When is the review ready, or is it cancelled.

It's certainly not cancelled, all Avsim reviews take place in this kind of time frame, the Ariane one is not any different in that respect.Reviews of complex products always take time, if I dashed it off in five munites it would not serve the purpose for which I intended it, i.e. to be a comprehensive truthful review of the thing. To be inaccurate on a review is something that has to be carefully avoided, because one wrong word or incorrect statement could damage sales of a product undeservedly, similarly, not pointing out a fault or missing feature could mean buyers purchase something that does not do what they want, and in both cases I would not be thanked for causing something of that nature.You also have to remember that I'm not paid to do this, so I'm not going to be working on it 24/7, although I have actually dedicated quite a lot of time to it as it happens, mostly in performing test flights and reading technical manuals about the real aicraft, in order to compare stuff.Since you asked, the review itself is about halfway done in terms of the copy (8,791 words to be exact - I just checked) and structure, and almost completely done as far as screenshots go. I'm still testing a few things out to ensure that I'm being completely accurate in what I say about features, specifically regarding FMC functionality and ILS capture. When that's done I'll be able to finish up writing stuff and submit it to Avsim's Reviews Editor, Robert Whitwell, and it will be up to he and Avsim to decide when it gets put up on the site.I anticipate it being completed by me in about a week's time, but it's important to note that reviews are not put online the moment they get submitted (that's why there is a Reviews Editor and numerous other techie people involved too). Sometimes it can be a while before they are there, because they have to be scheduled by Robert and actually uploaded by the Avsim Technical dudes, many of whom are also volunteers. You can have a pop at the reviewer for what he or she says, but as far as getting a review on the Avsim pages goes, it's a team effort.Al

no offense but shouldn't a review be done by someone who understands the complexity of a true 737?

I doubt that any single person can understand the true complexity of a 737; you'd have to talk to a whole slew of aircraft engineers, mechanics, pilots, etc. for that. You probably meant the complexity of flying the software representation of a 737, which I am sure Alan is more than qualified to handle.

I posted back on page one and after reading through I just want too point out that all of the FMC problems are the same that exist in their 739V1.5. Its funny when v2.0 came out they offered no discount for 1.5 owners and claimed that v2.0 was a completely new product. This really upsets me in two ways 1. They obviously lied about 2.0 being 'completely new' and 2. It appears they have no intention of ever fixing the problems with v1.5. Now I'm glad I read through this as it seems every time this is brought up in the Ariane forum the OP gets slammed for stating what is pretty obvious and guess who leads the charge! then of course the post disappears altogether. The last real discussion on the instability of the v1.5 FMC over a year ago was totally lost in a forum rebuild and any subsequent posts have been removed or are ignored, like one of mine.One other thing, I read in here that volume is part of the reason behind the high price, I just want to say it works both ways! I'm sure they would sell alot more products if the price were within reason. Compared to other similar products I'd say this one should be no more then 35usd +liveries. I think at that price many posters here would've just bought it to find out what all the hoopla was about.

