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Cessna 172 with G1000.

I love the city sometimes:

So if what you seem to be saying is true, Hangar advocates for the de-listing of Xplane products from marketplaces such as X-plane.org (this one I agree should die off), X-aviation, Just Flight,and Aerosoft. Then each Xplane developer should "go their own way" and develop and release their products, market them, and do all of the customer support solely on their own. How exactly would this be desirable for a single person or even two people and really why would these people do this? What's wrong with a person or small team being able to focus all their time and efforts on doing what they love, creating add-ons, while letting another company deal with setting up the online marketplace and customer support forums? Hangar, your little snide insults don't bother me in the least. Implying that I can't "comprehend" your posts and talking out the side of your neck by saying that I should just "stick to what I know...whatever that is" only serve to show that you are unable to hold a debate. Instead you must rely on personal insults to try to get your point across. Yes I did read you posts, every word of them. I do know what you are saying, I simply disagree with you. Why did Microsoft Flight Simulator get so big? Having the backing of the Microsoft had a lot to do with it. Then also the hard working addon developers made amazing products which added the incredible longevity of the market we see today. Xplane has never had that kind of backing, that kind of mindshare with the public. For most of it's life it languished in the shadows as an inferior simulation in many respects. Version 10 has changed that, it is a much more robust platform for content creators to work on. Hence we've seen a many more fantastic addons available from numerous developers, many of whom have come over from FSX. There are talented people working on Xplane and the sim market will continue to perform well.

I think he means, are you using converted FSX scenery ? Just a guess. I know its not.

Lock please.

Exactly! We've seen tons of pretty pictures for two years already.

The quality of this conversation took a rather abrupt swerve into absurdity, but honestly I'd rather read a few dirty limericks then to have to hear Hangar prattle on about his "20 years" of experience in sales and marketing again. I don't care if you have 20 years of experience, the very basis of your argument is ridiculous and not based on fact. X-plane DOES have professional etailers making quality products for the marketplace. Carenado, FlyJSim, Alabeo, and X-Aviation are all well respected content creators. Soon we'll have the 737 Classic from IXEG which looks to be phenomenal and hopefully somewhat soon the first product from PMDG as well. Is the X-plane market anywhere near as big as Microsoft Flight Simulator? No, of course not, not by long shot, but then Laminar is all of 6-10 people in South Carolina, not a multi-billion dollar international corporation. Gee, do you think that might have something to do with it maybe? Xplane is growing and so too are the developers. Do they wish they were bigger or growing faster? Sure, but as long as they make good products that sell well and sales continue to grow each year, they'll be doing just fine.

This thread has gone sideways in a rather glorious manner.

King Air C90 over France King Air C90 over France

Only 'cause I spent years laying the foundations and building bridges so that others may pass..

2 hours for Ben? He can code an entire system for an A380 in 2 hours!

Some weeks I might get as much as two whole hours to spend on X-Plane related work. There are many factors unseen and unspoken that contribute to lag times in my own personal situation. Given an ideal situation we could indeed be far further ahead than we are but life is far from ideal. Life is what happens while you're making plans.

So you say that you're an "informed observer/advisor" and yet the very first thing you say in your ramblings is that X-plane has no reputable e-tailers making X-plane addons. Really? Carenado and their sister company Alabeo have almost all of their products available for X-plane, Aerosoft has released a number of payware airports as well as some which come bundled with X-plane and have been a focal supporter for quite a while now, and PMDG has commited to TWO projects in the near future. Then for you to come on this website which is the official X-Aviation forums and pontificate that X-plane has no professional etailers is some nerve. How do you make these informed opinions by the way, do you have actual sales figures from Laminar, Carenado, and X-Aviation to look at? Xplane has been growing by leaps and bounds over the past couple of years and shows no signs of slowing down. When I got version nine, it was far behind FSX in terms of visuals and the add-ons market was basically just free stuff from the org and a few paid addons which were of terrible quality. Now there's a wealth of excellent freeware and professional payware. With Xplane 10 getting better with each new update, I really don't see the issue.

Love the angle! Very "Go Pro" esque!

And for those on Macs? You're dismissing a large chunk of the X-Plane market in your solution here. Can I ask what products you have made to support your claims? Even if a company takes in their own support, they still have dedicated staff to tend to that matter. Speaking for X-Aviation, considering the premise is quality over quantity, I don't agree with your farming out assessment. In fact, it just happens to show how ill informed you are of how intricately tied the devs that work with us (and vice versa) are from the "ground breaking" to the finished product. The support forums exist for a very good reason. You can interact with the developers all day long, and if you even pay attention, you'll see people do just that... As someone who interacts with customers daily in this market, I can tell you first hand majority of people much rather use one channel and point of contact for support as they purchased their product. In the event our support staff cannot answer a question (which is really quite rare), the developer is brought into the support ticket.

