Opinion on vFlyteAir Piper Arrow III and JustFlight Piper Arrow III?

[MarioDonick 752]

19 hours ago, Griphos said:

they own and fly several real Cherokees

Just a small correction: We do not own any aircraft at all. Walker goes flying on a Cherokee regularly, and me on an Ikarus C42. That's it with real-world flying experience or access to real aircraft ;) 

[Anxu00 176]

On 1/2/2018 at 5:27 PM, ryanbatcund said:

I bought SF for P3D

What's SF?

[ryanbatc 12,770]

2 minutes ago, Anxu00 said:

What's SF?

REX sky force 3D 

[Anxu00 176]

On 1/2/2018 at 5:44 AM, Martyn JF said:

It's not my place to get involved in these sorts of discussions, but I'd just like to quickly point out that there is no shortage of support from us for our product. We don't charge for service packs, we actively engage with users via several forums and our own website, have a full-time support team etc.

Thanks
Martyn - Just Flight

Allow me to clarify.  When vFlyteAir releases v5 of the Arrow which compatible with XP11 (and use its features and more) I am impressed.  I don't know what's JF policy on XP versions, and I frankly don't mind paying for an update price, but recent experience with another vendor charging full price again for the same aircraft with questionable claims of extra work left me bitter taste.  JF don't have to answer, it just has to be reasonable in its upgrade policy.  Having to chuck away many Carenado models bought for XP10 is painful.  I have no idea of the complexity of these models versus a sim like PMDG, where I can understand the reason for the full price, but GA with no failures no Accusim type simulation and Carenado pressed on with charging full price? I digress.  As usual we consumer vote with our wallet, no Carenado is permanently strike off from my list, as I will never buy anything from them again.

[CFIJose 5,485]

On 1/3/2018 at 4:45 AM, MarioDonick said:

Just a small correction: We do not own any aircraft at all. Walker goes flying on a Cherokee regularly, and me on an Ikarus C42. That's it with real-world flying experience or access to real aircraft ;) 

Mario,

Thanks for the updates.

I just checked PC Aviator USA and there is still no sign of v5.

[MarioDonick 752]

On 4.1.2018 at 3:58 AM, Anxu00 said:

Carenado pressed on with charging full price? I digress.

I am obviously not Carenado, and I don't have any insights in their business except that I know Dan Klaue is a very nice guy and very dedicated, but I nevertheless can understand why at some place such business decisions become necessary. The more aircraft you have, the bigger the support effort becomes. This needs time and people who need to be paid regularly, at least if its a real business where people do that for their livings and not just as a part-time job with other (main) jobs securing their living.

With just a small fleet, you can handle this by developing and selling new aircraft models and doing updates and support next to the new developments. But the bigger your fleet gets, this gets harder. More and more time has to be spent on updates and support, and less time can be used for new aircraft. This is the point where you may need to charge for updates. And if your fleet is REALLY big (such as Carenado's and Alabeo's), and users expect updates even for the oldest members of that fleet, it may well be necessary to charge the full price, because that's the only way for getting the required regular income -- because while you are busy with updates, you can't develop and sell new aircraft. And X-Plane has the tendency to keep you busy with constant updating over years.

It's all not so difficult if you're doing this only part-time, as we do at vFlyteAir. We can still afford to offer free updates, because we only have a few aircraft, and we have other jobs as well, but even we feel that the constant need for updating is a bit ... straining, as it takes time away from working on new models (our only source for vFlyteAir-related income, if we don't charge for updates). If we hadn't our regular jobs, we probably wouldn't be able to offer free updates at some point, too. (First, we had more time to develop and could sell new models, but this would let the fleet grow, at some point leading to the challenge described above).

So don't judge overly fast about such business decisions. These are not evil people who are just out for a quick Dollar, Euro or whatever. It's sometimes simply not possible the other way. The alternative may be to drop support for older or less-popular aircraft and only focus on the successful ones.

