Thursday, January 1, 2009

Any Thoughts on the Ariane Design 737 NG?

I noticed that Ariane Design has come out with a 737-800 and 737-900ER for FSX. When I first looked at this several weeks ago, the price seemed really steep for each, bordering on outrageous: £59.99, or roughly $106 US! Ouch. That is even higher than the PMDG 747-400X and MD-11. However, in a bit of good news for those of us in the States, the British Pound has fallen rapidly over the last month or so. The price hasn't changed, but the more favorable exchange rates now peg the Ariane 737 at around $87 US, which puts it roughly on par with the PMDG products. Still, I have a few of reservations about this one:
  • Their website describing their products is rather confusing. The 737-800 and 737-900ER appear to be separate products. Are the models substantially different enough to justify charging €59.99 for each?
  • I have seen some grumbling in some of the flight sim forums that the Ariane 737 is rather buggy, with frequent CTD problems. (Then again, similar issues apparently didn't stop me from purchasing the Captain Sim 757.) Some people have even suggested that the Ariane customer support team has been less than helpful. Anyone out there have any experiences to the contrary? I'll give Captain Sim a lot of credit -- their development team has generally been responsive to customer concerns in their forums.
  • Apparently there is no Navigraph nav data support available yet for this one, although there appears to be some interest. I think the situation appears to be rather similar to the Captain Sim 757 at the moment.
It looks like McPhat Studios have been busy cranking out liveries for the Ariane 737 models, which is a pretty cool sign. I would definitely be interested in obtaining a high-quality 737 NG plane for my virtual fleet, given how wildly popular they are in short-haul commercial airline operations all over the world. Any thoughts? Should I look to take the plunge on the Ariane, or just wait until PMDG does their 737 NGX? I love PMDG's work, but they certainly do take their time -- not that this is entirely a bad thing. Their quality speaks for itself.

Maybe in a month or two I'll give the Ariane 737 a shot as a stopgap until the PMDG 737 NGX arrives, similar to my thinking with regard to the Captain Sim vs. Level-D 757. Who knows, maybe as with the Captain Sim 757, I'll be pleasantly surprised with the Ariane 737 NG planes.

Ugh. Decisions, decisions!

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