Atomic Systems

http://www.aussim.com.au/piper/default.htm

I'm tempted. Just a case of choosing between another purchase from Flight 1 (C177 Cardinal or C152 me thinks), something from Carenado (Piper Dakota or Beech F.33) or this.

Looks quite good..........but £15 is a bit steep...........

The only payware I have is a couple of air pollutants (sorry, Airliners) my son bought me................and good though they are, they were NOT worth the money against readily available similar quality freeware.

I think £15 seems very reasonable for two aircraft of that quality.

I've spent in excess of £400 on add-ons so another £15 isn't going to hurt .

ive spent about £100

I've paid for airport and vfr photgraphic scenery add-ons which have been well worth the expense, but in the past I've found payware aircraft less than satisfying. When you consider the quality of David Maltby's classic British airliners (which I spend a lot of time flying, having now graduated to trans-atlantic VC10 sorties!), the Melljet 777 (that interior view is great fun) and the POSKY 747/767 and CRJ, as well as all the other lighter stuff like Jon Murchison's ARJ, Eric Cantu's 737's and the Dragon Rapide and Dakota, all available freeware, I'm frankly surprised payware aircraft sell. Add-on scenery seems less well catered for in freeware by comparison.

As for light metal, one of my favourites is JR Lucariny's Piper Navajo which I've painted up into a number of air-taxi and light airline liveries, great fun for Norwich-Birmingham-Swansea-Newquay bus stop service as flown by Air Anglia in the 1970's, or the latest British Northwest Airlines services from Blackpool to the IOM. Again, it's freeware and coupled with an IFR panel it's a jolly little plane to fly.

I've grown very attached to that VC10 - go just about everywhere in it!

Oh I agree that getting highly realistic aircraft models for free isn't a problem, and sounds are easy to come by too.
It is fully functional panels, FMCs and FMGCs etc that is the problem in the freeware department.
I've not yet encountered a freeware panel that utilises AIRAC cycle databases.
I'd rather fly a . visual model with a good panel than have a 100% accurate aircraft model merged with one of those awful default panels.
The PSS A320 is an example. The model looks ridiculous compared to the latest iFDG models. The (PSS) visual model for the CFM engined variant is particularly comical, but in nearly three years it's panel in both design and functionality is yet to be bettered.

The ideal solution is one I've taken up on many an occasion. A payware panel and sound package merged to a freeware visual model. In FS2000 and 2002 a PSS 747 merged to a Opensky 744 was the ideal package, as was the PSS 777 panel combined with the MelJet 777.
I've just recently merged the PSS A3*0 panel with the iFDG 319, 320 and 321 fleets I've amassed over the last three months.
This too isn't ideal as the LoadEdit fucntion is redundent using this method so I still primarily use the JustFlight boxed edition of A320 Pro as it was, but for a few livery additions and aircraft.cfg tweaks.

Can see your point of view............

Vern, I like the old VC10, too, but one of my all time fave's was the Blackburn Beverley for FS2002.......which I used to go everywhere, very slowly!! ( 40,000 rivets in close formation, I think they used to say ................ )

BTW, I do have all the Photoreal England Scenery and the Airports set............so I do spend SOME money sometimes.............!!!!!!!

bravedan wrote:Can see your point of view............

Vern, I like the old VC10, too, but one of my all time fave's was the Blackburn Beverley for FS2002.......which I used to go everywhere, very slowly!! ( 40,000 rivets in close formation, I think they used to say ................ )

Lol, the Beverley's a bit of a flying lorry! Great fun to fly though

I tend to fly 1-11s or Viscounts and not a lot else, all freeware, though I've bought VFR, terrain and airport add-ons too.

Cheers,

Andy.

bravedan wrote:BTW, I do have all the Photoreal England Scenery and the Airports set............so I do spend SOME money sometimes.............!!!!!!!

Yeah I have England & Wales covered with the Visual Flight/Just Flight VFR scenery and Gary Summons'/Just Flight's British Airport series.

Have any of you bought the recently released terrain mesh that fixes and/or improves the application of the textures for the photographic scenery?

No, but I'd like to know more, too!!!!!!!!!!!