That is wierd. I downloaded the plane in question from the "New File Listing". I have not had to download another one. I'll do some fooling around with all the 800's I have and see if I come to any conclusions.

>KittyHawk obviously has NOT DONE THEIR HOMEWORK! ... They also>have pretty lousy support as my email from yesterday still>goes unanswered and I know of no website for them...Well, I can see it happening. With all these self-professed aeronautical engineers blasting you guys for offering something for FREE that has a few quirks here and there, I wouldn't be surprised if you went the way of Steve Small or Eric Ernst and started charging for your future products. My hope is you don't.I'm a "silent simmer" hailing from the days of 4 color EGA flight sims, and when version 4 came out, with it's scenery tools and Aircraft factory, the hobby was a cadre of gentlemen sharing. I can't recall any vapid rants about how appalling something was because an isolated characteristic might have been flawed here and there. People marvelled and praised the generosity, and the possible future that would be born from this new and exciting direction FS turned with it's open-endedness. I can remember a time when the most prolific forum for simmers online outside of the old Compuserve forums was a RIMEnet discussion board featuring the likes of Nels Anderson (of FS.com), Albrecht Grech (A name I'd wager none of the youngsters in our midst have even heard of), among others. There wasn't this sense of competition. Everyone who contributed to the freeware pool did so with the full appreciation of those who lacked the skill, talent, or time to create for themselves. Sure, there was criticism, but it was done constructively, and with grace. Now, it seems to me that some in this community have the graciousness of Quake clan member shouting "I pWnz j00!" after a frag. With the popularity of FS, this has happened. Adolescent competition between groups of developers, or their groupies, is starting to tarnish the civility we once had. Some screwed up, left-minded sense of entitlement has become the attitude of the freeware users. Rather than saying "Nice effort, but not for me, thanks", there's a demand that they get what they want, when they want it... "...damn it". I say what's next? FS clans whose l33t, m@d skillz at shooting an ILS give all p0zerZ reason to ph3@r them?Incredible...Jonathan D.

Hi again Steve,Another not regarding the file I dowloaded originally - the one which crashed FS when you changed payload - if you look at the "maximum weight" - it is wrong for a 737-800==> it shows 154,200 lbs which is close to the max. weight of a 737-400 (actually, according to Boeing official specs, the 737-400 weighs 150,000lbs. but close enough. The Boeing specs for a 737-800 is 174,200 max. design take-off weight, so the posting of your aircraft.cfg was correct in the weight and so I am hoping, that the rest of the MOI's are also correct.*grin* ... by the way, what is an M.O.I. ?? :)) (any ideas?)John

You are joking right!!!!????Because only a real Jacka$$ could seriously have such an ungrateful and seriously twisted attitude as yours for a freeware product.Hell, why stop here. Why not write AVSIM and Kittyhawk and ask for compensation for the bandwidth you "wasted" in downloading the file?I swear to all that is holy, John, if I see that attitude around here again, I will personally speak with the Mr. Allensworth and see if we can't get you permanently banned from these facilities.Just as Kitty Hawk has no obligation to serve you, neither does Avsim.Find your free software and gripe about it elsewhere!!!!I'm sorry, but you really suck!!!!

I dunno, but I hope they are all correct...

So where are your planes that you've designed and offered for free John?

Hello,I think I need to make some amends here for my reaction came out as a little extreme and I did not put positive comments to balance my negative ones and I have been misunderstood. I DO appreciate freeware makers very much. I have sent numerous emails to several freeware airport scenery and sound designers for their wonderful works for which I am grateful. I am quite amazed actually at their dedication for taking the time to make such accurate and beautiful products ... and for free! As a flightsimmer community, I think we are priveleged to have such giving people providing us with products which are in many ways, many times better than the Microsoft defaults.I was just upset with the errors committed by KittyHawk in their aircraft.cfg (see my observations above regarding the max. gross weight). I am sorry if I offended anyone and did not mean to offend Kitty Hawk productions either. The KittyHawk plane is obviously produced with the best of intentions-the livery is gorgeous and now that I was able to correct those problems in the aircraft.cfg, the plane flies wonderfully and works perfectly and with the SkyDecks panel at that! The fact that they also took the time to get it tested by a real pilot also shows they are serious about its quality. Perhaps the file which was uploaded (with the 60 stations) got mixed up in there somewhow (an accidental copy/paste perhaps?), I don't know.In any case, I hope all of you who as upset accept my apologies.John

