737NG Training Syllabus: for Flight Simulation (Flight Simmer Training Manuals)

What an honor it is to be the first to review this book ... I would give it six stars but Amazon only allows five!The purpose of this review is NOT to give a detailed, blow by blow analysis of each and every chapter ... that would be useless in my opinion. The purpose of this review is to illustrate to you why and who should buy it. First the who ... you are a person who might be looking for the best add-on for FSXS of a complex plane that money can buy ... I hope that this book's use of and my recommendation for PMDG will save you money that can be better spent elsewhere (see below). This is a COMPLEX plane with COMPLEX topics. When you first purchase the PMDG 737NGX you are inundated with three documents that you first MUST read (Introduction, Tutorial #1 and Tutorial #2) ... in total about 250 pages. What this book does is hopefully get you up and flying QUICK and illustrates that learning how to fly this plane can be enjoyable and easy. From there you can begin a detailed and expanded study as your curiosity demands. I cannot imagine any reason why a seasoned veteran of flight simulations and people who can already fly this plane, competently, would buy this book. It is also important for newbies to understand how this book and the product fits into the vast array of third party products that are required to make MSFX perform as perfectly as possible ... there is something here for you as well. That said ... here we go.Let me start off with the negative ... I've never seen so many typos and grammatical errors in one book ... sometimes even on one page. But if you let this sway your opinion of it, then you are a ... how do I put this lightly ... "fool" ... because the content is incredibly valuable.The initial value to the book is in the first 100 pages. The reason for this is that it shows you how to setup your PMDG 737NGX (about an hour of reading) and most importantly, get an incredibly complex aircraft in the air and down again in about 30 to 45 minutes.The way he is able to do this is an incredible synergy between succinct instructions and incredibly illustrative graphics. He, simply put, is a wordsmith (without an editorial staff obviously). I say the "initial" value is in the first 100 pages because of the incredibly verbose and detailed and voluminous documentation that comes with this superbly modeled airplane. The first tutorial for the first flight is 98 pages long ... and it took about 3 hours to study, learn and accomplish. For the price of this book you can reduce the amount of time to learn (and get directly to playing) in half ... or more. What this allows you to do is get a great feel for the airplane and use that initial knowledge base to then dig into the over 3,500 pages of documentation provided with the 737NGX. This alone is worth the price of the book.It doesn't stop there ... that was just level one. Level two takes you to a whole new level that includes flight planning, how to read charts (SIDS and STARS, bringing the aircraft to life from a "cold and dark state" (a very detailed procedure as each system of the real airplane is modeled in the 737NGX), preparing the cockpit for flight, descriptions of all the panels used to operate the airplane, pushing back and engine start, pre-takeoff, takeoff, climbing, cruising, pre-descent, descending and the varying complexities of different types of landings ... concluding with how to handle "emergencies".Do you want to have the absolute best flight simulation experience for the lowest possible price ... follow these instructions (I wish I had read the following before I wasted hundreds of dollars trying to get where I am today).1. Buy a decent machine for a great price at Cyber Power PC ([...]) ... an acceptable gaming rig can be had starting at $899.2. Buy Microsoft Flight Simulator Gold Edition with Acceleration Pack (which gives you SP2 automatically) $28.26.3. Buy PMDG's 737NGX product ... $70.00 ... others try but NONE come close to the quality of this bird. This package gives you the 737-800 and the 737-900 Boeing airplane frames.4. Buy a decent HOTAS (Hands on Throttle and Stick) ... Thrustmaster's T.Flight HOTAS X is a good introductory unit ... $49.00 ... a really good one can cost upwards of $450.5. Buy as much scenery as your wallet can handle (you can drop hundreds on this ... and it is optional ... let's guess ... $200.6. Buy as many professionally modeled airports as you want ... it is really sweet visually to fly into Las Vegas McClaren field when the entire city of Vegas is visible as you descent over the mountains to 25L. A good estimate here is $50.00 for each airport at the highest end (FSDreamTem.com is the gold standard in my book ... others are great too ... just do your research.Let's guess another $200 here ... to start.7. Buy Active Sky 2012 ... this gives you great "textures" for clouds, rain, thunderstorms, sunrises, sunsets, etc. There is something to be said flying from Vegas to Boston in the early hours and watching the sun come up over the horizon ... 34.99 Euros.8. Buy OPUS FSXServer for your realtime weather engine. If you take off from your local airport and it is raining outside ... it will be raining at your airport when you take off ... $44.95.9. Buy TOPCAT (Takeoff and Landing Performance Calculation Tool) for load management and fuel planning (there is a new version coming out soon ... I'd wait for that) ... 17.99 Euros.10. Join a virtual airline like (Southwest Virtual Airline) ... you have to be experienced somewhat to join and install all of their software required to get you up and flying with your buddies ... but Mike's book will get you there quick ... FREE. Also, the airline also have many members that are ready and waiting to teach you everything you may want to know ... via a TCP/IP voice program called TeamSpeak.11. Join VATSIM (Virtual Air Traffic Simulation Network) ... FREE (great training material here as well)12. Join Navigraph ... this gives you the latest airport SIDS and STARS and Runway specifics ... they call these things AIRAC's. It is cheap and worth the money ... 19.92 Euros for an entire years worth (13 cycle package).13. Buy a product called TrackIR ... this allows you to pan around a virtual cockpit just by moving your head ... indispensible ... $150.14. Buy a good headset ... these can be had for under $40.00Philosophy ... the basic MSFX package gives you many, many airplanes to play with. The great things about the base package are the lessons and missions that you can read and play to hone your general aviation skills (GA). Then when you are ready, you can jump into the 737NGX (buy this book) and learn a subset of what the real airplane pilots have to know to get the job done. All of this together will give you YEARS of enjoyment ... all for under $2,000 (approx. ... I didn't take the time to total everything up.Some other considerations ... there are two other flight sims out there that are very, very good in their own right ... each have their steadfast and loyal supporters that love their choice over and above all others ... since these are the opinions of the person expressing them ... they are all right. These two packages are XPlane 10 Global ($69.99) and Lockheed Martin's Prepar3D (pronounced Prepared) (Academic License $49.95). The cool thing about Prepar3d is that the planes modeled for MSFX and prepared must be remarkably similar because the manufacturers of the planes offer both versions with almost simultaneous release dates.One more thing .. sceneries are good for low level flying ... the kind of things you do in GA aircraft hopping from one airport to the next. When you are flying big iron ... a lot of your time (depending on the types of flights you take) you are at cruise ... your scenery IS weather.Another thing ... the great thing about these flight simulators is that they give you airports around the world ... over 10,000. This is simply AWESOME ... the new product from Microsoft called, simply "Flight" is a toy ... you get Hawaii ... booo.Finally ... Carendo gives you some of the greatest props and turbo props for the price.Finally, finally ... buy as many products as you can from Flight1. The company is incredibly well managed and they offer a 30 day return policy. I just made excellent use of this this month (Feb. 2013). Don't abuse the priviledge ... they don't take kindly to such nonsense.Well, I hope the time I have taken to write this will provide you with years of enjoyment for the absolute bargain basement price (like I said ... I wasted HUNDREDS of dollars going from one poorly modeled airplan after another until I found PMDG).Enjoy!!!!

