One well known ex-hunter pilot would disagree with parts of the review. He was very unhappy with how it flew and how some of the VC was completely fictional.There is also no mention in the review of Dave Garwood's freeware Hunter which is a shame.

Why can't the "well known ex-Hunter pilot" speak for himself instead of sheltering behind his anonimity?The review was of the Alphasim Hunter so why should it mention another version?Ussual disclaimers - no connection with Alphasim or anyone else invloved.

With regard to the Review, the brief as given by the Reviews Editor was to review the AlphaSim Hawker Hunter, no comparison with other designers models was requested or required, and the afore-mentioned Hunter series by Dave Garwood is not designed for FSX and will not run in FSX, so why review it for FSX?The Reviewer is not an-ex Hunter pilot, but is well known in his field as an aircraft engineer and training instructor for a world famous operator, and as such has flown several aircraft during his career, as a trainee private pilot, and has had extensive use of simulators for many years, covering a variety of aircraft, as well as covering construction projects such as the Rutan GRP aircraft.He is qualified in aerodynamics and knows how an aircraft should fly, and knows when it does not.Perhaps the "well known" Hunter "ex-pilot" would like to write a review himself, and then we could all benefit from his vast experience of a 1950's Jet aircraft, and compare that with the "simulated" Alphasim Hunter for ourselves.

Oh dear

John,Thanks for the words of encouragement to all the anonymous posters. We are always looking for new reviewers, especially those who believe they can do an equal, if not better, job than AVSIM's current group of volunteer reviewers.

I feel that reviews of aircraft addons are just that - reviews of addons: not the actual aircraft.How many reviewers have actually flown real aircraft - probably less than half. How many have flown a 747? Probably less than 5%.How many have flown a SR71 or a Starfighter 105? - none...come on, be realistic....! There's always one...you know what I'm sayin' ?What the average punter wants to know, isn't whether it's a 100% accurate model..."just like the real thing"...he wants to know how it looks, what the performance is like, what's the documentation like. To me, these features are more important to me than whether it buffets at exactly the right time in a stall or stalls at exactly the right speed or pitch depending on the OT. If I'm that bothered I'll sign up for the R.A.F and try it for real.And, as for reading a review - I'm not reading a technical manual - I want an interesting, readable coverage of salient points. I want lots of pretty pictures of - what matter to me - the VC; the gauges; the reflections in the VC glass. Whether or not it flies 'just like the real thing' is to a degree relevant but is also very subjective. Anyway, to be honest, I would rather a developer exercised a little artistic license now and again, particularly if it was deemed to increase the enjoyment of the product.As an analogy, I have never driven a Formula One (Indie) car, but it doesn't stop me writing a review, having an opinion or anything else, on any driving game I wish. Many great reviews have been written on the like of GTR, Gran Turismo, Grid etc. etc, by people who have never neen anywhere near a racing car.It is a driving game and the term 'simulator' should be interpreted in a realistic manner. As with FSX or FS9, this is a

GabeThePilot,well said :-)

>Why can't the "well known ex-Hunter pilot" speak for>himself instead of sheltering behind his anonimity?First, the person referenced chooses not to post on this forum for personal reasons and that is his choice. However, that does not invalidate his opinion.As I'm not one afraid to post his comments (and he has not forbidden anyone from doing so either), here are his specific comments -

External Model...Pretty and fairly accurate but not perfect.Cockpit...Not a patch on Dave's for realism with many switches incorrectly named and odd fictitious bits...And no tailchute switch on the FGA9. The metal in the cockpit is a rather nasty shiny black.Flight Model...Well I survived...but not a patch on Echo. The most disappointing was the roll which was very slow and had a most unpleasant roll/yaw couple. Also it was very hard not to get a high speed stall warning in a loop pull up and then the stick needed to go too far forward to unstall.I quite liked the sound but the spool up from idle was quite a bit slower than the real thing.

So, was his review unfair or unjustly "technical"? I don't think so. They are basic flying issues that he has, not really all the technical stuff and issues with major parts of the cockpit being "created" instead of "re-created". There are several good books and lots of pictures (including in color) online in addition to quite a few preserved and flying examples availalbe, so one would hope that the cockpit would be fairly close to the original, but that obviously isn't a 100% requirement as everyone understands that not everything will be perfect since Alphasim doesn't bill themselves as a "systems" publisher.

"Why can't the "well known ex-Hunter pilot" speak for himself instead of sheltering behind his anonimity?"--------------------I'd just like to point out in fairness, that the 'well known ex-Hunter pilot' may have had no direct intention of having his opinions posted here as a response to a review but that his opinions were posted here by someone else. So the inference of him 'sheltering behind his anonimity' could very well be incorrect and misleading people to have judgements about him which shouldn't be automatically assumed.