PMDG’s Robert Randazzo took to the PMDG forum to share an update to the Boeing 737, Universal Flight Tablet as well as a surprising glimpse and punny preview of the Boeing 777 titled “PMDG_777_Pretty_Tired.jpg” in a later comment referring to Randazzo’s busy but weary working week.
Just a few days after a holding product page appeared and was then taken down under ‘internal testing’, showing a PMDG 777 in P3D and at the price tag of a cool $5M, the appetite for previews of the aircraft in MSFS was high. The first look at the Boeing 777 details the aircraft’s left main landing gear, detailed Bridgestone tyres, brake lines and pads, wheel chocks, and even a look at the rear of the engine and cowling. This being the first time we have seen the aircraft within the Microsoft Flight Simulator environment indicates that development is progressing smoothly. However, external previews imply that it may be some time before the community can actually experience the aircraft firsthand.
In the main post, Randazzo outlined updates to the main 737 aircraft line particularly focussing on refining the Universal Flight Tablet (UFT) across PC users but coming up against some issues for Xbox.
The update and improvements to the UFT consist of the addition of persistent Navigraph day and night map modes, METARs with wind improperly being converted from metres per second corrected, 0-degree simple weather temperature display bug will no longer occur and finally, dependency on CDN for bootstrap CSS has been removed.
Although the update is small, the impact on the stability of the aircraft and UFT will be noticeable as the few most disruptive bugs have now been addressed. Randazzo also speaks about the next few development cycles and how they will be focussing on adding additional functionality across the tablet including the ability to change options and settings from the FMS rather than the tablet coming within the next few cycles too.
Marketplace users can expect the updates within the next 7 days bringing their products to the 3.00.0086 standard whereas direct purchase users can access the update now from the PMDG Operations Center.
Xbox users are still unable to experience the UFT due to unexpected communication challenges affecting the ability to implement the UFT. Whilst they are deep into figuring out the issue, the team is working out a way to bring updates and improvements to the aircraft whilst bypassing the UFT.
Finally, Randazzo hinted at further previews and updates as we approach the holiday season as a little gift to the community. We will endeavor to bring you all the PMDG updates as they happen.