this book will help u step by step improve your experience in flight sim. it goes step by step and describes everything in detail on what button or switch to hit. i learned so much from this book , and now flying by waypoints and doing ILS auto landings are so much fun , all in all a great book , i would highly advise getting this book if u are a flight simmer

I needed something that was fully illustrated and with a step-by-step basis to understand. This publication met my needs completely! It makes me more relaxed in approaching the sequences and getting a "flow" to how things are really done in the real world.I would recommend this publication to all serious flight simmers who are using the PMDG 737 NG program.I would recommend the colour version by the way. The black and white versions may contain contrast detail which may not be definitive enough visually. I was not disappointed at all when I received the colourized version...for the very small extra money, it is well worth it.

As a long time simmer especially with MSFSX I have enjoyed the training manual and the humorous outlook of the author, Mike Ray. I studied the iFly 737NG for many hours and still had uncertainties until I began reading Mr. Ray's tutorial. Many questions have been answered, answers that I could not find anywhere else. A must read book!

I have been looking for a great course like for a long time. The Author's A320 book became very handy when I took the Virtual Aviation's Checkride course. Now, I want to learn about Boeing aircraft and this is a great place to start. I want to be a flight simulator technician so, I want to learn as much as I can so that I can fully understand the systems that I maintain.

Great book tons of pages perfect for flight-simmers.

This book is extremely useful for those who have purchased the Microsoft Flight Simulator X as well as a form of add-on simulator software package (it's of little use if you have only FS X).I have FS X and 737 Pilot In Command (as the add on) and the book does not make direct references to that particular (add on) package. So my opinion is that it's a very well put together guide to improve your "flying" techniques but does require a degree of brain power to be able to convert the book's instructions to those of the 737 PIC (but only if that's the sim package that you have too). Don't be put off by that. If you're looking to improve your technique then a little consideration is always worthwhile. Well written, good illustrational instructions and written somewhat tongue in cheek! I have learned a lot from the text.That said it's a VERY expensive book for only about 370 pages! I had expected a tome that would defy the postwoman's efforts to get it through my letterbox, but she managed easily.Good book, but a very high price to pay for the information therein. Consider a software download of the same book and save about £30.

If your a already a pilot training for your first officers seat or a flight simmer and love the 737 this is the explanation of 'ALL' that you have been waiting for, grab it with both hands, and experience Mikes humour and knowledge of this aircraft as captain with United Airlines. you'll not regret it. Enjoy. Stan.

excellent