@Black-Square I appreciate the thoughtful reply! Thank you for your understanding. That you responded and listened all, I am grateful for.
Features that would justify a purchase ... that's tougher at this point as basically you are telling me it's a lot more than I thought it was. I think that was my point partially earlier. I have not read the manuals for the new aircraft, and I must have missed Feb content. As I indicated, I didn't catch the turbine variant in the video until today, and that is because you mentioned it. I have sort of tried to justify that with my statement concerning the DCS thing... those detailed investigations become all consuming to me, and I end up getting little out of it in the end, so I flat out refuse to dedicate the time to it. That's not to be taken personal at all. Your manuals are fantastic. But I'm only willing to dive in, once I have commited to diving in. I was looking at the first page there on the JF site as a executive summary and as I read it, not much caught my eye. Just being honest. That is one caveat in my career I find I am frequently up against as well. I've written 5 page documents in the past to explain a position I took in a meeting at request of a VP who disliked my position, only to have the whole document be dismissed when said VP read the first line in the document and said "oh okay - I agree now, makes sense and you used the right technique" (a boring statistical conversation about MTBF and failure probability and weibayes analysis). I wished I had just said "I used weibayes analysis to do the risk of product failure projection" and saved the 6 hours writing up a 5 page explanation. I think you can probably chalk this up to how you reach all potential customers. There is an art to the hook. I am no expert on the hook. But I am telling you, I didn't see yours. For all those that did, good for you. Gold star. Thumbs up emoji. I get the frowny face stamp special ordered from Germany. Let's move on with life.
I do think you are depracating the analog series a little strongly here. You were asking $57.75 for those in a bundle and still are ... and that work formed the foundation for everything you have built since, along with the Velocity XL and the other Analog aircraft in your line. Did it not? I think saying it's motorcycle traded for luxury SUV is a bit of disservice to those Analog versions. I do understand your point, but I don't really agree with the analogy. The dollars, are the dollars: $57 bundle for Analog, vs. $65 for the new product bundle. I am only comparing the dollars each costs. You are still selling the Analog bundle at that same price today. Keeping up with inflation, it's basically a wash comparing the too talking from 2023 to 2025. I do agree I got enjoyment out of them for 2.5 years certainly and that has some value. That is basically the meaning behind what depreciation is. But again, I wasn't suggesting free was the goal .... ever. I fully respect work did go into the new product, and I am conceding I underestimated perhaps how much work that was. I was just suggesting 20% of the new price is undervaluing to the earlier offering and customer relationship. It is beyond rare that customers for any product get the opportunity to provide feedback to a merchant that actually matters in anyway. And I get that I knew I was in the minority here, as I said right at the outset. I am the tail of a distribution here. If you had made the discount 40% right away, I'd give you my credit card number right now (well okay, the merchant site). And yes I know there is a degree of being cheap in this, by interpretation. Is walking out of a dealership to save another 0.5% on a car purchase smart? Or cheap? Or both maybe? I am wired the way I am, but that's how I think. And I have walked out of more dealerships over a couple hundred dollars on a $35k transaction than I have bought cars in.
The only other approach is I just never say anything, I never make the purchase either. In that case, you lose a sale, probably don't know about it, and don't know why. You might see some numbers a little below expectations if enough folks take that route. I guess the internet is happy with that, or maybe not because who else are they going to call names if I don't decide to put my foot in it. I know people that never bought the Analog version who by all indications, should have. That matters. Better to have some understanding why, is it not?
But regardless, I am apparently missing the boat on the value of this product offering. I'll watch some videos next week and see if my feelings change.
Regarding your question about feature set.... for the products you have in the past released as standalone that I own, which are the TBM, both Dukes, and the Starship as I said before..... I cannot think of many improvements. Navigraph feature set, and stronger integration with flight plans perhaps coming out of simbrief might be nice, but I cannot say I avoid or purchase addons like these due to that. I do frequently use navigraph for VFR planning too personally, though I feel like it's me and 2 other people maybe who actually do that. I will pick out waypoints as "POIs" from the map - you know, lakes, rivers and roads (IFR), and create the route. It would be awesome if there was a way to see that on the virtual EFB, especially for VR. Alt-tabbing stinks in that setting. Yes I know one can import the route info to the GTN or as equipped for IFR .... I am thinking more about VOR-VOR flying though (and ADF). I do create routes that way with simbrief, if I could view them on the EFB with the VOR references, that would be nice. The FSS 727 has that via the clipboard that lets you see the route info and VOR freqs on it along with lat-lon coordinates. That's a nice little QOA improvement. But I obviously purchased these above without this stuff.
