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

[CFIJose 5,485]

2 hours ago, MarioDonick said:

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

I did and never got a response. Their customer service in a word "sucks!"

[CFIJose 5,485]

On 1/10/2018 at 11:56 AM, MarioDonick said:

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

It's finally available!

Thanks again Mario.

WOW! Downloading at a whopping 140kb. LOL

[Anxu00 176]

On 1/10/2018 at 2:24 PM, DJJose said:

I did and never got a response. Their customer service in a word "sucks!"

So you too heh?  I contacted them twice no response whatsoever  after days despite the claim of "we will get back to you in 24-48 hours". "Sucks" is too kind, that means you still have some service, but it sucks. Non existence is a more apt word.

[CFIJose 5,485]

49 minutes ago, Anxu00 said:

So you too heh?  I contacted them twice no response whatsoever  after days despite the claim of "we will get back to you in 24-48 hours". "Sucks" is too kind, that means you still have some service, but it sucks. Non existence is a more apt word.

Like many simmers, I'm a long time customer who is disappointed with PCAviator's customer support. I still have not downloaded the Arrow because their server is so slow.  They are testing my patience.

[harrry 322]

On 1/5/2018 at 4:30 PM, MarioDonick said:

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.

But that is the time for our business decision.  Mine is never to buy ANY Carrenado again because of Dan's decision over Xplane updates.  Hence his fleet gets smaller and he has less support to do.

As far as part time or full time, not an issue to us.  We buy the plane, it no longer a case of freeware products with maybe a small charge for distribution etc but full retail prices.  We expect full retail levels of support because of that.

[Martyn JF 388]

Quote

because of Dan's decision over Xplane updates

I'll avoid getting into a public debate on business practices, especially as they are not my own in this case, but I think it's worth pointing out that whilst Dan is responsible for a lot of the development work, any business decisions regarding the cost for upgrades/updates etc remain the responsibility of the business (i.e. Carenado or Just Flight) and not the developer. As Mario has explained, there are a lot of factors that a business needs to consider when supporting an extensive product range on a constantly evolving platform, and ultimately it's a case of ensuring that the business model is sustainable in the long term.

Martyn - Just Flight

[turner112 52]

Having a hard time with V5... interior looks great. Panel is what I want. I am about to buy, but keep going back to the visual model... really wish this had been rebuilt. The discussion of access to the model doesn't really, well... let's not talk about that.

Probably going to buy based on panel...

[MarioDonick 752]

On 14.2.2018 at 1:17 AM, turner112 said:

but keep going back to the visual model... really wish this had been rebuilt.

This would been basically a completely new product then, because changing the fuselage shape itself would force also a recreation of many interior and exterior textures. Thus, no free update. In your case, this would not matter, because you don't own the aircraft yet, but having existent customers paying an upgrade fee is not what we want.

[turner112 52]

On 2/18/2018 at 9:09 AM, MarioDonick said:

This would been basically a completely new product then, because changing the fuselage shape itself would force also a recreation of many interior and exterior textures. Thus, no free update. In your case, this would not matter, because you don't own the aircraft yet, but having existent customers paying an upgrade fee is not what we want.

Actually, I did purchase.