Wilco Feelthere Citation X comments

[Guest ziporama]

I wanted to add a comment on the review by Kevin Boydston on Wilco/Feelthere's rendition of the Citation X business jet for FSX. I agree with the positive comments Kevin made, but I found the review not revealing some details I strongly feel the buyer should be aware of prior for an informed purchase.While an overall excellent rendition of gauges and aircraft in a nice package, I thought the add-on falls short in three areas, even after a service pack was released.1) the documentation is minimal and written in a tone that attempts at being funny but somehow comes across poorly. Statements such as "this is not treatise on the Citation X" seem inconsistent with the "Pilot in Command" label prominently displayed in all marketing materials and the documentation cover. The documentation touches on but the basics, and does not do justice to the "PIC" line. I compare this to the 490 page document on the ATR 500 by Flight1 with charts and great system detail at the same pricepoint, the likes of the illustrated Leonardo Maddog2006 tutorial or the depth described in a "boot to the metal" plane such as the Dornier 75 by Digital Aviation. These definitely fall in the "PIC" category, and demonstrate that the documentation was developed with the same level of detail as the rest of the package.2) The product has a general feel of being rough on the edges - although Feelthere has progressed in this area since the CRJ. I am reminded that a service pack has already been released for the Citation X, so the most obvious problems have been resolved. There's a typo on the panel graphics on a label that wasn't caught in testing ("oparational" instead of "operational").The flight plan import function loads the current plan loaded in FSX. The feature is very dependent on the order you load the aircraft, and can either cause a CTD, indicate the flight plan is incorrect. From a design standpoint, the 2D panels do not have click spots to change panels - you must the shift-2,3,4 keys to access key functions such as the center console and the CDU. The interface makes changing the heading, course and altitude difficult because on the Citation, Cessna placed those controls on the center console. This is modeled accurately, but it would have been a nice touch to have a mini-panel to repeat the knobs in a way that doesn't obstruct 2/3 of the screen with a center console that partially hides the MFDs where the value can be read. A saving grace is that a set of shortcut keys can be mapped to these (an other) functions. A forum suggestion was made to have a mini-panel with those key functions readily available.3) Support thus far has been lagging behind the competition, in that an e-mail to the support e-mail (support@feelthere.com) and a form filled out on Wilco's product support web site remained unanswered/not acknowledged for three business days now. Feelthere has an "unofficial technical forum" available that has much more information than the "official" Wilco site. This is surely a publishing arrangement and not Feelthere's choice - or so the notes on the forums indicate. Again, when benchmarked with add-on providers such as LevelD, PMDG, HiFi Simulations, TrafficX, Flight1, Digital Aviation et al, support seems ineffective.In conclusion, Feelthere has made great strides and steadily released progressively better, now borderline great products for FS. All the basics are there. However, the product is advertised, and priced at the "PIC" level, which indicates a notch above the casual simmer, and in my view, it falls a bit short in the above areas.I would recommend the product for the casual player, but for the hardcore simmer, you may feel a bit disappointed because this can truly be a great product.Etienne Martin

[Robert W 3]

Etienne,Wow, excellent comments on a reviewed product. Thanks for the additional input, I'm sure the forum readers will be appreciative.Have you ever considered becoming an AVSIM reviewer?