Since I was very mocking of Ariane in my previous thread, I thought it only fair to discuss my experience with the actual airplane while awaiting Al's vaporview impressions ;-D (For those that don't get the joke, Al submitted it awhile ago, so it is not any of his fault it hasn't appeared.)It has the same sort of ground animations Captain Sim does, only better. You CAN get a stairway rolled up, are use your airstairs. You can even get a start cart to plop down next your airplane, which adds quite a bit more to the the non-APU experience. I can't afford liveries right now, but the proportions look good -- do the engines look that small on a real 800? I would not expect them to miss it though, so they probably do.And that's about it so far. This is a very complicated airplane to learn. You have to lock the door manually before certain things can happen, for instance... lots of gotchas. I can't think of another I've spent an evening studying and can't take off yet. The manual is nowhere as opaque as their website, thankfully. Right now I can get my ground unit hooked up and get power going to the airplane from it, but I think the two bus switches below are supposed to extinguish the blue lights just above them. In fairness to Ariane, my brain was not at its best after a near all-nighter at the office.I still can't post in their secret squirrel support forum despite a complex application process. I am awaiting "approval" from India Knight still. She's probably still miffed about my last thread. I think it's easier to become a Freemason.So I would say it looks very promising, and maybe even a premium experience that justifies the price. And when you buy the liveries, you don't just get the paints, somehow you are supposed to be getting a package for a particular airplane that adds on to the base. At least that's what I gather from their marketing, but I've already demonstrated I can't understand that. At least I could be stuck on the ground with worse airplanes.

Hello! I had the same problem ... even when the external power unit attached to the aircraft and the panel swith at this option (external power), the powerless light didn

yeah, I have a big widesreen monitor, so I can use the manual and still have a big enough window for FSX. You can order their manuals, and they're probably correct in saying it would be cheaper than the cartridges you'd run through. On the other hand, you can make a manual printer-friendly, and. of course, printable to begin with. Unfortunately, does look like another way to milk a few more drops from the cow.I guess there is something about waiting for an item in the mail. I'll have to see how much they charge for drilled manuals.Until I can get support, I guess I'm stuck a the blue light stage.

For the external power cart start up, you need a few switches flipped: First you need to request it from the add-on menu external services bit, then you need to flip the external power (ground) switch above the APU bus switches, then on the main Busbar panel you need to have ground power selected as the source, and batteries for the left switch, plus have the battery on with the main switch below. It helps if you flip the APU busses off too, then you need the bleed air switches set correctly over on the right of the overhead and the air conditioning packs off. It also helps if you manually switch the fuel flow taps by assigning a switch in FS, since in common with a lot of other FS add-ons, it doesn't like things if you don't load a Cessna first, but you can get around it by doing that.If you get stuck, PM me and I'll give you a proper procedure for it all, since that was just a quick fly through it.Incidentally, when looking at the PDF manual, if you hit print screen and then open photoshop and hit control+N and then control+V, it will paste the page into photoshop and you can crop it and print it from there. Tedious, but it works, you could also convert it to grayscale whilst in PS to save your colour cartridge. You can also open up the PDF directly into photoshop and short circuit the lock on the PDF to print the page directly, although you would have to do so one page at a time. Right click on the PDF and choose to open it with PS rather than Acrobat.Al

Thanks Al! At least i can print your "manual"!!! hahahahaha Just a joke. :(About using the photoshop for the manual, i

The odd thing is, the start cart is there, power and air are being supplied (things are on, pressure is up) and everything looks great except for the blue "GEN OFF BUS" lights remaining on when I trip the generator switches below the blue lights. According to my reading of the intstructions, they should go out.But should they? The generators would not be working, right? So why would they go off?Maybe I should re-read that part yet again. I am anxious to start flying. I, took, a chance, and dropped the money in the spirit of, "what did I put up with fifty-one years of crap for in this life if I can't throw a hundred bucks at something that at worst won't give me a disease."Nice to know my old radio spot copyrighting skills haven't disappeared. I was taught: "For all your ______ needs, visit ______." That was the template we had at our little A.M. day time farm station. I think "At worst it won't make you sick" is some cracking good copy.

If you cannot start the Ariane 737, then this is almost certainly what is amiss...Assign a key to this and switch it on (I've used Shift+M here):Then set it up like the picture below, and crank the engines:Bob's yer uncle.(oh, and don't forget your nav and anti collision lights before you crank the engines, or the airport authorities would shout at you).Al

Incidentally, when looking at the PDF manual, if you hit print screen and then open photoshop and hit control+N and then control+V, it will paste the page into photoshop and you can crop it and print it from there. Tedious, but it works, you could also convert it to grayscale whilst in PS to save your colour cartridge. You can also open up the PDF directly into photoshop and short circuit the lock on the PDF to print the page directly, although you would have to do so one page at a time. Right click on the PDF and choose to open it with PS rather than Acrobat.

