IXEG 737 Advice/Reviews

[od1canod]

Hi everyone,

So I'm thinking about getting the IXEG 737 for my X-Plane 10 install. I want to just ask for some opinions from others that already have it. I've read a bunch of reviews and pretty much have heard its awesome.

Here's the thing. I have both the CRJ-200 and DC-3 from X-Aviation and am super happy with both so no issue with the distributor/developer.

My main flying has so far been in the MS FS world from FS95-FSX. I did try out XP9 and then XP10 and found it pretty decent, even superior in SOME respects to the MS product.

In FSX I fly a couple of good GA planes both single and twins. But most of my flights are in Heavy Metal. I've tried quite a few over the years and these are my conclusions.

Captain Sim has nice eye candy, not worth the money at all for the hassles in getting it to actually complete a flight without CTD. Level-D was a great plane in FS9, not as reliable in FSX despite covering much of the systems. Quality Wings, not bad, flies OK most of the time but only a step up from default. Milviz 737-200, not bad but I get CTD issues and sudden strange behavior of the flight model. Abacus Fly the Airbus, basically same as the FSX defaults at best. 

I am not a newbie computer guy, 15 years now in the field as a network tech and college educated so my system runs just fine. And I've tried things beyond what the developers above have suggested for fixes, some of them solving issues that the developers gave up on. So when I get frustrated with an aircraft addon that is IMHO not worth a free download let alone $50 it's not because I don't give them a fair chance. Dumping stuff off on paying customers only to be rude or dismissive because your product is failing them is just not cool.

There is only one Boeing jet that I've found to be a superb sim that covers close to all the systems, looks very respectable and has had very little issue running stable, consistently...anyone care to guess? Yup another happy PMDG 737NGX customer.

I'd love to get more active in using X-Plane and fly a Boeing 737 in it's world. Any words from any of you out there that have been around sims long enough to have also tried out many a waste of time? I'm hoping the IXEG does what is expected, runs stable and is an advanced enough model of systems and flight dynamics to be worth it's money...

I truly appreciate your time reading this and for any words you have...

Owen

[donoscar]

Hi everyone,

So I'm thinking about getting the IXEG 737 for my X-Plane 10 install. I want to just ask for some opinions from others that already have it. I've read a bunch of reviews and pretty much have heard its awesome.

Here's the thing. I have both the CRJ-200 and DC-3 from X-Aviation and am super happy with both so no issue with the distributor/developer.

My main flying has so far been in the MS FS world from FS95-FSX. I did try out XP9 and then XP10 and found it pretty decent, even superior in SOME respects to the MS product.

In FSX I fly a couple of good GA planes both single and twins. But most of my flights are in Heavy Metal. I've tried quite a few over the years and these are my conclusions.

Captain Sim has nice eye candy, not worth the money at all for the hassles in getting it to actually complete a flight without CTD. Level-D was a great plane in FS9, not as reliable in FSX despite covering much of the systems. Quality Wings, not bad, flies OK most of the time but only a step up from default. Milviz 737-200, not bad but I get CTD issues and sudden strange behavior of the flight model. Abacus Fly the Airbus, basically same as the FSX defaults at best. 

I am not a newbie computer guy, 15 years now in the field as a network tech and college educated so my system runs just fine. And I've tried things beyond what the developers above have suggested for fixes, some of them solving issues that the developers gave up on. So when I get frustrated with an aircraft addon that is IMHO not worth a free download let alone $50 it's not because I don't give them a fair chance. Dumping stuff off on paying customers only to be rude or dismissive because your product is failing them is just not cool.

There is only one Boeing jet that I've found to be a superb sim that covers close to all the systems, looks very respectable and has had very little issue running stable, consistently...anyone care to guess? Yup another happy PMDG 737NGX customer.

I'd love to get more active in using X-Plane and fly a Boeing 737 in it's world. Any words from any of you out there that have been around sims long enough to have also tried out many a waste of time? I'm hoping the IXEG does what is expected, runs stable and is an advanced enough model of systems and flight dynamics to be worth it's money...

I truly appreciate your time reading this and for any words you have...

Owen

Having run through roughly the same experiences and sims, owning a few pmdgs and other stuff, I can state the following: If you want to fly rather than just operate a computer and fmc is there to assist you and not to fly your plane, this add on will be your favorite. By far. of course, If you fly it on what it has been built for (XP10 for the time being) and as it is intended to be flown (do watch the unique tutorial videos made by experienced rw pilot Jan, even if you have 1000s of hours in the NGX, this one is different and you will learn a lot).

