Put PMDG On Auto Bill Pay

We react to the PMDG 737-700 release for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 and the reality that many of us keep paying to upgrade aircraft we already know by heart. We also zoom out to the bigger flight sim add-on market, where competition shapes prices, trust, and what finally gets built for sim pilots. 
• PMDG 737-700 for MSFS 2024 impressions and what you actually get 
• upgrade pricing fatigue and the “utility bill” mindset 
• why PMDG stays the default choice for many Boeing simmers 
• how the Operations Center and consistent workflow influence buying 
• lack of serious Boeing competition compared with Airbus saturation 
• Black Square Caravan love and why slow aircraft can be elite 
• VATSIM realities when you bring turboprops into jet traffic 
• AnyBuilds L1011 TriStar release and why the real aircraft struggled 
• X-Plane ERJ update issues and frustrations with regression bugs 
• regional jet gaps and the A220 wishlist 
• the surprise second A350 project and questions buyers should ask 
If you have not gotten your FSExpo tickets yet, please go and do so. 

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Transcript

Welcome And Sim News Setup

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Live from the laboratory, welcome to the Close Traffic Podcast, an aviation and flight simulation show. Welcome aboard.

SPEAKER_04 0:49

Once again, it's your main man Johnny here, along with me in the flight deck. As always, our good friend Mike Mike say hello to people.

SPEAKER_01 0:58

No more airbuses. No more airbuses.

SPEAKER_04 1:02

No more. What's going on with you, brother?

SPEAKER_01 1:06

What's up, man? What's going on, people? Good to be here. It's been a while since we've done an actual live show.

PMDG 737-700 Lands In 2024

SPEAKER_04 1:12

So Yeah, it's just been a while and it's always totally impromptu. So, you know, my apologies for like dropping like 15 minutes in advance, but nevertheless, heck of a show. Definitely looking forward to. Lots to talk about. 350s coming out of nowhere, even though we already already have 350s, the 737-700 releasing GXX updates. Man, you name it, it's happening here lately in the flight simulation industry. So definitely looking forward to diving into it. As always, make sure you guys mark us all, I guess four stars, five stars, whatever stars they have on your favorite podcast application. Definitely appreciate support and also much, much love from our Patreon backers as well. And without further ado, man, let's dive into it, bro.

SPEAKER_01 2:10

Let's do it, man. Where do you want to start? There's a lot going on.

SPEAKER_04 2:13

Yeah, it's a so I don't know. I guess since I was the only one to pick up the Dash 700, I guess we'll go ahead and touch on that, man. So we all, I mean, and it's almost guys, I hate to say it, but it's almost not news anymore. You know, everyone knew that PMDG was eventually going to release the entirety of the 737 NG lineup for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024. And now they have completed said mission. So it's out now. It's available. And it's a 737-700, but prettier in 2024. I mean, need I say more. That's about it. Unfortunately, for people such as I, I have to have it, me being a Boeing guy. So naturally, went ahead and picked it up. If you picked up the 2020 version, of course, I think it was$75 if you didn't already own it, and$30 if you already owned it. So of course we paid the cup of coffee fee, which, you know, again, I don't know on what planet a cup of coffee is$30. But, you know, we I guess, I guess if you own, I guess if you uh operate, you know, Falcon, whatever Robert flies, you know, I guess if you I guess if you own that, you know, a cup of coffee may, you know, may uh cost you 30 bucks depending on where you venture to. You know, we don't have those kind of joints around these parts. So, you know, I wouldn't uh I wouldn't double make it. I wouldn't know about that struggle, man. Wouldn't know about that one. You know, I double meeting. Hey, maybe in Cali, you know, you may got a joint, you know, you go get one of those little, what the heck those scenes called? The little shots for like 30 bucks or something.

SPEAKER_01 4:02

3599.

SPEAKER_04 4:04

Yeah. Yeah, 3599, you know, plus closing costs and all that. Yeah, I said closing costs. Closing costs for coffee. Yeah. But yeah, I mean it's I mean, it's PMDG, right? So didn't miss at all. Of course, graphically it looks great. You know, I need to say more. You know, all right, guys, we all know. I mean, we we we all kind of feel the fact that we're basically purchasing the same aircraft over and over again. I mean, I've done it since from this from BMDG specifically, since what, 2000, early, you know, late 2000s. So it's like we're we're indoctrinated now, you know. It's like a it's like you, you know, to Mike's point earlier, you know, like a utility bill, you know, we're paying the up and go pay my BMDG bill, you know, just you know, latest platforms go and pay it, you know. But it is what it is. I mean, we you know, they I I can't, you know, I'll run out of fingers and toes to count how many times there's been the posts, there's been the, you know, whatever, you know, of you know, consumers voicing their, you know, justifiable concerns regarding the fact of, you know, PMDG's upgrade strategy. It is what it is, guys. I mean, I just, you know, I mean, either you buy it or you don't. I mean, that's just kind of where we're at now. I don't see them changing anytime soon. And that's just what it is. But look, hey, look at it this way, guys. Hey, at least we're done with the 737 line, so we don't have to buy that anymore again until what 20 max.

