How does burning fuel sat at the gate affect the Zero Fuel Weight?Can the ZFW be entered first so the FMC calculates GW?Mike

Great idea. Just entered ZFW in FMC and it calculated GW just fine. I will try to complete a flight later today using this method (just to make sure that it does not induce other issues). But it would appear to me at this time that its going to work just fine. However, as previously pointed out by Alan, the flight loads up with the aircraft fully loaded and topped up fully with fuel and you still must adjust payload and fuel prior to entering ZFW or GW into the FMC.--Bob

But it would appear to me at this time that its going to work just fine. However, as previously pointed out by Alan, the flight loads up with the aircraft fully loaded and topped up fully with fuel and you still must adjust payload and fuel prior to entering ZFW or GW into the FMC.--Bob

Does it come with a load manager or do you need to use the FSX standard dialogs for changing fuel and payload?

Does it come with a load manager or do you need to use the FSX standard dialogs for changing fuel and payload?

Ulf,You use the FSX standard dialogs there is no load manager.

Hi Terrence,Interesting to see some input from you. Needless to say I understand that any repaints people do for Ariane involve work, and of course it is up to Ariane themselves to set the price (or not) for how they choose to distribute said repaints, so my comment is certainly not a pop at the people who did the repaints, merely a comment on how I personally think that for such a price point, the base Ariane aircraft is a little on the mean side when it comes to liveries.As it comes, the B737-900ER I purchased has two liveries, the Boeing blue livery and the 'unpainted' scheme. The Boeing livery is okay, although there are one or two minor glitches on it I have noticed, notably where the texture maps join near the overwing emergency exit doors, in that the shading visibly changes and the maps are ever so slightly out of alignment, not a major problem and certainly not unique in payware aircraft territory, but nevertheless it is there.The unpainted livery is interesting, as they always are, because they let you see what the components on the plane are actually made of, I even made one of those myself once and put it up on Avsim's file library for the TTS Airbus A-320. Here is my attempt if anyone is curious:My freebie repaint is an interesting curiosity, as is the one you get with the Ariane bird, but the truth is that where Boeing 737s are concerned, the aircraft only ever makes one flight in that scheme, and that's when it flies from Renton to Boeing Field so that it can have its paint job done, so the value of that as a particularly usable paint scheme is questionable, leaving one with just the Boeing scheme with which to fly on simulated airliner flights, and I think that including a neutral plain white scheme with the base package would have been a nice touch, since presumably one could be easily created from a PSD file. The limited appeal of a bare livery as anything much more than a curiosity is highlighted by the fact that less than a thousand people have downloaded my own A320 repaint depicting that look, and that repaint has been freely available on Avsim since 2006.To some extent I can understand that Ariane's ethos is to treat the sale of their 737 in the manner that an airline would be treated in terms of seeing the thing unpainted and in the Boeing livery, and obviously after that stage it would get the airline's paint job. So whilst I like Ariane's notion of simulating the buying of the real thing in terms of livery painting, in practice one ends up with the latter stage of that real world emulation missing.On a more positive note, I'm finding that the Ariane Boeing 737 is fairly impressive so far, expecially on frame rates in FSX (somewhat bizarrely, it seems to run better the more you crank the graphics up, and I actually made a flight in it from Woodford in the UK, to Almeria in Spain last night with absolutely everything on full throttle in the FSX graphic options and everything cranked up to maximum on ATI Catalyst). It certainly flies very well too and the ground handling is particularly noteworthy for being good, with excellent simulation of the aircraft's inertia. But I'm still investigating the fidelity of stuff before getting to the writing stage, although I will say that it had no problems loading up all the waypoints on that flight and never said anything was not in the database. Both VNAV and LNAV worked fine as well, with me able to easily alter the flight plan via the CDU en-route, so again I'm puzzled by the complaints one hears about the nav data not being any good, as for that flight at least, it appeared faultless.Nevertheless, to reiterate the original point, what does not need investigating to understand, and is therefore something I am able to comment knowledgeably on at the moment, is the paucity of paint schemes for the price one pays when getting the base package. After all, even the default FS 737 gets a few different paint jobs, and there is practically no work involved in creating a plain white scheme if one has a layered PSD file, which incidentally, I did not have when making that A320 paint job LOLAl

