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Im afraid to reach out sometimes, I have seen some FSX users destroy good things in the name of their abandoned simulator. With that said Im not against Froogle but he does need to establish himself as a user of X-Plane in order to gain our trust. I have my finger on the pulse of whats going on with X-Plane and he hasn't been a part of it. A big part of what I do is keep in touch with the community. and the more I think about it Mr. Froogle needs to get his hands dirty before he gets any recognition. Guys its that simple, it really is......

Flying from Whitehorse to Beaver Creek, Canada in a Cessna 195

I see his Ben's points, but the rheotoric does seem unusually heated today. When I started the MU2, one of the primary goals was to show the FSX community what x-plane can do. Exposure is never bad, this is the way..you MUST sell your wares, you must throw them in front of people, most will not come looking. We need regular simmers and we need impulse buyers to put enough money in our pocket to make it to the next and better product and so on and so on. Besides, Pete doesn't strike me as a guy who does this to leech freeware. There was a quote I read in a book and I can't remember who said it that said, "Conversation is king...content is just something to talk about" and if Froogle is conversing about x-plane, then there is nothing bad that come come from that IMO. As far as these customers being "far away", they're actually only one sale away. I know a lot of folks who came to x-plane when the MU2 came out....you get converts one person at a time. I'm all for getting in front of as many FSX folks as we can. I have plans to teach folks x-plane in a new way but we need the audience. TomK

What an interesting thread. Hi Goran - the 3 devs I contacted I suspect missed the emails because I sent from frooglesim, instead of from my normal email address. Goran you were one of them - you'll recall that the PC Pilot award badge you proudly display on your DC3 in the store was awarded by me (Peter Wright) in my review of your product some time ago. I've been trying to get updated download links for the 64 bit version as well as your new aircraft. No biggie, part of the idea of the video was to get you guys (the collective "you guys" in the X-Plane dev world to sit up) and I am resending emails and broadening their reach. Ben can sit there saying "Froogle who" all day long, but here we are in a two page thread carrying my name, so I guess it worked. Now to address the bulk of the issues in this thread, and the inference from Ben that my ethics are questionable and reviews are for sale. Almost every single review on the frooglesim channel, and many I write for PC Pilot are made with software I buy. I do that to support the community, and to give me the freedom to say what I want about a product without feeling an obligation or tie. Most of the reviews in the magazine are made with software explicitly provided by the developer for the purposes of review, a practice not uncommon in any industry you care to name. From the developer standpoint it's called marketing - sending new products to influential voices in the hope they will review the product. From the journalism standpoint it's just business as usual, writing about the products we see and reviewing them where appropriate as long as the free product does not interfere with the opinion stated in the piece and the relationship between reviewer and producer is clear and disclosed. In my case, products i receive for review do absolutely not bias my opinion - look at some of my recent reviews in the magazine, some of which got me in very hot water for expressing a highly negative opinion. With regard to my involvement with X-Plane, I have been writing about it for years in the magazine. Many years ago for example I helped kicked off X-Planes exposure with an in-depth look at the product itself, plus a multi-page interview with Austin. Since then I've reviewed a few products of interest in X-Plane but the simple fact of the matter, the unfortunate fact, is that the vast majority of the audience are X-Plane shy and want FSX . That's also where the bulk of new products launch, so naturally it's where the bulk of content in a magazine or indeed on my YouTube channel is focussed. From the comments I see on the channel, many are interested in X-Plane but trot out the same old excuses as to why they are not using it (and why they are not your potential customers). The UI is poor. The colors seem off. Their add-ons don't work. FSX looks better. FSX has more choice etc etc. That's what I want to address. Today if I throw up a video on a product it's actually rarely just that one product. A2A's Cessna for example was covered in video with sky textures from REX, weather from Active Sky, scenery from Orbx, control input filtering from FSUIPC, post effects from Shade. It makes the videos visually appealling and it shows FSX as a platform in the best light, enabling the rest of the video to then focus on the content at hand. In contrast I did a number of videos of the Worldliner 77 and the comments quickly turned to focus in on what X-Plane stock looks and feels like since behind the aircraft that's all your seeing. I want to start a series looking at X-Plane itself but in the best possible light and that's what the VLOG was calling for. I want to show people that X-Plane can look better than FSX, that there is a thriving marketplace out there that people can tap into to extend and enhance it, and that switching to a better flight model does not mean sacrificing the aesthetics people have grown to love in FSX. However, I don't have all that stuff and so reached out to ask you, developers and publishers, what would I need to make X-Plane awesome? What are your best of breed add-ons and enhancements that you believe I really should include in the videos to really shine a light on X-Plane in the best possible way. This isn't biasing a review, in the same way that A2A's Cessna didn't get a great review because the clouds looked nice, or there were animated people on the ground at the airport. Yes, Ben, the vast majority of the audience on Frooglesim are currently invested in FSX. Asking you guys to undertake what is effectively a marketing exercise to sway them did not, and does not, to me seem unrealistic. I'm giving you a platform to market your products to a captive audience in one of the fastest growing simulation YouTube channels in the world (almost 15,000 subs and growing at 12% per month) and in a channel that is almost viral in nature (again, here we are in a separate place on the Internet discussing my videos - see how that worked out?). Given that I also want to focus in on X-Plane and get a fairly steady stream of content up I also went the magazine route and reached out asking you to supply content to review under typical review terms (that being that the review is not in any way biased just because you provided the product for free). Please also bear in mind that 'reviews' probably represent less than 50% of the channel. The bulk of content on the channel is demonstration/tutorial in nature. I released a series of videos on the NGX some 12 to 18 months after the NGX released showing how to fly with it and those videos collectively went on to gain 1/4 of a million views and become one of the most popular NGX series on YouTube - they almost certainly drove traffic to PMDG as well. If some of you wish to sit back indignant and do nothing then so be it - ultimately increased exposure for X-Plane benefits you anyway - but it does sadden me to see Ben's attitude towards any form of journalism. *Edited to clarify the channel's growth*

