Carenado Piper PA32R Saratoga Review

[Jack Skieczius]

Armchair Aviation presents our latest review.

Can be found by clicking the link below.

[Ben Russell]

Constructive critique:

Get rid of the BK117 banner. It's confusing. We're visual creatures.

[woweezowee]

Thanks for the review. I also bought it yesterday. Here's one thing that I found: My NAV lights won't always turn on. It seems they should operate with the battery and/or the starter just like the removing of the cold and dark parking stuff and placing the pilot in his seat, as you only have strobe lights as a switch in the cockpit. I once had them working, rather suddenly and unintentional. Couldn't get them to work later on with a second flight.

[woweezowee]

Constructive critique:

Get rid of the BK117 banner. It's confusing. We're visual creatures.

Hi Indi. I just found out: It's an animation / menu that toggles through all available reviews with a picture

[Ben Russell]

Hi Indi. I just found out: It's an animation / menu that toggles through all available reviews with a picture

I noticed this too eventually.

What bugs me:

Typically I will open a page in a background tab.

I finish reading the page I'm on and switch to the tab. Instantly I get a whole eye full of BK117 imagery and a lot of text saying I'm reading a BK117 review.

That's funny, I think. The BK came out months ago, why on earth would I have a tab open to read a review about it?

Add to this the fact that the imagery takes up almost the entire page when opening a new link to the site.

It feels like eithe I've been "bait and switched"  ...or... their site is broken. Giving me BK117 content I never clicked on.

So either, their site is broken and they don't have their stuff together.... OR.... they're "showing me something nice, and giving me something I never asked for" which is not a nice way to be treated.

That's how it feels for me. As a result, I just don't open the tabs...

I think the content could be better formatted and far more appealing leading to more return viewers and a much more interesting first impression.

...simply changing the BK117 graphic so it's not the default wont solve the problems I have with your design either guys.

[YYZatcboy]

Ben,

Thanks for the comment. Jack and I are planning to have the animated banner only on the home page. We will only have the banner for each review on the review pages, which should clear up the confusion.

That being said, right under the banner is a very clear title of what you are viewing, so I don't see why you would have such strong feelings about being mislead...

[Jack Skieczius]

Thanks for the review. I also bought it yesterday. Here's one thing that I found: My NAV lights won't always turn on. It seems they should operate with the battery and/or the starter just like the removing of the cold and dark parking stuff and placing the pilot in his seat, as you only have strobe lights as a switch in the cockpit. I once had them working, rather suddenly and unintentional. Couldn't get them to work later on with a second flight.

This was interesting, cause I noticed this yesterday but forgot to write about it. I had noticed them on once when I was flying around, but you are right, there is no switch. There is a way to turn them on I just found out. The nav light brightness seems to be attached to the panel brightness roller switch on the main panel near the center bottom. So we have a way to turn on the nav lights as well as the panel lights all in one switch. This seems to be a bit odd to me, and I wonder if the real Saratoga is like this. I will try and find out.

Thanks for the feedback.

[woweezowee]

here's the trick: http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?showtopic=49126&view=findpost&p=544305

just as you say. seems the only way to do it.

[steven winslow]

According to Dan, yes, the real Saratoga nav lights operate that way.  I quote:

"Believe me, I've done a fair bit of research and asking around, and as odd as it sounds, the Nav lights on the Saratoga are, indeed, on the same knob as the instrument back-lights. What I'm NOT sure of, is whether the instrument lights are on a fader. It COULD be that it's an "all-or-nothing" switch for both back-lights and Nav-lights, but I've implemented it this way for 2 reasons:

1.- I think it's very nice to HAVE an instrument lighting fader.

2.- I reasoned that the nav lights are probably going to be consuming several times more Amps than the instrument lights. Therefore, it's most likely that the instrument lights are on a low-amp switch, and the nav lights are turned on via a relay at the end-position of the instrument lights switch.

If this is incorrect, I'll have to change that for the next release."

Straight from the source....

[Ben Russell]

That being said, right under the banner is a very clear title of what you are viewing, so I don't see why you would have such strong feelings about being mislead...

I had the gain turned up on the post for emphasis. I know where I'm going, so the feelings aren't that strong.

However.

You compete with several hundred other tabs of data per day.

Gigabytes of visual information processed daily.

You leave about 1/10th the page space for the actual content title.

The content title is approx half intensity of any other shade of blue on the page.

The page is bright, the colors fully saturated.

This does not make for a clear title that POPS out at you letting you know you hit the right page.

In a world full of pop-unders and useless internet circlular link pools, this is no fun for users.

Here's a heatmap of the average visual scan:

And a google images link to the rest:

http://www.google.com.au/images?q=heat+map+eye

[YYZatcboy]

Thanks Ben. Always a source of useful information.

[Ben Russell]

You're welcome. I just want to improve the world around me. Sorry the advice doesn't always come gift wrapped.

(And sorry for the utter thread jack, but I look forward to clicking on your next review to see what awaits me.

[YYZatcboy]

No worries . Improving the world is a good thing.