Groovy_Kincaid

That’s a pretty narrow-minded way of looking at things. Firstly, nobody knows what Microsoft’s or Asobo’s long term plans are. I believe they stated a 10 year plan or something like that. A lot can happen between now and then. Someone or a consortium could buy the software and related servers from them and continue to run it on a reduced capacity or reduced support. I recall 10 years or so ago, in this very same forum, people were having the exact same(ish) discussion about P3D. People hesitant about having to repurchase their aircraft or sceneries because at the time, they were skeptical of LM’s long term plans and if LM would cut off the simming community and leave people with worthless addons. Here we are, 5 versions later. 10 years from now, there will most likely be something newer and shinier and this type of discussion will continue to be had.

My wife recently purchased a Rad Cargo Wagon 4. She loves it. She took one for a test ride earlier. She uses it because she needs knee replacement surgery and is now experiencing hip problems. Just some advice, eBikes can achieve relatively high speed. I use a MeBike, 100% powered by me. My average speed on a flat surface is 28-31 km/h. My bikes are pretty much all carbon and I have eBikes pass me with some ease. I would highly recommend investing in a decent helmet. Either a lite motorcycle/scooter helmet or at the very least, a cycling helmet that uses MIPs system. Also, maybe purchase a very loud, high frequency bell, I find most pedestrians are clueless, especially when sharing a thoroughfare with them. Enjoy!

Components as well. I want to upgrade one of my current bikes to a Di2, but Shimano is withholding all group sets for new builds only. Servicing is becoming a bit of a joke as well. I can do basic mechanics but I leave the more complicated stuff to the pros. I have a reservation for Feb 10th that I made January 15. I used to be able to walk in without reservations and tip them with a case of beer, but those days are long gone.

It’s not just electronics. My other hobby is cycling. I just ordered a bike from Europe. What should have been 6-8 weeks is now 7-8 months. Smart trainers have high demand due to pandemic and are another highly sought after item. There are worldwide shortages and I am told mine is arriving in March.

I sort of remember something about this. I think it has something to do with 64 bit OS. I had the same problem years ago and can’t think of what the fix was. Maybe try searching Wilco and 64 bit. I wish I could help you more.

No, perhaps I will. I just thought that someone here could offer advice.

Hi there, I am running into a bit of difficulty. I purchased Aerosoft’s PFPX over the summer as a impulsive purchase. I do enjoy using it. My problem is flight planning with iFly’s 737/747. I have figured out that iFly’s flight plan files are in what appears to be in a specific format different from FS2004’s native format. So, if I start a flight, I try to load the flight plan in the FMC, I get a message saying there is no flight plan or the FMC doesn’t recognize it or something to that effect. Bottom line is I cannot load a flight plan. When in PFPX, I create a flight using the iFly aircraft template, create a flight plan and when I export the route, the route is saved in the native FS2004 format and NOT in the iFly format. What this forces me to do is to enter the route manually into the FMC. With relatively short flights, I have no issue doing this but once I get into a 747 and do a long haul, then this does take quite a bit of time and effort. I have searched high and low around the internet, my executive assistant, Ms. Google cannot point me to an definitive answer. Is there anyone here that uses the same product combination and had success in exporting PFPX flight plans into the iFly format? How did you do it? Thanks in advance.

Excellent movie, and as many have said, it cannot be made today. Mel Brooks is a genius. Cleavon Little should have won an Oscar for his role. “Badges? We don’t need no stinkin’ badges.”

I wouldn’t take this as being a troll. Your opinion is valid and I respect that. However, my opinion is that if one is going release a scenery package, please make every attempt to make it as accurate as possible and as up to date as possible. I realize when something is released, it is out of date. My point is that this is not Vancouver of the last 10 years. Most planes will fly over the area that I mentioned in my previous post as a part of the STARS. But, as you said, one takes off and lands at the airport, some 10 or so km away from that area. The outlet mall east of RWY 26 R is also missing in the photos that I am looking at.

The picture of the downtown area is fairly inaccurate. This looks like Vancouver 10 years prior to the Olympics. There are several residential towers missing and the area of Olympic Village hasn’t been warehouses in about 18 years. Pretty disappointing.