Yes it should, which is exactly why I am doing a lot of research into the real thing. Anyone can understand the complexity of a true 737, as they can understand the complexity of anything for that matter, by researching it. And that process is no different from how someone who flies or services a 737 for a living learns about the aircraft - they read about it. What is more, there are many things on a 737 that the pilots are not intended to operate, including certain aspects of the FMC, which are intended only for aircraft technicians to play around with, so there are some things on the flight deck that crews do not normally need to have knowledge of.As far as reviewing a simulation is concerned, it is largely a matter of learning about how a system works and what it should be able to do, and seeing how well that is emulated in a product which attempts to simulate it. Of course input from people familiar with using the real thing for their job is useful too where things such as how the aircraft handles manually are concerned, which is why I am also getting input from pilots who fly the thing for a living, in order to support the things I can find out on my own.But you might nevertheless be surprised to learn that many pilots are not familiar with every aspect of the aircraft they fly, and there have been several accidents because of that, so to simply assume that because someone flies a 737 for a living, it automatically means they know everything about that aircraft, is no more true than to say that someone who drives a Ford knows everything about how a Ford works. To give you a couple of examples:An Air Inter Airbus A320-111, registration F-WWDP crashed into a hillside at Strasbourg in 1992 because the crew incorrectly selected a descent rate of 3,300 feet per minute on the MCP, mistakenly thinking they were selecting a descent angle of 3.3 degrees (at that time the A320 had a slightly different MCP which was redesigned as a result of that crash, but it did display the letters FPA if you chose the descent angle option correctly at the time of that crash and with the MCP that was on that aircraft). As a result, they descended into a hillside on their approach for landing, killing many of the passengers and crew. I worked on the SOP manual for the Airbus A320, so it is unlikely I would have made that error despite the fact that I do not fly the A320 for a living, because I know the systems on that aircraft very well.A Helios Air Boeing 737-300, registration 5B-DBY, crashed north of Varnavas in 2005, because the crew did not put the cabin pressure selector switch into the automatic mode, which it had been changed from following some maintenance to test the rear door seal for faults. As a result, they climbed up to 34,000 feet with the aircraft not presurising and when the cabin pressure alarm warning sounded at 14,000 feet to alert them that the correct mode had not been selected on the overhead, they wrongly assumed it was a take-off configuation warning and took no corrective action. If they had been more familiar with the aircraft's systems, they would have known that a Boeing 737's take off configuration warning is linked to the landing gear's pressure sensor and can actually only sound when the aircraft is on the ground. They should have been further alerted to the cause of the alarm by the fact that the passenger oxygen masks deployed and were informed of that by the cabin crew. Even someone who only knows a little bit about an aircraft would certainly be inclined to check cabin pressurisation when oxygen masks have dropped down in the main cabin, and you'd certainly think it would occur to the guys on the flight deck, but the crew did not do so and did not arrest their climb either, or use their own oxygen masks as a precaution. It seems remarkable, but tragically that is what happened and 121 people died as a result of that. It is a graphic demonstration of the fact that to assume airline pilots know absolutely every system on their aircraft, is sadly, often not true. In this case, I may not fly a 737 for a living, but I am very well aware of oxygen issues because I use oxygen on gliders fairly regularly, and am extremely cautious about ensuring systems are operational, and careful to check for signs of hypoxia when climbing above 10,000 feet.I could quote you plenty more of these types of incidents, but I think you get the point: Anyone can make a mistake, but by the same token, anyone can read about the systems on an aircraft and determine whether they've been accurately emulated on an FS add-on airliner, and being a pilot or not doesn't guarantee that one will automatically know all there is to check in terms of fidelity to the real thing. It's true it will help of course, and I do draw on the fact that I fly planes for real in some reviews, but good research will help more on most occasions where systems simulation is the main point of an add-on.EDIT: Incidentally, JohnE is correct in what he says and I agree that to not fix broken or non functional aspects of the Ariane 737 and then charge for what are termed as later versions is an appallingly bad way to conduct business, and it seems that this is what is going to happen with the X2 version I am reviewing at the moment with regard to the FMC if the statement on the Ariane website is to be believed with regard to the release of their Navigation Database Editor, which they say will have to be paid for. And believe me, I'll have something to say about that in my review, of that you can be certain.Al

It's a bespoke service similar to ordering a suit, as in this examplehttp://www.thesuitcentre.co.uk/bespoke_suits.htmIncidentally they also quote 750 pounds, and the work gives you the finest fabric, the finest lining, and the finest workmanship. Wouldn't you want those same qualities in your 737NG? :(

And you get all the fancy things in every sentence of the product description even though you can't understand what the hell they mean.But what a thrill that would be!"A surprise to please the very discerning 737 enthusast who will not settle for less than the best because you deserve it" is how Ariane would reply to any queries.J

Wow, did I really start all this?Thanks to all those who posted informative comments here regarding real procedures and current state of this simulation (particularly posts by Al), I'll be definitely looking into the final price of the completed product yet before making my purchasing decision. (Which I'm afraid will be positive no matter what, if 800x2 is fully completed (FMS!) and of good quality overall (seems already there or close)).Thanks,Dirk.