[MarioDonick 752]

7 hours ago, DJJose said:

I just checked PC Aviator USA and there is still no sign of v5.

We sent the update to them. We'll check if they received it.

[Anxu00 176]

11 hours ago, MarioDonick said:

The alternative may be to drop support for older or less-popular aircraft and only focus on the successful ones.

Well why don't they then?  I understand what you stated.  Carenado business model seems to be a large fleet of mostly eye candy models with half finished everything else.  The decision was their and Dan was just their spoke person on Xplane forum, I guess that's why he has his own company now: Thranda.  On the P3D side, the recent P3Dv4 compliant conversions are really bad, I can have my F33A  in V4 again, but what's the point if the fuel flow gauge does not work?  Money is paid for value returned.  Unfortunately, what Carenado charges does not represent good value.  So first you are already ripped off, then when your sim version changed you then ripped off again.  Anyway, I have really came to realize how much money I spent on this hobby over the year over the holiday, compared to what I got in return.  It is really shocking to count how much money saved by not giving to bad developer, that could have been spent on the good ones.  So my new year resolution: stick with the good ones and ignore the rest.

[anubhavs 66]

Is the JustFlight or vFltye version more VR ready? Is there one developer that is more likely to port over their aircraft to VR? I am only buying aircrafts that will be VR compatible for the future.

[MarioDonick 752]

4 hours ago, anubhavs said:

Is the JustFlight or vFltye version more VR ready? Is there one developer that is more likely to port over their aircraft to VR? I am only buying aircrafts that will be VR compatible for the future.

Our aircraft will all get the basic VR treatment, which involves changing the cockpit manipulators to be VR ready.

But besides this, we are in fact using our current model-in-progress (the Ikarus C42) as research project on requirements, challenges and benefits of VR training for real-world flight training, esp. for small flying schools and clubs. Not for replacing flying, or for "typical" simulation, but for enhancing theory lessons, for de-briefings, for navigation planning etc. In last year's DeLFI conference (one of Germany's biggest e-learning conferences) I was already giving a talk about that.

[anubhavs 66]

2 hours ago, MarioDonick said:

Our aircraft will all get the basic VR treatment, which involves changing the cockpit manipulators to be VR ready.

But besides this, we are in fact using our current model-in-progress (the Ikarus C42) as research project on requirements, challenges and benefits of VR training for real-world flight training, esp. for small flying schools and clubs. Not for replacing flying, or for "typical" simulation, but for enhancing theory lessons, for de-briefings, for navigation planning etc. In last year's DeLFI conference (one of Germany's biggest e-learning conferences) I was already giving a talk about that.

Thanks. That's really helpful.

[Tanguy SEHA 0]

12 hours ago, MarioDonick said:

Our aircraft will all get the basic VR treatment, which involves changing the cockpit manipulators to be VR ready.

But besides this, we are in fact using our current model-in-progress (the Ikarus C42) as research project on requirements, challenges and benefits of VR training for real-world flight training, esp. for small flying schools and clubs. Not for replacing flying, or for "typical" simulation, but for enhancing theory lessons, for de-briefings, for navigation planning etc. In last year's DeLFI conference (one of Germany's biggest e-learning conferences) I was already giving a talk about that.

What you are doing with the Ikarus is really intersting

dovyou have a plan about when it can be available in our sim?? 

Regards

[MarioDonick 752]

3 hours ago, Tanguy SEHA said:

dovyou have a plan about when it can be available in our sim?? 

I don't really know, as we are constantly busy with updating older aircraft and can't work on the C42 as fast as we wish. Maybe April.

[CFIJose 5,485]

On 1/5/2018 at 4:31 AM, MarioDonick said:

We sent the update to them. We'll check if they received it.

I've checked daily but still no sign of v5 at PCAviator USA.

Thanks.

[MarioDonick 752]

16 hours ago, DJJose said:

I've checked daily but still no sign of v5 at PCAviator USA.

We sent them the update on December 24th and reminded them on January 5th. Maybe you should also contact them about it.