SPEAKER_02 5:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 5:47

Or yeah, the max, or whenever they between 28, they have to buy everything else again. So, hey, you know, right. Silver lining and all that. Yeah, silver lining. So, but yeah, have you picked it up yet, Mike?

SPEAKER_01 5:59

No, sir. Honestly, man, it came out of nowhere. I I I guess I wasn't looking for it. It was 700 is probably uh 900, I fly it less, but 700 is definitely a less used variant for me. Sometimes you get the itch for that classic Southwest ops because they still fly a number of them. Oh, yeah. And you just want to try it out. So yeah, but I think I've owned them up until this point. It just didn't stick out as something that I needed to have. And I was just listening man, I'm with you. They we need to stop whining. Cost is the cost. You're either gonna get it or you're not gonna get it. Utility bill was what we liked, we we we likened it to a couple of minutes ago. You just it's something it's something you're passionate about, and you need to have it.

SPEAKER_04 6:45

Um Southwest sends the dog crap of uh 700. I meant to be honest with you. I mean, it's I mean, I you know, a lot of my one of my clients, they're literally on the approach path for 31 right, and you see it, especially park at the top parking garage, you see them just like clockwork, bro.

SPEAKER_01 7:06

That happened. We're in the San Diego into Lindbergh, too. But check this out, man. I did some research real quick. Shout out to Copilot. Trying to understand how much we've paid, rough estimate, for these 737 variants since their initial release. So here's the FSX error for you. It's 2011 to 2016, roughly, which doesn't seem right. I thought PMDG was outweighed before that, but I could be wrong. The base pack for the 800 and 900 was$69.99, and then they had an expansion pack for 25 bucks, which was the 600 and 700. Then you moved into the P3D era, 2016 to 2020. That's when they introduced the NGXU, if you remember that. The base pack was 99.99, everyone was up in arms. I remember that, but that's when they were like, oh, when 2020 comes out, you're gonna get a discount. So kind of tape tempered uh people's initial blow up. 600, 700 expansion pack was about 2499, and then they had an 800-900 expansion pack,$2,499. There was also the famous Black Friday NGXU MFS credit. That's what I was just referencing. Oh. Then they hit the MSFS era 2022 to present. They had the$69.99,$700 release, and then$34.99 for the$600,$74.99 for the$800,$49.99 for the$900. And then now they just dropped the$700 for 2024 at$74.99. Now, again, there are some incremental loyalty credits for a lot of these errors that we're in. But like holistically, we've paid a lot for this aircraft over the years. A lot. And a large part of that is number one. I think PMDG develops solid aircrafts that hit every time we've talked about this, right? We're gonna complain, we're gonna get in a sting and be like, man, it just works. They've gotten better with the immersion, it wasn't necessarily very immersive in in their their beginning days, and I'd say the last year or two, they've definitely gotten better there. But we always knew it just worked. I just think they've gone a bit overboard with the pricing. And I think part of that is because there's just is no competition. It's unfortunate iFly and you know others have been on the scene to help provide some level of additional flexibility for another product, another 737 product or the 737 line, I should say. Those in the X-Plane platform, obviously you've got Zeebo and um who are those guys again? Level up, I think. Level up, yep, level up 737. So they kind of got that unlocked there. But in in the FSX P3D 2020, 2024 world, it's just PMDG. And I think that's a large part of what's contributing to I don't want to call it competitive price point, but why it's priced the way it's priced. Now, people can say it's PMDG, they know what they got, right? Famous marketplace, I know what I got. They know what they've got, so they're gonna price what they're gonna price, regardless of who's entered the market. But I think a lack of competition is what's driving this. And I said the other day to you guys, iFly really had an opportunity to come in and uh swoop up some market share, if you will. But I I think I don't know what's going on in that camp. I know we've received updates every couple of months or so. They dropped the max for 2020 and then you know a few updates here and there, and then it feels like they've been working on the 2024 update for about a year and change. Uh and I think they are falling behind because I think we know that PMDG is coming out with a Mac soon, and it's gonna be another probably 80 bucks, right? And we're uh 80 bucks for that, and guess what? We're gonna go buy it. And it's just gonna be this continued cycle until they get some competition out there. Absolutely. Phoenix, FS Labs, right? You know, all the Airbus products that we have out there are really competitively priced because of the competition almost too much. Like we're we're really saturated, and we'll we'll talk about that in a second. But part of that is giving the consumer the flexibility to go and look at other products and really have it tailored to a price point that I think makes sense when you own a number of different variants of the aircraft.