I will just point out to you Dirk, that if the FMC functionality is a critical purchase point for you, from all my tests so far, VNAV definitely is limited on functionality.It is not as crippled as some people would possibly have you believe (the Ariane 737 will hold speeds on a descent or climb and it will initiate a descent from the T/D cue on an FMC plan for example, and as far as LNAV goes it is spot on), but it nevertheless doesn't do everything the real 737 VNAV does, and there most definitely is no FIX PAGE on the CDU either. You ought to be aware too that although you can put flight plans in and manually program SID and STAR routes yourself, the inclusion of both SIDs and STARs is quite limited by default, so if you wanted the aircraft to fly SIDs and STARs from every airport there is in FS without doing a bit of planning yourself, then it will not be able to accommodate your wishes in its current state. None of that makes it unusable as long as you are prepared to do a bit of systems monitoring or hand flying, but it is something to be aware of if you want it to do everything automatically.Ariane do have a fix for this coming, but it is an add-on FMC Database Editor/Manager that you will have to pay for and is apparently not going to be applied to Ariane 737s that people have already bought as a free patch, since it required them to recreate the FMC. They haven't set a price for it yet, but personally if it's anything more than a quid for people who've already bought the Ariane 737, then I think they'll have a bloody cheek charging for something that will add the functionality that should already have been in the thing. Others may disagree with that assertion and they can feel free to do so, but they've already had 70 quid off me and everyone else who has bought the thing, so I think it would be fairly poor on their part to charge for it under those circumstances. They may change their mind and not charge people for it, as I say, no price has yet been set, and if that happened they'd go a long way toward inspiring customer confidence in my opinion, but if not, I reckon they can watch PMDG and Wilco walk away with any potential FSX sales they might hope to garner, and that would be a shame, because there is a hell of a lot to like about the Ariane 737 and it has the potential to be the best one there is, and I really do mean that.Al

How do you find fuel predictions on the progress page of the FMC? Every flight I've made with the Ariane 737, they have been massively out. I set my fuel level using a 737NG fuel calculator, and I've been doing pretty well loading it with fuel, landing with almost expected fuel levels. I'm not new to FMC's, all I really fly is the PMDG MD11, followed by the PMDG 747, Level D 767 and the Maddog, so I don't think I'm doing anything wrong, but with this Ariane FMC, the fuel predictions seem way out, minus figures for predicted arrival fuel loads, I saw -60 for my destination when I last tried it the other day.I definitely won't be paying for any FMC "fixes" whether they've had to start from scratch or not. At this price level, they should have built the FMC properly first time.

Actually, the fuel stuff seems pretty close to me, I managed to arrive at a destination with 13 percent fuel left in the tanks and I was aiming for 10 percent (and that was to a destination over 1,000 miles away), so that's pretty good in my book considering I was using real world weather updates and the wind did shift about a bit. That's probably a better prediction than a real 737 could make from what I can gather from pilots of the real thing.But you do have to key absolutely everything in (as you would in real life) to get an accurate prediction, so that means playing around with Engine thrust settings for cruise, climb and descent, Cost Index (although that one is way out to be honest), CoG, weights (and no you don't need it to three decimal places either, but you can key that in if you like LOL), predicted winds at altitude etc, etc. You should bear in mind that I have the Ariane 737-900ER, so if you have something different such as the more popular 800 model, then it has different fuel tanks so might not work in the same manner, although not having that 800, I wouldn't know for sure.I used Flight Keeper to get the approximate weather reports from stations en route, although I could have used something like WMRX or whatever to get the same thing, or at least I would be able to if WMRX would actually sort out their support page and allow me to recover the serial number for the copy I bought so I could install the damn thing LOL But that's another story.Al

I used Flight Keeper to get the approximate weather reports from stations en route

Al, don't you use ASA from Hifisim for that?Thanks,Dirk.

Nope, nothing wrong with it, in fact I reviewed the original Active Sky for Avsim years ago and highly rated it. I just don't happen to use it.Al

I'll have another look through the manual to see where I'm going wrong with the fuel predictions, I have the -800X2.

longest thread lol