[Balearic Islands X vs. Mallorca X]

Balearic Islands X is "just" a collection (in one box/download) of the separate products Ibiza X, Mallorca X and Menorca X. Biggest advantage of Balearic Islands X is the (considerable) lower price compared to the separate products and (in the boxed version) a booklet with the charts .

[Huey X Update question]

Thank you very much for the speedy fix .

[Huey X Update question]

Hi Matt,

Just a small HU (maybe you are aware of it already): there's a small error on your Canadian SAR Huey-repaint. On the right hand side it accidentally says "Forces Armess". Or maybe that's just the way CAF-pilots feel . It's on the "Bell205-003.dds"-file. Love the repaints, especially the Aussie ones .

[Weeze X military side]

Thanks for the reply, Shaun. If I may make a suggestion: I reckon Weeze may have greater appeal if the former "Laarbruch"-base was truly usable, for example by making the big entrance gate to the military side movable/passable. It may not be true to life, but it's a simulator after all . It's a real shame to have that beautifully modeled military base "unusable" behind fences .

[Weeze X military side]

I'm interested in Weeze X, but from the screenshots it looks like every taxiway from the military side to the runway is fenced off. I'm wondering if the military side of the airport is still usable without having to taxi through fences/entrance gates ?

[An open letter to Aerosoft ...]

I think the point has been properly discussed, to which I would add one final `food for thought` - and a request to look to the past for inspiration for the future.

Remember FS2004? No-one had dared create that pig-ugly, dog slow, light-on-technology, flying-bathtub-with-a-whisk-on-the-front the A10 Warthog because it would never sell against all those pretty Mach 2 wonders...

Snave, let's hope Aerosoft also takes (at least some of) this to heart .

[An open letter to Aerosoft ...]

Michael, you have been very candid with your replies, for which I thank you (it also must have kept you from doing work on the Tomcat, so sorry for that ). I understand your position, I hope you do mine. My post may have been kind of provocative, but unfortunately it seems that sometimes you have to "kick someone in the nuts" to get their attention and (hopefully) get them to listen. I also hope you understand that I wasn't taking a swing at you personally for doing the F-14. Rest assured I would have given you/Aerosoft as much hell if y'all would have announced another Hornet . And I could live with an F-5A/B .

P.S: your "historical" work has given me a lot of pleasure (gee, that almost sounds like some sort of weird "turn on" ), so there's no need for you to be ashamed of your previous work.

[An open letter to Aerosoft ...]

I am however, very interested in why people believe what they do and how they perceive the market place, it is all very good and constructive dialog.

Kindest regards

Michael

Michael, let me explain the reason for my OP. I have been following your replies both on this forum as well as on the SOH. What you read below is basically the "condensed" version of my reply to you (and more importantly Aerosoft, because I explicitly and purposely directed my post towards them).

First of all, it wasn't my intention to try to talk you and/or Aerosoft out of doing the F-14. That would have been a futile exercise, especially (and I mean this in the kindest way) if the developer wants to pursue his own "pet" project. I can understand you want to do something that is close to your heart and that it will benefit the final product if the dev is actually doing something he enjoys/believes in.

No, the reason I posted this "open letter" is that I consider Aerosoft one of "The Big Three" publishers that have the resources to "push" a product into the market (in other words "create a market"). With all due respect, your previous publisher unfortunately did not have the (financial) resources to do that and so sales haven't been what everyone was hoping for. I think that you have to also take that into account when you refer to your personal past experiences.

See, I'm getting a bit tired of the same old reply of "Oh, it would never sell". But isn't part of running an enterprise the taking of certain risks? To do something new and see how the market responds? That's the thing that has driven Western economy. Sometimes you indeed fall flat on your face, but if you had proposed the iPod 30 years ago people would have said "You're crazy, it'll never catch on" and just look what happened.

