Here you will find a work in progress Tutorial on the PMDG 737 NGXU. Other aircraft will follow. But first:

We would ask that you download our options files, configured by those who use the PMDG most in our community. These will ensure that the aircraft starts in cold and dark, as well as ensuring the autopilot is more BVI friendly on takeoff. The program Flight Simulator First Officer Pro is also recommended to help with the aircraft systems in general, and you will find many videos from the dev on his own site. Flight Simulator First Officer Pro is very configurable, and this config aims for stability and gets the most out of the program by enabling most of the automated functions available. The read me which comes with this folder will explain where to place the files.

Download options files

You will of course also need Talking Flight Monitor, the program created by members of our own BVI Pilots community which gives access to the FMC, and some of the panels, in the 737, 747 and tripple 7 line up of aircraft.

Pilots who fly the PMDG 737 should feel free to add to this tutorial. This guide will briefly explain how to use the pmdg 737 NGXU as a blind individual using Talking Flight Monitor, P3D, and flight simulator first officer pro. It is advised that you use all of the addons mentioned in this short guide, otherwise results cannot be guaranteed. This is by no means a complete guide, nor is it a replacement for reviewing the tutorials which come with the aircraft. This is a complex simulation and will require you to read in depth, as well as perhaps use your own initiative and to search for videos online. Aviation pro, doofer 911, and matt Davies are all good youtube channels with informational resources, but there are so many out there, given that this is an aircraft the sighted community can access just the same as us.

When you download the pmdg 737 NGXU and flight simulator first officer pro, to make things easier for you, you will find in this folder download links to a user.cfg and an options.ini. These have been configured so that you will have minimal work to do in terms of finding options to enhance your user experience. The key things to note are: the 737 will start in cold and dark. Changes have been made to ensure the smoot engagement of the autopilot even when you are using a joystick to fly the first few hundred feet. This file, called 737NGXu_Options.ini goes in C:\Program Files\Lockheed Martin\Prepar3D v4\PMDG\PMDG 737 NGXu, with the minor adjustment depending on if you are using p3d v4 or v5. The user.cfg file for FSFO makes various changes, mainly making the process and actions of the co-pilot more automated, but feel free to look through the file as well as browse through the cfg section of the program to adjust settings. This file goes to C:\Program Files (x86)\Flight Simulator First Officer Prof

We must state that there are some useful tips and caveats to flying the pmdg: It is highly recommended that you have a joystick or at the very least a controller as you will be lifting off by yourself until the autopilot engages. You will need talking flight monitor which will read many of the indicators, lights, and CDU messages you will encounter. The CDU is laid out as in the real aircraft. There are six lines to the CDU, and each can have options/text on the left, centre and right. The left and right are marked with a less than and greater sign respectively. sometimes, you will also need to use your arrows and figure out whether text is on the left or if there is a gap represented by the many spaces for it to be further along on the right. Often, you will see the labels for options above the line itself, and then the fields for those options below. For example, you may see the labels origin and destination above line one, and then the number one followed by a blank. This means left softkey 1 will be the origin, and the right softkey on this line will be the destination. The centre columns, if filled, are simply for informational purposes and are not editable. By default, TFM comes with hotkeys set to control and alt plus the numbers for softkeys, so lsk1L will be ctrl 1 and lsk1R would be alt one. These are changeable to the function keys in the tfm settings, but the aim of this guide is not to go into massive detail on the tfm interface, more to show how it can be used in conjunction with other programs to fly the pmdg. TFM has self-explanatory buttons to clear the scratchpad (the typing pad essentially), a scratchpad text field to enter text into, and further buttons which mainly go to pages of the fmc which we will come to later. Now to setting up a flight once you have loaded the plane.

First, open the doors with ctrl E. FSFO should begin the start-up flow. You will hear ground power establish eventually, and the position entered into the FMc amongst other things. Whilst this is happening, you can bring up the fmc with left bracket ctrl C in tfm. It will appear in the prior-mentioned format. Head to the FS Actions page. Try and find it yourself. Once there, Press LSK 1L to select the FUEL page. Tab over to the scratchpad, and enter the fuel amount in pounds (in this case) Press lsk1l again. This will copy the text into the fuel box, and The plane will distribute the fuel correctly. Press lsk6l to get back to the fs actions page Press LSK 2L to select the PAYLOAD page. enter your zero fuel weight which you can obtain from simbrief press lsk2R to enter it and have weight automatically distributed By this time, you have probably heard FSFO tell you the CDU can be programmed, because the IRS position has been entered. You can now feel free to go back to the main menu by pressing alt M. Most pages buttons will show the associated hotkey with tfm. Press lsk1l to go to the fmc page you will land on the ident page where you can check out the aircraft, it's engine thrust rating, the navdata which you should have updated with hnavigraph. Now press lsk6R to go to the pos init page enter the reference airport into the scratchpad, and then press lsk2L to enter it into the FMC. Press LSK6R to proceed to the route page

