StevenW

G'day, Little NavMap is so awesome I hate to make requests, but I will anyway :-) My understanding is that "Adjust Flight Plan Altitude" auto-sets the altitude based on the hemispherical rule. It does it for the initial legs (EG: West to East) but subsequent legs that change to East to West remain at the same altitude. I'd like a few features to make it more VFR friendly, such as: * Be able to print an empty ATA value on the flight plan. * Be able to change an altitude to a manual value. (I could fix hemispherical alts myself then an also have a step alt for passing tall obstructions) * To have the en-route altitudes on the flight plan.

Yeah, pretty good isn't it :-)

Me neither. I am very finicky when it comes to software usability so I stop using a lot of products quickly. Neither are the real world weather reports, that is part of the fun of it. You plan as best you can but if you don't have enough fuel then you have to do something about it.For airliners I basically just fill-her-up (everything else I liked doing by the book, jsut not fuel planning) but I don't fly them much any more. The fuel planning for that kind of role was just too tedious for me. For GA aircraft I do real fuel planning and that is _very_ simple.

Glad to see that after a few hours studying you are now an expert... As for some of the posts here, just because someone doesn't agree about the level of damage piracy does does not mean they support it. Anyone using the "economy", "just a student", "they rip us off", etc arguments are using an excuse for crappy behaviour. You do no have a 'right' to something because you want it.As a person that has every ORBX product (paid for) except Hervey Bay I would feel rather put out if this is some stunt.

The know they can get away with it. I have known only a couple of people who were habitual pirates. If the company closed down they could care less, neither of them actually ever used the products that they pirated.A rule of thumb, don't annoy the customer base you DO have by trying to get people who _will not pay_ to pay up. You can only lose.Steven.

There is a BIG problem with it. You need to read the darn manual! :-)It will be interesting to see if the shared cockpit feature becomes well used. If so it will give other aircraft authors an incentive. It certainly looks like a labour of love.

It doesn't happen for me in XP but if I use Windows 7 with the latest drivers it does. I don't think it did it with the earlier drivers but I don't have time to check right now.Steven.

True enough Bob. The GTS 250 is also based on the 9800 GTX. It is actually an old architecture part whereas the 275 is a new architecture.

I felt the same way moving from a 7600GT to an 8800GT. I have been thinking of getting a GTS 275 for my I7 CPU but it is hard to commit the money when it sounds like the newer ones may be actually worse in FSX.Steven.

Oh yes they do. unless the recently decided to be reasonable.

For me it was less than two years ago or so. ~$170AU for around 20 minutes of flying. I pay $180 per hour in real life! (not a 737 obviously :-)) Anyway it was a good review and I do agree that the guy who provides support on the support forum was fantastic, unfortunately the person responding to the email address I was told to contact was decidedly less helpful and there is no way known I will pay for a second activation. Maybe if others give this bird a go when it is finished and tell us they continue to have a positive experience with the aircraft and any activation processes it might change some of our minds. Either way, I suspect there are a few of us that are going let let others be the guinea pig until there is a decent amount of evidence that things have improved as once trust has been destroyed it takes evidence, not simply time to regain it. Steven.

Ah, it's vistas fault.<duck!>

I haven't used 2D for a looong time. I only like 2D panels for things such as CDUs but seeing I don't fly heavies anymore I guess it means I don't use em at all anymore!

I know how you feel. The last time I installed FSX I got told I have activated too many times, so, on the phone I go. I gave that two attempts, the first one died half way through the prompts and the second one said I had to talk to someone and to call during business hours. It cost me nearly an hour an a lot of button pushing.Bugger that. I, er, obtained a fix in less than 5 minutes. It annoys the hell out of my that I spend a fortune on software but have to jump though hoops to use it. I can understand how a developer might feel unprotected by not stuffing us around but the fact is that the people who download this stuff for free don't have out problem. So who is it that suffers!I own at least 130 products that I want installed on my machine during a reload. About 10 of them a seriously painful because of activation limits, the others are just a nuisance with typing in long numbers. I used to upgrade hardware every month or two (for my families 4 PCs), not anymore because if I do I would spend half my life typing in **** codes.If Orbix released scenery for XPlane I would have been long gone.

First we need a definition of 'realistic'. If you mean if it flies the same as the real aircraft then the answer is yes and no. In normal flight modes and light weather I think FS does a great job. Obviously there is no sensations and our monitors are small so in that sense it is not realistic. Another way that it is not realistic is that you know you can stuff up the landing in the sim and you can reset it. If you get a good crosswind gust in the real-world the sensations you experience is wholly different form simming. The corrective action in the real aircraft and the sim might be the same but you would come away thinking that the sim wasn't realistic because the emotional pressure and physical sensations are very different. that is why I say normal flight modes and weather. In normal flight modes and light weather simmers and real pilots don't feel a lot of pressure and have only minor physical sensation differences so the sim is able to match real life better.While I have been training for my pilot certificate I have found that there is a one to one relationship between the mistakes I make in the air and those I make in the sim. Mistakes such as those in radio calls, the approach, maintaining heading and attitude, handling turbulence, navigating, etc. So for me it is very realistic. This is a good thing of course because it means I can practice at home to get it right and I need that because I have always been a slow learner. To sum it up: I reckon the mechanics can be very close but the physical and emotional sensations are very different (for most of us). The visual ques are often different too because of the lack of depth perception and small screen real estate.Steven.