It is also my view that not only is it important to bring more people to the hobby (so to speak), but also keep (those) people on board if flight simming is to remain a vital hobby and businness. How are you gonna keep people interested if their only choice is between three different shades of black? IMHO, a good and inventive product that captures people's imagination will always find a market, no matter how obscure our out of whack it may seem at first. People love military aviation, just look at the attendance number at air shows. I abhor the thought of MSFS turning into CFS4 (as some seem to crave), but flying a military aircraft in MSFS is no different than flying a GA-aircraft or a tubeliner. I also don't see why Aerosoft doing a more "obscure" military aircraft is a greater commercial risk for them than doing an even more obscure aircraft than the Hughes H-1 (I hope these last two sentences also answer some of Snave's questions). If I'm wrong, please explain the Bronco?

To sum it all up, I think there is a market for more "obscure" (heck, these things aren't "obscure") aircraft. As I have said in my OP, the generation that has the disposible income knows about these aircraft and would love to have them in the sim. Part of the business game is to "create a demand" for the product you sell and Aerosoft can do that (even if PC-gaming as a whole is in decline in the retail business). But let's face it, the only way the retailers are going to stock the Tomcat (if a boxed version is planned) is because of the connection to "Top Gun". I'm willing to bet that those same retailers won't know a Tomcat from a Sabre. Aerosoft has enough "bread and butter"-products to be a bit more adventurous in "the military department". They may be surprised by the sales.

[An open letter to Aerosoft ...]

Well Snave, of all the planes you mentioned there is only one that is military, namely the Catalina. And I was referring to Aerosoft's military projects.

[An open letter to Aerosoft ...]

In the interest of fairness I should point out that it isn't just Aerosoft. I just found out there are two developers doing the same mark (!) of Spitfire (though in that case they didn't know about each other's project). One has to wonder if the add-on market is driven by news events (the 70th anniversary of the BoB) and/or movies ("Top Gun", "The Aviator") .

BTW, it's interesting to see that the announcement of the Tomcat at the SOH has quite a few members there questioning that choice.

[An open letter to Aerosoft ...]

I've thought long and hard about writing this, but I just have to get this off my chest. Knowing I'm a guest on this forum I'll strive to do it as politely and respectful as possible, even though the first paragraph below may suggest otherwise . What prompted me to post this thread was the announcement that Aerosoft are going to do an F-14.

To say I'm utterly gutted and disappointed would be the understatement of the year. The only way Aerosoft can add insult to injury would be the announcement of the F-5E. It's not the F-14 as such I find disappointing: from a business standpoint it all makes complete sense. What gets on my t*ts is the total lack of originality and inventiveness Aerosoft displays when it comes to choosing "military" projects. On the rare occasion that an unusual project gets announced, it sooner or later seems to disappears into thin air (Bronco anyone?).

There are usually two reasons given for doing aircraft that have already been done by another developer. The first is that it is commercially not interesting to do more unfamiliar planes (meaning they wouldn't sell). I disagree and would like to point to a very succesful developer of Australian scenery. Now who of you would have thought 3 years ago that a (rather expensive) scenery of a continent 90% of the simmers would normally never fly to could be so succesful? What that developer did was spotting an opportunity to go beyond the trodden paths and do something fresh, exciting and new, even if it seemed to all the world like commercial suicide. I'm also sorry to say that the aformentioned developer because of this kicks Aerosoft's rear-end ATM when it comes to scenery development.

My second argument against the reasoning above is the Hughes H-1B. Now I'm an aviation lover, but I have to admit I had never heard of that aircraft before and I think I'm not alone there. Yet it didn't stop Aerosoft from doing a (practically) "one off"-aircraft. So it is possible.

The second reason usually given is that doing the same aircraft gives people more choice. IMHO this reasoning also fails. Just take a look at real life: health care and electricity are two aspects of real life where "liberalization of the market" would supposedly benefit the consumer. I think we can fairly say this has proven to be utter BS. What does that have to do with add-ons you may ask? Well, unless you're a real die-hard fan of a particular aircraft, you're not going to buy another rendition of that aircraft again. I have always buggered Aerosoft for a Mirage III, which in the meantime has been done by another developer (it is actually done so well that I don't care for an Aerosoft-version anymore). This rings even more true for the casual simmer (though Aerosoft admittedly has an advantage over other developers here, because it is more visible in the retail market, so people may not even know that there's both a freeware and payware rendition of the Tomcat already out).

