Been absent from this forum for a bit, but interesting to catch up. Had another go with the Ariane on my friends system, and I still stand by what I said before. Its not worth its price, some have raved about the VC, but in my opinion its rather naff, although its nice to see the number of 3d knobs/switches is high, especially on the overhead, they are rather poor in their detail, they look out of proportion, some of the MCP knobs look far too long, almost like they'd poke your eye out! The LevelD which is far older cockpit and somewhat more steam driven, is far better. Although the overhead lacks some of the 3d buttons that the Ariane has. If you run this on a TH2Go it looks even worse.I do like the external model, and the addon features for controlling things like steps etc. I must say I think this is where the Ariane model excels. But to me the core lacking problem is the FMC. To me what sets the more proffesional arcraft on the market from the the default MS stuff is the modeling of this. and how it intergrates with the rest of the sim. After all in these modern aircraft everthing else really is just eye candy.When it comes to flying it, its the systems that make it a worthwhile purchase otherwise you might as well just buy a cheaper, yet visually more appealing PA28 or something. The FMC is incomplete. is bugged, and misses some of the crucial features to actually set this out from the crowd, especially with its very overpriced price tag.Having seen the VC of PMDG new JS41, then I think that buying this Ariane is totally not worth bothering with. if you that desperate to fly a 737 before the PMDG offering comes out I'd save some money and get wilco. or use the default one with a addon FMC. Or just settle for flying the LevelD 767 or PMDG queen or MD11.Maybe if Airane release there patch/upgrade for the sim soon then it may become a slightly better option, but again the VC, lack of hardware support. etc and what will now be an even more expensive purchase having to pay for the patch also. will make it still a struggle to justify it. when the PMDG is said to have an SDK for it. for hardware support, more than likely a far better VC based on images of the JS41, a load manager. and probably a similar or cheaper price tag!The 767 is more than suitable to still do short ops into smaller airports, is a far better sim, even though older than airane and is far cheaper. My money will be going on the PMDG 737 and the LevelD 757. Maybe by then Airane will have release something else. that is better and worth the money, but more likely again I'll be buying a A320 from airsimmer. All of which wont take days to get activated!RegardsJames

I've replaced it with my Maddog 2008 Pro for the short/medium hauls. It may "only" be an FSX port, but I think the Maddog is far superior :(

Like with everything else in both life and simming, if something aint doing it for you and you can find something else that does, then that is a wise decisionAl

I cannot figure out from this thread if this product is good or if this company is reputable.

Well that's why I wanted to do a review LOL But, here's a quick and dirty version:It has good points and bad points. The FMC is not fully functional but a fix is in the works, however it will still not have everything a real 737 NG FMC has when it has been fixed, so if that's what you want it's probably not for you, but it is far more functional than a typical 'lite' FMC, so you would have to know the aircraft pretty well to spot what is missing, and you do still have to know FMCs properly to get the best out of it (The manual helps a lot). It's pretty (that's one thing almost everyone agrees on, courtesy of well optimised DDS mip mapped textures), but you don't get much in the way of paint jobs in the initial package. It's good on frame rates in FSX (a big plus), the virtual cockpit is good looking and very usable even when bouncing around in FSX with Track-IR(another plus). There are features on it that no other add-on has which allow you to simulate more than simply the cockpit environment, but I imagine many would prefer more FMC functionality than that (mostly) less cockpit-oriented stuff. Sound environment is excellent and immersive, probably the best there is, making for a believable cockpit experience in combination with switch usability. Lighting on the model and in the cockpit blows the competition away and features things other add-ons don't have. Flight model is lovely and very convincing when hand flying, it taxies more believably than any other add-on too, with very good emulation of weight and inertia. It is going to get a database editing tool which promises to be quite impressive and innovative (not free though apparently, and not to be confused with the upcoming patch, which will be free). Manuals are good and have good tutorials. It's expensive, and repaints are not free (not that they make any secret of that, but it is as well to be aware of it - 20 quid for a set of ten airlines, but nice looking and with CFG customisation too). Some people have support issues, others seem to not have many problems and in my experience it does appear to be improving although you might find people that don't share that opinion. The forum is useful and friendly (although if you are from Avsim expect to be treated with suspicion, at least initially anyway) and you can't access it unless you are already a customer. It's expensive - I know I already said that, but it is worth saying twice, because if you want my opinion, even though I like it (yes I'm not entirely sure why that is either, probably the VC, which is one of the most usable and believable I've seen, and the inertia simulation which is also impressive), I think it should be about twenty quid cheaper than it is. Conclusion: Not quite up there with the very best in terms of functionality, but not far off it and largely redeemed by other nice features which make it pleasant to drive around in, some of which you have never seen in other cockpits, although justifying the price will come down to personal opinions in that regard. If you can stand what may be a two day wait for activation, and all that hasn't changed your mind, you'll probably like it.Al

Actually, as a hardcore virtual flier used to the LDS 767 and PMDG 744/MD-11 pedigree, you have already answered my question: for the 737 I will await the PMDG version.Thanx Al!

