>Is the Arianne 737 virtual cockpit only?Don't be fooled by the advertising hype. Ariane's so-called "2dpanel" isn't really one. Check my previous ariane posts (with screenshots) to see what I mean. As for the original sound being bad: Ariane is more than happy to sell you an upgraded sound package. Lol. ricardo

A long answer regarding the flight simming aspect. I have my own opinion regarding the usage of FS Addons for real world training/preparation, but that's another story.I was a hardware simmer, too. Why 'was' ? Because bean counting system details or FMC completeness is not all what flight simming is about. In contrary, it makes you less enjoy your addons, because in EVERY Addon you always find 'something' that isn't right.In the meantime, cockpit atmosphere and 'being there' feeling (that nasty 'immersion' word) also contributes siginicantly for me. The Ariane concept scores very well is that regard. In the PMDG I do not get it, the 2D panel reminds me a of a cockpit mockup, the entire atmosphere is cold and doesn't wake any 'being there' emotions for me. Kind of 'MZALFOTRI atmosphere'.Please note, I don't want to critisize PMDG, everyone has their concept, it's just not for my taste.Regarding the VC. I haven't found any MFD equipped airliner with really smooth gauge update rate yet. Which means depending on the flight phase you have to switch between VC and 2D panel, but quite often it doesn't look identical. You'll find gauges squeezed in the 2D panel, that are not in VC like that. Or different bitmaps or whatever.Most Addons use a lot of texture memory with the effect of significant lag between 2D/2D Sideviews/VC switching.In the Ariane, if you switch between VC and 2Di, your environment or look remains identical. And switching goes lightning fast, as mentioned already. >> Once activated the AT should never allow the aircraft to overspeedIt's a common misconception to think the AP/AT of the real plane is perfect. It simply isn't. An example is the VNAV PATH descend. While any altitude deviation from the path can be rarely noticed, a speed over-/undershoot by up to 20kt is common.A 737 Addon that never allows the plane to overspeed is unrealistic, so the PMDG is sometimes too good in this regard (if you look at it in bean counting mode).OTOH LNAV is very accurate, even the old Classics got RNAV certified for some approaches. If I look at Feelthere's LNAV at e.g. clean maneuvering speed, it's screwed up big time. You see, no Addon is perfect, you'll find something everywhere.Yes, there are areas where the Ariane system depth is not that great. The pressurisation part for example, duct pressure stays on fixed value no matter if packs on/off or during engine start. The VNAV Descent Part needs some optimization and it's a pity some in practice often used FMC pages are not in yet (DES NOW for example). Should be in, they are working on it and FOR ME it's not that big deal. I usually fly with Radar Contact, mostly use LVL CHG, so I'm not a typical VNAV observer anyway. More important for me : AP deals with the plane very smooth and 'airliner-like', I haven't seen any F-16 style climbs yet. The FDE is excellent, the 737 typical Pitch n'Power flying works well. In the aileron axis it's a bit more agile than the PMDG, so I prefer the Ariane here as well. Oooops, the sounds. You must have something different than me. I love the Ariane sounds. Well, except the missing switch sounds, which would give some audible feedback in some situations.Next subject support : If you find a complaint about that in forums, you never get the full story, because you read only one side. Maybe the support guy just had a bad day ? Or was nerved because manual hasn't been read ?I remember some months after the PMDG 737 release I asked about problems with multi monitor support and I have never in 10 years flight simming got such arrogant answers. Normally I would 'NEVER' contact them again, but see above : Maybe bad day. Shall I now go to all forums and talk the PMDG support bad ? Wouldn't be fair, no ?The prize. Well, Ariane is no mass producer, but besides all that, it's THEIR thing where to set the prize. I have some on the first view cheaper Addons gaining dust on my HD. These are the really expensive ones FOR ME. With the Ariane I have made much more flight hours already than on the PMDG. If I look at the prize/flight hour ratio, the Ariane is cheaper already.Some teams SEEM to be unable to make an authentic panel and systems, and then declare it as beginner product and still sell it expensive. CLS Airbusses are such examples. Nice visual model, but VERY poor Airbus functionality (Microsoft default autopilot functions, etc.). That's what *I* consider high prized.So, as Einstein said already, it's all relative.Michael

Well we just purchased this product last week. We bought the 737-700 with the Westjet livery. I have been a big PMDG fan for awhile and love the 744 and 744F. I find that the PMDG 744 has the best plane (besides some great small VFR planes) for flying in VC mode. I always land the PMDG 744 in VC mode. The Arianne VC mode looks nice but is not for flying in VC mode. The gauge's are terrible for refresh (1 frame every 24hours I read somewhere). You are suppose to use their 2di panel for landing in. The PMDG 737 is also the same in VC mode, although you can fly in VC mode, it's still rather difficult to land the PMDG 737in VC mode.The sound set in the Arianne I think is really well done. Although I don't know what take off sounds like, we are waiting on a one more file from them. Our sounds cut out when we throttle past 65%. When we down loaded the plane, something was wrong and we ended up with 2 of the same file, so we are missing a sound set for in the cockpit. We emailed them the problem to them and they replied within 5min of the email (guess we caught them at the computer). Once we figure out it was a missing file, we haven't heard from them. But that was last night so we will have to give them a chance.I have tried to fly the plane a couple of occasions but just ended up cancelling the flight because of small things. In programming the flight in the FMC, I ran into an error with my flight plan. The FMC was changing the order of the waypoints and I'm not sure why (CYYG-CYYZ, after entering BUF, I entered ISTON intersection and it would put it ahead of BUF instead of next, I would end up with a route discon). We also found an error with the lighting. There are no strobe lights on the panel. If you turn on logo light though the wing strobes come on (?). The manual is not the greatest in trying to learn the aircraft(about 70 pages are for registering the aircraft). I find it jumps around a bit. I wish there was a better layout of the panel so you could see what everthing is, like a reference page or something. I'm finding I have to jump between 4 different pdf's to find what I'm looking for.Over all I'm not happy with this plane as of yet, but I will continue to give it a chance. I think it has some potential, but the no flyable VC is a really big turn off for me. The other problem with the 2di, is that you can't un-dock the panels. I like to move my overhead to an overhead monitor that I have (we run a 3 monitor set-up.I'm really looking forward to the next release of PMDG's 737. I hope it will be as complete as their 744 is.Just my thoughts on this product so far.

yeahhh, I agree.. the arianes cockpit can be a handful at first. It took me about a week to get the flows right and get the thing to where i wasnt pulling out my hair. But it's not supposed to be a get in and fly aircraft.. Now, it's practically all i fly. Theres a realism to it that others deem not so good fde, that i like. it's a beast, just like the real 737s. it's not easy to fly and it's even harder to land. its completely unforgiving if you make a mistake. But over all, i think you'll find it's a pretty good airplane. pfil

One more thing to add and note: visually, Ariane's newest virtual cockpits are dramatically better than PMDG's (which of course is older). This is especially apparent when you run the sim on very high resolutions (running it at 1600/1050 on a widescreen monitor). Of course, that doesn't do away with all the problems that Ariane doesn't want to fix, first and foremost the horrible refresh rates of gauges in the vc. ricardo