Captain Sim 757 Configs

[trisager 16]

Entertaining thread, think I'll pitch in

Update: Now I can log into their forums. Gosh sakes, their more upset about not having a virtual cockpit over there than anyone. I thought the really hard core simmers using that Maddog didn't need a virtual cockpit. Looks to me like the customers down at Maddog are getting down right nasty about the lack a VC that they were promised. There giving those poor developers a rough time.

While some users are genuinely disappointed that the promised VC for the Maddog 2006 has not so far materialized, it's quite clear that most of the nastiness on the Maddog forum is driven by just a few individuals. Lately one individual in particular has started spamming every new thread, regardless of topic, with complaints about the missing VC.

It's OK in my book to complain if a product does not meet expectations, but there is a line. Being disappointed does not mean that personal attacks, trolling and other kinds of abuse is acceptable. This tends to close down communication lines and gets support forums replaced with support request web forms that can be filled in and submitted. Or the communication becomes one-way only, see http://blogs.msdn.com/ptaylor/ for a sad example.

I came across the Ariane some weeks ago reading this very positive review: http://www.flightsim.com/cgi/kds?$=ma...ew/aria7379.htm I did some more research, and came across pageloads of negative postings about them, on Avsim in particular. It's a bit difficult to figure out what's up, though. The negative posts about the products themselves seem to be mostly about earlier versions, and the references to Peter Tishma or whatever his name is, fighting against freeware (whatever that means), and illegal business practices mostly refers to other postings that refer to yet other postings, so there is no telling whether or not it has anything to do with reality. It might be true, it might not - no way to tell, really. It seems that, with regards to Ariane, anything goes on Avsim - I recently saw a posting where a PMDG developer speculates that the Ariane "Boing officially licenced product" status might not be real at all. Without any documentation to back it up, and in particular when talking about a competitor, to me this is simply slander and reflects negatively both on the poster and PMDG, not on Ariane.

I did not buy an Ariane 737, mostly because they are expensive and their re-activation policy looks too strict to me. I do reinstall FSX once in a while, and I want to be able to continue using my payware addons. I also searched in vain for an email address where I could write and ask them to clarify their reinstall policy. I'm also not going to buy the Captain Sim 757 because I want a maintainable navigation database since I do most of my flying online. (The Maddog 2006, by the way, is "semi"-compatible with the PMDG procedures from Navigraph. There is a user-supplied conversion tool that makes it quite managable to get monthly procedure updates, although some clean-up is required for certain airports).

So for the time being that leaves me with a sad empty spot in my virtual hangar where my mid-range Boeing was supposed to sit

Tom

[psolk 80]

So after some time with the C/S 757 I will say that it is a real shame this is the state of the a/c because it has great potential. Bob, I can see why you would like it, the VC is beautiful, the model is beautiful and I love the sounds. Performance on my rig is great but I am running an E8500 @ 4.45 and dual 8800GTX so I would hope so.

Now, with all that being said, all of that eye candy does not even come close to making up for the glaring holes in this A/C AND the fact that their forum is STILL down after all this time. They can take your money quick enough but g-d forbid you want support forget it.

To compare this to the LVL-D or PMDG birds is like comparing my Acura TL-S to my neighbors Bentley LOL

Just some obvious gripes...

APU doesn't burn fuel

Fuel burn is WAY OFF!!!! the same flight which takes a 757 68k worth of fuel went through 28k on the C/S bird. It also allows the wings to burn prior to the center so you could end up landing with fuel in the center tank. How could they miss this?

The lighting is horrible and they claim that it is an F/S limitation. Really, how did PMDG and LVL-D get around it? Even PSS has the option for gauge lighting only.

Start procedure is wrong and timings are way off

Brakes appear to be always on inflight???

no airspeed on PFD

No way to shut off lower EICAS

Numerous flights will end with the CDU declaring End of Route before hitting final destination.

No C/D setup

Fuel quantity is shown in litres only

Crossbleed engine start is broken.

You cannot start engines while airborne by selecting FLT. You have to start the APU and select GND??? Not even possible mid-flight!

FMC always gives the wrong trim setting

When slow on approach, the AP trims full up elevator which often causes the aircaft to stall and crash on full autoland.

Fasten seatbelt, altitude alert, no smoking and fire tests sounds are either wrong or missing. Seatbelt and no smoking signs only make sounds on the ground?

No terminal procedures are included, and no AIRAC updates.

IRS aligns in 10 seconds even from cold and dark which should take 7-10 minutes depending...

Autopilot speed selector skips certain speeds, for instance 250kts not selectable, but 252kts is! All the dials seem to "jump"

ACE doesn't work for selecting specific 3D models, it must be done manually by editing the panel.cfg

No fuel planner or load manager that shows aircraft weights and C0G.

Load manager doesn't load the aircraft according to what you select

It is a real shame, if they could add some meat to all of those good looks it "could" be up there with LVL-D and PMDG but it is like the hot chick who you can only speak to for 2 minutes because she is SO dumb.

Oh well, I am not going to hold my breath for a patch, it is a real shame...

Unless all you care about is eye candy, I would not recommend this bird at all. And they even cut corners on the eye candy... Only one wing view has an engine and the other one has flaps but neither have flaps and an engine LOL. It is actually amazing the lack of pride that went into this bird...

-Paul