PSS Boeing 777 Pro Advanced Panel

By Andrew Herd (11 July 2001)

hen Phoenix released their first 777 package last summer, it raised the bar for FS2000 panel design, by debuting a complex commercial panel with a reasonably functional flight management computer. Even now, with other similar packages available, the original 777 panel stands out as a design milestone. Now an advanced version is available, barely a year after the original release, and it offers so much more than its predecessor that I decided it is worth a new look. If you want to compare the new panel with the original, click here.

The first thing to say about a "fully-functional" flight simulator panel like this is that there is no way it is going to please everyone. The space cadets will complain it hasn't got working IRUs, while the burn 'em and turn 'em crew will ask why all those switches and buttons are there to confuse them; but on the whole I think Phoenix have achieved a good working compromise. The panel duplicates just enough of the systems of a 777 without leaving the user feeling that it would be easier to give up simming and get an ATPL instead. Sure, it doesn't do everything I can think of - but it does enough to mean that I can get the feel of flying a 777 without having to refer to the manual every second minute. The fact that every switch and knob isn't there doesn't matter, because the vast majority of people who buy this panel are going to have real fun with it, and most of them will never even get as far as programming the FMC.

The biggest effect of the redesign is to improve the ergonomics of the panel, and a row of seven icons has appeared, which can be used to call up all the sub-panels and make controlling the aircraft that much easier. With the old panel it was necessary to keep going back to the main menu the whole time in order to call up other panels, with the result that the workload was just that little bit too great on approaches. I found I used to have to use the pause key fairly frequently. With the new panel, you can check systems with just a couple of mouse clicks, and it makes a huge difference to the enjoyment of flying the plane. Talking of approaches, one of the icons now selects a "pilot's view" which transforms the cockpit from an IFR setup to a situation closely resembling the pilot's eye view in a real 777. The panel drops right down so that only the mode control panel (MCP) and cockpit frame are visible, and this view is ideal for flying short finals. Every FS panel should have a view like this, and the best thing about it is that you don't have to keep holding a key pressed down to keep the view - once selected it stays there and you can keep on using the controls on the MCP. A gold star to the designers for implementing it so well.

Every single one of the instruments is a little bit more sophisticated, but the real star of the show is the flight management computer (FMC). Phoenix have abandoned the earlier - realistic - siting of the FMC on the pedestal and have promoted it to a pop-up of its own. At a stroke this makes en-route flying much less of a chore than it used to be, given that using the old version of the FMC meant spending much of the time with your nose figuratively buried in the bowels of the plane, denying you any outside view whatever. Now, you can fly with the FMC visible all the time, and peer out of the window to your heart's content.

The improvements to the FMC go much deeper than just a revamp of the bitmap, pleasing though it now is. The functions have been extended considerably and although the FMC isn't an exact duplicate of the real thing, it is near enough for flight simulation purposes. I know this will disappoint some flight simmers, but the reality of a £10 simulation is that it isn't reasonable to expect it to completely duplicate the function of something which cost several hundred million dollars to develop in real life. My own view is that this version of the FMC is perfectly usable, and while the space cadet in me would like to see it extended and the fix page implemented, the truth is that it is a solid piece of code and something that Phoenix can be proud of. It worked perfectly well in my tests, and one of its biggest advantages is the way it can import FS2000 flight plans - something the original definitely won't do - or at least, I hope it can't.

The autopilot functions seem to be more reliable now, with the plane flying by FMC waypoints rather than flying over them, and the LNAV and VNAV functions worked well, with automatic retard of the throttles to flight idle when a VNAV descent was commenced. I had trouble doing an autoland in an aircraft with a full passenger and fuel load, but managed to get it to work the second time around with about a 40% fuel load. To be fair, my first test was conducted with the aircraft well over its permitted landing weight, so I'm not complaining.

The overhead panel has seen fewer changes from the previous version, but once again, it is a pretty good simulation of the real thing, and it can be used to do a passing fair duplication of the engine start sequence. Alternatively, you can turn 'em on by hitting the Ctrl-E key, although you need to establish electrical power, bleed air and a fuel supply if you go for the shortcut.

Now that the FMC has been relocated, the pedestal is no longer of such obsessive interest as it once was to 777 drivers, but it still has enough gizmos to keep the most dedicated in-flight tinkerer happy. For example, nine out of ten of the multifunctional display modes are implemented, including a new electronic checklist page, which is a very helpful addition. Yet despite all this sophistication, it is still possible to fly a 777 using this panel on your own, without constantly wishing that you had a second pair of hands. This is one of the key differences between flight simulation and real commercial aviation - my personal view is that where a choice has to be made, usability should take preference over accuracy much of the time.

The 777 panel is one of the most complex available for FS2000 and it is fortunate that Phoenix have backed it up with some excellent manuals. These are a little bit hard to find, tucked away as they are at the bottom of the support page of the web site, and if you get all of them, which I strongly advise, you are looking at a download of about 12 megs, which is a consideration if you have a slow Internet connection.

Problems? I couldn't find any really important bugs, which isn't surprising given the amount of development the panel has had and the thousands of users who downloaded the previous version. I did the review using the Phoenix British Airways 777, complete with new .air file, and it functioned perfectly, and although I had some problems when I tried pairing the panel with a Project OpenSky 767, I am sure that I could have got it working with a little bit of work. One thing to be aware of is that the panel loads painfully slowly, 40 seconds on the fastest machine I tested it on.

I tested the panel on a couple of machines, a 1.7 GHz Pentium IV with a GeForce 3 and a 733 MHz Pentium II with a GeForce 2 and I was quite impressed with the results. With terrain texture detail distance set at 65 miles, the 1.7 GHz machine returned frame rates of around 25 per second at Carlisle airport (you don't see many 777s there, believe me), while the Microsoft panel was only about 10 frames better. This is a big improvement on the older panel, which had a much greater impact on FS2000 performance. Obviously a more complex airport and clouds would reduce these figures, but as a rule of thumb, you can expect the panel to give about 30% fewer frames per second than the default panel. Phoenix includes a performance applet that will improve these rates, at the expense of reducing instrument refresh rates.

I confess that I hadn't used this panel for a while, distracted as I have been by the flood of great new software that has been enriching the last few months of FS2000's life, but I am pleased to say that I like the new version even more than I did the original. If you like 777s, this is the most functional and visually pleasing panel available. It is fantastic value at £10, and if you can't afford to spend that much, version one is now available for the incredible price of £2. Phoenix' record on support of its panels is excellent and Robert Kirkland tells me that we can expect to see the panel and the new .air file for the 777 patched one more time - but present evidence suggests that these will be minor upgrades.