Ray you must be talking about the 2D panel right??? My point with this whole thread has to do with the VC (lacking capability) and the 5 star rating....

http://www.avsim.com/pages/commercial_rating_system.html"STARS Description5 At the Edge of That Even Conceivable Today 4.5 Far Exceeds Natural Progression 4 Natural Upward Progression From State-of-the-Art 3.5 Positive Tweaking of Today's State-of-the-Art 3 Today's State-of-the-Art - Where to Begin a Rating 2.5 Below The Current Norm or Expectations 2 A Step Backwards In the Genre 1.5 Not Worth Your Consideration" http://www.avsim.com/pages/aoe_system.html"The AVSIM Award of ExcellenceIn addition to garnering the elusive 5-Star rating, any product that maintains a 5-Star Rating following the overview of the AVSIM Editorial Review Board is also automatically eligible for the AVSIM Award of Excellence. The AOE is the Ultimate honor a product can receive from AVSIM Online. It is reserved for those products that exemplify the finest qualities of computer based flight simulation. In the end, the product is of such distinction that the very nature by which we will judge future products is forever changed. Once a review has formally received a 5-Star rating by the Review Editor, that editor will draft an Award of Excellence proposal. In this proposal, the editor provides the Pros and Cons for awarding an AOE. This is distributed to the members of the AVSIM AOE Committee for a final look. If the product gets a super-majority of the cast votes it qualifies for the AOE. There are some requirements the developer must agree to for final awarding of the AOE, but at this point the ball is in the court of the developer."Kurt M

Blimy, i ain't seen it called Concord since the 60s, i can't remeber excatly when the name Concorde was first used by all parties, but i do remeber back in the 60s it was called Concord in the UK.

It don

Hi Again All..... my point was (and is indeed made here by others in their offerings...) that one persons "5" is anothers "4" or "3" or what ever.... some will be content NOT to have this or that feature, considering it a minor or VERY minor part, whilst giving much more attention and credit to other parts of the sim. that others would dismiss. In all events .... it is ONLY an opinion and, unfortunately life is not always fair nor are humans completely impartial... if they were an OPINION would not be an opinion but a fact.Cheer up in any event..... I don't usually use 3D cockpits, but have bought the RealAir Spitfire knowing it only has 3D. In my opinion it is brilliant!! (albeit taking some getting used to ... the cockpit that is, not the plane, that's just dandy!!)Best Regards, Blue

Hi Dillon,Yes, I was referring to the 2D panel. Out of curiosity I loaded the VC version and then I realised why it wouldn't be possible to make the Flight Engineer's and two overhead panels clickable. The viewpoint is static from the left-hand seat and by the time you're panned upwards the overheads are only visible from the side so everything is more or les unreadable. Likewise for the FE panel. You'd never be able to make out the switches and gauges.VCs only really work for the panel in front of the pilot. I personally wouldn't ever use a VC because I need the clarity of a 2D panel but to each their own. I just wanted to give you good reasons why I think PSS couldn't reproduce a clickable VC for Concorde.And I wouldn't deduct a point because it didn't have a VC clickable panel. On simple panels it might work - it certainly wouldn't on a complex panel like Concorde which has a lot of smallish analogue instruments.Cheers,

A bunch of satisfied Active Camera 2004 users will beg to differ with you Ray... I've set up every one of my VC's with an AC config file that lets me move to any view I need - my PMDG 737 overhead view for instance is the exact same view as the 2D, almost indistiguishable. Saying they couldn't make the whole VC clickable because only the forward view is usable is a complete cop-out IMO.

Blue, I agree, people, all people, have likes and dislikes, I doubt the reviewer was biased towards or against a certain company but rather just really liked this plane. Dillon likes VC's so he is biased against any product that does not have a VC, or one that does not have the functionality that he desires. This is not a bad thing, it is just human nature. In this case the reviewer got a hold of a plane that he probably really liked so he scored it high, if Dillon had done the review it would have been scored much lower because of his likes and dislikes. I have downloaded planes because of a review or because many people have said that it was absolutely fantastic only to be left puzzled by what others had seen in what I thought was a piece of garbage. The same goes with several models that people said had an awesome flight model, when I got in the cockpit I came to the conclusion that those people have never been in a real plane in their lives. :-lol Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, it is very subjective, so telling others that they are wrong or complaining about it is not worth while since they think they are right. When I read a review I expect to get someone's opinion on what they are reviewing, nothing more, so I know there is room for me to disagree with them. Now if a review is done with many people and the results are based on all of their opinions then I think that the review will be closer to fact than an opinion. In closing, would I agree the PSS Concorde is worthy of a 5, probably not, but I also do not think the reviewer was either wrong or biased. I do think that Avsim does a pretty good job of maintaining a professional look at the industry, they have been more than fair with most everyone. Agree with this review or not but it is a source of information that can help us to choose whether or not to buy this product. Philip OlsonI'm the luckiest man in the world, my girl friend has a yoke and rudder pedals! Eat your hearts out!http://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/supporter.jpg