Hello Al,

Let me introduce myself, while I mingle into the conversation and perhaps give other participants of this topic (bashers and rooters) in insight into the wonderful world of textures. We started the Ariane project about a year ago, at that time still a prospect, while we were in the midst of the E-Jet project. After a trial set and weeks of negotiating, we started working on the 800v3 (FS9) in October 2008, followed by the 800x2 (FSX) a couple of weeks later.

Boy, am I glad to see you on this thread! :( I am a big fan of McPhat Studios. You guys do an awesome job!

Before I continue (very important) :Signmanbob, somewhere in this topic I read you justifying Ariane's high price, cause they 'have to pay McPhat Studios'. Please, if you want to speak for Ariane, go ahead, but do not speak for us. 9 months into the project and we are literally bleeding money here. I will get back on this subject later on. Now, back to Alan.

First I want to say that I wasn't "justifying" Ariane's "high" price anywhere. I don't feel that, for the enjoyment I get from their sim, that their price is high at all. There is a huge amount of work that goes into building an aircraft that will operate realistically on a home PC and it really amazes me how cheap this hobby really is for as enjoyable and addicting it is. I don't spend anywhere near what I would spend if my hobby were hunting, fishing, golf, auto racing, reading (yes, books can be expensive), music, dating, Broadway plays, stamp collecting.....I didn't mean to be speaking for McPhat Studios, Terrence. I guess it supports the fact that, although I love Ariane's FSX 737s, I really do not know the inner workings of what goes on there. With the quality of your paints, you really should be driving a Ferrari. That's the truth. I can't get enough McPhat liveries for my Ariane, or other planes for that matter.At any rate, although I'm ignorant of any details, I assume it is a business relationship and not that you are making a bunch of freeware liveries for Ariane. That was really my point. People are so used to not paying for extra liveries, they just take for granted that when they buy a sim, it will come with all of the liveries included. Bob

Nothing has really changed with Ariane. From time to time, they seem to make the right noises but in practice, seem to do very little - hence the ongoing 'problems' reported by customers."You can take a horse to water - but you'll never make it drink."Toni.

Hello Toni,Which Ariane product do you own? I don't remember seeing you on the customer forums, yet you seem to know about "customer" problems that I'm not even aware of, yet I'm on their customer forums all of the time (because I am a customer).I was just curious how you getting all this first hand information that you freely spread.Bob

People are so used to not paying for extra liveries, they just take for granted that when they buy a sim, it will come with all of the liveries included.

The thing is, its common business practice for FS developers to include a paint kit and multiple liveries within the base pack. You CAN'T expect people NOT to complain about having to pay a good chunk of money for liveries that should be included in the main package. People will ALWAYS complain about this until it is changed. Especially because at the price of those paints, you can buy whole planes from other developers- some really really good ones too!Ariane should at least release a paint kit for people to make freeware paints and allow them to be uploaded at places like AVSIM.People aren't taking it for granted. It is expected, and more importantly, the norm to include multiple paints and a paint kit.

People aren't taking it for granted. It is expected, and more importantly, the norm to include multiple paints and a paint kit.

:( They're taking it for granted/It is expected...that's really the same thing and it is what I'm saying too.I'm not arguing that it would be great to have a ton of free McPhat liveries to go with Ariane's X2s, but...that ain't the way it is. But it's true, that would be a great perk! I'm sure there are reasons why they don't, but I'll sure buy the liveries that I want to use. To me, they're well worth it (McPhat does outstanding work), they're beautiful and I don't have any problem with it.Bob

To me, they're well worth it (McPhat does outstanding work), they're beautiful and I don't have any problem with it.

