Post by Deleted on Sept 5, 2014 21:05:04 GMT -5
Well, I don't know if I'll win or lose friends here over this, but I have posted at Carenado's forum, and submitted by ticket so I know it would get read, an "open letter" to Carenado/Alabeo (one and the same IMO) regarding the type and quality of their projects. I'm posting it here for you to read as an FYI. Not everyone may agree with this and that's fine. Forums are all about expressing an opinion and if enough people vote the other way, then so be it. The majority should rule, and I'm ok with that. But if opinions aren't expressed in the first place, it is pretty hard for others to agree or disagree. So, we'll see if it makes any difference at all. I am speaking for myself only here and others may choose to agree or disagree. I don't get offended if people disagree with me. Only if they make it a personal attack.
"I have a plea for Carenado/Alabeo (yes, they are one and the same, at least at the top). Now I strongly suspect that the powers that be (Carenado/Alabeo - "C/A" from here on) don't read their own forums, so I may well end up emailing this to Carenado support, but here it is as an open "letter". This won't sit well with everyone, but I suspect strongly it will sit well with a majority of simmers who buy Carenado/Alabeo (C/A) products. So here goes.
Please, please go back to doing what you do well. This is steam driven, often older style, simpler GA aircraft! There is no disputing that your graphics are the best there are. I have yet to buy a C/A plane where I haven't been blown away by how good the product looks. I should know, I've worked in Aviation as a pilot and maintenance person for the past 47 years now (and am still in it). When I sit in a Cessna or Piper or Beechcraft airplane that we have in our hangar, regardless of model (up to and including the King Air), I am amazed at how accurate the graphics are in your models and how immersive they are when stacked up against the real thing. I don't think there are too many people out there that will dispute that.
There are a couple of advantages to going back to the more basic airplanes. First, there is less work to do. Yes, the graphics you pretty much have to do from scratch. The flight dynamics however, you can copy and modify from the base FSX aircraft. You don't need to reinvent the wheel there. Most light aircraft fly very similarly to each other. The 206 flies very similar to the 185, which flies similar to a very heavy 172 (twitchier and heavier at the same time, and you need to allow for a tail wheel undercarriage, but there are people who can help with that), and so on. Believe it or not, the standard FSX aircraft are extremely well done in terms of flight dynamics. In particular, the 172 and Beaver (of which I have RW time in - a LOT of RW time in the case of the Beaver) are almost dead on the money in terms of their FDE's. I sometimes think that the dynamics for the later aircraft you have done are over-engineered - trying to build in parameters that FSX simply can't replicate. The end result is aircraft that do not even come close to resembling the real thing, or are so quirky to fly that the fun is gone from them completely. If you used the KISS principle ("Keep It Simple, Stupid"), I think you'd be well served. Oh, and the 208 is like an overgrown 206 - very forgiving and flies like a big baby. So from an FDE standpoint, you have enough templates to do all kinds of airplanes, and with little extra coding for FDE's.
Secondly, with a bit of attention to some nagging details, your functionality could be the best out there as well. There just isn't a lot to code from one airplane to another when you're doing the GA type of machine. What you DO need to do is pay a lot more attention to things like backwards working switches, instruments that don't read correctly, and so forth. These are "bugs" that have been reported time and time and time again, but little is ever done to fix them. This is basically why I stopped buying your products because I already know before I get the airplane exactly what bugs are going to be in the machine, and know there is little chance of them being fixed. That is maddening as (insert expletive which I can't use here since Avsim treats us like children). I would think it would be a matter of pride that you would want to have as bug free a release as possible, but I guess since people buy your machines regardless, you don't really have to care. For me, I would feel embarrassed to not fix what bugs I could. The good thing is, once you have one full set of gauges done and working properly, it's a matter of adjusting the graphics and a few of the parameters for the particular aircraft and you're good to go. Again, you do not need to reinvent the wheel for those either. The key is to actually DO the adjustments and not just do a straight copy and "hope" that the needles sit where they should. In terms of "sophisticated" instruments, many, many of these older aircraft still use simple, hand-held GPS units similar to what you have in the 185 or (older) 206. They work and are easy to use. And they don't require a lot of coding compared with the newer, more complex glass instruments.
So, what kinds of airplanes am I talking about? The kinds you will find at your local airport, so you do have access to them. Aztecs (huge demand for those!), Navajo's, 310's, 421's, Apache, Comanche, Twin Comanche, Shrike Commander, Queen Air, Single Otter (that would be tougher due to the STOL flight characteristics, but if you modeled after the default Beaver, you'd be pretty close - I do have time in those so could help), and so on and so on. There is no shortage of material for you.
Now I know there are people who would like you to continue pursuing the biz jets and more sophisticated aircraft. And I would hate to stop anyone from pushing the envelope because otherwise they stagnate. I think though, in this case, it makes much better sense for you to slow things down a bit and get back to basics. Your larger, more sophisticated aircraft have not gone over well and are in danger of ruining your reputation. I see more and more posts about bugs, errors and omissions than ever before here, and fewer and fewer posts praising C/A aircraft. That's not good - for us or for you.
