Certified by Boeing/Airbus?

[Franz007 486]

Hi there

I hope i'm writing in the correct part of the forum...

I need your help. I had some discussions recently about what it means when a flightsim addon is being "certified by Boeing" or "certified by Airbus". Some users are convinced that it's a sign of quality and how good an addon is. The developper himself just stated that he cannot say anything about that certification because of NDA but that he is very proud about his certification. As far as i know this kind of certification doesnt mean a lot and is "only" the right to use the name and to sell a product under the official brand. And i think it has nothing to do with how well an addon is simulated.

The problem is that i cannot find any source that would provide us customers about what this certification exactly means. It  seems to be a strong marketing instrument to sell a product but not one really knows what it means...

Thats why i really would like to get informations from an official source.

So my question is: do someone know where we could have an official statment about this certification that is being used to sell flightsim-addons? Do someone know more about that or knows how i could obtain this information form the manufacturer itself? I didnt try yet and preferd to ask first. Or is someone here working at Airbus and could help me? I think it would be a very usefull information for many users because there is a lot of confusion about that.

I would be very thankful if someone could help me or provide me more infos about it.

Thanks a lot and cheers

Franz

Edited March 27, 2020 by Franz007

[Twenty6 693]

What do you think of when a movie states that it is "based on a true life story?"

My opinion: perceived importance, marketing hype, BS.

[fluffyflops 1,858]

The tolis and blackbox airbuses are both certified and both are junk 

[Chock 17,769]

First up you need to check the terminology which is used. What you will see is 'Airbus officially licensed product' or 'Boeing officially licensed product' and not 'certified by Airbus' or 'certified by Boeing' and there is a big difference. Typically, the maker will approve such usage when the product ensures best use of the brand and image. So, what they'll be interested in is not necessarily super-duper accuracy of every system, but a professional approach to making a product, delivering it and marketing it, so that the professionalism reflects well on their company and does not detract from their corporate identity. Thus you can have an officially licensed Airbus keyring if you like.

Some flight sim add-on developers have stretched this a bit and put phrases such as 'certified by' on their products, but what they really mean is 'licensed by' and therefore that it is often very little to do with the fidelity of a flight sim product and more to do with being authorised to use the logo and the name.

These days, companies can get picky about who uses their logos and depictions of their products. This is why for example, there have been both licensed and non-licensed versions of the ATR-72 Regional Airliner for flight simulators. Developer Flight 1 made an officially licensed version of the ATR-72-500 quite a few years ago and received considerable support from ATR when doing so, to the extent that ATR used to hand out goodie bags on their factory tours which included a disk with that Flight 1 ATR-72 in there, and Flight 1 were able to state on their product page for that simulated ATR-72 that it was 'Developed with the cooperation of Avions de Transport Regional (ATR) in Toulouse, France', because it was, with ATR supplying amongst other things, blueprints, recordings of engine sounds, providing detailed specs of avionics capabilities, etc, etc. But at no point in the deal did ATR ever say that it was 'Certified' by them in spite of the close co-operation and the fact that it was a pretty good and accurate simulation of the real aeroplane.

Conversely, flight sim developer Carenado more recently made an ATR-72 for flight simulators which was not licensed in that way, and as a result it is marketed as the 'A72 500 Series'. Now of course if it walks like a duck, looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it is an ATR-72-500 and not an 'A72 500 Series', so officially at least, it is not an ATR even though we all know that it is. But if Carenado had perhaps paid to have some official licensing for their product, would it have somehow been more of an ATR-72 for having an official license? Carenado state that their A72 is 'tested by real pilots', but of course they cannot say 'tested by real ATR-72 pilots', which of course also means that their product could have been tested by someone who had never flown anything bigger than a Piper Cub, yet because they had flown that little private plane, they would still be 'a pilot'.

The point here is that nothing is ever marketed deliberately badly, and what is said, as opposed to what is inferred, is very different. So you have to be careful and take claims of 'official' products with a very large pinch of salt on occasion. After all, you can buy an officially licensed pair of Boeing earrings - actually on the Boeing website - but does this mean if you flap your ears whilst wearing them, you'll fly like a Boeing 747? They have about as much to do with aeroplanes as would an officially licensed Boeing garden gnome.

Ironically at this point, what with Boeing's reputation being somewhat tarnished courtesy of the 737 MAX fiasco, there are probably less companies with a desire to have their products linked with Boeing, whereas ordinarily it would have been quite a prestiguous thing to be associated with. It will be again I daresay, but at the moment having your product officially licensed by a homeless shelter on the corner of your street would probably bring you more prestige than would a Boeing endorsement. Hopefully that will change for Boeing of course.

Edited March 27, 2020 by Chock

[Groovy_Kincaid 71]

Yeah, what Chock said. Back in the day, when I was an avid F1 fan an collector, you would be surprised by “Officially Licensed Product”. This term means “we have the rights to use the name and brand for us to sell you our stuff”. When my daughter was born, she got an officially licensed sleeper. It was made in China. 
 

Not necessarily a quality product, but darn it really catches some looks.

At the end of the day, caveat emptor applies.

I would imagine if a developer wants to sell an aircraft, they need the OEMs blessing, and that probably means in terms of royalties.

[Franz007 486]

On 3/27/2020 at 10:43 AM, Chock said:

First up you need to check the terminology which is used. What you will see is 'Airbus officially licensed product' or 'Boeing officially licensed product' and not 'certified by Airbus' or 'certified by Boeing' and there is a big difference.