To me this plane is worth every penny and if I compare to other planes, the miles flown per dollar spent are significantly higher. Bottom line, personally it is much more fun to fly than any pmdg. I went back to p3d Twice in 2 years, just because of the T7 and I only wish I would have switched to XP earlier.

Sent from mTalk

[Litjan]

Just a word of advice - the plane is not XP11 compatible, and won´t be for some time, probably.

The patch to bring the FMS to the stability level from "ok" to "good" even in XP10 is still outstanding, and we can not forecast how long this will take, unfortunately.

So if you buy now, be prepared to fly it in XP10 only and only at it´s current status, with the FMS being frail to operate.

Cheers, Jan

 

[Andrey Novikov]

It's very very very buggy.
It's very very very unfinished.
It's very very very cute.
It's very very very addictive.

[donoscar]

26 minutes ago, Andrey Novikov said:

It's very very very buggy.
It's very very very unfinished.
It's very very very cute.
It's very very very addictive.

very very very buggy? can't confirm that, the only bug that affects me is the one with some stars crashing the fmc, for now I avoid those airports.

unfinished? for me it has what a jet needs. I do not care about eye candy and other stuff not vital for flying. Jan's post about what would not make it into v1.0 is pretty straight fwd. more to come... but not unfinished from my POV

cute? definitely

addictive? my wife confirms 

[machvista]

I do not recommend purchasing this plane until the 1.1 patch comes out. It is very buggy at the moment.

[jolmos]

For "od1canod"

First, although we all started entering the flight simulation using the FS development of Microsoft; At present, the simulation of flying is only possible in degree of excellence, through the X-Plane. Keep in mind that this development basically simulates the behavior of an object in a wind tunnel, with all the relative physical properties.
You said it well, the development of the IXEG Boeing 737-300 is an excellent product. In my concept, it is the best product on the market and is still in development stage, which will surely reach levels of realism never seen before.
There is a similar measure for the ROTATE MD-80, also an evolving development.

[od1canod]

9 hours ago, donoscar said:

very very very buggy? can't confirm that, the only bug that affects me is the one with some stars crashing the fmc, for now I avoid those airports.

unfinished? for me it has what a jet needs. I do not care about eye candy and other stuff not vital for flying. Jan's post about what would not make it into v1.0 is pretty straight fwd. more to come... but not unfinished from my POV

cute? definitely

addictive? my wife confirms 

Ah, and where are those airports? I do a lot of Canadian/Western Canada routes.

Thanks BTW.

[od1canod]

11 hours ago, Litjan said:

Just a word of advice - the plane is not XP11 compatible, and won´t be for some time, probably.

The patch to bring the FMS to the stability level from "ok" to "good" even in XP10 is still outstanding, and we can not forecast how long this will take, unfortunately.

So if you buy now, be prepared to fly it in XP10 only and only at it´s current status, with the FMS being frail to operate.

Cheers, Jan

 

Thanks for the reply. I've not gone to XP11 so that's good.

Appreciate the straight up info as I am looking for a stable addon 737 that doesn't require hours of my time doing "beta testing" on a paid finished product. 

I've paid for far too many addons claiming to be worth $50 or more when in fact the support forums reflect something that has not been tested very well. A few bugs after release is expected, an unfinished product that crashes the OS or simulator is well, unfinished. Sort of like buying a Ferrari without tires or a transmission.

I doubt anyone learning to fly appreciates spending 80% of their hobby time figuring out why the Sim is failing and how to fix it with no access to buggy code. They want to learn aviation, not C++.

I will continue to take a serious look at the IXEG as it does seem the developer is serious about standing out...

Thanks again.

[mmerelles]

18 minutes ago, od1canod said:

Ah, and where are those airports? I do a lot of Canadian/Western Canada routes.

Thanks BTW.

 

A good starting point for downloading free scenery available for the airport of you interest is the xplane org community (need to register yourself for downloading, posting, etc.)

 

http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?/files/

 

On the top right corner there is a search bar, select files and enter the ICAO XXXX code of the airport of your interest. If available or several options available all them will come to live

 

hope this helps

[Tom Stian]

http://apxp.info/

Is also a great tool to find freeware airports.

[frumpy]

I feel it's one of the best aircraft you can get for X-Plane 10, if not the best.

