I don't know why it takes so long to get them but I can guess...my thoughts on this are that I believe that they don't keep an inventory of them in stock. I believe when they get enough orders, they go to the printer and have around 250 or so printed at a time, then send those out and start stacking new orders.

There are plethoa "on-demand" publishers these days, possibly the best of which is Lulu: http://www.lulu.com/Anyone can have (nearly) anything printed, bound, and shipped at no upfront cost to the vendor. Ariane (or anyone else) simply sets up an account with them, supplies a link to the .pdf file(s), and Lulu does the rest. Since the vendor has full control over the files, updates are as simple as replacing the source file with the updated version. There's no wastage of pre-printed but now obsolete/outdated manuals! :( The "customer" purchases via Lulu at whatever "price" the vendor wishes. Lulu handles the entire transaction, then transmits the full amount to the vendor, less the "costs" that Lulu charges to print, bind and ship the product.The point being, that even after the "publishing costs" are deducted, the vendor winds up with MORE PROFIT from the transaction in the long run, since there are ZERO "inhouse" OVERHEAD COSTS to them! No support staff, no envelopes/boxes, no trips to the post office, no warehousing of pre-printed/bound manuals, et cetera.Best of all, there is extremely fast service for the customer! Lulu will typically process the order the same day (it's pretty much automated anyway), and ship the next day... :( In summary, on-demand publishing is a win-win for both the vendor and the customer! :(

quote "I'd also like to question Bob's claims that he receives FREE "one to one" level of support with his email penpals at Ariane!?"for info I can also make that claim, Ariane team is perfectly happy to have a one-to-one discussion with customers - there is no charge. Having read the pages and pages of anti-Ariane rubbish appearing in this thread you should be able to figure why a one-to-one is preferred. Honestly some of you guys need to wake up - you thing the other dev companies are in it for the good of the community - it's a business like any other.christ this crap is endless (not the 1st time he was mentioned in this thread), either you buy the Ariane or you don't, you like it or you don't. If they were your only bad expereince then you couldn't possibly be as supportive of the flight sim industry as many of you are making out. Hope alot of you are as good at simming as you are at shooting from the hip.john

Honestly some of you guys need to wake up - you thing the other dev companies are in it for the good of the community - it's a business like any other.

You seem to have missed the point. Yes, they are businesses but they conduct themselves differently than Ariane does. It is obvious by the reactions here that the vast majority of customers prefer other means of activation and support. Ariane will have to change if they want more customers.

I know it's not a good picture, but if that's what you get for

So whats with the tickets on their website that they want you to purchase?As I said before I'm actually very tempted to buy this aircraft, but I also plan on upgrading both my hard drives in the near future to something faster and bigger, and my graphics card at the same time, and I'll be doing a full re-install. I'm worried i'd have to pay to re-activate. There are contrasting reports on this issue, depending on who you are, some people are having their software re-activated for free, others are getting no response from making requests and have an expensive piece of useless software, and others are being asked to buy the re-activation ticket which is on their website for

Hi David,Victimization.....This has nothing to do with being a victim or not(where do you get that idea?) but more simply an observation of facts. Persecution? Enhancing a developers image? Why are you expressing thoughts such as these? A Moderator should moderate, not participate, were we to live in a perfect world. Bottom line is people attempt to give what is in their opinion an honest statement of facts and because there is not a logical response the poster is targeted. Go Figure. I honestly believe this is an excellent constantly evolving product. Some add on aircraft are released to the public, patched a few times and that is the end of their development and they still leave a lot to be desired. I own a few of these. Will I get the pmdg 737 when it comes out.....probably as I have always liked what they have built......but you can bet your boots, or sandals or whatever that it will not be cheap like some here want. If you want quality it will cost. Will I get another Ariane 737.....definitely. Bottom line - vote with your wallet.For me flight simming is a hobby, something to do for fun, a chance to experience aircraft types that it is unlikely I will get my hands on before I retire. When friends and past co-workers are kind enough to get me into their level D sims I get a chance to see just how good some of these add on aircraft are (or are not). And, once again, these are simply personal opinions.

I highlighted the portion that i had objection to. Would you had said the same thing if David praised it? NO!So what, he is a moderator, he also bought the product. He is a customer like anyone else and should be allowed to voice his opinion regardless if its good or bad. Yet you got to nerve to come on here and attack his moderation when clearly he has done a good job at keeping the civility in this thread!There is another moderator who bought X-Plane and gave his opinion, yet i see no one brought up any issues with his comments.And David keep on moderating bro, as this has been the only Ariane thread that lasted this long. You are doing a fine job regardless of the few vocal minority.

You seem to have missed the point. Yes, they are businesses but they conduct themselves differently than Ariane does. It is obvious by the reactions here that the vast majority of customers prefer other means of activation and support. Ariane will have to change if they want more customers.

Ariane's core business clearly targets an upper professional user group and not the "simmer" community - Ariane therefore conduct themselves accordingly - I have been shocked at the manner in which sim community customers conduct themselves. This sort of behaviour, what we often see on these forums (PMDG have had to remind members several times recently to remain civilised), along with piracy (driving Ariane to adopt specific procedures) are two things Ariane have zero tolerance for.If customers behave like Apes, and they do, they can expect to be treated like Apes.john

ironically this topic was full of honest questions and comments regarding issues, to which ariane supporters have quietly ignored and now disappeared altogether

That's how it appears to me. Since I left a series of questions at the bottom of page 3, I've flown 850 miles to Poland, had a week's vacation, and then flown back*. Six more pages of conversation in this thread, but I've learnt nothing more about the arcane art of inputting Gross Weight into the FMC.However, I have learnt that the Ariane Forum, which according to their website "has many technicians and support staff willing to answer questions in French, German, Spanish, Dutch and Italian" is in fact run by "The guy who admins that forum also goes to college full time and is working on his instrument license". Amazing how he fits in the time to learn all those languages as well.

