+100

Guess nowdays you cant please everyone, nowdays every one wants it now or better still yesterday, and if they cant get it they start jumping up and down saying where is it i want it now. If they can do it quicker by all means go out produce your own videos, as there are lots of u tubes videos out there on training on the ngx.

I purchased the Captains Package because I really liked the AOA version that was done for the PMDG 747-400. It is a lot easier than poring through the manuals. I have high expectitions for this product, and I have not been disappointed so far with the release of two training videos. However, the pace of releasing more training videos has been incredibility slow, and if I had known this, I would not have paid for this package when I did....I would have waited. But I will not ask for a refund, at least for now. So, I'm sure a lot of people are holding back from buying this training given its current pace of progress. I believe it will be a really fine training tool when it finally gets completed, but I'm afraid it could be a year or more from now, unless the team is on the verge of a major breakthru in eliminating the primary bottleneck holding things up. Also, when I log on to their website to view the blogs I can't view them because someting is broken in the software. So I'm not jumping up and down as is stated above, but the progress, based on the average release times, does not look promising! Bill Clark

I have all of the previous released videos and love them, but I agree with you. Something must have gone seriously wrong here. I also dislike that ALL negative postings have been deletet on the AoA pages seems that they want to..........

I should imagine that the process will almost certainly speed up, and I'll tell you why I think that is so... Suppose you had to do a series of presentations (on any complex subject you care to think of). First you would have to sort through all of the info related to that subject and compartmentalise it into sections which made a sensible sequence, then you'd have to work out the cross references and how you would handle all that, and then finally you'd have to work out a methodology for production, which would of course speed up, as anything does when you get used to doing it. Once all of that groundwork and planning was out of the way, you'd be much better placed to set about the production task itself, and things would inevitably get quicker as you got to grips with the best way to do stuff. Thus the initial efforts and the planning is what always slows things down at first, but it is generally the quickest overall way to do things, or to put it another way: measure twice, and cut once. If things are still slow in six months, then I will indeed agree that there is a problem, but give them some time. You can't expect a product of an extremely high standard to get knocked up in a matter of weeks, or if you are prepared to pay 80 bucks for something that takes very little time, then give me 80 bucks and I'll happily oblige you with the kind of thing that could be done over a weekend, and trust me, it will look like it was done over a weekend too, and won't be worth 80 bucks LOL! Al

Couldnt agree more on what alan had to say least some of us put our names in our sig block, maybe that why they taken down some of the remarks in the AoA thread.

Couldnt agree more on what alan had to say least some of us put our names in our sig block, maybe that why they taken down some of the remarks in the AoA thread.

Yes, please do put your name in your sig block. These opportunities do tempt me...

if you take the number of chapters in the FCOMs and add the extra effort and value add that AOA will put into each topic, you will see clearly the daunting task that AOA have committed to. Doing a bit of math using the current and optimistic production rates, we are talking a very large numbers of months before the final episode rolls off their video production line.Perhaps AOA might consider the following axiom. "Don't let the great get in the way of the good". By which of course means that the balance between quality and quantity needs to be rationalized. It seems to me that Nick's off-the-cuff unscripted pre NGX release videos were very good and adequate enough to convey a message. The goal is to produce training videos in return for dollars. Not to produce award winning videos with all the bells and whistles. I for one would appreciate more quantity at the expense of some of the excess fine polish which at the end of the day is really not required to adequately deliver the message.AOA's customers (paid and future) are perhaps generally suggesting that 1 video per month is not acceptable regardless of the reasons and explanations. AOA will have to step up the pace to recover some of the good will that was present when we bought the product 2 months ago.

Excellent videos, so educational! love it! Clayton

Lots of great insight and comments here, guys. I'm still monitoring this and just wanted to thank you for your honest opinions and comments, which have been respectful. I appreciate that! We're working hard to fix these issues and we'll get to a place where things are working the way they should be. Thanks!

I am also disappointed with the length of time it is taking but i understand why and have the patience to wait. Had i known that two months down the line from the release of the NGX i'd still be waiting then i would have delayed the purchase. Ultimately though i have seen the value offered by AoA in comparison to Youtube vids and of course the FCOM and other manuals. I would like them to get the line work side up so that i can have a complete flight from cold and dark (poss turnaround) to shut down, that is what i am missing most. In any case good work so far and i look forward to the next video.

