Bruce Nicholson KMFR

As softrest says, Las Vegas is one of the least expensive metro markets in the United States, unless you go there with the intention of spending lots of money. Of all the cities I can fly to from my local airport non-stop, Las Vegas is the least expensive by far. An airport shuttle running from baggage claim 7 to the strip hotels is only $7 one way, a fraction of the cost of a taxi. Even Uber and Lyft save $10-$15 over taking a taxi. Restaurants and buffets compete aggressively with each other in Las Vegas. There are plenty of upscale, expensive restaurants in Las Vegas, but there are many many more economical ways to get very nice meals. The same with alcoholic beverages... way too many "specials" to even mention. To say someone must budget $1000 before getting off the plane is an overstatement, unless they are going specifically to spend that much money. I also have to question the use of "poaching" in Chuck's statement above. In the financial business world, where protection of client lists is vitally important, there are strict ethical rules for credentialed professionals on the use of client lists, especially when they leave a firm. If the individual is limited by a legal agreement or can't replicate the client list by using public domain information, then it is considered "poaching" and if reported, may result in severe financial penalties, as well as revocation of financial credentials. My understanding from the FSElite article is that Evan and Phil had a contract that expired immediate following the 2017 event with no restriction on competing in the same type of business.The emails by Evan and Phil cited by Chuck above occurred after the contracts expired. There are a limited number of FS vendors and it would be quite easy to develop a FlightSimCon vendor list by simply going to the internet and looking up FS vendors. It may even be possible to create a more extensive list than FlightSimCon had using this method. So how exactly is this considered "poaching?" Is it the right thing to do? That depends on many factors, especially if Even and Phil are considered friends, but none of the known ethical business definitions consider it poaching. I'm sorry Nicole trusted these contract employees, but perhaps that is a lesson learned the hard way. I wish Chuck & Nicole success in Dallas, but it appears to be an upstream swim with two organizers working in the same arena with such a limited audience. Perhaps it would be better to spread the conferences out a bit and make them semi-annual - one in the summer and one in the winter. Maybe agree not to hurt each other by saturating the conference space with conferences only weeks apart.

Brian, That is a nicely crafted statement and probably represents a fair number of FSX users. Time certainly will tell once we see what happens with future developments and technology. P3D is going to evolve and FSX won't. Certainly there will be users that stay with FSX, just as there are users currently on FS9. People will decide when to move on, and it's usually a large development that makes them move and invest the money. FS9 was holding its own with FSX until PMDG released the NGX and said no to FS9. An event like that will happen with P3D too and that will be the turning point. Cheers, Bruce

I for one am very grateful of earlier adopters that are out spending money on P3D2 and video cards, running through configurations and reporting what works and doesn't work. For those of us on the sidelines observing, you are the pioneers that will allow the rest of us to make informative decisions when the time comes to adopt P3D2.

The mid 90's?!?! Hey someone scammed me when I bought FS 1.0 in Oct 1981. Here I thought I was using a legitimate versions of the franchise for all those years before the 90's. Probably too late to get my money back... I bet that guy in the store that sold it to me is long gone by now.

^ +1 on not selecting the nVidia Chipset drivers Driver Sweeper also advises removing the drivers in safe mode after a reboot. It's probably not necessary after the uninstall and reboot, but it's best practice in case the O/S has a hold on the driver.

I thought I was reading Chicken Little there for a moment... The sky is falling!!!!! The sky is falling!!!

Well, no cockpit, so no screenshot... :Party:

I don't follow the logic... With your analogy, are you suggesting we forget about the fully grown fruit bearing tree we have today and go back to when that tree was just a seed? Then what? Wait for another fully grown tree to evolve, which is exactly where we were before we had to go back to the seed?

I read awhile back that P3D also improved the default landclass, as in no more worldwide deserts. Can anyone confirm? Not having to add 3rd party landclass to improve FSX would pay for several months of a subscription to P3D.

Why wouldn't Mark take the bet? He's playing with other people's money.... oh wait, the other bet hasn't been paid yet! Hang in there Mark, I'm sure it's coming next year... there must be a reason it's late... maybe a payroll deduction of $1 per weekly paycheck? :(

MS spends all that time improving the graphics and clouds, yet it still rains from above the clouds, coming from the clear blue sky?? Looks like that didn't get fixed from previous versions. :(

Bill, very nice reply as one needs to see things though another's eyes to understand. Additionally, it's quite easy now that the announcement has been made to play "Monday morning quarterback" and say it was so obvious, how did everyone miss it? Where was that post before the announcement, when people at were saying the same thing and getting hammered for being idiots and trolls?

I don't follow the logic??? If Flight doesn't have AI planes, ATC, navaids, fully operable control switches, weather, etc., how will monitoring our usage develop the apps we need? MS is simply going to see that we don't play with the fluffy stuff and fly VFR. How is that going to help develop all the things we want?The only way MS is going to know is by people telling them and voting with their wallets, not by using the silly thing!

Woohoo! :( The Sands repaint is up and available on in the library...Thanks Señor Picasso! :(

Wow Ed!Another superb HD video. I love that passenger view with the nose wheel shadow descending toward the concrete. That's the first I've seen in a FS video and so realistic.Looking forward to your next video project.Bruce