I have no experience building PCs but I just put together one for myself. Once all the parts were picked out it took no longer than a day, including installing my OS. I was very nervous as it was of course expensive and I didn't want to botch anything, but there are tons of videos on youtube demonstrating what you need to do, and areas you need to take care (don't forget the motherboard mounts, the back of it shouldn't be touching the metal case, etc.). It was very rewarding and saved me a LOT of money that I put into better parts. I ended up spending about $1680 US, and the only equivalent system I could find pre-built was close to $3000, but had some inferior parts.

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=How+far+can+a+b17+fly+on+a+tank+of+fuel%3F

And here you can find. an offical Training-"Video" from second world war:

This will serve as formal notice that this topic is now closed. The value of anything good coming from this this late in discussion is next to nothing.

Duly noted... I am glad I overcame my fears of something new and bought X-Plane... It is my primary sim and I only use FSX when I want to experience something that is not yet offered (or that I know of) in the X-Plane community.

Best of luck to you Froogle. Hopefully you can make some FSX heads turn with those new upcoming X-Plane vids. Welcome to the X-Plane community. It's a pleasure to have you here !

Ok guys, This is all getting very out of hand, or has the potential to. I appreciate the supportive sentiments expressed by some of the posters here, and I understand the point of view Cameron, Ben et al are putting forward. First up, let me say this is wholly unexpected, that my request in a V-LOG to my subscribers would suddenly explode into this and frankly it makes me a little uncomfortable. I'm used to working with companies in my work at PC Pilot and formerly at other gaming publications to contacting a PR dude and saying "Hey, we want to take a look at xyz" and it's a non-issue. The way this conversation is going honestly is making me more than a little uncomfortable and I feel painting me in a light that I'm not particularly happy with, and most certainly not a first impression I want to create within the X-Plane community. As I said in my earlier long post, if someone doesn't want to hand over a product for review or to be featured within broader X-Plane videos on my channel then that's fine. Quite a few developers have stepped forward and asked to get involved today so I have more than enough content to focus on in the near term. All the best.

The point is (which this Froogle chap doesn't seem to get), is that he's an FSX guy, not an X-Plane guy. So, he's just a random blogger asking for free content. As he says, FSX is running out of steam, so he want to keep his blog going by switching to X-Plane. Fair enough, but he should try joining a forum or two (like here), make a few contributions, and make himself known first. IMHO.

Sounds fairly near. Jolly good...

Photos from My Twitch.tv Live Stream Flight from KSFO to KLAX. Thank you LES and XA for this wonderful aircraft!

(SPQT) Iquitos - Peru

Last flight with my trusty 5 year old macbook while I wait for the computer in my signature to ship.

Today's flight and entry into the October Screenshot contest over at EPOCH. This is at one of the locations in the "Ultimate Glacier Pilot" scenery package.

I wish the stupid childish post would get deleted as they are unrelated to the topic "What did you fly today?". That being said........

Hotel-thingy just south of LSEZ Zermatt. Took about 7 or 8 attempts to land.

I have a pet theory that we are approaching a limit to how much of a modern airliner we can realistically model on a 'study sim' level with justifiable efforts and that in the future, we will mostly be flying ridiculously detailed models of old aircraft. This is because the aircraft industry is quickly closing the gap (or already closed it) between the amount of software development that goes into the real aircraft versus the simulator models provided for entertainment. Coding up a model of the 733 systems (like we are in IXEG) or even the NG is one thing because the real aircrafts are still very much based on 1980-1990's hardware and computing power (think 386 CPU's...) and this severly limits the range of functionality. And this still takes years and years! If you look at something like the Gulfstream PlaneView cockpit or, I assume, the latest gen Boeings and Airbuses, you have probably 10-50 times the software functionality to reproduce if you want a near-complete simulation. And if you manage to code it all, I doubt that our Macs and PCs are equipped to run the simulated cockpit software in parallell with X-Plane at acceptable framerate since the real aircraft probably has similar computing power to run the avionics software ONLY. I may be underestimating the capability of tomorrows simulator modellers a bit but I still think those of us who are into 'classics' with steam gauge or CRT/steam combo avionics are going to be way more satisfied in the future than those who crave latest gen cockpits. Now back to topic.

A little cold lately don't you think?