The big problem with that long production cycle is that by now I can properly use all the systems and know why I do so, and I can even deal with abnormal occurences appropriately. I can do my flights from Cold&Dark to Cold&Dark with the proper procedures from the top of my head, including full FMC programming etc. All that without reading any of the manuals (except the tutorial, checklists and the occasional look-up in the QRH), but by just scouring the forums and the web for infos. Sure, there are still quite a few gaps in my knowledge, but by the time the AoA training reaches the meat and potatoes of actually flying the bird, I'll be so proficient in using the 737 that I won't have any need for most of the training anymore. However, I might still get it at some point, for the deeper system knowledge, procedural knowledge and the entertainment value, but by then the price will be pretty steep for stuff that I already know for the most part. I would have expected some level of pre-production. If some scripts were already complete before the release of the NGX. the audio recordings could have been done in advance, the general layout storyboarded and some preliminary editing could have been completed, so that only the actual footage had to be recorded and fit into the edit. Many movies are being edited like that these days, with pre-visualization segments as placeholders for the actual footage. That way it would have been possible to release the lessons in much quicker succession, even if rewrites would have been necessary for some reason.

Smart move from AOA to release the package early, When they released the MD-11 training it had been out so long most people already felt proficient. I'll purchase their 737 training, once I'm sure there is some consistency on release times.

The big problem with that long production cycle is that by now I can properly use all the systems and know why I do so, and I can even deal with abnormal occurences appropriately. I can do my flights from Cold&Dark to Cold&Dark with the proper procedures from the top of my head, including full FMC programming etc. All that without reading any of the manuals (except the tutorial, checklists and the occasional look-up in the QRH), but by just scouring the forums and the web for infos. Sure, there are still quite a few gaps in my knowledge, but by the time the AoA training reaches the meat and potatoes of actually flying the bird, I'll be so proficient in using the 737 that I won't have any need for most of the training anymore. However, I might still get it at some point, for the deeper system knowledge, procedural knowledge and the entertainment value, but by then the price will be pretty steep for stuff that I already know for the most part. I would have expected some level of pre-production. If some scripts were already complete before the release of the NGX. the audio recordings could have been done in advance, the general layout storyboarded and some preliminary editing could have been completed, so that only the actual footage had to be recorded and fit into the edit. Many movies are being edited like that these days, with pre-visualization segments as placeholders for the actual footage. That way it would have been possible to release the lessons in much quicker succession, even if rewrites would have been necessary for some reason.

+1 Same here. I was very excited about the AoA training initially. But, now that I've had a few weeks to toil with the FCOMs, I can fly the aircraft proficiently and accurately and feel that I have the requisite background knowledge to continue learning from the FCOMs alone. It would pain me -- really pain me -- to sit through a video about lighting.

The big problem with that long production cycle is that by now I can properly use all the systems and know why I do so, and I can even deal with abnormal occurences appropriately. I can do my flights from Cold&Dark to Cold&Dark with the proper procedures from the top of my head, including full FMC programming etc. All that without reading any of the manuals (except the tutorial, checklists and the occasional look-up in the QRH), but by just scouring the forums and the web for infos. Sure, there are still quite a few gaps in my knowledge, but by the time the AoA training reaches the meat and potatoes of actually flying the bird, I'll be so proficient in using the 737 that I won't have any need for most of the training anymore. However, I might still get it at some point, for the deeper system knowledge, procedural knowledge and the entertainment value, but by then the price will be pretty steep for stuff that I already know for the most part. I would have expected some level of pre-production. If some scripts were already complete before the release of the NGX. the audio recordings could have been done in advance, the general layout storyboarded and some preliminary editing could have been completed, so that only the actual footage had to be recorded and fit into the edit. Many movies are being edited like that these days, with pre-visualization segments as placeholders for the actual footage. That way it would have been possible to release the lessons in much quicker succession, even if rewrites would have been necessary for some reason.

If i not mistaken AoA didnt get the ngx not long before it got released. so they really couldnt do anything in advance till they got the ngx in their hands.

Next generation 737s have been around for years and the NGX is supposed to be an extremely close rendition of the aircraft, so they had plenty of material to work with before the PMDG NGX was released, that excuse just doesn't float.