I’m working my way up to a review of PMDG’s 737 aircraft line-up and I decided that I couldn’t base my review on just the short and zippy 737-600 so I decided to go to the other end of the 737NG spectrum and picked up the 737-900 as well. A study in contrasts if nothing else! To break the new airliner in I did a longer route than I usually do flying nonstop from Seattle to Anchorage. Here’s how it went!

Takeoff at Seattle

Things didn’t start off exactly the way I wanted them to. In setting up my flight the MSFS flight planner put me onto the runway instead of at the gate the way I wanted it to. It’s a long standing bug in the interface when you make adjustments to the flight plan and most of the time I fix it before I start but I missed it this time. With so much effort already in place… I decided to press on. Once the jet was able to, I moved it off the runway and over to a parking space to get it set up.

The 737-900ER was loaded up with a full slate of passengers and cargo and a mostly full fuel load to ensure that we got there with fuel to spare.

Once everything was set, and my calculations were all done, it was time to get onto the runway and get going. I was a little apprehensive with the 737-900ER because this is a much heavier aircraft than the 737-600 I’ve been flying a lot of recently. And its true… with a mostly full fuel load and a full passenger list, the 737-900ER accelerates more slowly and takes ages to lift off.

But lift off we did! Another issue is that the fuselage is quite long and the possibility of a tail strike on takeoff (and landing) is far greater with this model. So I very gingerly raised the nose and let the aircraft mostly fly itself off the runway. That was a good strategy and the 737-900ER climbed skywards with a little less drama that I had thought we may face.

Rain and thick clouds obscured the view on departure so there wasn’t much to see after that except manage the flight. As we climbed through 16,000 feet things cleared up and an expansive cloud deck greeted us. Through the breaks we could see the Olympic mountains beneath. Stunning!

We crossed the Salish Sea and proceeded along our path taking us along the western coast of Vancouver Island.

Cruise… and housework

As the 737-900ER cruised past the northern tip of Vancouver Island and out over the Pacific, the air smoothed out and the aircraft reached cruise altitude. All was looking good and it was time to let the autopilot do its thing. And for me to do some housework.

I’ve read about and experienced a little bit of long distance flying in a PC flight sim before. It’s a bit of an unusual gameplay experience, if we can think about it that way, because once you’re up at cruise altitude there’s less going on and you mostly settle in for a cruise.

So I went about some of the things on my todo list around the house while the aircraft did its thing. I’d check in from time to time to make sure everything was working correctly still. Each time you wonder if something may have happened and the autopilot may have disconnected sending the aircraft crashing to the ground… or the software crashing. But a 3-4 hour flight in MSFS is nothing compared to the gruelling double digit flights that some folks do.

Approach to Ted Stevens

Crossing the Pacific and seeing the rugged coastline of Alaska out the window was kind of a special sight. Although parts of this journey featured somewhat lower detail visuals than you see elsewhere in North America, its still a beautiful and even haunting visual out the side of the aircraft as this is a rugged and still very much untamed area of the world. It’s on the bucket list to visit!

Meanwhile, thoughts were happening inside the cockpit as we approached the descent point. Spoilers were deployed, altitudes were adjusted and the 737 descended into thick clouds.

Occasionally we’d break out of the clouds and spot some more of that aforementioned rugged terrain beneath.

Finally we descended below the cloud deck and took in the beauty of Cook Inlet.

I’m still getting to know the 737 in general so I was once again too high and not quite prepared for descent. But I managed to get the aircraft into an appropriate glideslope for landing. Another worry was going off the end of the runway so I was wary about my spoilers, reverser and auto break settings but I managed to land without any real challenges.

Taxiied the aircraft and parked uneventfully. Definitely a journey and a fun experience on the whole and my house work got done too! And my learning and experience on the 737 is finally starting to grow in a meaningful way. I learn something new on every flight and its been very rewarding… even if I’m still struggling with the 737 way of doing things. That’s ok! I’m getting there!

Do you fly long haul flights on MSFS? What do you do while the aircraft is cruising along? Are you there with it the whole time or are you getting other things done while you wait for the aircraft to get a little closer to the destination? Let me know in the comments!