Here’s to hoping sunshine! However, I did notice that you cropped out the beginning of my quote where I said “In general...”. So, I think you were making a whole lot of nothing about nothing. I did not disparage P3D once. How many times has a new platform been announced and the typical forum responses are similar to “If it isn’t this, doesn’t support that, or allow this, I am not in”. That’s the typical resistance that I was referring to. Personally, I don’t care what you do (general population and directed at you personally) or what platform you use. As stated, I am still on FS9. And I don’t care what people think. My other hobby is cycling and I have quite a bit invested in that with several bikes. Some of those performance tires and wheels ain’t cheap. Nothing beats getting up at 6 AM and hitting the road for 5 hours. I remember the days of FSX vs. FS9. The crew from the FSX forums would come over to the FS9 forums and tell us what they thought and how old FS9 was. Really, was there a 3 year gap or something? Anyway, I digress, in summation, I was speaking in general, because that’s what I wrote, I did not point to any sim in specific. And I didn’t rat off about how P3D is old or anything like that. Keep your chin up!

Oh, we’re pals now? Awesome. Quite aware of what forum I am in and great job in paraphrasing what I meant. Here you have it.

I know some people here hate when we quote entire posts but this one is fairly loaded so - Your first sentence- I don’t think there are, if any, high fidelity aircraft to make that judgment. Umberto, a few posts back already indicated that his sales figures are strong for MSFS. Unless you have a crystal ball, I cannot begin to think how you are able to determine this. Your second sentence- How do you determine this? I am not going to stoke the licensing fire, but one product is strictly licensed for training and learning and the other for entertainment. Also, if one were to purchase professional version @ $199 vs. premium deluxe @ $119.99, which would the average/casual user or novice buy. One is sold pretty much vanilla requiring a significant investment in add ons to create a reasonable facsimile of the world or one that has eye candy, somewhat decent weather and some pretty good hand-crafted airports. I believe that MSFS would fit the bill for the demographic that I cited as an example. Your third sentence- MS posted some time ago, the numbers after the first couple of weeks or something like that of the number of “users”. These numbers were fairly impressive considering that flight simulator is believed to be a niche market. I think that MSFS probably appeals to the new generation of simmers because of the eye candy. The casual simmer is not necessarily interested in aircraft procedure or checklists, they probably prefer to use their imaginations and explore their world. You may be correct that the more serious simmers will remain with their aim of choice because they are more into the details of flying. But I wouldn’t put the numbers as high as you may think. MSFS is more accessible to the casual user than Prepar3d is. Total cost of ownership and licensing would be the key considerations. The Bing Maps come stock with MSFS. Your fourth sentence- You’re probably right on that point. Your last sentence- MS aren’t the first company to do that and they won’t be the last. A prime example would Flightradar24, I purchased their app when it first was offered along with several of the in-app purchases. That app no longer works and I am forced to endure irrelevant ads or pay for a subscription. As mentioned too many times already, the developers go where the cash flows. In general, as much as the community wants change, when it rears its head, people resist and make any and every comment they can to justify their sim of choice. I have no vested interests in what sim you use or anyone else. Hey, I still use FS9, it does what I want to do and I don’t have to spend thousands to get a high end machine that will most likely become an expensive doorstop in 7 years. Umberto is the man with the data. If he and other developers see that the market shifts to another platform, that’s where I would expect them to focus their work. It happened with FS9 a few years ago, then the cessation of development for 32 bit platforms. There are still a number of FS9, FSX and P3D 3.x users. Development has stopped, but the spirit of these sims are alive. I don’t know if this is the first nail in the P3D coffin or not, but as was mentioned many times, we are not LM’s target market. Take it as you will.

Richmond has grown a lot in the last decade. If you look at the map of FSimStudios plans for Vancouver, it encompasses YVR and Vancouver proper, ending at Boundary Road. As a frequent flier out of YVR, when taking off to the East, Richmond figures predominantly on south side of the departure. Even the late Jon Patch did not include too much of Richmond. I think it would be a welcome addition. Richmond Centre, the Oval, Steveston, etc. Even New Westminster has grown and figures prominently on arrival from the west.

