Rant: So here I am, ready to buy the PSS Dash 8...

[blave 0]

... and they apparently don't want my money. Can you believe it?I have a valid login to the PSS site. I don't remember when I signed up for it (it's been a few months), but when I log in I get this:"This Account Has Not Yet Been Validated. For Security Reasons We Will Not Grant Access To Some Areas Of Our Site Without First Validating Your Identity. As part of our signup process you should have recieved an email That contains a link back to our site."I can't find that email, nor do I remember getting it. BUT - and here is where it gets interesting - I can't even BUY a product with my non-validated account, and when I try to contact PSS via their website, I am finding that you need to be a registered AND VALIDATED user to get a pointer to an email address or service request form that talks to a human at PSS.(Note: that page also says "Please Note: User accounts that have not been validated within 24 hours of creation will be deleted and you will have to resubmit your user details". But - I apparently didn't validate my account way back when, but it was certainly more than 24 hours ago and yet I still have a semi-valid login. Doh!) Then I go to the "Help" tab of their site interface and it says: "This Section Of Our Site Is Currently Undergoing Maintainance. Please Check Back Soon!"So here I sit with my twenty-eight-ish US dollars, wanting to buy the Dash 8 so that a friend of mine can familiarize himself with the airplane (he's applying for a first officer position at a carrier that uses the Dash 8).I will contrast this experience to that of purchasing several products through Flight One. At first I was leery of their "E-Commerce Wrapper" approach, but I have to say that, having re-installed all of my Flight One products at least three times, it works almost flawlessly. I never really appreciated that until now.Ironically, Flight1 sells this airplane too, but only as a CD product. I was hoping to buy the downloadable version from PSS (I want it NOW!), but it seems I'll be waiting on the CD version from F1 - it's supposed to be back in stock tomorrow.BTW I could've posted this on the PSS Forum but it's moderated - heavily, from what I've read - so I decided to Go Public Here instead 8^) .OK, I'm done ranting. But it's interesting and almost amusing how this company has managed to dodge a direct sale. Whatever...Dave Blevins

[Reset XPDR 1,271]

Have you tried out the freeware Dash 8 by Fanda (Oleksiy Frolov)? I flew this beast when I was flying for QVA and I found it to be of very high calibre.Gary

[Guest B742FAN]

How about trying to sign up a new account??__Josh

[Guest LLgaz]

Try the fanda dash8. Although not as pretty as the PSS version, given the fact that your friend is gonna be flying around on a real one, he will appreciate the extra panel and system functionality on the freeware fanda bird. PSS is as usual mostly eye candy. Fanda is mostly systems accuracy. Plus its free......with free liveries.

[Robert Kirkland 0]

David have you written PSS support. I am sure they can sort out the problem for you.The address is support@phoenix-simulation.co.ukor you could post in their forum here at AVSIM and the e-mail address for support is there as well.Robert KirklandASSOCIATE PUBLISHERAVSIM