Even so, I'm getting quite tempted to buy this now,

wilco81, you've really piqued my curiosity. Exactly what is there in the previous nine pages that tempts you to buy an Ariane 737?[* I went Jet2, in a 737. Must have missed the bit where the pilot pressed "Pause" in order to enter Gross Weight, but perhaps when time stands still you don't register anything at all, even those flashing red letters. :(]

If customers behave like Apes, and they do, they can expect to be treated like Apes.

That is a real good way to turn off customers. It is the company's duty to provide quality support to paying customers regardless how they act. We recently had a discussion about this on another forum.

As I said before I'm actually very tempted to buy this aircraft, but I also plan on upgrading both my hard drives in the near future to something faster and bigger, and my graphics card at the same time, and I'll be doing a full re-install. I'm worried i'd have to pay to re-activate. There are contrasting reports on this issue, depending on who you are, some people are having their software re-activated for free, others are getting no response from making requests and have an expensive piece of useless software, and others are being asked to buy the re-activation ticket which is on their website for

Nothing from a support point of view has persuaded lol but I'm a sucker for add ons and i REALLY want a 737-800 with FMC etc, I keep half filling in the purchase form then worrying about re-activation problems with it (cos I really do change things/upgrade/format a lot) and then I think no I'll wait for the PMDG offering, but I'm curious about it. Maybe I should just hang on for the AVSIM review and see what the real problems, if any, are.

This is an anti-piracy issue - it is made clear - their approach is very reasonable - it's not a money maker, they are not trying to rip you off - if you have a genuine reason to have need to re-activate they will do this free of charge. They used some examples which would be seen as suspicious - for example someone needing to reactivate for 10th time because they are on their 10th motherboard in the space of a month. There is evidence on the forums that re-activation is quite a smooth process.also don't confuse re-activation with re-installation - which if necessary you can do as often as you like.This initially scared me off but when all the criticism just didn't add up, and having read a french language avionics review on ariane I went for it. Apart from the fact that the SIDS/STARS are not all there this is a great add-on. I had only an issue with sounds which was easilty corrected by renaming a directory and the rest is just learning how to fly the aircraft correctly.I'm convinced at least one other developer in particular is loving the anti-Ariane bandwagon - perhaps that same developer has some pull in the avsim circles.Don't forget guys competition is healthy, the more Ariane's success is recognised the better will be the competitor's 737NG - thing about that - your only shooting yourselves in the foot.john

Why bring this crap in this forum? We all know the developer you are referring to! They have never berated ariane or any other developer yet ariane constantly in the past attacked them on their own site. How about addressing that! As far as anti-ariane from the developer why should they? They are currently the best addon aircraft company out there. So i see no reason they would attack another developer. Hell they gave praise to Airsimmer for there airbus a320, even though they will probably be doing one of their own.

If there weren't complaints about gauge refresh rate, a low resolution VC, and missing navdata, the 738 would be in my hangar. Guaranteed.

That is a real good way to turn off customers. It is the company's duty to provide quality support to paying customers regardless how they act. We recently had a discussion about this on another forum.

yes clearly it's a turn off, but I don't agree it's their duty - I really believe it is two way, especially when sim development is never perfect and iterative to a large extent (the idea of a service pack, updates, corrections is the way of all devs) - I saw on the flight1 forum (as an example) as soon as the Mustang was released before x-mas, before there was barely time to have flown the aircraft to get to know it, there were abusive comments left right and centre. We all know when we buy an add-on we are not buying a finished article - unlike buying a vehicle, it is incomplete - either intentionionally (simplified) or unknowingly (bugs). So you know what you are getting into. If you buy early you become a tester, if you buy late you spend as much time fiddling before realising you missed updates, or hot fixes, or workaround or whatever (even after only a few days after release there is already a long history to catch up on). Why are we always peed off and frustrated when it's not 100% representative or not working according to spec? It never is and never will be - so why the agression and abuse towards the developer ?john

Why bring this crap in this forum? We all know the developer you are referring to! They have never berated ariane or any other developer yet ariane constantly in the past attacked them on their own site. How about addressing that! As far as anti-ariane from the developer why should they? They are currently the best addon aircraft company out there. So i see no reason they would attack another developer. Hell they gave praise to Airsimmer for there airbus a320, even though they will probably be doing one of their own.

you have just proven my point - they have absolutely no need to attack Ariane - they have you to do it for them.john

If there weren't complaints about gauge refresh rate, a low resolution VC, and missing navdata, the 738 would be in my hangar. Guaranteed.

yes the missing navdata does annoy me I have to admit, but they are working on a navdata manager, I wish they would hurry up with it, it has been delayed as said before, and I also understand that navigraph are also on the case, but not sure if the ariane navdata manager is slowing the progress on that.the vc is not low res, of this I can assure you.I can't say I noticed a refresh issue but I will pay attention to it next time I fly her - hopefully this weekend if this thread runs out of steam - however unlikely that isjohn.