otterspotter

Thank you, Reader, for the link. I searched this forum for posts involving Simmarket but failed to expand my search. It's comforting to know there was nothing nefarious about the license being withdrawn. It would have been nice if they had notified customers about it, either via e-mail or a note on the order.

I've been a customer of Simmarket's for almost 23 years. Save for an occasional challenge with available payment methods (their stand-off with PayPal a few years ago), I haven't had any issues with my purchases or gifts (I have bought and got 275 items from them over the 23 years). Until this week. Back in July 2022, I got the P3D rendition of FSCGAA's FVRG model for free, in one order with a product I did pay for. I hadn't had issues with downloading and installing freebies I got from Simmarket before, so I was surprised when I got an error while trying to register my installation of FVRG this week, telling me to contact support. Checking my orders on Simmarket, I could not find the FVRG freebie anymore. I created a ticket and provided my proof of purchase (or gift, in the case of FVRG), the e-mail from Simmarket, clearly showing 2 items as part of the order. Their first response was that I was likely mistaken and the item I was inquiring about must have been purchased in some other way. I pointed to the e-mail again. Their second response was that they had no record of a license for this product (issued to me) and that it "may have been issued by mistake originally." I guess I should be glad they admitted to their mistake, right? I initially was afraid that a similar fate may have befallen other products got from them from free, but fortunately the ones I was able to check were still listed in my order history. I'm not going to fight them on this, that was a freebie after all, but it made me concerned that in the future their record of purchase and a license key issued to me for a product I did pay for may conveniently disappear from their records. I have my e-mails, both direct from Simmarket as well as PayPal, but apparently they're no match for Simmarket's record keeping. This unpleasant experience aside, it brings a much bigger question about digital purchases and I'm curious about other folks' experiences in this area. How can you prove to a seller that you were issued a license for a digital product when all you got is e-mails and they claim to have no record of the purchase or gift on their end?

Having fond memories of the PMDG MD-11 in FSX, I bought the TFDi version for my P3D 4.5 recently, hoping for at least the level of quality of their 717, which is a fine model that I still enjoy a lot. I'm not sure what version 1.1 holds, but having done a single flight with version 1.0.78 in P3D 4.5 (latest stable version as of 10JUL25), I don't see myself going back for the following reasons: Save states linked to saved flights on long haul aircraft are a must to me. The TFDi MD-11 allows you load a saved state through its EFB but if you save mid flight and then try to load the saved flight in P3D, the aircraft will load in the default cold and dark state with gear out and plunging down a few thousand feet while you fumble with the EFB to load the last saved flight state, regain control and right up the ship, and then regain the lost altitude and get back on course. Huge immersion breaker, though the state does eventually get loaded fine. With long haul aircraft I also need to be able to accelerate time or skip to a waypoint along the programmed route. The latter is not available on the TFDi MD-11 and the highest time acceleration you will be able to achieve is x4. The autopilot is incapable of handling anything higher: the pitch oscillation will increase and get out of control (this is with Active Sky weather but quite mild conditions that aircraft from other developers have no issue handling at x16 or x32 acceleration). The P3D version doesn't have wing flex and apparently it will not be added. I can excuse the lack of wing flex on FSLabs A320 but it's way too pronounced on the MD-11 to not have it. The aircraft simply doesn't look good/believable in the air without it. I wish I had known this before the purchase. I had no performance issues on my 6-year old PC other than having to disable TFDi contrail effects due to the huge frame loss in P3D above 20K feet, the SimBrief integration in the EFB is quite decent (you can load your flight plan, fuel, and payload; no performance calculation within the EFB but you can get somewhat decent numbers in SimBrief), and the autopilot has handled the lateral and vertical profile of the flight quite well (KDFW-KORD: AKUNA9 MLC SGF WELTS TRTLL6). I could live without PW-engined variants, weak sounds, and narrow selection of liveries (10 for the pax variant, 6 for the freighter), but the first 3 issues are deal breakers for me.

It'd be a shame to let such a great thread wither away. Coming in to land at KEWR (MJC8 Q400's second tutorial). South of Rochester: Cayuga Lake: Ithaca: Manhattan skyline coming into view beneath clouds:

Cool stuff.

Very nice shots!

Cool shots. Beautiful bird.

One of the most photogenic planes in the world. Great shot, very interesting livery.

Very atmospheric shots, nicely composed. Thanks.

As mentioned, some really neat angles there.

Cool grabs! It is a very handsome airplane.

Some great shots there.

Wow, that's quite a hijack... Cool kiwi 195 paint, though.

Wow, some stunning images.

"Like a flea, but wow!" Another excellent release from Flight Replicas: Messerschmitt Me-163B Komet. Comes with both powered and towable versions, special trolley jettison sequence, Bf-110G tow plane, a low-poly formation of 162 B-17G Flying Fortresses to make passes at, and aerodynamics by Bernt Stolle. It's great fun to rocket upwards at 19,680 ft/min (100 m/sec) and then glide down back to Earth.

Cool pictorial, as always.

Thanks for posting. Your shots made me realize exactly why I didn't buy NCA: the "more-or-less" correct autogen may make sense in areas you're not intimately familiar with, but the illusion falls apart if you happen to fly over a place you actually live in and you have flown over a number of times. The 3rd shot is the case in point: yes, Lake El Estero is there, yes, the Municipal Beach and Wharf are there, yes, the parking lot by the marina is there. However, El Estero Park around and to the south of the lake doesn't have any commercially looking buildings and its southern part by Fremont St. (right behind the plane's tail) is actually 3 cemeteries. And right across the street (Del Monte Ave) from the big parking lot you have what looks like a big shopping center, which isn't there in reality, unless you want to consider Monterey Sports Center and Jack's Park (the baseball park and tennis courts right across the Franklin Street, which is missing too) a shopping center. That's why I think I'm going to stick to photoreal scenery in my neighborhood. Though I have no issue using ORBx sceneries in areas I'm not too familiar with, like PNW or Southern Alaska... Beautiful plane though.

Awesome plane, cool paint job.

I'm not a big fan of edits, but these are awesome!

Gorgeous!

Great shots of a cool bird. Too bad the livery is porked...

Cool shots!

Great shots and repaint.

Great shots, lovely scenery.

Beautiful shots.