As some of you may already know, I’m hard at work on two guides for the PMDG 737 NG and the FSLabs A320 add-ons for FSX. I plan on doing these guides in parallel with an almost identical structure, so one can easily compare how both aircraft differ systems-wise (also explaining Boeing vs Airbus design philosophy). The guides would explain the cockpit layout, the pre-flight planning, and a complete flight from cold start to landing.
I was wondering, for the tubeliner experts among you, what important points should be mentioned that you wished you had known when you first started? I know there are a lot of tutorials on youtube of varying quality and I noticed that it’s very easy to learn stuff wrong. Therefore, I’d like to know what things I should put the emphasis on and what useful tricks I could add.
it’s important to note with the 737 that there is no philosophy behind the cockpit design. It’s a hot mess from the 1960’ intertwined with technology and design philosophy’s up until the mid 2000’. It’s amazing what a breath of difference there is between the 73/789 or the 78/89 when it comes to coherent design.
Systems wise, the 737 suffers from the fact that a lot of parts were certified in the 1960/70’ and had no inherent reason to change over time. Hence why you will find a mix of technology throughout the aircraft(although a modern one is pretty much FBW).
I think I am getting a bit off-track now and I can only really speak from the MX perspective on these machines. Let me know if you need any visual material though! Happy to help out!
They use completely different approaches to achieve surprisingly close performance. Snark is correct: the NG (even the upcoming Max!) is/are a little old fashioned ergonomically. On the other hand, they are very simple. The electrical, hydraulic, fuel and environmental systems can be understood in just a few days.
It takes that amount of time to master the flight control laws alone on the airbus. In return, the airbus gives you a supremely logical and comfortable flight deck.
These things are rarely parked side by side in the hangar waiting for us to choose. But if you have that luxury, take the 737 if you enjoy hand-flying and appreciate the simplicity of a 1978 Toyota Celica. Take the airbus if you value comfort and prefer managing over manipulation. I find joy in both but prefer the 737 because I still get a huge thrill from flying the thing. An airbus person would likely find that sentence to be a tad pathetic.
As far as specific differences go, there is no way to address that without very specific questions. There is just too much to mention here
You asked about guides. I can’t be of help on the Airbus because my days on it are years in the past. But the best 737 guides come from retired Continental pilot Bill Bulfer
it’s a bit of a mix between pilot and technician tips, but it has a ton of interesting tid bits on my favourite, the -200. Perhaps its useful for the NG generation too.
Well, having different perspectives (especially from pilots) is a must if a guide creator wants his work to be somewhat relevant. I’d like to hear your thoughts.
C_P has hit the ball out of the park. If you are a baseball fan that should be pretty exciting. In my case it just makes my eyes glaze over the way they do when I go clothes shopping with my wife. I don’t want to discourage any effort to make a simulation more real to its users. But I have dived down this rabbit hole before and found some futility in the experience. For about a year I helped a tiny bit as a beta testor for the excellent x737 project for X-plane. (It’s FREE!) I also spent a bunch of time in the forum answering questions and explaining procedures in as much detail as time would allow. The questions were good. Some were very esoteric. Nearly all of the questions were highly asstute technically but way off the mark operationally.
And that was the rabbit hole. One can study and push buttons and count rivets and get a lot from the experience. But you have to remember that these procedures don’t happen in a vacuum. They happen in a very dynamic environment with humans interacting constantly and occasionally under stress. The procedures and flows vary dramatically from airline to airline. I’ve been flying 737s for 20 years now. If I were to quit United and go to Southwest I would procedurally be starting from nearly zero. The whole thing, except for the actual cockpit, would be entirely foreign to me. And it would take months before I’d be completely comfortable in the new position.
And it was because of the real-world differences, the crew interactions, the stress of NY TRACON during peak traffic on a stormy day, dealing with a weak FO (or Captain) and so on, that I tried to implore the x737 fans to not get so into the weeds with mimicking actual airline operations. That suggestion consistantly landed with a big thud of course. But I was nonetheless convinced that people would learn more, and have more fun, if they worked within the limits of a single-pilot simulation using procedures that properly fit the simulation instead of trying to shoe-horn real-world multi-crew techniques into a virtual world where those procedures make absolutely no sense.
Now let me add what I would find useful. And basically it would be exactly what C_P suggested. Let’s say that I decide to go back to the 'bus. It’s been 20 years. I remember practically nothing but I’d like a bit more preparation before training begins. I would need a somewhat accurate A320 with an functioning FCU (MCP? I don’t remember) and at least some plausibility in the most common functions of the MCDU. Further, I would really appreciate a small 200 page manual that get’s me off the ground, over a few waypoints, transitions onto an arrival and lands me on the correct piece of concrete. Just the basics. This is what we have with the DCS A-10 manual. Trying to copy airline procedures would mean thousands of pages very few of which will be of use in a functionally limited sim. But give me something for the sim that attempts no allusions regarding the real thing and then I will be armed with useful knowledge that will really pay off once the company teaches me how to fly it the company way. Again (he’s obviously a smart guy) C_P pointed towards what might be the most useful thing a sim pilot can learn: the Flows. They are the secret sauce to making something complex something simple. Two sets for each task (preflight, before taxi, etc): One for the systems (mainly overhead panel) and one for the box.
Sit in a real one if you get the chance, the physical layout and dimensions of all the switch panels and visual styles is so… disconnected from eachother compared to a modern boeing aircraft or a airbus cockpit!
I meant cluttered as in “messy” more than “oh my god there are so many switches”. I see a couple of 737 simulator cockpits at work, but I never paid much attention to “how” the switches were positioned. As an example, there are landing gear indicator lights both on the overhead and on the front panel (I can understand why it’s been done like that but it makes it all disjointed)… or there are wiper switches right in the middle of the APU control panel.
From an ergonomical point of view, Airbus seemed light years ahead at that time.