I also believe that rehashing the same aircraft over and over again is actually damaging to the hobby. There's more to aviation than Spitfires, Me-109's and American jets of the F-14 to F-18-mold, but I wouldn't blame a casual simmer for thinking otherwise. And what is the "in-between"-simmer gonna do? It's all the more funny if you think that the average simmer is 40+ years old, thus "knows" about e.g. the earlier Cold War-planes and has the disposible income to boot. Even the novelty of more eye candy is going to wear off pretty soon. I realise the "forum dwellers" who like me crave for such aircraft aren't representative of the market as a whole, but I do believe the casual simmer would follow suit if only they were presented with the option in the first place.

Now I didn't write all this to slag off Aerosoft in their own forum. But as a consumer, I fear Aerosoft is slipping to become something like Volkswagen: a big company that makes safe, but alas boring, products (at least re military aircraft). Back in the old days, a new Aerosoft-product was a "no-brainer" for me. This is no longer the case. It's not a lack of money, but a lack of freshness and innovation that makes me spend my money elsewhere. Just consider this a sort of "wake up"-call and more importantly, feel free to prove me completely and absolutely wrong .

[Aerosoft Airbus X - Preview]

aerosoft please make a statement: is this forum only used for telling how great the plane looks and how great aerosoft is? are the people who post only positive things about the airbus and aerosoft canidates for free copies or next beta testing?or is this forum used for criticism, argues and discussion like forums normally are?

I'm not affiliated with Aerosoft, so I can't speak on their behalf, but I would like to say this to Vibraman and others:

As you can see no one from Aerosoft has prevented you from speaking your mind. What you do see is a (heated) debate amongst simmers themselves. Now the "problem" as I see it (and I've said this before) is that the "hard core"-simmers want to turn this add-on into something it is not meant to be. Aerosoft aims this product at a specific type of simmer. In doing so, they are fully aware that they may lose the "hard core"-simmer as a customer for this particular product. And they accept that. They may do an advanced version if they see a profitable market for it (meaning the possible profits outweigh the necessary investments). Maybe they are unsure at the moment that such a market exists, or (more likely) they aim to diversify (regarding levels of complexity) their product range.

So, having said that, let's turn the question around, shall we? With all due respect: why don't the proponents of an "advanced"-version accept that this product, in its current form, may not be what they are looking for and just say "No thanks, I'll pass on this one" and move on? Aerosoft has accepted that, so why can't you? It would surely stop the ruffling of feathers you see in all the replies to the posts of the "hard core"-simmers.

Now, should Aerosoft decide to do an "advanced"-version, you can bring all of your concerns about fidelity to the threads that will undoubtedly follow such an announcement. Sounds like a fair deal to me, don't you think ?

[Aerosoft Airbus X - Preview]

The fact is this add-on is not meant to 100% realistic. Instead it is aimed at people who like to fly something more engaging than the default planes, yet not so complex to set up as say a PMDG-aircraft. These simmers don't care if the waypoint is named correctly, they just want to have some quick fun. In Vibraman's mind, this add-on is not "realistic" if the waypoints are not named right. The "target audience" for this product couldn't give a [add your own expletive here].

There are a lot of "hard core"-simmers posting here that want this add-on to be something that it is not designed to be: a 100% realistic simulation of an Airbus. You can see it in their posts. For example: "hard core"-pilots automatically associate "on-line flying" with flying on VATSIM or IVAO. But the term "on-line flying" is much broader than that and can include flying on let's say the MS-server. Therefor, the Aerosoft-statement is not incorrect.

[Okay No A-10 So What Else?]

Personally, I'd love to see an European aircraft like the Blackburn Buccaneer , the EE Canberra (much more countries flew it than the B-57, so more repaints possible, even USAF) or the AlphaJet. I guess a Saab J-32 Lansen would be too obscure for you guys .