Paying For The Same 737 Again

SPEAKER_04 11:37

Yep. Nope, man, you're you're spot on. And it it seems to me, you know, especially with uh, because I was I'm I'm I was really, yeah, I still am really looking forward to to Flight One's iteration of the Max. But but here's the problem. And some of us was here around this time, some of us weren't. But Flight One has always been the the developer or publisher, depending on what you know, what aircraft and what capacity they're functioning under. They've kind of they kind of work on their own time frame. They remind me a lot of they remind me a lot of um uh I was about to say flyby wire, but no, FS Labs. There we go. Brain, work now, gotcha. Uh but it where they kind of function on their own timeline. But see, here's the issue. When you're in a dynamic market, such as Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024. Now we're we're talking 10 years, you know, 20 years ago, and you know, what FXX days, whatever. I I get that. I see that. But the market in 2024, as it relates to you know, developers and aircraft add-ons is like something no one's at no one has ever seen in the industry. It's insanely competitive. The market share is just vast, and anyone who's anyone is looking to get a piece of the pie. And that's just where we're at right now. You can't move the same way you move 20 years ago. That's my issue. You know, every six months, hey, you know, this is where we're at. Uh again, we have no timelines. That is all. Okay, let's keep doing that. On the other side, PMDG, boom, they drops their max, man. Where's the where's the rest of the market share? And I'm gonna be flat honest with you. We all know you just said a couple of seconds ago, Mike, PMDG just freaking works. You know it's gonna work.

SPEAKER_01 13:48

Well, that's the other one.

SPEAKER_04 13:49

You know it's gonna work. There's there's none of this, oh, we're gonna wait for a patch and XYZ. Because I think there's some deal breaking there at the time there were some deal breaking issues with the flight one, flight one max that you know, a lot of a lot of folks were having.

SPEAKER_01 14:06

And yeah, there's a lot of nonsense on Reddit.

SPEAKER_04 14:09

Yeah, you know, a lot of nonsense going on. You know, for example, and now I granted, you know, PMDGS had like 20, 30 years to perfect it, but you know, 737-700 download it. Immediately after download, I jump on the flight, boom, San Antonio, love field, no issues at all. Yep. I mean, are are we are we sure flight one, we wanted to continue on the same cadence as uh the, you know, you know, when you got developers like PMDG working on the same thing, are we sure we're trying to keep that same cadence? I'm just saying, because it's not like I mean, I'm just gonna be honest, it's not like y'all got a whole lot in y'all's portfolio as relates to 2024 products. I'm still looking at FXX crap on Flight One's website. Like if you look at Flight One's website from 2026 to like 2009, there's not a whole lot of changes. I'm just saying.

unknown 15:10

I'm just saying.

SPEAKER_04 15:11

I think like the latest thing they had is like what uh Quality Wing 787 from you know what, like 2010, something like that, around that. Am I in the same decade, something like that? That's the same.

SPEAKER_01 15:23

They used it in 2010, but it ain't come out to like 2017 or something like that.

SPEAKER_04 15:27

Yeah, that's how that's all they got. So, I mean, you know, plug one, love you guys, but chop chop. That's what you're saying, you know, because there's, you know, there they're certain, okay. So let's just spec up for a moment. Certain aircraft models or aircraft lines, it's were they're so popular until, you know, in my opinion, the market could bear multiple iterations of the same thing, i.e. the Airbus A320. So dang popular until, you know, I mean, you can have a couple developers here and there have their own, you know, take on the A320 and be totally cool. I get that. Truth be told, I think the 737 could see the same thing, but you know, that's another story for another day. But the max, I mean, you're either gonna hit the max or you're not, right? In my opinion. You know, could people favor, you know, and and there are some, you know, there are some consumers out there that are like, man, I like I I have no love for PMDG. You know, I'm I'm I'm all in with with iFly. You know, and and that was and that was the same way a lot of people moved back in the P3D days. Like they had, you know, especially with the whole flight deck window type thing, man, it was just why people were open arms about that. So, you know, hey, I I just I don't need to see anything else from PMPG. I'm good, you know, I'll I'll wait for the iPhone, you know, the uh iFly generation. I totally understand that. However, you know, when we're talking in terms of like numbers and like scope of the market, and you're trying to, you know, get this aircraft out on as many platforms as you know, as many PCs as possible, you got to get that thing out for PMDG. I'm just gonna be honest with you, because there's you know, there's a lot of folks out there who just simply don't care where they get it from, they just want to freaking max it.