Thanks very much for these great explanations! It's actually exactly what i believed. But my main question remains: what is the source of your statements? There are users of addons who are 100% convinced that "officially licenced Airbus product" means the addon is better than a non-licenced product from the viewpoint of a flight-simmer . Where do you have these informations from?

Edited March 28, 2020 by n4gix
Removed unnecessary long quote!

[Chock 17,769]

1 hour ago, Franz007 said:

What is the source of your statements? Where do you have these informations from?

I contacted Boeing concerning the matter a few years ago with regard to what exactly it meant for part of the research I was doing for an Avsim review of a Boeing 737 add-on airliner (specifically, it was the Ariane Boeing 737-900ER). More recently (2017 I think) Airbus announced that they too were interested in promoting such similar endorsements with makers of flight sim add-ons, and their intentions were/are fairly similar. With regard to the story concerning the ATR-72 from Flight 1, that info came to me again a long time ago from someone at Flight 1, when I was reviewing some Flight 1 products. On other occasions I've talked to developers about this matter and what exactly it means when something is licensed or endorsed in some way, and the truth is as I say, most of it is to do with permission rather than fidelity.

This does not mean that some claims made by developers are incorrect, or even intentionally bogus or inflated in terms of their attempts at accurate simulation of systems or the fidelity of the flight modeling. For the most part it is well known among the flight simming community which developers can be trusted more in these matters and which are blowing smoke, and this for the most part is regardless of any endorsements, which are as I say mostly to do with corporate matters and copyright.

A good example which shows how true that is concerning the corporate nonsense of the copyright thing, is if you go onto Steam (the gaming webstore) and have a look at the product page for Just Flight's Douglas DC-3 (aka the C-47/Dakota) add-on for FSX. You will find that the DC-3 is described as the 'McDonnell Douglas DC-3 ™', which of course it isn't really since the McDonnell Douglas company wasn't even in existence when the DC-3 was designed, much less produced, because the McDonnell Aircraft Corporation merged with the Douglas Aircraft company in 1967, by which time the DC-3 (which had first been produced in 1936) had been out of production for over two decades. So the DC-3 was never anything to do with McDonnell Douglas other than in terms of trademark protection and anyone who ever refers to a DC-3 as a McDonnell Douglas DC-3 on the ramp would probably be laughed off the airfield.

Because in terms of company lineages, it'd be exactly akin to calling the Messerschmitt bf-109 the 'Airbus 109', being that the remains of the German aircraft industry from WW2 has been largely swallowed up in the Airbus company, as indeed has Supermarine and Hawker Siddely, and similarly, nobody calls the Spiftfire or Hurricane the Airbus Hurricane and Airbus Spitfire! Not least because Douglas Bader et all would probably turn in their graves at such a notion. But that's corporate identity for you.

Edited March 27, 2020 by Chock

[Franz007 486]

Thanks so much again for all these explanations. Yes, as far as i know for example the Blackbox 330 has such a licence and everybody knows that the product is quite bad....on the other side Toliss is licenced and most of people recognized it as quality product. That doesnt mean that the product itself is better than for example FSLabs, that dones't own a licence. So it confirms what i was thinking before 😉

Some simers are being tricked out quite easily by these names....

Thanks very much again!

 

Edited March 27, 2020 by Franz007

[Chock 17,769]

I suppose it's no worse than when a celeb puts their name to a perfume or after shave. Anyone who imagines that because her name is on the box, Beyonce is in her kitchen mixing up bottles of Beyonce Rise and hefting pallets of the stuff onto a truck ready to be carted off to Superdrug stores, probably deserves to be charged twenty quid for a 100 ml bottle of scented water.

Edited March 27, 2020 by Chock

[Biggles2010 343]

23 hours ago, Chock said:

A good example which shows how true that is concerning the corporate nonsense of the copyright thing, is if you go onto Steam...

Very well put.

Of course, many younger people in the marketing departments would not know anything of the older aircraft manufacturers. Their idea of history is the introduction of the iphone.

Edited March 28, 2020 by n4gix
Removed unnecessary long quote!

[Chock 17,769]

Ironically enough on this subject, the makers of the Mark 26 and Mark 26B 'Spitfire' kit planes actually bought the corporate name Supermarine and then set up the Supermarine Aircraft company to manufacture their new replica. So being a new Mark made by what is effectively the same company, technically the Mark 26 is a genuine Spitfire, at least from a legal standpoint in perhaps what is the most dramatic example of official endorsement from an aircraft manufacturer. Although I'm not sure I'd want to go up against a genuine Focke-Wulf 190 in the thing. 🤣

[HighBypass 2,339]

42 minutes ago, Chock said:

...Although I'm not sure I'd want to go up against a genuine Focke-Wulf 190 in the thing. ..

At least get a Mk26 equipped with the V8 engine (LS1?) rather than the 6 cylinder Isuzu powerplant 

Mind you the 190 had about 4 or 5 times the power, with not quite 3 times the weight, so I guess you'd still be bailing out, Al  (Wikipedia cheap and dirty lookup)

[dbw1 445]

11 hours ago, fluffyflops said:

The tolis and blackbox airbuses are both certified and both are junk 

Respectfully, I disagree 100% with your assessment of the Toliss.

[Franz007 486]

7 hours ago, dbw1 said:

Respectfully, I disagree 100% with your assessment of the Toliss.

Yes me too. The Toliss ist one of the most appreciated planes for XP, even by real pilots. I guess he meant the Jardesign 320...

Edited March 28, 2020 by Franz007