Actually, as a hardcore virtual flier used to the LDS 767 and PMDG 744/MD-11 pedigree, you have already answered my question: for the 737 I will await the PMDG version.Thanx Al!

Mowercorrect answer! lolIn my opinion the VC is average, being only better than some others because it has more 3d buttons, but the drawing of these buttons is rather crude, take a look at some of the screen shots of the throttles and compare them to other sims such as the much older leveld. the ariane looks like the lego version! Hexagon shaped knobs etc.The functionality of the FMC, navadata and its interface with the sim, is what is core to whether this is actually a worthwhile purchase, at the end of the day its what would make this a commercial addon that simulates flying a 737, other than just some fancy looking addon with nice eye candy, eye candy just makes it more immersive. When you are zooming around the world, with online ATC, having to change your star or sid, or approach because the weather has changed since your initial plan, or are given a rerouting, or level by restriction. Then having pitot cover flags waving in the wind are not much use. This is where this sim fails, its basically a nice looking aircraft, with some nice unique eye candy features, but fails miserably when it comes to the core parts that would take this from being a cool addon to a proper sim to compete with the PMDG and LevelD experience.The Patch and the Navadata update will bring it up to a decent level, but by then we may have a PMDG 737, or even LevelD 757 that will then make the VC in this sim look so Lego it will become once again not worth it(take a look at the js41 VC to see what we can expect in the PMDG737), especially as Al as pointed out its already expensive, and the Update will cost you more. So you'll be pretty much paying double the money to get a sim then that will be about as functional as the old pmdg 737 for FS9 is, and looking around about as good.The Ariane at present doesnt support any addon hardware, although rumour says that they are working on drivers to support this, again at a charge. But again this is the old way to go, PMDG have even realised this, their new 737 will adopt the LevelD idea, and come with a SDK so that hardware of all types can be made to interface with the sim, not have to wait for buggy, expensive drivers that only work with one type of hardware.Al mentions in some places of his quick and dirty review, that it "Blows the competion away" I feel they are a bit too strong a description, yes in some areas it does have features(eye candy) that the other sims dont have, but then if this was a PA28 then eye candy would be more what we are looking for. Blowing the competition away I wouldnt say it really does anywhere, it just as some things that the "older" sims dont have, but they have far more that this sim doesnt. Load manager? auto loading of fuel like the LevelD? Its a shame that the Patch/upgrade arent out, and as Al points out the sim isnt 20pounds cheaper (and the patch and upgrade free) then it be a worthwhile purchase to tide you over while waiting for the PMDG and LevelD, but neither are the case. so the wait for the others in my opinion are worth it, because really even if they dropped the price by 20 pounds now, it still wouldnt be worth it until its patched and upgraded. And this again is real just because of how I use FS, but it still wouldnt come in my hangar, as it has no Hardware support, but I understand that isnt everyones main need for those happy with their mouse!RegardsJames

Just thought you might like to know, this review has been submittd to Avsim's Reviews Editor, so there you go. Phew! Over 20,000 words and a lot of pics too; warm up your reading glasses!Al

Hi Al,I'll look forward to reading your review. 20,000 words is quite a production and I can only imagine the research you have done.For the record I am one who is quite happy with the Ariane 737-800 V2 in all respects.....product, customer support, the forum etc. One thing I do like is that it is a constantly evolving product and for me cost really isn't an issue though I can appreciate for others it may be. I still get an great deal of enjoyment every time I fire it up and that is what our hobby is all about.