You are in a very small minority, then.

I don't know. I think most people really don't expect businesses to give away free things and are willing to buy the things that they want. Free liveries are a great perk, and I know it makes me smile when I see that they are available with a package, but it is an expense that honest businesses have to decide is worth it.I know where you're coming from though. I love to see free paints and because I'm not too bad with Photoshop, I would like to try my hand at making one sometime.Bob

I don't know. I think most people really don't expect businesses to give away free things and are willing to buy the things that they want. Free liveries are a great perk, and I know it makes me smile when I see that they are available with a package, but it is an expense that honest businesses have to decide is worth it.I know where you're coming from though. I love to see free paints and because I'm not too bad with Photoshop, I would like to try my hand at making one sometime.Bob

I wouldn't object too much, paying for additional HIGH quality paints. That is, providing the orriginal purchase price had been *reasonable*. IMO, considering the FMC is not complete, then I don't see how the current asking price could approach being reasonable. I'm not saying i'm right - just my thoughts.

I don't know. I think most people really don't expect businesses to give away free things and are willing to buy the things that they want. Free liveries are a great perk, and I know it makes me smile when I see that they are available with a package, but it is an expense that honest businesses have to decide is worth it.I know where you're coming from though. I love to see free paints and because I'm not too bad with Photoshop, I would like to try my hand at making one sometime.Bob

PSS didn't give away repaints. Didn't help them, though. But they provided paintkits for free and alowed users to upload repaints and distributed them for free.

I'll just add; the fact that I'm not a fan of having to pay for repaints doesn't make Ariane a bad company. Nobody forced me to buy it and Ariane didn't make any secret of the fact that those two paint jobs were all I was getting. So if Ariane want to work that way, and I'm prepared to hand over the cash, then good luck to them. I don't think it's a particularly smart business model myself, and I reckon they'd garner more sales by increasing the potential value of it if there were a lot of repaints freely available, but if they don't want to go that way, then that's their business and their choice, and of course my choice if I buy it.By the way, you'll be pleased to know that I've commenced writing the review for the Ariane 737-900ER, and believe me, it's going to be a looooong read; it's up to 2,650 words so far, and that's only the intro and a brief history of the 737 development up to the 900ER :(Al

Just more of my story here...I posted earlier in this thread how I had purchased the B739ER (FSX) product on December 22, 2007; activated it and flew it several times, then installed a new mobo at Christmas (3 days later), and was not able to get the product activated again (the original activation failed after the new mobo).At the time, I got very angry, and actually gave up after some nasty exchanges with Ariane people. Granted, it was the Holidays and people take time off, and I did hear that a wave of bad flu had gone through the place and Ed (the one that does the activation) was out- but I was so mad that I uninstalled it and vowed to never do business with them again.Jump forward to present day and this thread (longer already than many that introduce perf increases in FSX!). signmanbob encouraged me to attempt re-activation, so I wrote an e-mail to "Att Ed" at Ariane, attached the activation request string after installing into FSX again, and explained in the body of the e-mail who I was and what had occurred. It took the 48 hours, however I did get an apology from Ed on behalf of Ariane, and then an activation string that worked- with an offer of help if I had trouble. This activation arrived late yesterday, and I have not had much time to ty it out yet due to being at work today.However- my first look at the activated product (that is, in 16 months), is that it works very well. Like others here, I would like to try it further and report back here. However, the reply I received and seeing how the product performed when activated has all been a very positive experience. For anyone that does install the product but has not activated it, the activation not only enables gauges and systems, it also enables external visuals as well, including blended winglets and even dynamic wing movement ( wing tips "bounce" in turbulence just as in the real thing). The activated product is a whole different animal to the pre-activated version.Thanks to signmanbob for the help in getting this going, Bruce.

Quite disappointed I still can't use mine, guess I'm going to have to wait til Monday at earliest. Not a fan of this activation system. The plane itself is looking good though from what I've read about it so far in the manual.