There may be an easier way. A quick Google search should show up some free utilities which will strip out the print protection from PDF files.

Yes... now that I remember it, certain unscrupulous defense lawyers used it to make federal criminal discovery PDFs actually usable.Thanks for the tutorial, Al. I'll give it a try.

Tks for this thread, Ive been following your journey through AiraneLand, and once again I am convinced my initial decision was correct, too much money for too much trouble.

Here is a website that might provide some good gouge on the 737http://www.b737.org.uk/

I'd also recommend buying Chris Brady's 737 book (Chris Brady is the guy who runs b737.org.uk). I wrote to him and told him I used his book as a guide to seeing how accurate the Ariane 737-900ER was (it proved extremely useful for that). Chris replied, asking me to point his book out to simmers since he thought it would be useful to them, which of course it is, and highly recommended.To give you an idea of how good Chris Brady's book is, take that screenshot above, of the overhead panel: I learned that the Busbar panel on the 900ER pictured above on my screenshot, is of the type found in earlier NGs and not the 900ER (it would be fine on 700s, 800s and possibly 900s pre the ER variant, but not on the ER unless it was a specific customer request). To be fair though, the difference is one for 'rivet counters', i.e the later NGs have two switches in place of the 'galley power' switch found on the earlier NGs. These are for specifically controlling the passenger entertainment systems so the pilots can reduce the electrical load by turning off the screens on passenger's seat backs and all that fancy stuff.Even so , whether you are a rivet counter or not, if you like to know all about the inner workings of an aircraft and how to fly the thing properly, then b737.org.uk and Chris Brady's '737 Technical Guide' is well worth a look.Al

I have made my first short flight. When considering my learning curve, please remember that it began under unusually taxing circumstances. I feel the negatives are: 41 hours to activation (they said within 48 though, so I can't really complain), lengthy delay in approval to support board (still nothing there), and a manual that is not intended for printing and is misleading in at at least one spot: "Click down both the right and left bus switches once making sure the blue lights go out," this under Ground Power Start. Blue lights do not go out, and apparently are not supposed to go out. The very beginning of your tutorial is not the place you want to confuse beginners.Now, having said that, there are many more things that I like about the airplane. Air stairs can be rolled up to both fore and aft doors, you actually see the ground cart, and there are other fun animations which I admit to being a sucker for. I like the challenge, too. This feels more like a real airplane to me, since things are not as simple as they are in most of my payware. I SHOULD be confused and bewildered. I have an embarrassing number of hours without a solo toward my PPL, so am by no means Top Gun here.I like the high frame rates. That means I can play with other aspects of the sim in ways I can't with my CS 757, for example, because I have to be careful to keep my FPS up. Ground handling and flight feel good, and there is a lot to the visual model, both inside and out. I haven't noticed any weird little technical glitches like sounds disappearing, etc.As I've said before, I am anxious to see Al's review and don't want to "pre-review" it, because right now I can mostly raise questions that he will provide answers for in his usual entertaining and thorough manner. I did not, however, want to leave the impression that I am soured on the experience at all.Ariane remains quirky in some ways, no doubt. The delay in something as simple as access to their support forum is exactly the type of thing that has given them a bad rep. It is a multi-step process that still, apparently, depends on waiting for someone to read your coded email and manually grant you access. India Knight needs to crack the whip. But as for the airplane itself, it seems like it will be challenging and fun to fly. It is a very different experience from the other add-ons I have, and I like that.I have the odd impression that Ariane does not see themselves as a maker of add-ons for flight sim. They really seem to be saying, "Hey Boeing 737 fans! You can have a 737 for your computer that is pretty darned realistic to operate! Buy our product! (By the way, you'll need this thing called 'Microsoft Flight Simulator' to run it.)" This would explain a lot.

Tim,Exactly this blue lights that confused me!!! After that, i shut off FS and went to see a movie instead.

Tim,Exactly this blue lights that confused me!!! After that, i shut off FS and went to see a movie instead.

Tim,I am looking forward to more information from you, and Al's review, on the newest version of the Ariane B738/9. I have a much older version for FSX (purchased in late 2007) that has limited functionality compared to what I read at Ariane's site that applies to the newer versions, but even with that limited functionality it flies very well and the VC lighting is among the best I've seen- amazing for late 2007 development. Something else that amazes me is the vapor that forms over the wings when in clouds and in high angle of attack/low speeds, which is often seen in real life, but unique to the Ariane model as far as I know. But the cost is very high, which is why I am being cautious :)Thanks for your comments so far,Bruce.