I've finally gotten sick of waiting for my ISP to provision our DSL, and decided last night that I'd have a flight today, having spent the last couple of days upgrading all my software for the current versions and AIRAC cycle.
Chose a class 4 for no other reason than it'd be about an hour in length, and decided to use the 737-800 for the simple reason that I've spent a lot of money on the Project Magenta Boeing glass cockpit software and a Flight Deck Solutions USB CDU and I haven't had a chance to use it yet. I've finished and PIREP'd the flight and I can report that I love it all.
The PFD kicks all other glass cockpits I have used into the dirt, it's in a class of it's own. Even though I did have to cram the PFD, ND and EICAS onto the one 19" monitor, it still looks increadible!
The MCP is perhaps the runt of the litter, but it does the job, looks cool, and it runs happily enough on this little old laptop.
The revelation is the CDU however. I thought the PMDG CDU was good, but the PM CDU is a statute mile better. As an example, how many of us dread a long RTE, having to enter the data on the PMDG CDU as a WP/VOR and then the VIA separately? The PM software lets you do both in a single entry: <VIA>.<WP/VOR> (so you can enter DVR5F.DVR and it loads the entire DVR 5F STAR in all its glory, all from a single CDU keyboard entry!)
I have a couple photos of my 737-800 "cockpit" that I took just after passing DVR during EHM-4004 (EGLL-LIML) earlier. I'll upload them to the gallery and insert a link.