Hey Al,I'm pretty interested in reading your review as well, especially considering the mind numbing experience I had recently on thier forums.Fortunately and unfortunately I gave my word that I would keep my experience to myself and on thier forums, although, I'm no longer allowed on the Ariane forums anymore and it seems all my posts have been edited by one of the companies employees.JB

Hey Al,I'm pretty interested in reading your review as well, especially considering the mind numbing experience I had recently on thier forums.Fortunately and unfortunately I gave my word that I would keep my experience to myself and on thier forums, although, I'm no longer allowed on the Ariane forums anymore and it seems all my posts have been edited by one of the companies employees.JB

The mind boggles - what did they do to you to numb your mind and make you promise not to tell anyone else about it (apart from hinting about it on an AVSIM forum B)). Did they use "Vulcan mind control"? Waterboarding? Or was it a "honey trap" set by the elusive and mysterious "India Knight"? :( :( :( And when you were still numb, was she the employee who then sneaked onto your laptop and edited all your posts?C'mon, you can't leave us in suspense like that! You've given us the "sizzle", now let's have the sausage!

The mind boggles - what did they do to you to numb your mind and make you promise not to tell anyone else about it (apart from hinting about it on an AVSIM forum B)). Did they use "Vulcan mind control"? Waterboarding? Or was it a "honey trap" set by the elusive and mysterious "India Knight"? :( :( :( And when you were still numb, was she the employee who then sneaked onto your laptop and edited all your posts?C'mon, you can't leave us in suspense like that! You've given us the "sizzle", now let's have the sausage!

All very Humerous Petra... There were no Treki Mind tricks or Jedi shoulder pinches. I gave my word when I had thier trust, but they ruined it after removing factual information in regards to the Unsimilarities of the Real Aircraft to thier, "Officially liscensed Boeing Product". All the edits were done in such a way to discredit my statements proving that Ariane really has no idea what they are talking about. There basis for removing certain paragraphs in my posts and editing my own words, were in there minds, to protect Ariane from litigation due to the fact that I had posted links to copyrighted official Boeing Manuals, when in fact I had posted a link to the official Flight Crew Training Manual for the 737 series. (Which you can find easily through public free document sharing sites on the web). I know it doesn't make it legal, but I will be making an attempt today to confirm that I have not violated any copyright laws. I had also posted info on the features and updates from the latest FMC versions (which by the way are the FMC versions Ariane is simulating) of the real aircraft that were published as a PUBLIC INTERNET PRESS RELEASES. Ariane states that these are also sensative material and they took it upon themselves to remove those posts as well. After all this happened, I decided I had enough and made a post that I can say, was harsh, but nevertheless, was truley how I felt. The result was I got banned from thier support forums. After being banned, I got numerous emails from Ariane asking me to comply with thier request to no longer link to sensitive Boeing material as they wouldn't want to ###### off anyone from the Boeing company who regularly visit thier forums.. LOL. Along with that request, they asked if "We" (meaning ariane and myself) can start from scratch and continue moving foreward in a positive note in continued development on thier product. They asked me if I would be willing to write, or read "White Papers" for them to help explain the functions of VNAV intended in thier product. To be honest, all my efforts in the research that led to the links and documents that got banned were the, "White Papers" that they were looking for. I guess official documents from the Boeing site are not specific enough for thier, "Officially Liscenced" Boeing product. In those emails that I recieved post getting banned, I was requested to be around on Sunday around 2000 Zulu so that Ariane and I could sit down over coffee and have proffessional conversation on how to move foreward with this. My reply to them included my cell number and two requests. One, that if they are interested, to please contact me via voice, either skype or my cell, two.. that to please remove all of my posts from thier forum and we can start from scratch, allowing bygones to be bygones. Sunday passed with no phone call nor an email, and to my knowledge my posts are still on thier website, but edited down to include only the portions of my posts that put thier product in good light, with the parts that contradict thier own, "Official" words from thier "Official Boeing Instructor" edited out for thier own benefit.Ohh man I could go on and on, but I'm gonna stop.My conclusion of the product and this is a fair one...1. The 800X2 is a very nice aircraft to hand fly. It has some really nice textures from McPhat, the mesh quality is top notch and it has some original features that other addons don't have, but, it is NOT A ADDON THAT IS ANYWHERE CLOSE TO A 737 SYSTEMS TRAINING DEVICE as implied carefully on thier website. It is missing numerous key functions to allow it to be looked at as so and definately not worth anything above 50 USD in my humble oppinion.I am still waiting patiently to recieve this so called coffee email meeting from Ariane, so far nothing and this is after 3 emails sent to him on Sunday.Unfortunately, by banning me from thier forums, they have forced me to get support and voice my oppinions about thier product elsewhere. I am sure we will soon see some of the Ariane folk in disguise replying to this post in..... 3....2... 1....... LOL you get my point.Ohh... an edited addon.. LOLAriane claims they are working hard at bringing this product to maturity. I'm sure they are since when the PMDG NG comes out will probably put the hammer down on anymore sales for the Ariane 73 addon.This part in bold cracks me up. "Proffesional Operators" of what? You surely don't mean professional pilots or part 121 companies that are currently flying the 73, or for that matter, professional pilots looking to use this addon as a systems training simulator to prep for a type rating. This is from Ariane's website on the home page regarding the 800X2.A brand new version of the Boeing 737-800 in the X2 Series for FSX has been rolled out. The new 800 Series version offers 4 FSX aircraft in the one package with a complex FMC (over 40 featured systems) and a full-featured FMS for professional operators. As well as a very highly-modeled and detailed flight deck, the package also features complete galley management with locking doors; operable airstairs, multiple lighting and a set of flight attendant announcements (with the option to play music while taxiing and taking off and a new AI that recognises lighting levels). The Base Pack features two optional engine sound sets + over 1500 sound assignments for every switch and systemHave a good un...JB