What this probably speaks to is what is it that I do value about your products, and might be a better thought line. These are the draws as I see them:
Analog instrumentation with gauges that behave more like real world counterparts. I am not a huge fan of modern GPS. In the real world, those are awesome tools of course and I am sure that air travel is improved and safer and more efficient because of it. But I get that from my Airbus and Boeing stuff and the odd G1000 GA aircraft if I crave it, and it's not that interesting to me. What I adore about your aircraft is the needle bounce/inaccuracy at range simulation (whatever you call it), and the stiction in cold weather, coupled with analog instrumentation. Those I link all together because I find the learning of navigation from the radio nav era extremely interesting, and signal degradation / error in indication is a big part of the process. As I also do for celestial, INS, etc. I love learning about how stuff as this used to work before all the automation of today.
Failures .... I mentioned MTBF above because sadly, I work in principally reliability engineering. Have for 30+ years, and today run my own consulting company for same. So I natively get it. Some other sim devs do have that in some degree as well. Some even use the terminology. Notably I believe PMDG and Leonardo have it called out by name in their products, and I think Blackbird uses it behind the scenes. I respect the hell out of even including it. But I dare say your implementation is probably the best of all who have tried, and I love that it's there, even if I am not using it 100% of the time.
Quirks of aircraft systems in simulation ... your aircraft capture a lot of those quirks, probably most or all. That makes a module engaging and fun to learn. None of the defaults do that really much at all, and plenty of paid content is very weak in this regard. The more quirks in simulation - particularly of systems, the better for me. That speaks a little bit to #2 of course, though I mean unique characteristics of an airframe and it's systems that set it apart from others, which I liken to character. Character is very important.
Aspirational bent ... I am not a pilot. Just dream and put money into other things. But, the Starship especially is a plane I have LONG admired. I stared at the one at the Evergreen aviation museum out back there for about 30 minutes back in 2023 on a vacation. The Dukes are similar, if a little lower in my "man that's a cool plane" list. The next I cannot wait for is a Rockwell Aero Commander (yes I think I recall you are planning that one). So what I am describing here is a bent for specific types. Emotional. The TBM is fantastic as a product, but for me it's somewhat of a let down in this category. It's not something I am personally emotionally drawn too... but I do enjoy it more than I thought I would, primarily because of 1-2-3 above. The "850 mode" for example ... interesting quirk of operation.
You may note that models, sounds, animations are not listed. To me, they are just nice to have. I don't really care about them much. I know a lot of folks get bent about wing flex (pun intended). But a related I believe 5th item would be probably performance in the simulator. I'd rather have a smooth experience than give up any frame rate or worse, stuttering, for wing flex. It's not something I am drawn to much. I don't dislike nice looking stuff in terms of texturing and animations. But it's secondary to me in priority to all else. Failing the others but being really pretty is likely a recipe to avoid purchase for me.
I'll give you #4 is crap. I mean to say, it's personal ... it's what I like individually, and really isn't about something you can heavily control. But what I will say about this is as I mentioned - the TBM ... so if you had been to market behind the M500, and the PC-12, I probably would have bought one of those first. So there is a timing piece to it (but I do have the M500 because I also adore Piper for my own personal reasons). I wanted a good turboprop simulation to learn about that. I am not however beholden to a certain developer for that historically. But you arrived first, and therefore you won that one.
So back to the topic at hand, the Beech aircraft in analog form satisfy all the above as previously released I had thought and felt. The EFB is nicer, but I don't necessarily find the MTBF stuff being there ground breaking. It was already there in the weather radar I mean. Not to be dismissive of the EFB mind you for the engine and cabin pages. Those are cool visualizations. But is the visualization necessary in this case? To an extent (learning - see below). But it is a visualization. I had thought you had that code behind the scenes already there for the failure system on the engines. Granted you apparently have added things I was not aware at the time I wrote my initial concern yesterday. But my priorities above hold those Analog products in pretty high esteem already. So I think this comes down more to understanding what is really new for my part, and how that fits for me to justify value.
But I do have a thought or two on something that could really elevate things:
I currently am flying the Grand Duke around the world via the Ascenion Island route through southern US, Caribbean, with wear and tear and failures enabled at your default rates. This was after I had spent a month or two flying it around going through emergency procedures and practicing handling same. See I had done a round the world flight before (via Greenland route) in the Blackbird/Milviz C310R, and lost an engine on the 2nd to last leg and realized I didn't even have prop feathering properly bound on my Honeycomb so I didn't get it feathered in time, and ended up crashing due to the drag down low on approach to an airport single engine. So like I debriefed that because I am obviously not dead and it's a game, and I am also a sociopath. And then when I decided to start a new circumnav route in your aircraft, I picked the plane for somewhat similar reasons (twin engine, type, range, etc), but also for that reason from the debrief: do I believe the reasonablness failure system, and do I understand the steps I need to take? Can I train to do those things properly and not die (virtually)? Does the aircraft module give me the immersion to do that well (note that for this, texturing isn't relevant to immersion)? Those became all consuming, and the debrief sort of mindset took over. That logic then translated into a lot of learning more about the quirks of the aircraft. I was reading everything I could about the Dukes. The engines ... how they were reported to fail in various forums by owners, etc. If I knew an owner, I would probably bug them like they were a rock star. And ya, if a real world pilot takes off without even knowing how to feather a prop and they lose an engine at cruise and die it's clearly reckless or "poor preparation" and on them. But the crash bothered me a lot. Crashing on leg 48 of 49 played into that. Like blowing a lead in the 8th inning (sorry Seattle, sincerely). Though from a lot of NTSB reports, it seems to happen in general, frequently (mistakes and carelessness). Regardless, I was naive concerning that 3 years ago. The experience compelled me to learn some new stuff. Which is cool, but the flipside is, it was really hard to learn all that. It required a lot of googling, and reading other sources (in my view). That I took the time required a certain amount of OCD. And I doubt very much I actually am prepared. More prepared than I was, yes. But I feel like it's 30-40%. In the real world, that would just make me SUPER dangerous. My other friends, who do not flight sim, think I can land a real plane. Ya no. I am not that dumb to believe that.
