Sim Avionics join forces with Flight Deck Solutions!!!

[my737sim]

What advantages (Other then cost...) will Sim-Avionics have over Project Magenta? I have the full PM suite (except the instructor station, which instead I bought Luis Gordo's fabulous IS software) and am wondering what I would get by switching? I mean, my interfaceit card from FDS works fine with PM. Peter just announced new sys cards on his forums as well. So what would someone like myself gain out of this?

(What I CAN see, is Peter being able to now not only sell full trainers from the hardware side, but not requiring any software / pm setup anymore. Pop in a disk, run installers, and everything is configured and ready to go with his hardware, so SMART move there)

But will it offer anything new for existing pm customers / fds users?

Matt
www.my737sim.com

[tomenglish2000]

Wow Ralph! Just had to say that your sim looks absolutely amazing. Hope you can do Simfest some time in the future again. It was lots of fun. Tom.

[Melnato]

@ Matt...

Ive quietly been converting over from PM to Sim-A.

I'm not going to start a War over this, but I am extremely happy with the move
Sim-A is MUCH more advanced, realistic MCP behaviour, realisitc CDU, Systems modelling is better too.
Theres a heap more I can talk about, but I dont want to sound like an infomercial.
Dowload the DEMO and youll see what I mean.

Its not perfect yet (close), but at least the Sim-A team listens and improves the product all the time.

I know its hard to fork out more money, but I doubt anyone will regret it.

Nat

[my737sim]

Always good information from you Nat. (The 10.4 LCD from ebay rocked, thanks again on that one)

Money's not the issue. If it were, I would not be in this hobby as I'm sure you know heh.

My only concern is compatibility. Lots of stuff that is wired for PM. (Like my GoFlight MCP... still waiting for 737 demand to die on the new fds mcp so I can order one heh) And am just curious how it'd all work out.

Will give it a try!

Matt
www.my737sim.com

@ Matt...

Ive quietly been converting over from PM to Sim-A.

I'm not going to start a War over this, but I am extremely happy with the move
Sim-A is MUCH more advanced, realistic MCP behaviour, realisitc CDU, Systems modelling is better too.
Theres a heap more I can talk about, but I dont want to sound like an infomercial.
Dowload the DEMO and youll see what I mean.

Its not perfect yet (close), but at least the Sim-A team listens and improves the product all the time.

I know its hard to fork out more money, but I doubt anyone will regret it.

Nat

[Sean Nixon]

It's been a few months since I played with any demos, be it PM, S-A or FDS, but when running all three side by side, PM definately had the edge VISUALLY. Even PMDG's MCP/ND looked better than the others. The visuals were enough to put me off buying one of the PM alternatives at that time. It's difficult to assess any program properly in a 10-20 minute evaluation period, so nigh on impossible to test systems, etc, but as first impressions go, I wasn't overly impressed. I'm still deciding which software to run with. If I'm honest, I'd like PM, but it's vastly overpriced (compared to the alternatives), I know it's not perfect, and support is rubbish for home builders. I don't even think they are interested in us, hence the high price, they are pricing us out.

I notice the BUY NOW page at Sim-Avionics takes you directly to the FDS homepage. Is this intentional? No pricing details at either site, and no way of buying the software at the moment!

Bad move (for us) in my opinion if they are linking up that close with FDS, as my impressions of FDS are similar to PM, that is they appear to have moved on to bigger fish (more money) and are not too interested in the home/consumer market any more.

[RalphW]

It's been a few months since I played with any demos, be it PM, S-A or FDS, but when running all three side by side, PM definately had the edge VISUALLY.

Hi Sean

Interesting. I moved from the full PM suite to SA primarily because, in my rig, SA is visually better than PM, runs smoother than PM and is easier to configure due to its simple server/client architecture.

It wasn't easy though, putting over £1000 worth of PM software on the shelf!

Regards

[Westozy]

I have just built a MIP for member Wes Hollet and he is trialing Sim Avionics B737. Wes will be assisting me when I convert my sim. Ken Brand is doing the same for the SA B777 software, I am building his MIP so I will produce a full report for the membership soon on our findings!

Cheers, Gwyn

[brynjames]

Bad news in a posting over on the sim-avionics forum. The poster reports that he has received pricing from Peter Cos, and in his words

"What a mess..for the same software you have to pay four times of the original !"

If this means what I think it means, that is really bad news for the community. In the past there were warnings that the introductory pricing might not last (and there was once a warning that it would finish by a certain month, although nothing happened) but there was no warning in this case of such a big jump.

Very unfortunate for those who were testing prior to making the purchase.

There is as yet no comment at all from Mark on their forum.

Anyone got any other information?

--
Bryn

[fsaviator]

I really hope what you're saying isn't the case, Bryn. I'm in the market now, and was looking at going with S-A based on the positive words about the company, and the price.

I guess we'll see...

[Kennair]

Yep nearly tripled in price, just got a list. SA's pricing was alwasy listed as "Introductory" though and its still cheaper than PM. Not sure about the cost of further updates however.

Ken.