However, as mentioned the FMC is buggy, so I don't use LNAV/VNAV. I'm a bit

sad about this, because if you look at the other areas of the plane, it's very well

modeled. I'm talking about flight modeling, 3D stuff, systems and overall immersion.

 

So I think it really depends on what you are looking for.

If you want to reproduce daily airline-life (which is boring, anyway!!   ) ,

until now (and very unfortunate) I don't recommend.

 

But if you are up for some hand-jockeying of a real pilots aircraft and do some

traffic patterns or VOR hopping, go for it. There is a lot to learn.

It's challenging to fly precise, but it's very rewarding once you've mastered it.

Good fps too.

Edited April 25, 2017 by frumpy

[od1canod]

4 minutes ago, frumpy said:

I feel it's one of the best aircraft you can get for X-Plane 10, if not the best.

However, as mentioned the FMC is buggy, so I don't use LNAV/VNAV. I'm a bit

sad about this, because if you look at the other areas of the plane, it's very well

modeled. I'm talking about flight modeling, 3D stuff, systems and overall immersion.

 

So I think it really depends on what you are looking for.

If you want to reproduce daily airline-life (which is boring, anyway!!   ) ,

until now (and very unfortunate) I don't recommend.

 

But if you are up for some hand-jockeying of a real pilots aircraft and do some

traffic patterns or VOR hopping, go for it. There is a lot to learn.

It's challenging to fly precise, but it's very rewarding once you've mastered it.

Good fps too.

Thanks for the input. I'm sort of looking for both. Challenging hand flown approaches etc., but most of those are gotten to by some kind of route. For instance, CYEG-CYLW with hand flying the RNAV(RNP) approach.

In FSX with the PMDG I can hand fly the whole route but that's not likely very realistic with no AP. SID/STAR and some management of that is pretty normal and hand flying down to the RWY pretty common as well.

A real 737, even a -200 ADV with SP177 should handle that. Thus, I seek something that accurately and with stability recreates those systems.

I have a couple good ol birds like the DC-3 for purist flights...

[mmerelles]

13 minutes ago, od1canod said:

Thanks for the input. I'm sort of looking for both. Challenging hand flown approaches etc., but most of those are gotten to by some kind of route. For instance, CYEG-CYLW with hand flying the RNAV(RNP) approach.

In FSX with the PMDG I can hand fly the whole route but that's not likely very realistic with no AP. SID/STAR and some management of that is pretty normal and hand flying down to the RWY pretty common as well.

A real 737, even a -200 ADV with SP177 should handle that. Thus, I seek something that accurately and with stability recreates those systems.

I have a couple good ol birds like the DC-3 for purist flights...

 

I think there is some sort of missinformation you are receiving about the bird status. The aircraft FMC works LNAV and VNAV, you can complete an entire flight based on the FMC VNAV/LNAV capabilities with no issues, have speed and alt restrictions, etc. etc.

This how i do operate the aircraft being offline all the time until i am 1000 to 2000ft for the runway and i put A/P, A/T off for landing.

When i do fly online on PE network i climb and/or descend via SID/STAR procedure or vía VECTORS/ALTITUDES call outs coming from ATC to comply.

 

So what is all this posts about.

 

-LNAV, you may experience a simulation softcrash on some scenarios mainly if you perform changes to the route plan inflight. Lets say you programmed your route and once airborne you start switching procedures, editing waypoints, deleting things, changing destination airports, etc. Under those complex coding scenarios the simulation code is not solid enough and may crash. A big improvement for managing those scenarios is expected for upcoming release 1.1

 

-VNAV, some airport procedures (specially STAR procedures) includes very complex set of orders for speeding and altitude constraints mixed together that may be also tight to several waypoints in sequence.  Under this complex scenarios VNAV simulation may fail to determine/compute a valid VNAV profile providing unexpected altitudes, etc. (i.e. when the procedures calls for Above and Bellow order for a waypoint), etc. BUT if you as a pilot review the VNAV profile once computed and edit speeding/altitudes on the legs page for those critical cases before departure VNAV will handle the approach with no trouble at all.

 

So this is not about the aircraft not having LNAV/VNAV available, the FMC has both and they work. But if you are inflight and try change/update your flight plan this could lead to issues as of now as the simulation code still requires fine tuning. Under those circumstances i would recommend switching to HDG/FLCH/VS modes to comply do not try to do FMC porgramming micro-managment close to your destination airport.

 

Now... hand flying this bird during takeoff and landing operation is years light ahead of anything. This thing behaves like an aircraft, you can actually feel the weight under different load configurations, how the aircraft responds under different flaps, trim, yoke input is simply amazing. Hydraulics, Electrical systems, sounds, graphical quality, factor of immersion is lights years ahead as well.

