Today I took a 2002 (still smelled new) 172R up to RDG and dropped in on the AVSIM conference. Got to shoot the ILS in actual IMC to about 800 AGL, which was fun since I decided to practice partial panel and only had the turn coordinator for a gyro.I was blown away by the state of the art in hardware, with some truly amazing controls by GoFlight and a $2000 MCP and cockpit shell set up for use with Project Magenta.On the way back, though, I found myself musing - what we get from the PMDG NG for $40 is a hell of a bargain (that does NOT mean you should charge more, guys). I added up what I'd like to put in my house:GoFlight hardware for everything except the EFIS and MCP - $1500Project Magenta Boeing Software - $400.00EFIS/MCP - $1500-20003 Additional PCs and 17" LCD's - $4500.00If we leave the hardware out(since it can be used with PMDG), and just talk about the software, it's at least a couple of grand to significantly improve (via Project Magenta) the EFIS/FMC/ND system in the PMDG system. And of course we'd still need the PMDG base airplane for the simulation of all the other systems.Flight Simming is a funny hobby. In most hobbies, you buy something expensive (a car, a boat, a plane, a computer), and then you spend money on it, usually in chunks smaller than the original investment. In Flight Sim, you spend a little bit of money on the FS package, and then spend ever larger chunks of money on add-on hardware and software to enhance it.To the PMDG team, thanks for giving me 90% of what I want in a flight simulator, for 5% of the cost.

Hi Tim, I second your statements.Cheers

Very Well said, Timothy. Not only to PMDG but to many others too (Freeware designers, other $$ products etc...)Bruno Francescoli.