To Christian Grill, Is PFPX dead?

[Cloudster 16]

I would like to address the developer of PFPX. There has been no significant changes or updates for around 3 years now. As a paying customer, I'd like to know if or when there will be any future plans or updates. MSFS 2020 has been out for 3 months now, and I'd like to see official support for it and not have to use some hacks or tricks to get it to work with it.

 

As expensive as PFPX is. I and others would like to know what's going on. Don't keep your customers in the dark.

 

Thank you.

[Cloudster 16]

Seems like PFPX is headed to the grave just as it did with TOPCAT that I found in this thread as well - 

I'm deeply disappointed with the lack of communication with the customers regarding the future of their products. This is very unprofessional.

 

 

[Ray Proudfoot 229]

One week on and no reply. I think you have your answer. The only interaction from Christian and Judith is to bring the servers back online when they go down.

 

My own ticket is now several months old and despite assurances from Judith it would be answered by Christian it remains outstanding.

[Cloudster 16]

Thanks Ray for your input. This is sad and so unprofessional. I really wish I never spent my hard earned dollars on this product if I knew it would turn out this way. This is definitely not the way to treat your customers who support you. I am deeply upset and will not spend another penny on future products by this developer and will spread the word to the flight sim community at how unprofessional you are. That's the least I can do.

[Ray Proudfoot 229]

Cloudster, the program itself works fine and I use it daily. What I will not do is subscribe to the weather service any more. Active Sky is fine for that and can provide historical weather. PFPX only provides current.

 

I doubt they’ll ever release new products and whether there will ever be a working flight plan for MFS is debatable. I’m not sure how much it differs from the P3D/FSX one.

 

I use PFPX for the PMDG737 and several other 3rd party aircraft with data kindly provided by enthusiasts here.

[BW901 58]

2 hours ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

The only interaction from Christian and Judith is to bring the servers back online when they go down.

 

 

If PFPX was "dead" then why would the servers be online? It continues to be one of the best bits of software I've spent my hard earned dollars on.

[Cloudster 16]

Then why is there no communication from the developer? Several of us have asked about the future of PFPX and no response at all. We're not asking about the servers, but for updates.

[Ray Proudfoot 229]

2 hours ago, BW901 said:

If PFPX was "dead" then why would the servers be online? It continues to be one of the best bits of software I've spent my hard earned dollars on.

I never said it was “dead” so why have you misquoted me? Support for tickets raised by customers is certainly non existent.

[BW901 58]

Have you read the topic title Ray? No misquote, that excerpt from your post is a good answer to the question posed by that title.

 

From here on I'll just be feeding the trolls.

[Ray Proudfoot 229]

2 minutes ago, BW901 said:

Have you read the topic title Ray? No misquote, that excerpt from your post is a good answer to the question posed by that title.

 

From here on I'll just be feeding the trolls.

Development of features in PFPX certainly appears to have ceased. Same with Topcat. As long as it works I’ll use it. That’s me done in this topic.

[Cloudster 16]

Yeah, legitimate customers want to know about the future of PFPX a software in which we PAID for, so that makes us a troll? Get real.

[DaveCT2003 2552]

Gentlemen,

 

A reminder that is intended to be sincerely and friendly... be respectful in our forums at ALL times please.  No excuse for doing otherwise.  You can be respectful and still disagree, and in truth the world judges us more when we are faced with such situations.

 

By the way, there is never a guarantee  or promise to develop for a new sim platform.  If it happens then GREAT!  But as I said...

 

I don't personally use PFPX very often and I don't follow development, but I'll ask about it.

 

Best wishes.

 

[Ray Proudfoot 229]

@DaveCT2003, there are two aspects of Aerosoft forums that I do not like given you want this place to be sincere and friendly.

 

1) There is a down vote option. What is the purpose of that other than to cause aggrevation? AvSim did away with those ages ago as they were considered inflammatory.

2) If someone likes a post why is their identity hidden? If someone likes my post I'd like to know who they are.

[mopperle 4142]

Ray, there are always pro and cons for any kind of voting system. AS has diecided to leave it this way.

For privacy reasons users can not see who votes. But moderators can see it and intervene in case there is any kind of abuse.

 

And now back to topic.

[Ray Proudfoot 229]

Fair enough Otto. It’s not a system that I agree with but accept it’s what Aerosoft have decided is best for them.