 

just my 2 cents.

 

[od1canod]

6 minutes ago, mmerelles said:

 

I think there is some sort of missinformation you are receiving about the bird status. The aircraft FMC works LNAV and VNAV, you can complete an entire flight based on the FMC VNAV/LNAV capabilities with no issues, have speed and alt restrictions, etc. etc.

This how i do operate the aircraft being offline all the time until i am 1000 to 2000ft for the runway and i put A/P, A/T off for landing.

When i do fly online on PE network i climb and/or descend via SID/STAR procedure or vía VECTORS/ALTITUDES call outs coming from ATC to comply.

 

So what is all this posts about.

 

-LNAV, you may experience a simulation softcrash on some scenarios mainly if you perform changes to the route plan inflight. Lets say you programmed your route and once airborne you start switching procedures, editing waypoints, deleting things, changing destination airports, etc. Under those complex coding scenarios the simulation code is not solid enough and may crash. A big improvement for managing those scenarios is expected for upcoming release 1.1

 

-VNAV, some airport procedures (specially STAR procedures) includes very complex set of orders for speeding and altitude constraints mixed together that may be also tight to several waypoints in sequence.  Under this complex scenarios VNAV simulation may fail to determine/compute a valid VNAV profile providing unexpected altitudes, etc. (i.e. when the procedures calls for Above and Bellow order for a waypoint), etc. BUT if you as a pilot review the VNAV profile once computed and edit speeding/altitudes on the legs page for those critical cases before departure VNAV will handle the approach with no trouble at all.

 

So this is not about the aircraft not having LNAV/VNAV available, the FMC has both and they work. But if you are inflight and try change/update your flight plan this could lead to issues as of now as the simulation code still requires fine tuning. Under those circumstances i would recommend switching to HDG/FLCH/VS modes to comply do not try to do FMC porgramming micro-managment close to your destination airport.

 

Now... hand flying this bird during takeoff and landing operation is years light ahead of anything. This thing behaves like an aircraft, you can actually feel the weight under different load configurations, how the aircraft responds under different flaps, trim, yoke input is simply amazing. Hydraulics, Electrical systems, sounds, graphical quality, factor of immersion is lights years ahead as well.

 

just my 2 cents.

 

Thank you, that's some really great detailed description of your experience and helps me to decide on this one. Agree that  last minute changes done incorrectly isn't going to go well I doubt even in the actual bird. Computers are good but garbage in = garbage out. 

Sounds like this one is worth giving a go!

 

[donoscar]

46 minutes ago, mmerelles said:

 

I think there is some sort of missinformation you are receiving about the bird status. The aircraft FMC works LNAV and VNAV, you can complete an entire flight based on the FMC VNAV/LNAV capabilities with no issues, have speed and alt restrictions, etc. etc.

This how i do operate the aircraft being offline all the time until i am 1000 to 2000ft for the runway and i put A/P, A/T off for landing.

When i do fly online on PE network i climb and/or descend via SID/STAR procedure or vía VECTORS/ALTITUDES call outs coming from ATC to comply.

 

So what is all this posts about.

 

-LNAV, you may experience a simulation softcrash on some scenarios mainly if you perform changes to the route plan inflight. Lets say you programmed your route and once airborne you start switching procedures, editing waypoints, deleting things, changing destination airports, etc. Under those complex coding scenarios the simulation code is not solid enough and may crash. A big improvement for managing those scenarios is expected for upcoming release 1.1

 

-VNAV, some airport procedures (specially STAR procedures) includes very complex set of orders for speeding and altitude constraints mixed together that may be also tight to several waypoints in sequence.  Under this complex scenarios VNAV simulation may fail to determine/compute a valid VNAV profile providing unexpected altitudes, etc. (i.e. when the procedures calls for Above and Bellow order for a waypoint), etc. BUT if you as a pilot review the VNAV profile once computed and edit speeding/altitudes on the legs page for those critical cases before departure VNAV will handle the approach with no trouble at all.

 

So this is not about the aircraft not having LNAV/VNAV available, the FMC has both and they work. But if you are inflight and try change/update your flight plan this could lead to issues as of now as the simulation code still requires fine tuning. Under those circumstances i would recommend switching to HDG/FLCH/VS modes to comply do not try to do FMC porgramming micro-managment close to your destination airport.