I read Buzz313th's comments on the Ariane forum before they were edited by Ariane Ed, I actually managed to download the manuals before the links were removed, thanks Buzz.His comments were very fair, came across to me as trying to help improve the product, for all of us. I guess they don't like current downfalls of their product being publicised, perhaps they like to believe its already perfect and the excessive price we paid doesn't justify us having a product that works as advertised.

Buzz makes a fair point here in his appraisal of the Ariane 737. It does indeed fly very well, that's a major stong point of it in fact, and there are indeed several of those. But as he also points out, I would take the notion from Ariane that it is akin to some sort of Level-D trainer as rather over-zealous marketing blurb rather than an accurate factual description of what it can do.But, neither would I take that copy as a deliberate attempt to mislead anyone, because they are certainly not the only sim add-on maker to talk up their own product, and it is only natural that any maker is going to do that to some extent with their advertising, (after all, they do want to sell the thing). But if you are considering the Ariane 737, and to be fair it certainly is worthy of consideration if you can take the price, just regard some of the more extravagent claims about its fidelity to the real thing in terms of systems, with a pinch of sensibly-administered salt. Which is something you should do with all PC flight sim stuff, and of course was one of the reasons I wanted to review it.This is in fact also one of the reasons why I personally think that Ariane do not help themselves by remaining insular. They have a pretty good product. Sure it doesn't do everything a real 737 does, but that doesn't make it unworthy of attention or open to vast criticism any more than any other FS add-on which misses features. And lets be honest, all of them do in some way or another. Much of what Ariane do is because they take a different approach to the priorities of simmers rather than because they deliberately miss out stuff, and I think that's an approach that, whilst different, is worthy of some merit. But the secretive approach to marketing opens them up to criticism and makes people unduly suspicious of their product, and I think they'd do well to consider changing that, because I think it would help them sell more stuff.If Ariane do indeed have a licensing agreement with Boeing - and I'm sure they probably do if they are using the Boeing logo on the thing - then they would indeed have to be careful about associating themselves with official literature from Boeing that should not really be doing the rounds, which like the official stuff from most other airliner companies, is not generally meant to be circulated with no limitations. To relate to that, I could get just one Boeing picture cleared for use on my Avsim review of the Ariane 737, and I had to source pics of the real thing from other places to ensure copyright and reproduction was not an issue (which is another 'fun' aspect of reviewing), because Boeing, like every other company, are somewhat protective of their corporate identity. You can discover that for yourself if you like; go to the Boeing website and you'll find they will happily let you download wallpapers and various pics etc, but they are only for personal use and cannot be distributed, nor reproduced online, or linked to, without a further licensing agreement of some sort.So whether literature of that kind is widely available or not is less the issue than whether it is legally available to be distributed free of all restrictions, after all, the Ariane 737 for FS9 is widely available as a hacked torrent for free, but that doesn't make it right, and you become culpable when using anything originated in that way. So I can at least understand Ariane being a bit wary of things like that when you consider how much it would affect them if their Boeing licensing agreement were to be terminated. It may not be the reason they did what they did, but then again it may be.That is not to say I would condone all that has occurred with Buzz on the Ariane forum, and one would hope they reverse the decision, but you do nevertheless have to look at things from their point of view too in order to make a fair judgement on things like that.Anyway, I hope you can patch up your differences with them Buzz, because I certainly was interested in your views and comments. Al

@ Wilco...Thanks for giving my post some credit. I appreciate that.@ Al..I agree with you that I was putting all those concerned at possible jeopardy, so that is why I am further researching some more avenues to make sure that what I did was not in any way harmfull to Ariane. JB