Anyway - what I think would be next level is taking failures and wear and tear into even more of a tangible realm from an accessibility perspective. I think your MTBF solution in the EFB is the best I have seen to date as I said above. But it's still effectively a long list of things that can break and times to fail as MTBF. People don't learn from lists. And the MTBF value is just a probability of an event at any point in time (and is constant). Lists are reminders to prevent forgetting an item that is critical. Learning WHY is the key right? Right now, when something happens in wear and tear and random failures, I tend to open the EFB or the weather radar to see what the system says is wrong with it. That's not realistic at all (you would use the instruments and you know, potentially see what is wrong - like hey I think we just got hit by something), but it works in the simulator. So I wonder about a canned mission series instead - perhaps built into the EFB. Mission is not exactly the right word. But one hops in, click a button on the EFB on like a training page that says run mission for engine failure on takeoff. Auto pause at failure maybe is a check box option, and then then the simmer is prompted with training elements, step, and direct ability to read more. The relevant checklist would also immediately be displayed maybe on the right side of the EFB, to start to train the flow. This would feel more like a virtual flight instructor, albeit operating from a script and not per se adapting to Q&A on the fly. I guess you could use AI LLM of some sort to even process asks ... "why do I bring throttles to idle first" and then get a response. Sort of like FS Academy training missions which I enjoy, but like native to the plane. You could also compel learning about the various quirks of airframes through this as well. It would make depth far more transparent is what I am thinking, and start driving the specific behaviors in a very accessible way. I am opening the EFB to figure out what broke today, because I don't have the behaviors built into my brain. And that's because I am flying a chair to nowhere while playing make believe, and no one showed me how and why I was supposed to do it. I get of course there are 20,000 real pilots out there scoffing at this level of stupidity. You all already know the stuff and steps. It's 2nd nature to you now (real pilots) because you were trained. I am looking for the training. And I think at the type level, right? There are basics for sure, and there are specific things that pertain to a type. Otherwise, there would literally not need to be a thing such as a type rating.
If you have ever checked out Re-Entry (the space sim game available on Steam) ... the first Mercury mission I think does something with this in a very interesting way that was both fun and really engaging in my opinion. If you are not familiar, Re-Entry is highly procedural as well and simulates more or less the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo missions at this point, with detailed growth through the series of mission executions. You become the astronaut, and get a solid feel for it - from the seated at a desk perspective. It feels like the real deal, but it brings playing fake astronaut into the realm of plausibility. The author describes is as accessible and not full fidelity as I recall, but it's pretty damn detailed (the game). Every switch pretty much in each capsule works. People say it has a steep learning curve. But in my opinion, it's less steep due this mission centric features that throws learning opportunities at you, and they are specific to each vehicle. That said, yes it does get into some pretty advanced physics concepts. Orbital mechanics. I mean - technically, "rocket science." And condenses it to a game costing $29.99. I am not gonna give away what happens in that Mercury mission for those who have not flown it. But for me, it was like an "aha" that illustrated the depth of the systems simulation, showed me how to handle it, and prompted learning that otherwise might never have happened, and didn't require me to go read other content for 17 hours. I think this to me would be next level.
I guess other things might be like rivet pops. I mean that might be kinda cool. Visible damage when you dip a wing and kiss a runway. Prop strike damage. Flat tires. Flat spots on tires from skids (even if just sound and maybe a bit of vibration). If you ever do a taildragger, damage to gear structures from ground looping. Stuff like that.
I am not saying these are things required to get me to agree to purchase a Bonanza. These are just my ideas for taking simulated flight in a plane to the next level. I love learning. To me that's what it's all about. If one is into pretty scenery, and I am not dissing that, MSFS already has a bunch of decent defaults that work well for looking at the scenery and wondering how the hell they did all that.
I apologize for the drama. I should have held my fingers. And I am sorry for the book. If you want to talk more about an idea or two I am happy to talk offline, and should probably end this typing here now.
