There’s not a more iconic, well-recognized passenger jetliner in history than the venerable Boeing 737.
Ever since the 1960s, the compact 737 seemed to explode onto the market and transport just about everyone, everywhere. Originally designed as a short range commuter jet, with the little “rocket” engines slung under the wings, the smaller 737-100 series was born out of the larger, first passenger jetliner to make its mark—the four-engined Boeing 707. The 707 from the 1950s roared up to 600 mph, taking a 12-hour prop liner to cross the U.S. in six or less hours at high altitude.
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Boeing took the nose, cockpit, and much of the forward fuselage right off the 707 to make assembly and commonality a main feature. In fact, today’s brand-new 737s still have the nose, cockpit windows, cockpit shape and size of the original 707 from the ’50s. The last 60 years of the 737 have featured many stretches, new engine variants, high-tech cockpit and systems, and fancy cabin amenities as well as more attractive interiors. We can’t forget the luxurious Boeing Business Jets either.
But I am here to discuss flying this iconic jet across each of the flight simulator platforms for the PC: X-Plane, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 (MSFS2024), and MSFS2020. Both X-Plane and the MSFS platforms feature the 737. I’ll grade each one individually in this two-part series.
Let’s start by showcasing the X-Aviation 737-300 payware. This is a quality add-on, a “study-level” release that has a high level of systems, proven reliability, and many years of upgrades and improvements. It doesn’t tax your system, frame rates are very high, and it comes with great realistic sounds.
The 737-300 is not the “next generation” that we have today. The NG has the newer CFM fan engines, flattened at the bottom, as well as newer cockpit systems. The 737-300 is simply the original -200 series, with a newer engine on it, the turbofan, pudgier-looking engine brought out in the early 1980s.
The interior and cockpit design are all original from the oldest versions. Most gauges are of the “steam” era, dials, gauges, old-fashioned and huge ball gyroscopic artificial horizon with flight director. The -300 doesn’t have the upgraded wing or struts of the NG series. The 737-400 was born out of the -300 and became the first stretched 737. The -400 stretch is now what our newer -800 and Max series imitate in all the -800 names. The X-Plane 737-300 series is a great add-on to enjoy, very realistic, hand flies wonderfully and performs as a real 737-300 is expected and follows accurately the real life weights, fuel flows and numbers with real world data provided.
I would grade it a solid B. I have written to the team that built it with only one complaint, to which has never been fixed. It lacks any reverse thrust sound. The reverse is accurately modeled but produces no roar. Aircraft sounds are my both biggest joy and pet peeve of simulator flying.
Default 737-800 by Laminar Research [FLYING Archive]
Next up is the free default 737NG -800 by Laminar Research in all versions of X-Plane. Everyone will have this one. It looks fabulous, although not completely perfect, has internally made sounds by default (reverse too), and no hit on frame rate or PC performance at all. It hand-flies well, and as best as I can tell follows really good physics and real-life specs, numbers etc.
The autopilot works as expected but with exceptions. The flight management system (FMS) is not modeled at all and is a copy of basically the same “toy like” pretend FMS X-Plane has had since it was invented 30 years ago. The logic is nonexistent and symbology is missing or fake. You can not program routes as a real FMS, and entering waypoints, direct-tos, or approaches are annoyingly odd, or nonexistent. Performance V-speeds and PERF INIT don’t exist.
So, in my mind, this is not a study-level aircraft at all. It is what I call an “empty shell” of an airplane. Looks great, flies well, and can get you from Point A to Point B realistically, but the rest is “use your imagination only.” For this and its lack of continual improvement, I grade it a C.
Zibo 737-800 NG Series [FLYING Archive]
Luckily, another freeware beast was launched years ago called the Zibo 737 Project. It was designed as basically a replacement of the neglected default 737-800 by a specific group of designers. It is fabulous and receives upgrades all the time.
Laminar Research is always helping the team and backs the project. I am not sure why Laminar even keeps the default 737 in there, as the Zibo is a full-replacement, study-level add-on for free. The Zibo airplane comes with the full FMS, full systems, accurate autopilot, incredible sound set withmany options, aircraft configurations and visual features found on the real NG series, and much more—all on the cockpit iPad unit.
You can even simulate problems and technical issues. It hand-flies amazingly well, and the autopilot is rock solid as well. The sounds are some of the best, if not even better than the PMDG Simulations line for MSFS, which is saying a lot. Frame rate and performance is similar to default—very smooth. I would grade the Zibo 737 lineup a solid A. There is no competition at this level for the X-Plane simulator.
Next month, we will jump into the Microsoft Flight Simulator lineup.
This column first appeared in the July Issue 960 of the FLYING print edition.