departure: lsk1l arrival: lsk1r flight number: lsk 2r co root: lsk2L. Enter the pln name having exported the file from simbrief to the pmdg flight plans NGXU folder. For example, you would enter egllkjfk for a flight plan from Heathrow to jfk press lsk 2l to load this file Now, go to the dep arr button,, alt D, to set sids and stars Press lsk1l to go to the departure page select the runway first on the right side for ease sids will be filtered this way Now choose the sid, then the transition on the left if necessary. Press lsk6r to get back to the route page Go back to and press the depp arr button again Press lsk2r to set star and approach select the star on the left remember that you need to use the left side to select transition after selecting the star, if needed The approach is on the right side. The same process applies for then choosing a transition on the left side once the approach has been selected if you are using such a transition. Now press the legs button. This is alt+G. Check that the sid waypoints, the enroute waypoints, and arrival are in. Some will not have altitudes yet. Notice how the page is laid out with the heading and distances above the waypoint. The altitude and speed are on the waypoint line. If there are any route discontinuities, we need to remove them. To do this, you simply move the waypoint from the line below up over the top of the discontinuity. So, if there's a discontinuity on line 1,, press 2l and then 1l. Finally, hit the execute button, alt+E. If you see a vector, note that this is a heading ATC will expect you to fly before vectors. You will need to use it, and then take a direct if offline. Press lsk6r to activate, followed by alt+e to execute now go to the init ref page. You can press lsk3l twice to enter the zfw (zero fuel weight) Press LSK4l for reserved fuel Input the cost index into the scratchpad, followed by pressing lsk5l Input the cruise altitude into the scratchpad, followed by pressing lsk1r Input the transition altitude into the scratchpad, followed by pressing LSK4R press alt+e to execute. LSK2R is winds at cruise LSK3R is outside temperature at cruise Both the winds and temperature in 2r and 3r are optional, but if put in can help the plane calculate top of climb and descent better. These winds are the average winds, but for longer flights in particular, we will show you later a more accurate method in which you can use the datalink to upload winds for each waypoint.

		press the legs button and check that the altitudes are populated

n1 limit Press either lsk4l for maximum take-off power, 3L for first derate, or 2L for 2nd/lowest derate climb derates are LSK2R, 3R, AND 4R, with 2r for the least amount of derate and 4r for the most. LSK1L is temperature, usually 40 but can change (not required Press lsk6r to go to the take-off page enter the flaps setting into the scratchpad, and put it into the FMC by pressing lsk1l Press lsk3l to select center of gravity, and then press it again to enter it into the fmc LSK1r, 2, and 3r will calculate v speeds Your briefing is as follows: 1. close doors 2. Preflight checklist 3. before start 4. start engines 5. taxi 6. before take-off 7. after take-off

To do a step climb, on the cruise page, enter the flight level you'd like to step climb to in the scratchpad, and then press LSK1R to enter this altitude into the FMC. Note that it may take a few seconds to load the resulting values, so you may have to press refresh a couple of times. You can either look at LSK2R when you see the word now, or go by the opt altitude, found by pressing LSK1R, but to the left of your step climb you just put in. To actually set your step climb, you need to set it by setting the MCP altitude to the new level, entering the flight level into the scratchpad, pressing 1L, and then alt+e to execute. After this, the plane will then climb. Before approach, go to the ref init page and press the lsk key twice on the flaps setting you want. Normally, I do this right after top of descent to get the most up-to-date speed calculations.

So far, some videos have been made from a BVI pilot perspective, but we encourage you to also review the textual tutorial provided with the aircraft, and to watch other sighted youtube creators who have videos on the PMDG. Since TFM models the FMC in the same way as it would be viewed by a sighted individual, we are able to follow much of the main community in learning about the aircrafts. The following two tutorials were created by Blindflightsimmer on the PMDG 737 NGXU: part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLsl5wZUflw&t=2085s Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcGCLaGNQ-s