The bottom line is, if you did get back to the basic GA aircraft (listed above), and tended to the bugs and refined the the functionality of the gauges (not make them more sophisticated - just fixed the ones that don't work), you'd make a killing in this business. Your airplanes would outsell anything else out there by a country mile. That's not only good for you, but it's good for us. Please, at least think about this. I suspect it would be a win-win scenario.
Thanks for reading.
Glenn"
Please, please go back to doing what you do well. This is steam driven, often older style, simpler GA aircraft! There is no disputing that your graphics are the best there are. I have yet to buy a C/A plane where I haven't been blown away by how good the product looks. I should know, I've worked in Aviation as a pilot and maintenance person for the past 47 years now (and am still in it). When I sit in a Cessna or Piper or Beechcraft airplane that we have in our hangar, regardless of model (up to and including the King Air), I am amazed at how accurate the graphics are in your models and how immersive they are when stacked up against the real thing. I don't think there are too many people out there that will dispute that.
There are a couple of advantages to going back to the more basic airplanes. First, there is less work to do. Yes, the graphics you pretty much have to do from scratch. The flight dynamics however, you can copy and modify from the base FSX aircraft. You don't need to reinvent the wheel there. Most light aircraft fly very similarly to each other. The 206 flies very similar to the 185, which flies similar to a very heavy 172 (twitchier and heavier at the same time, and you need to allow for a tail wheel undercarriage, but there are people who can help with that), and so on. Believe it or not, the standard FSX aircraft are extremely well done in terms of flight dynamics. In particular, the 172 and Beaver (of which I have RW time in - a LOT of RW time in the case of the Beaver) are almost dead on the money in terms of their FDE's. I sometimes think that the dynamics for the later aircraft you have done are over-engineered - trying to build in parameters that FSX simply can't replicate. The end result is aircraft that do not even come close to resembling the real thing, or are so quirky to fly that the fun is gone from them completely. If you used the KISS principle ("Keep It Simple, Stupid"), I think you'd be well served. Oh, and the 208 is like an overgrown 206 - very forgiving and flies like a big baby. So from an FDE standpoint, you have enough templates to do all kinds of airplanes, and with little extra coding for FDE's.
Secondly, with a bit of attention to some nagging details, your functionality could be the best out there as well. There just isn't a lot to code from one airplane to another when you're doing the GA type of machine. What you DO need to do is pay a lot more attention to things like backwards working switches, instruments that don't read correctly, and so forth. These are "bugs" that have been reported time and time and time again, but little is ever done to fix them. This is basically why I stopped buying your products because I already know before I get the airplane exactly what bugs are going to be in the machine, and know there is little chance of them being fixed. That is maddening as (insert expletive which I can't use here since Avsim treats us like children). I would think it would be a matter of pride that you would want to have as bug free a release as possible, but I guess since people buy your machines regardless, you don't really have to care. For me, I would feel embarrassed to not fix what bugs I could. The good thing is, once you have one full set of gauges done and working properly, it's a matter of adjusting the graphics and a few of the parameters for the particular aircraft and you're good to go. Again, you do not need to reinvent the wheel for those either. The key is to actually DO the adjustments and not just do a straight copy and "hope" that the needles sit where they should. In terms of "sophisticated" instruments, many, many of these older aircraft still use simple, hand-held GPS units similar to what you have in the 185 or (older) 206. They work and are easy to use. And they don't require a lot of coding compared with the newer, more complex glass instruments.
So, what kinds of airplanes am I talking about? The kinds you will find at your local airport, so you do have access to them. Aztecs (huge demand for those!), Navajo's, 310's, 421's, Apache, Comanche, Twin Comanche, Shrike Commander, Queen Air, Single Otter (that would be tougher due to the STOL flight characteristics, but if you modeled after the default Beaver, you'd be pretty close - I do have time in those so could help), and so on and so on. There is no shortage of material for you.
Now I know there are people who would like you to continue pursuing the biz jets and more sophisticated aircraft. And I would hate to stop anyone from pushing the envelope because otherwise they stagnate. I think though, in this case, it makes much better sense for you to slow things down a bit and get back to basics. Your larger, more sophisticated aircraft have not gone over well and are in danger of ruining your reputation. I see more and more posts about bugs, errors and omissions than ever before here, and fewer and fewer posts praising C/A aircraft. That's not good - for us or for you.
The bottom line is, if you did get back to the basic GA aircraft (listed above), and tended to the bugs and refined the the functionality of the gauges (not make them more sophisticated - just fixed the ones that don't work), you'd make a killing in this business. Your airplanes would outsell anything else out there by a country mile. That's not only good for you, but it's good for us. Please, at least think about this. I suspect it would be a win-win scenario.
Thanks for reading.
Glenn"