As someone already pointed out, this is an agile product. The days of complete or finished products are behind us. Release a Minimal Viable Product and then complete over time. This is day one of 3,650 days. Not even 1%. I would like to revisit all of this in about 2-5 years and see how everyone thinks. I would imagine that this platform will be a much better experience than it is now.

I am going to call you out on this. Are you working for LR? Do you have a financial relationship with LR? How would you determine the sales figures for LR? Year over year or monthly? Where did you get the sales data? I decided to look this up. LR is a private company that does not need to file any public financial statements. So, unless you are an insider, I am not sure what you are basing this on. I did find this: https://www.dnb.com/business-directory/company-profiles.laminar_research_llc.c33a144760c542e5a70ae297c12f080b.html I don’t know how old it is and it’s an annualized figure but it certainly doesn’t support what you have claimed.

That’s a function of society. We all know that warning labels are slapped on certain things because there was at least one “stupid” person out there. For example, do not pop champagne cork at your or someone else’s face, specifically eyes. Smoking causes cancer, heart disease and other nasty diseases. Consuming alcohol during pregnancy can harm an unborn child. On a claymore mine, “point this side toward the enemy”. My personal favourite are teenagers who think it smart to jump off a roof of a house to dive into a relatively shallow pool and end up in wheelchairs and ventilators for the rest of their lives and the owners of the property are on the hook for that genius’ stunt. As a result, warning signs on private property. “No roof diving”. Seems pretty cut and dry to me, but as I say, in society, the lowest common denominator keeps going lower. These are all fairly common sense scenarios but, at least one person in society had the lack of intelligence to do otherwise. So, society stepped in to determine that these actions are stupid, so stupid in fact that warning labels are warranted. The question is; “why does society do this”? Society needs to protect society. Little Johnny who decided to do the triple Lindy from the top of 2 storey house into a 6 foot deep pool and crush several vertebrae and fracture his skull needs to be protected from his stupidity because he’s a part of society. I suppose we can carry this on to personal freedoms and choices. Is it right for society to put up warning signs in the backyard of some unsuspecting home owner and infringe on Little Johnny’s rights and freedoms to dive off the roof of a house into their poo!? Everything that has a warning label seems like common sense to me, but here we are, putting labels on things.

All I can say, a benefit of this”lockdown” is that the pollution haze has lifted. My wife and I went to our vacation home today for the first time in months. No haze, the mountains are almost 4K in visual appearance.

You beat me to this. Those heavyweight content providers are probably more of an indicator of the truth than some nameless individuals who have more time on their hands thanks to the current global state of affairs. I don’t think that the content providers would be so enthusiastic (for lack of a better term) to develop for an unreleased and unproven product and invest resources unless there was some promise for the platform.

Even Google maps/ street view is not up to date. If you buy a third party airport or city, these are out of date fairly quickly, especially in areas of rapid urban construction. At least using MSFS’s model, if the map or 3D model is updated in the back end, then it should push through, assuming if this is the planned process.

Governments collect taxes on tobacco products. So why kill a major revenue source? Nicotine is highly addictive and removing tobacco from legal sales will result in a huge black market.

I don’t know, that list of improvements and features delivers a lot of what people wanted. Support for STARS and SIDS.

Yeah, what Chock said. Back in the day, when I was an avid F1 fan an collector, you would be surprised by “Officially Licensed Product”. This term means “we have the rights to use the name and brand for us to sell you our stuff”. When my daughter was born, she got an officially licensed sleeper. It was made in China. Not necessarily a quality product, but darn it really catches some looks. At the end of the day, caveat emptor applies. I would imagine if a developer wants to sell an aircraft, they need the OEMs blessing, and that probably means in terms of royalties.

The Mrs works for airline. She now has a cough and booked off. She was supposed to go to NZAA. She checked the loads. Last week, full flight, now 60 passengers on a 789. Better she quarantines here than there.

Or maybe no more free flights. I think the borders will be shut down.