777-200LR OMDB-OEDF A320 YMML

Dassault Rafale C over Paris, France. Robin Dr 400-180 on final at St. Cyr l'Ecole.

Tyabb: Taking the tug out onto the roads

Can you spot anything peculiar on this shot?

Inspired by niebeiski's screenshot story, a short one of my own. Air France 8: Paris Charles De Gaulle (CDG) - New York (JFK) For this flight, I connected to x-ivap and actually synchronized my flight with the real world Air France Flight 8, so X-Plane and real life AFR 8 were flying simultaneously in the same aircraft and on the same route. I might have been one or two minutes off but it felt pretty cool. No screenshots of departure or takeoff sorry, time goes by and concentration. However, this is shortly over 2,500 feet, 1 minute after takeoff. Breaking through cumulous clouds from 5,000 to 8,000 feet. One of the best things in X-Plane is how beautiful simulated everything is, to the point where you (almost) get the same feeling as if you were flying in real life. Making a turn over our first leg of the journey VOR PG26, and climbing over 10,000 Feet. At this point VNAV has been turned on and its all smooth sailing from here. Passenger view and some beautiful scenery as the aircraft climbs out of France. Cruising at FL360 and Mach .86 After 5 and a half hours of flight, we make landfall over Nova Scotia, the time now is past 8 PM EST and the sun has set. Very dark but partly visible descent. New York is just under those clouds. Instruments showing Final Approach path toward runway 04R Time moves so fast during landing that I had to stay inside the cockpit and focus. The landing was smooth, the back gears kissed the tarmac and the nose gear gently descended onto the runway following a trail of tire smoke. The reverse thrust engaged and the aircraft slowed down and then taxied of the tarmac. Lights up and welcome to New York! Time to disembark. The Real Life AFR8 Landed at 9:24 PM EST, I landed at 9:29 EST. I was just 5 minutes behind, probably because of a slower approach speed, but It felt like I was flying the real thing, and the Flight Factor 777-200 made it seem that way, along with Sky Maxx Pro and Flywithlua + Tweaks. The flight time was 7 Hours and 32 minutes. The End

Went up north today, and did BGKK to BGSF in AeroPedro's recent update to his free Twin Otter. Nothing but featureless glacier for most of the flight, but both the climb and the descent were scenic. I do miss the HD mesh and photo scenery at these latitudes, though...

The first livery to be released with the 787-9 is not yet known, however we do intend to release a white jet for both the 787-8 and 787-9 upon initial release, though we'd prefer that people didn't make paints yet (because we intend to do all of them one by one)

Right now there simply aren't any top notch e-tailers selling X-plane products...so you're taking a chance no matter who you buy XP products from these days. More authors need to start selling their own products and offering their own forum support if they ever expect to build their brand and improve sales. Buying addons for Xplane from resellers is pointless right now as far as both product support and consumer protection is concerned. I see it as cowboys and indians out here, still. The X-plane brand is sorely in need of more good honest pro's in both development and retail. Don't get me wrong...I know alot of these guys see themselves as professionals...and they do help getting the product lines out there...but from what I've read, heard and personally observed myself thus far things are still a ways off from exuding buyer confidence. Here's a tip for authors.... want to jump start your credibility in the flightsim market but don't want to offer a product demo?...go with the Flight1 Wrapper system. Customers can download the product from your own website link and pay thru the Flight1 system during the install so you won't even need your own merchant account and cart system. Customers would also get a 30 day return/refund policy automatically as well with this system in place. You can even setup your own official company support forum at Avsim if you don't want to do it on your own website. You must establish credibility and reliability over time thru professional consistency before you can really build a brand with a following. X-plane devs need to either partner with the FSX pro's that already have the consumer confidence in place...or, you need to start emulating them. This is very, very important for X-plane and the future of it's branding and it's devs.

28 years in sales & marketing...19 of those include project management on the internet. My clients are not poor to say the least, but they are all considered small businesses. I am not posting here to bash or single out any one particular e-tailer or developer. I am merely speaking of the X-plane marketplace in general terms and on the whole. I'm sure there must be some who are doing things right...but they need alot more. My post was not actually meant as professional advice, more like ramblings from an informed observer/advisor and somewhat disgruntled X-plane consumer... but you certainly don't need a degree in theoretical physics (nor 30 years experience in the gaming industry) to see all the mistakes that have been hurting the X-plane branding in general terms. There's plenty of information out there for the taking. Lets put it this way...it is NOT all LR's fault. They are only half the equation in this. Don't think there needs to be changes in your mindset or in the way some of you do business out here? Ask yourselves a question...how long have you been working at this and are you satisfied with your annual sales? If so then you don't need any advice...mine or otherwise.

Uhm...by the way...I know the 5 of you here think this site is pure gold and all...so would it be too much trouble to have the front page of X-plane news on this site updated a little more often?...It's been 6 friggen months already since the owner has bothered...might be a good idea to build things up around here...ya think?