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To Christian Grill, Is PFPX dead?


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  • 3 weeks later...

I had email with Judith recently when the servers went down and then a few weeks later.

I was enquiring as to whether PFPX would be updated to export in the current XPlane format.

Her answer - No!

They were doing a few minor changes but not the ability to export in XP11 format..

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What a disgrace from these developers. This update is useless and didn't even add official support for MSFS. The lack of communication with their customers is an absolute shame. What is so difficult about giving us some sort of news so that we know if there's a future road map or not. Oh well, I give up. Doesn't seem like they care at all.

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I don't know - the product works and is what it is.  We paid once for it - why should we expect updates, for me at least, 8 years down the track?  Granted, exporting to some platforms would be good.

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On 19.1.2021 at 13:45, VHOJT sagte:

We paid once for it - why should we expect updates, for me at least, 8 years down the track?

 

Generally speaking: The flight simulator world is ever evolving and a product which is no longer supported and updated to face those changes will surely not attract new customers. If that is what a developer/publisher chooses to do, fair enough. However, I will stay clear of any other products that the developer might bring to the market in the future. For me, longterm commitment and support is fundamental. In this case, I continued to support the developer with buying a server subscription every year. With a diminishing use case and modern alternatives, that incentive will also surely fade.

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I believe that there is no better planning tool currently available for pilots wishing to plan correctly for longer haul flights. PFPX continues to perform well even after all these years. With the coming of GFO, I shall continue to plan with PFPX for my long B777 flights.

I accept that if a pilot wants to plan short haul flights then an alternative planning tool might be appropriate.

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6 hours ago, Richard McDonald Woods said:

I believe that there is no better planning tool currently available for pilots wishing to plan correctly for longer haul flights. PFPX continues to perform well even after all these years. With the coming of GFO, I shall continue to plan with PFPX for my long B777 flights.

I accept that if a pilot wants to plan short haul flights then an alternative planning tool might be appropriate.

 

On 1/19/2021 at 5:45 AM, VHOJT said:

I don't know - the product works and is what it is.  We paid once for it - why should we expect updates, for me at least, 8 years down the track?  Granted, exporting to some platforms would be good.

 

the most important is there.

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On 1/22/2021 at 3:16 PM, Richard McDonald Woods said:

I believe that there is no better planning tool currently available for pilots wishing to plan correctly for longer haul flights. PFPX continues to perform well even after all these years. With the coming of GFO, I shall continue to plan with PFPX for my long B777 flights.

I accept that if a pilot wants to plan short haul flights then an alternative planning tool might be appropriate.

Do you find Simbrief inaccurate compared to PFPX on long haul flight planning?

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3 hours ago, OY-HAH said:

Do you find Simbrief inaccurate compared to PFPX on long haul flight planning?

 

I believe another key difference between PFPX and Simbrief for long haul flight planning is that PFPX will (usually!) generate a wind-optimized routing to minimize fuel burn whereas I think routes generated by Simbrief are either (1) what routings prior users have used for the city-pair in question or (2) Simbrief's own in-built route planner which essentially generates great-circle (least distance) routings independent of wind conditions. Depending on the location of the jet stream relative to the GC, this can be advantageous for longer haul oceanic flights particularly where no organized tracks exist or where one wants to select the ' best' track. This level of detail of course may not be all that important to each individual user.  

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@Richard McDonald Woods Hello Richard,

 

PFPX works perfectly as well with short regional flights, with the Majestic Q400 anyway. Wind, time, fuel as expected and of course the possibility to tailor your PLOG the way that you like for your needs. I tried Simbrief and was not convinced. It is a (free) good tool but not as accurate as PFPX.

 

Regards,

 

JP

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Gentlemen

 

The PFPX is without any doubt the best flight-planning tool available, as with any system you need to fine tune it, and that is obviously not always easy, you need to practice, practice and then practice again, after that you have to collect, compare your data and then fine tune. Sounds time consuming, it is indeed, but you will get a well working system in return.

 

Best regards

Palle H. Jensen

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  • 8 months later...

PFPX seems irrelevant these days as simbrief is the better choice now that it has navigraph integration and since it works on a browser, you can plan your flights from practically any device and anywhere.

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On 10/4/2021 at 8:40 PM, Cloudster said:

PFPX seems irrelevant these days as simbrief is the better choice now that it has navigraph integration and since it works on a browser, you can plan your flights from practically any device and anywhere.

 

It is still the best tool if you want highly customisable/realistic flight planning tools.  Simbrief is fine, but does not have the power or flexibility of PFPX.

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On 10/4/2021 at 12:40 PM, Cloudster said:

PFPX seems irrelevant these days as simbrief is the better choice now that it has navigraph integration and since it works on a browser, you can plan your flights from practically any device and anywhere.

Simbrief is limited to what aircraft you can plan for, while PFPX gives you the option to make your own aircraft profile, in my case I have a profiles for IL76s, AN124 and AN225

 

about the "navigraph integration" if you use navigraph you can download AIRACs for PFPX as well as Simbrief.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Gentlemen, let me throw my two cents here.

 

I've been a proud PFPX user, supporter and devotee since 2013. I was fascinated with the software back then, and still am, as this is the closest thing to the real-world flight planning software, perhaps only slightly falling behind some state-of-the-art systems like LIDO. It has never failed me in my flying. I've always had an impression that Christian and the team made the product potentially to be sold commercially to the real-world aviation, given all the features.

Of course, I've made enough substantial input from my side with the PFPX performance packs for the popular aircraft families to help fellow flightsimmers and myself. You can check it out in my uploads to the file library. High level of customization and its flexibility is something that places PFPX well above of a well-known rival.

 

From my real-world aviation projects, I can assure you: you may be surprised that some small airlines (mostly, charter) and general aviation (business jets) use much, much inferior software in the real world than we have here with the PFPX.

 

Is the product dead? No, as long as the navdata, weather and NOTAMs are provided for it.

 

Some people mentioned route planning. I'll be honest, I don't use PFPX route planner all that much. I either get the routings from the real-world sources or build them myself, using PFPX only as an assisting tool. Usually, I do it the old school way — by the maps and charts (Jeppesen, Skyvector etc.).

 

Some people demand updates. And that's fine, there are quite a few things that I'd like to see in the program, too, but I can deal without them easily.

Moreover, you may be surprised, but I still use… v1.28.9i, and apart from the NOTAM formatting errors (due to incompatibility in the newer versions, I think) everything works so well that I see no need to upgrade. I get other features (like SIGMETs and Sig Wx) from other sources. Maybe, one day I will upgrade…

 

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Having said all of that, it would be nice to hear from the developers from time to time at least.

 

I'd hate for this amazing piece of software to get a reputation and go the way of Danur FOC 2003 if anyone remembers that.

 

Flight sim would be nowhere near as enjoyable for me (possibly not at all anymore) without this bit of software.

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