Well if active camera users disagree guess how much the TrackIR 3 users with Vector expansion disagree :).Hopefully Vector expansion will encourage developers even more in creating fully functional virtual cockpits because it make life so much easier for us VC pilots :)Active Camera is of course great as well but if it wasn

I guess there's no hope of Tom and the gang at Avsim changing the rating on the PSS Concord to be more reasonable concidering the what the competition is doing. It's very misleading because all around that aircraft is not state of the art (either with their external textures or VC). I just bought the new Lago MadDog and after flying it around I would have given that package higher scores than the PSS bird. The MadDog still needs a patch to correct some issues but all features are present and working. You have a nice 2D panel, a fully interactive Virtual Cockpit, a nice visual external model with all lights and animation working correctly, a great FDE, and a great sound set.If all the basics are there, that's a '4 or 4.5'. Now to go beyond that would be what Lago did with it

Hi Par, ......some would agree with you..... some wouldn't. That's opinion eh? I agree with Phil Olson, who makes his point well.Regards, Blue

Hi Ryan,>A bunch of satisfied Active Camera 2004 users will beg to>differ with you Ray... I've set up every one of my VC's with>an AC config file that lets me move to any view I need - my>PMDG 737 overhead view for instance is the exact same view as>the 2D, almost indistiguishable.I'm not familiar with ActiveCamera so I wasn't aware it could do fancy things like that.> Saying they couldn't make >the whole VC clickable because > only the forward view is usable is a complete cop-out IMO.Who said that? I didn't. The fact remains that the FE panel is extremely complex and doesn't lend itself to a VC mode which is bound to be less clear than a 2D panel. The FDs 2D panel is subdivided into 9 separate sections each of which can be zoomed by right-clicking on the relavant section. It just wouldn't be useable in VC mode. That's probably the reason PSS didn't model it - not because they copped out.Cheers,

>Hi Par, ......some would agree with you..... some wouldn't.>That's opinion eh? I agree with Phil Olson, who makes his>point well.>>Regards, Blue Yeah but the reviewer have to take into account all possible buyers not only people who are exact copies of himself.That he don

I don't agree Ray because everyone else in the industry is doing it. I hate to say this but Ariane's 737NG is just as complex or even more so. They've done a great job with their VC as well as other advances no one else had done yet... 5 Stars needs to go to that kind of effort. Microsoft made FS2k4 with the ability to have clickable VC's. If your making an add-on these days and can't figure out how to incorporate it into the VC, why are you in the game charging people money??? Develop your product for FS2k2 and everyone is happy plus it

Dillon,Please tell me how you think a VC could have been designed that would include a functional and useable FE panel? I think you're being very unfair on PSS. I don't think you have their Concorde so you might not have seen how complex the FE panel is but to castigate them for not making it clickable is unrealistic. It simply can't be done. There are too many switches and with the limited size of PC displays it would be a nightmare to operate. Even using the 2D version you need to use the zoom feature to use it with ease.I also think you're placing too much weight on the VC feature and not looking at the aircraft as a whole. Delta wing aircraft are rare and are far more difficult to model than conventional aircraft. PSS deserve credit for taking this project on. With respect a Boeing is a lot easier.I bought the PMDG737 when it first came out and it was a resource hog. I had to double my memory to 1Gb in order to run it satisfactorily. Imagine if that aircraft had been reviewed in the first few weeks. It would have been heavily criticised and justifiably so. The 1st patch did improve things but it still remains system hungry. By comparison the PSS Concorde manages very good frame rates and that is a very important factor for prospective buyers. It's no good adding all the features under the sun if performance suffers as a result. You have to strike a balance. I belive PSS achieved that balance.I can't believe you haven't included PSS in your list of top developers. Their products have always been of the highest quality in my opinion.Comparisons have been made between the two available Concorde's -PSS and Koch. Whilst the Koch may have a better visual model (I can't say as I haven't seen it) it does not have a VFE and for me that is a major drawback. How can you expect a simulator pilot to fly the aircraft and perform the role of the Flight Engineer? PSS gave us a VFE and for me this was an excellent move as it allows me to concentrate on flying the aircraft.I very much doubt AvSim will alter the review marking and I don't believe it should be changed. This is a remarkable aircraft which has been modelled to a very high level and is fully deserving of a top award.I think we're going to have to agree to disagree on that point but it's been an interesting discussion. Each to their own eh :-)Cheers,