 

Now... hand flying this bird during takeoff and landing operation is years light ahead of anything. This thing behaves like an aircraft, you can actually feel the weight under different load configurations, how the aircraft responds under different flaps, trim, yoke input is simply amazing. Hydraulics, Electrical systems, sounds, graphical quality, factor of immersion is lights years ahead as well.

 

just my 2 cents.

 

and let me add to this wonderful description, those little "bugs" are exactly what keeps me flying this thing, because I have to continuously be aware what is happening, hand check my vnav path, make sure those max and min speeds are respected on approach etc etc.. so much to do this way, but it is sooooo addictive 

[donoscar]

12 hours ago, mmerelles said:

 

I think there is some sort of missinformation you are receiving about the bird status.

http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?/forums/topic/120367-good-jet-to-buy/&do=findComment&comment=1162527

I suspect a big part of this misinformation is generated by the growing buzz at the other side of the Force... tried to reply but I am censured, even just stating that I have no issues with the plane I'm not allowed to

[Andrey Novikov]

VNAV simply does not work. Most of the time T/C and T/D are calculated incorrectly. It's not 1-2 miles shift, it's 10-20 miles error. Many times it says "Unable CRZ altitude" but in fact there is a reasonable level flight segment for that FL. Changing route during descend due to RWY change is a nightmare. You will either get software crash or crazy AP behavior after new route execution. In "real" life you can ask for vectors, but flying offline expect all your approach to be messed unless you cheat.

What I've ended with is not using VNAV at all for descends (and someone on this forum was right - it's a great fun to calculate everything by yourself) and switching to HDG in case I need to amend route until I'm pretty sure that new route is not messed.

Another thing I'm very disappointed with is that IXEG do not use built-in simulator commands for many systems. You have to write scripts and assign yoke buttons to custom commands to be able to manipulate them through hardware buttons. This makes switching to other planes a real pain in the ass! I hate this! Sometimes I want to fly another plane just for fun but I have to spend 10 minutes to reconfigure my yoke buttons!

What else? The way how cockpit is modeled is outstanding! It's 12 points out of 10. You can not look at other aircraft cockpits after you have "visited" IXEG's one. But external visual model is acceptable. Not even good. It is acceptably good at daytime but at nighttime it's not good at all. I prefer flying at night and this fact disappoints me very much. And, yes, I like to watch replays of my landings from the outside. This is the part of simulation that amuses me.

[donoscar]

8 minutes ago, Andrey Novikov said:

Another thing I'm very disappointed with is that IXEG do not use built-in simulator commands for many systems. You have to write scripts and assign yoke buttons to custom commands to be able to manipulate them through hardware buttons. This makes switching to other planes a real pain in the ass! I hate this! Sometimes I want to fly another plane just for fun but I have to spend 10 minutes to reconfigure my yoke buttons!

many third party add-ons use custom commands through plugins, however, X-plane does not allow to store custom config per plane.I use the X-Assign plugin to save plane specific joystick configs. although it is not perfect either, some interference with other plugins tend to wipe out some assignments I believe, it does save you some time as most buttons stay put.

[mmerelles]

8 hours ago, Andrey Novikov said:

Another thing I'm very disappointed with is that IXEG do not use built-in simulator commands for many systems. You have to write scripts and assign yoke buttons to custom commands to be able to manipulate them through hardware buttons. This makes switching to other planes a real pain in the ass! I hate this! Sometimes I want to fly another plane just for fun but I have to spend 10 minutes to reconfigure my yoke buttons!

 

ohh my friend, my eyes hurts reading you re-configure all of your joystick profiles and assignments every time you select a different aircraft for flying. You can create a per aircraft profile, everything gets configured/assigned automatically when you select an aircraft. You may use a plugin like xJoyMap or use a lua script.

OptionA. Xjoymap plugin. http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?/files/file/11720-xjoymap-joystic-to-dataref-mapping/

 

OptionB. See a lua sctipt example attached i do use. Depending the aircraft you select it will assign everything you like.

joystick.lua

[donoscar]

On 26/04/2017 at 7:21 PM, mmerelles said:

OptionB. See a lua sctipt example attached i do use. Depending the aircraft you select it will assign everything you like.

joystick.lua

thanks for this tip, my worries with lost assignments in x-assign belong to the past (hopefully)

but in order to get it correctly configured I had to do something I kept on pushing out: RTF(Lua)M. Scary at the beginning, it turns out to be soooo powerful if you are open to do some soft-core coding