An apology

[dragonflightdesign 98]

Due to illness in the household (not COVID-19) I am currently unable to give my full attention to fixing the problems with the Clipper. It's a long way there, but not complete. I'll update this thread when I have better news.

Edited December 2, 2020 by dragonflightdesign

[qqwertz 772]

Hello Dragon,

thanks for the update. I am sorry to hear about the illness and hope that it will go away soon. Family always comes first.

Best Wishes,

Peter

[Jude Bradley 659]

Get well soon, and greetings from Ireland, Where I was born, I can see the Mourne Mountains. Lovely part of the country up there. 

 

[YoYo 374]

4 hours ago, dragonflightdesign said:

Due to illness in the household (not COVID-19) I am currently unable to give my full attention to fixing the problems with the Clipper. It's a long way there, but not complete. I'll update this thread when I have better news.

Dont rush, better to wait a little long but have more finished addon 🙂. Stay healthy!

[dragonflightdesign 98]

The current news is that I have found time to pick off most of the smaller, easy-to-fix bugs but I still haven't got to the gyropilot or the VC startup problem. The errant panel that sticks up over the cockpit at certain angles has been removed and I also found another mdl problem (r/h elevator main trim not moving) which has also been fixed.

You have no idea how much I appreciate your patience, especially as this is a commercial package.

My wife is recovering; thank you for all of your good wishes.

[FAC257 16]

I've been waiting and hoping this aircraft would eventually arrive, since the first time I saw the info on the Pilot's site. Waiting a little longer for the fine tuning is more than worth it. She's beautiful.

Thanks so much for sticking with the project, and all the best to your wife.  

Thanks again, Forest

 

 

[qqwertz 772]

I am glad to hear that your wife is getting better. Thanks again for fixing the Clipper, I fell in love with this plane because of your team's work.

Peter

[gaab 111]

Thanks for your progress report.

I was waiting for this bird since the very beginning of Pilot'S announcement.

I can wait as long as you gives us hope 🙂

Gérard

[TASCHMANN 200]

I, too am sorry for the illness in your family.

But with regard to "patience" I would offer several observations as to why mine is exausted:

1.  This plane has been advertised by you as "coming soon" for almost three years.

2. It is now available, conditioned upon the buyer purchasing another of your products first

3.  You are still selling this plane --in its present state--at a price that is usually asked for a product that is fully functional with plenty of extras included.

I'm glad you are still working on it, but do you feel it is right to continue to sell it under these circumstances and at this price before it is fully usable as outlined in the manual? 

Do you feel any obligation--at all-- to explain its present state of development on your website?

[IanFisher 10]

Hi Taschmann

I completely understand your point of view on this. I've also been voicing my thoughts since buying the product when it was released on day one. It's still not flyable but we now know why the fix's have been delayed. You have to understand that Dai may be one of the technical developers of the product but, and I may be wrong here, he was proberbly not responsible for publishing the aircraft in it's present state. I can not beleive anyone would knowingly publish the product with so many basic issues.

Please forgive me if I'm speaking out of turn but I think your perfectly valid questions and points should really be addressed to Stefan Schäfer, the MD of Pilot's Software and the man ultimately responsible. Dai is doing his best to sort out the issues, do give him time and I'm sure we'll all get to enjoy what I've no doubt will become a fine aircraft and a staple of many of our collections.

[TASCHMANN 200]

Hello Ian,

First of all, thank you for your honest  assessment of the state of this addon.  It was a great service to the community and probably saved a lot of people a lot of money.

I will do as you suggest and take the matters up with the MD.  This sort of business practice i.e., (among other things)

     -hiding the  price until the potential buyer commits to another product,

     -publishing screenshots and manuals for years on end  that bear very little relationship to the quality of the actual product  and

     -failure to disclose that what the buyer is actually getting  is an unusable beta version

are becoming far too common in this market.   Too often we find  that what we're actually being told is:

"Just pay your money now and we'll see what we can do about getting a functioning product to you in a few months or years"

As you have said, the owners of the companies need to be told that this is unacceptable, but the community itself needs to be apprised of the true state of the product.  Once again, I thank you for your help in letting us know what to expect.

 

[dragonflightdesign 98]

IanFisher is right: you do need to address your comments to Stefan. Some of what you say is valid and some of it isn't, but it's not my position to be drawn into that argument.

[TASCHMANN 200]

Hello Dai,

I'm not sure what you're suggesting.  Is it that Stefan is not aware of what he is doing or that you are not in contact with him so as to make him aware?

In any event, I will contact him.  But an unpublished email from me does not serve the purpose of this forum --which is to make the community aware of what they are getting and at what price. 

This is simply not the study level product that it is represented as being and charging a "study level" price will not make it so--especially when the basic functionality found in any model is still missing.

The over-arching point is that companies should finish their products first--then sell them--not the other way around.

 

 

[dragonflightdesign 98]

I don't disagree with your final comment, but this is not an ideal world. To the best of my knowledge, the only software product that has ever been finished and tested bug-free before being put into production was the Space Shuttle control system. It makes an interesting read: it took anything up to three days to trace through the possible consequences of changing a single line of code before that code was allowed to be written.

Anyway; this is a deep rabbit hole with no bottom. It is an argument that has been brought into the light many times in the past and will be again many times in the future. It has no satisfactory answer for any side of the parties entering into the debate, so at this point I am going to bow out from it and accept that you are extremely unhappy with the situation.

[Scorpio47 22]

On 12/16/2020 at 8:43 AM, TASCHMANN said:

failure to disclose that what the buyer is actually getting  is an unusable beta version

are becoming far too common in this market.   Too often we find  that what we're actually being told is:

"Just pay your money now and we'll see what we can do about getting a functioning product to you in a few months or years"

When I first saw this I had to think of the new Flight Simulation Game from Microsoft/Asobo.....

<wide grin>