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I thought I'd add a few more "high level" thoughts to this topic and also try this new forum here. We all feel the frustration...even as a laminar developer we're all anxious to develop and get on with it. Simon's suggestion (or maybe Chip wrote it?) that we hire more people is a valid one....ASSUMING that is...that the market can bear or WILL bear that burden of cost, but as of yet it does not. We are still a very small segment of the flight sim market and the efforts going on now within laminar, IXEG, new stuff at the org and even here at x-pilot are a good indicator that things are not slowing down; however, as a market segment, we still have not reached "critical mass" where everybody is developing for x-plane. It is my opinion that after x-plane 10 ships...and not immediately thereafter, it'll take a bit of warming up to the new tech...but after x-plane 10 ships and Aerosoft comes over, more Carenado stuff comes up, the IXEG guys finish their work and folks see the ease of creating scenery for x-plane AND with the new ATC (which I have yet to experience), I think that will be the time everybody will take notice. Only after they take notice though will they say, "hey, this is a viable sim" and only THEN they will begin to develop after they're convinced. So it's not unreasonable to surmise that x-plane 10 needs to come out, folks need to see that it's good, more developers need to decide to develop and then actually develop, and this cycle might take a year or more after x-plane 10 comes out to get going. Remember MSFS is over 25 years old and didn't have a real competitor for well over 15 years. That is incredible momentum. I think x-plane is making great strides, but change doensn't happen overnight. As far as the guys dabbling in FSX, they're flight sim enthusiasts, they should go wherever they get enthused. Right now, x-plane is just downright "regular" I agree...but that will change soon. You have no idea how bad I want to get x-plane 10 out and get back to working on some custom stuff. I've put out enough 3D polygons for x-plane 10 to redo the MU2 10 times over, it's hard to sit by at watch that thing become a "has been". It's really no more complex than "good things take time", but the workforce is still small. If we had 8x the developers, each working slow and steady, we'd have 8x the output but everybody would still work the same as they do now. The goal is no different than the day we started here. "Change the market perception of x-plane quality and service and we'll grow the market". I'm still on that mission...just from a different place at the moment. Rest easy gents, x-plane 10 is pretty cool. REMEMBER...when it gets released as a beta, it'll be just that, a beta...and participants need to be ready to report, not complain.

Captains, Welcome back to X-Pilot.com! As noted on the new homepage, we have a completely new design, including the branding of X-Pilot itself. This is to put us more in line for the future and where we are headed. The downtime over the last 24 hours was part of a massive transition. Some of it is viewable now with the new forum design, but also new backend infrastructure was put in place to announce some new features to X-Pilot in the coming months. Needless to say, we anticipate for X-Pilot to become a complimented growth model with the new X-Plane 10 platform coming out. A lot of our new community features will work directly in X-Plane as time goes on, and when the time is right we'll announce such additions. With the new design here we introduce a variety of new features. They include: - A more robust forum system - A new chat room to have engaging conversations - New social media technology to integrate X-Pilot and X-Plane into our daily conversations with friends - News section for not only product releases, but also news around the community. You'll definitely want to keep on eye on this section! As always, thanks for being a part of X-Pilot. Without you, there is no 'us.' We are the community, and we're proud of it! Enjoy!

Visiting the Mont Blanc (again) with the Bell 430 !

Great news. Congratulations to everyone for a (seemingly) smooth transition.

I can understand what you're saying, and I only just sent Chip an email addressing this very issue. I won't post what I sent to Chip (it was far too long), but I will say this. While I'm working on 2 different products (DC-3 and 1 contract job), Theo has been extremely busy programming the 747-400. Now I ask you, is that of any importance to you (as a customer/simmer) without a screenshot of it? Probably not. Shall I post a screenshot? Unless you want to see a bunch of numbers in x plane using a default aircraft as a test-bed, probably not. It won't make much sense. In case you're wondering, The actual script will NEVER be posted because code is meant to be strictly confidential. X Plane developers are ice skating uphill while trying to pull an extra 100lbs of weight when it comes to impressing the MSFS crowd. Whenever they talk about add on quality, they talk about PMDG (And rightfully so. Their systems fidelity is amazing!) So right off the bat, X plane developers have been pigeon-holed by the FSX crowd EVEN BEFORE THEY HAVE TRIED X PLANE. It's even happened in these very forums from X Plane users. So in saying THAT, we're even fighting an uphill battle against X Plane users who "wish" x plane has a PMDG quality add on. In all honesty, I don't mind that. As customers, you have every right to demand quality that you are willing to hand over your hard earned money for. And you want to see PMDG quality in x plane as much as, I think, most developers do. I have always maintained that competition is great for add on development and the community. So why are add ons taking a while to finish? Because YOU (the customer) WANT top quality add ons. YOU want PMDG level quality. YOU want study sim aircraft. WE want to give that to you. But to do that, we need time. If you want them finished earlier, spread the word about our products and buy more of them. Then we can afford a $50/hr programmer to code the systems that would take about 3 months to code. Doing the math, $50/hr @ 8 hours a day @ 7 days a week @ 3 months = a hell of a lot of money that many developers cannot afford. Especially when they have families to support. We can't promise release dates or estimates. What we can promise is high quality, even study sim quality add ons that are definitely on the way. All we ask is that you remain patient and let us do our thing. Feel free to ask questions. But questions that have already been answered (eg. When will it be released?) will be met with the same "soon" reply. As you were, gentlemen.

Playing with the Duchess paint kit, St. Lucia:

C172

Just bought the carenado Mooney M20J, and I've already whipped up three paints for it.

Got the Mooney and I am lovin it! ;D

I thought I would take the CRJ up for a little trip from KMMH-KSFO. Here's the landing...