Folks, this thread has already started off track into the traditional freeware vs. payware debate and that is not the purpose of the orginal post. I am going to lock the thread before it goes any furtherhttp://www.avsim.com/pages/robert/kirkland.jpg

Chas, I see where you are comming from, and I agree with you in part, but the fact is that RCS panels invites this kind of critisism. Just read the manual. Mr. Chaffin calls himself the "real brains behind the legendary "R4D" RCS Panels package". That may be true, but why say it? He goes on to say that his team has been "enhanced by the replacement of old team members, by real professionals". Jan Visser and Bill Rambow are just amatures apparently. Next, he says that VC's (like the one in the MAAM B-25) are "gimmicks" not for serious fligh simmers. Later in the manual, there's an essay by graphics guy Steve Wayne attacking the use of photoreal textures, the technique used by the MAAM crew.Don't get me wrong, this is a great package, and I think that the main reason Roy did it is that he already had many hours invested in it before the breakup of the old group. But the kind of comments made in the manual seem like an attack on the MAAMSIM group, and in my opinion, they invite negative comments. You mentioned Frolov and PSS. That's an example of the opposite kind of behavoir. Both produced the same aircraft, excellent in different ways. Neither has said anything negative about the other at all. And that's the way it should be.