Ariane BBJ - still a bad product?

[Guest planter_ndb]

I'm a BBJ owner since 2 months. Have quit flying my PMDG in favourof the Ariane mainly because of- Very good VC. Fantastic night-interior. Lots of lighting options.- Very nice flying characteristics. No problem to handfly.- Fantastic looking plane. One of the best I've ever seen.- Fantastic sound. - Nice gimmicks. (FA-Panel, BBJ-Passenger Cabin-Interior, "TV-Screen", carpets, navlights visible on the tarmac, wingflex, pushback-truck, icing windows when window heat off and so on...)- Framerates are OK.Downsides are- Fmc not nearly as comfortable as the PMDG's. Sometimesneed to use workarounds to get things done. FIX-Page not existant. HOLD not available. I don't say the FMC is unusable-have to get used to it, though.- A/T not independent from A/P except for T/O where you can use the T/O-Button.- ND/PFD-Refesh-Rate slow. Some say it's unusable in this state. Don't agree. However, takes some time to get used to it. Workarounds are the so-called 2di-Mode or PMDG-like clicking a VC-gauge that then turns into a 2D-gauge with full refresh-rate.- Heard that autoland has issues with idling A/T (and subsequent problems ;-)). Have not tested myself, though.- No forum support available. Waiting for 4 weeks now to become available again. :-(- Airac updates not available. Must use March 07.- Expensive.Cannot confirm problems with G/S capturing. No problems so far with ILS.OT:Sorry, linking an Avsim-article from 1999 as an argument not to purchase the BBJ in 2007 is quite unfair IMHO since Tishma is no longer affiliated to Ariane.Regards,Ralf

[Guest beckerm13]

Buy the PMDG 737. There is a freeware BBJ addon for the PMDG that is available in the file library. pmdg_bbjmil.zipAnother option is Project Open Sky. I think they had a BBJ freeware model.Marty

[Guest k7ltf]

I have the wilco 320 - i'll take a look for the variant ThanksZach Bender K7LTF

[Guest CWD]

The autothrottle can't be separated from the autopilot? Holy crud. Sounds like money well spent to me. :-roll

[Guest k7ltf]

you have me beat by just a bit. I started with FS version 2.1 for the PCZach Bender K7LTF

[Guest k7ltf]

Does the light systems for the cabin - flightdeck / and navigation (strobes / landing work correctly?Zach Bender K7LTF

[Guest planter_ndb]

Yes.However, there's a bug when sometimes the strobe-switch marking is getting interchanged with the outer-left marking.Don't know when they're going to fix this...Got to be patient as an Ariane-user.