If you have to do an F-5, why not do an F-5A/B? First of all it would make Dag happy . I also think it is easier to find information about it. It could also complement (instead of compete with) the Flylogic Tiger II you also sell. And finally, there would be a sufficient number of repaints possible. After all, there are enough countries that flew the A/B-model.

Edit: if none of the above are possible, my vote goes to the A-37 Dragonfly (not the T-37 Tweety Bird)

[Santorini X - Installer DOES NOT harm default.xml]

Not saying this is the answer, but the smaller filesize can also be caused by the format in which the file was saved: UTF-8 vs UTF-16 or something similar IIRC. There was another product (I think it was in FS9) that did this. Can't remember if it was an Aerosoft-product or one by Cloud9.

[German Airfields]

As long as they keep the engine I would still love this car.

Well, any thief sure would be surprised trying to steal a DB9, only to find it has no steering wheel .

[German Airfields]

Thorsten, I know my little rant there won't influence Aerosoft's business decisions and I admit my tone might have been a bit harsh. But the GAF/GAP/VFR-project was (at least PR-wise) announced as a coherent project and I think a lot of simmers (especially our German friends) really looked forward to having such a project done for an entire country. That makes people want to invest in such a huge project (which would set each customer back about €720,-). So Aerosoft certainly built expectations there. Leaving some parts out of it is like building an Austin Martin DB9 and then leave the steering wheel out.

[German Airfields]

I rarely "bitch and moan" on this forum (only time I did was when Aerosoft announced the Falcon), but if it really is true that the German Airfields-series will not be completed, then I must say that I'm very, very dissapointed in Aerosoft . I'm even inclined to use the same words Mathijs used in a recent interview to describe Aerosoft's feelings towards Microsoft. Surely when the project was discussed/announced it must have been foreseen that you needed someone on site? And even if you don't have a developer in the region, Germany is not that big that you can't send someone on a photoshoot mission for a couple of days? Especially since you're willing to spend way more money developing your own sim. Germany is the largest market for Aerosoft and you're willing to annoy a large part of those customers ? Leaving out volumes 5 to 8, and with it a wide band right across the width of Germany, would IMHO be a bad decision :groan_s: .

So I'm hoping Aerosoft will revise its decision and finish the series in the quality that we've come to know from the other parts. If not, then I guess I will spend my money "down under". In the meantime however I will refrain from buying additional parts in the German Airfields/German Airports/VFR Germany-series.

[VFR London X and VFR Generation X]

There are no issues. As a matter of fact, Horizon Simulations has developed (according to the fine print and logos on the Aerosoft box, Shaun !!) VFR London X. They also sell it themselves.

[VFR London X 1.30 Update]

Hello Lawman,

Can you try redownloading the update please.

Hello Shaun,

I can happily report that the new installer works fine (it now gave me an option to choose between downloaded and boxed version and it accepted my boxed serisl number without any error messages) . I'd like to thank you and the team for your support .

[a hope on next aerosoft aircraft addon]

Just to let you know that another (small) developer is doing the Storch. I can't say his name here, but his last products were a DH Dragon Rapide and a Gloster Gladiator. Having said that, it would be interesting (understatement) to see a high-end Aerosoft-rendition of the Fieseler.

[VFR London X 1.30 Update]

Shaun, I was wondering if there's any news on this?

[VFR London X 1.30 Update]

Hello Lawman,

The guys are not sure whether this problem may be a personal serial key issue.

Could you please send your serial key to support@aerosoft.com so I can pass it onto them to check.

E-mail sent. Thanks for your assistence .

[VFR London X 1.30 Update]

Thank you, Shaun .

[VFR London X 1.30 Update]

I've received the Aerosoft newsletter today with the news that there was an update (v1.30) for the boxed version of VFR London X. So I downloaded it (okay) and started the installer. It then asked for my email address and the serial number (like a downloaded product does). However, it won't accept the serial number from my boxed copy (which is registered). I seem to remember a similar issue in the past with an update for another product. IIRC, your database wasn't updated with the serial numbers of the (registered) boxed versions or something like that. Or am I doing something wrong? Any pointers would be appreciated.