Attached is a prior reply on the flightsim forum. I would also suggest editing the weight and balance to include a full complement of passengers.(Copy)Look at http://www.tinmouse.org/There are updated aircraft.cfg and airfiles which work.They really are for the 200, but you can edit as required for the 700 (weights, fuel capacities, contact points, flaps, passengers etc.) I fly both extensively, and find them to respond well with these updates, and be very stable. The post with a reply which gave the above link was called "Which file is Erick Candu's 737?" by Maximus_Cumulus on April 29, 2004I would also respectfully suggest that you go tohttp://www.bh.com/companions/034074152X/ap...a-a/default.htmand input their data. I believe it is probably a bit more accurate.One note: Like some other third party addon's I find that you can not use the plane loading utility in FS9. FS9 will shut down. You can adjust the fuel load at will and it works fine. Frankly, I usually prefer to edit my weight and balance for maximum passengers and payload, and adjust the fuel as required for MTOW anyway. Of course on short flights, this is academic as you can reduce the fuel load.Hope this helpsRTH

John,"".... and did not mean to offend Kitty Hawk productions either. ..""Well, your written comment didn't leave much room for mis-interpretation :-).The reason why so many people reacted the way they did (including me), it that these last months (years ??) we see more and more people on these forums that "post-first-and-think-later", and do not treat freeware as a free gift as-is, for which they should be thankfull (or simply don't use it). But appearantly you've "seen the light" now, which I personally can appreciate.Regards, Rob

Hi Rob and thanks for forgiving...I just have the choose my words carefully the next time I discuss a problem with a freeware product.John

Thanks for your contriteness, now it's my turn. I was very put off by your comments, but I am hapily suprised you apologized. Now it's my turn. I apologize for the comments I made to you. Calling you a donkey, was not appropriate, nor was threatening you with banning.I don't have the power anyway.But we need to realize that folks who perform a labor of love, still perform their services for a fee. Nothing is truly free. Thus those who provide us with "no-dollar cost" software still deserve and our gratitude and respect. I think that is more than fair payment for services rendered.A person who performs a labor of love and gets repaid with ingratitude and undo criticism will cease to find the love in the labor, and we all lose out.I'm not saying that you may not have valuable feedback to provide. You may have a lot to provide in the way of improvement suggestions. However, criticism, like medicine, is much easier taken when given a spoonful of sugar before hand. Being called incompetent is a bitter pill to take, regardless.

Thanks Will for the nice comments and your maturity.I appreciate your openness.And now, I'll be off the Davao, Philippines (RPMD) with the very Kitty Hawk 737-800 we've been fussing about all this time! :))By the way, have you noticed that Kitty Hawk posted a new version of their 737-800 on May 31? The odd thing is, after I downloaded it, I looked at the max. gross weight and it still shows 154,200 lbs. The 737-800 is heavier by 20,000 lbs approx than the -400 because it is built for heavier cargo/payload capacity. I wonder if there is limitation KH feels is preventing them from using the 174,200lbs max gross weight specified by Boeing and which I got from "Armstrang"'s paste of his version of the Boeing 737-800 (by Eric Cantu made for the International Flight Convention IFC) - see posting #3 from May 30 further up in the thread. This latest KH aircraft (a KLM 737-800) also still has the 60 stations as in the previous file from May 6. I haven't tried it yet for the simple reason that the overall weight is not right. Anyways, I'm ready for pushback!...If you have any ideas about this weight issue, it would be nice to know.John

Perhaps it has to do with the powerplants. I know Boeing sometimes uses more than one model turbofan on it's jets. Perhaps your weight is due to the fact that the 800 uses a different power plant.It would be an easy mistake for someone to assume that the 800's had the same powerplant as earlier models, yet someone else know they changed powerplants. A 20,000 lb difference, I could see could easily be explained by different engines, or any other structual differences that kitty hawk, may or may not have been aware of.

I got an email from Kitty Hawk yesterday saying that they are working on a fix for the sluggishness and crashing when modifying payload issue as apparently, this is an issue of incompatibility between their aircraft.cfg file and FS2004. A fix will be delivered when it is ready.John