add detail, adapt behaviors and improving the overall depth of simulation for our flagship 737 package. This update includes a broad range of items from texture and graphical improvements to advanced logical improvements such as alternate gear extension. The change list is included here and you can scan through to see the wide range of areas getting attention throughout the 737.
Concurrent with the 737-600 update (hopefully next week!) we will also push another update to the 737-700 in order to bring the new Lateral and Vertical flight path changes into the 700 series airplane as well.
One note we want to call out: For those who experience the dreaded “gauge flicker” in the 737: Asobo advised us back in mid-May that they had found the source of that problem deep within the Nano layer of the MSFS platform. They reported it was fixed and would push in the next update. We have been testing in SU10 and can confirm that it is indeed fixed. This will be a welcome relief and will also allow us to turn on the EFIS/MAP display configuration. Expect that we will do this concurrent with the SU10 release.”
Here are the patch notes:
CHANGE LIST: PMDG 737-700 3.00.0029