[BW901 58]

Well we've proved this forum isn't dead, so there's a positive.

 

Everyone's entitled to an opinion, and a few people seem to be quite vocal in expressing theirs. I've expressed mine above, and to me this subject is akin to that favourite question of flightsim forums - "when's the release date?". Again I'm taking the positive view that PFPX works very well. What I paid for works and the developer hasn't failed to get the servers back up when they've had an outage.

 

I got what I paid for. The developers don't owe me anything else. That's my reality.

 

 

[phil747fan 52]

+1 Jon and that is my reality as well.

[Cloudster 16]

Well thats all fine and dandy for you. But for other customers like myself, I would like to see improvements and official support for MSFS. A good developer would answer our questions and at least give us some sort of information on the status of their software.

 

I'm not talking about the forum is dead. I am referring to the development of PFPX. I would like to hear officially from the dev themselves regarding the status and future of this product.

[Aerosoft Team 51548]

We have requested a more official statement. Let's all calm down until that arrives.

[jpgmultimodal 61]

,20201204070710.pdf

 

Hi everybody,

 

I got PFPX at the beginning and I am very happy with this program costing around 50 € - US$. I know there are few things which could be improved but not much.

 

I think Christian made a slight mistake in linking his program to the Flight Simulator as we have FSX, Prepar 3d v4 and now v5, X Plane, MFSF 2020,etc and everybody wants its favourite plane linked to PFPX to enter the Fuel, the route, etc.

 

If PFPX is used as a standalone program, it works absolutely fine and, by the way, I am not sure that now (in RL) the OPS computer sends the OFP to the plane's FMS and gives instructions to the fuel truck. If it does I do not see how we can check the results. Usually, one of the pilots enter the OFP and the other checks it. It was done that way sometime ago. I do not fly RW since quite a long time now and maybe things have changed but not always improved in respect of safety.

 

So, being quite old now (No, the Wright Bros. did not teach me flying!) as I started commercial flying in the early seventies, if we had a tool like PFPX we would have been more than delighted. Just for information, everything was done by hand (no computers) and I enclose you a sample of the tools that we had to work at that time.

 

I never flew jets so with the sim I fly only the Majestic Q400 and I can tell you that it is absolutely spot on especially if you use the file done by Jon (BW901).

 

To have a program which gives you so accurate figures for the fuel, time, masses, calculate the route (I know not always right) and let you buid your own templates for such a small price is absolutely fantastic compared to the RL computers which do not give always right results.

 

It is just the way I feel about PFPX and, by the way, I do not care about the (+) or (-) votes.

 

Kind regards,

 

JP

20201204070710.pdf

[ahoppe 0]

Hello,

 

do you have a answer about the future of PFPX from the developer. It´s a very good tool but the  "Validate IFPS" function does not work.

I hope this tool will have a future and is not dead like Topcat.

 

Best regards

Andrea

 

[srcooke 418]

55 minutes ago, ahoppe said:

the  "Validate IFPS" function does not work.

 

The function was withdrawn at the request of EuroControl, the only only option for any non-commercial application is to use the IFPS website.

[ahuimanu 36]

Version number went from 2.03 to 2.04 a few days ago, perhaps not dead?

[Stefan Oomen 6]

Only a somewhat minor update:

 

2.04 (17 DEC 2020)
------------------
- IMPROVED MULTI-SCREEN SUPPORT
- IMPROVED IVAO/VATSIM TRAFFIC VIEW
- FIXED CONNECTION ISSUES
- REMOVED CFMU ROUTE VALIDATION (SERVICE NO LONGER AVAILABLE)

 

Especially happy with the last line, as it always generated three errors after computing and releasing a flight

So something happened at their end, but I'm still awaiting a proper reply. If it's what most of us expect (I suppose..) which is that Christian has moved on to other business opportunities than that's fine by me too, but at least give us something. Even if it's a 'Goodbye and thank you'.

@Mathijs Kok have you heard anything from Christian and/or Judith in regards to your post in this thread on December 1st?

 

Thanks,

Stefan

[ahuimanu 36]

Even if it is a small update, it is a sign of life.  Also, there was a reply regarding the server subscription about a month ago.  I too think that the software is under maintained (or at least under-communicated) , but I also recall a similar sign of life in late 2018 when 2.03 was released.