SPEAKER_01 17:30

They just want to max, and that's probably the majority, man. I'll tell you that right now. And that's why, again, I think iFly is really losing out on their ability to steal market share, their ability to come in and provide additional competition in the space, which again, we've always said is good for consumers, it's good for the hobby overall, it gives you flexibility. But yeah, I mean it's uh it's unfortunate. I think we're just gonna be and it's weird because like like through the his 2020 and 2024 aside, through the history of this of Flight SIM and and and getting Boeing 737s into the flight sim, it feels like not a lot of developers have taken the opportunity to do something like that. Right. We've got all of these Airbuses and we've had them for a number of years across all the different platforms. Is it just that there's more available resources and documentation for the Airbus line than there is a much older 737 product? Like I I'm very and you know again, developers, you guys listening to this, developers that we've had on the show, developers to come, I'd love for you guys to help us understand like why we continue to see, and again, you won't get a lot of complaints from me up until recently, but I love my Airbus products. Like, why do we continue to see that get done over and over again in the market segment for 737s, a much older product line be so small? Yep. It's weird, it's very weird.

Why Boeing Add-Ons Lack Rivals

SPEAKER_04 19:09

Yep, yep. I'm I'm I'm I'm with you when you're right, Mike. Uh, you know, as I mentioned, you know, I know for you know many a year, you know, during P3D, there it was just PMDG, and then iFly, you know, released their lineup, and then you know there's a little bit of competition, and you know, the same, you know, I think the same parallel with, you know, Microsoft Flight Similar 20, Microsoft Flight Simulator and X Plane, you know, it seemed as if we know when X-Plane kind of finally hit the scene, wow, we're starting to see all this movement in the X-plane, you know, X Plane line, you know, because it was funny, because like X-plane like nine like literally legit looked like X-plane, you know, the same as like X Plane 11, you know. You know, because it was like whatever. But like as soon as 2020 hit, you know, it was like, wow, you know, we're seeing all these changes, and boom, you know, now we got two solid platforms. And you know, sometimes I can't help but wonder if we had, you know, for example, you know, if iFly was able to finally get the rest of the NG line to market, what would the PMDG line look like look like now? Would we would in addition to the 737, would we be have would we have the 74 or 75 or you know, whatever already? You know, like what would it look like, right? And you know, I think that's unfortunate. You know, I you know, I I you can throw a route and hit, you know, someone who's done an iteration of a A319 or A320. Mind you, it might have a freaking 172 panel, you know, it's you know, depending on where you pick it up on the marketplace, but yeah, you know, I mean it's it's it's a you know it's an Earbus model. I'm just telling you, man, it's like I'll go in the marketplace and I'll look at it.

SPEAKER_02 20:57

You see some funky stuff, bro. Come on now.

SPEAKER_04 21:01

We ain't even try. Like, man, hey, because they know it will sell, man. It's like you know, you're at least. If it, if it, if it, if I spent like, if I spent like 30 minutes, it's totally amazing how I didn't even set an alarm and like my phone's alarming. I don't know what's going on, man. I don't know, man. I think it's I think it's AI. I blame AI. But, you know, it's just, you know, like if I spend like 30 minutes to like throw this string A3 tweam together and I toss it up on the marketplace like and it uploads like two, three weeks later, however long the marketplace takes to like upload the stuff. I know I'm always gonna get a hundred bucks off of it. Cause somebody on console is gonna be like, man, go ahead. Oh, they can put C3200, like, yeah, you know, they're gonna be like this with the console, like, yeah, let me go, yeah, let me go download this, you know. Like, you know it's gonna happen. So you see all kinds of sometimes when I'm bored, I'll just go to the marketplace. So like look at all shenanigans. So well, there's some shenanigans on marketplace. Before I let y'all know, y'all gotta clean that up. Like, it's some life, man. Y'all ain't got no business on. Y'all need to be on flightsim.com. Y'all ain't got no business on marketplace. Like, I'm just I'm just I'm just gonna be, I mean, I'm just gonna keep it under.

SPEAKER_01 22:19

As long as you pay them money to money talks, you get you pay that dollars, man. They'll put a kite up there, bro.

SPEAKER_04 22:26

Man, and it's probably a legit kite up there, man. Folks are copping, bro. Like, that's just what they're doing, man. Oh, these kids these days. But yeah, so you know, it'll be it'll be interesting to see. You know, I I think, I think, I think IFly is starting to kind of feel the pressure. I hope so. You know, being that, okay, PMDGs don't that, you know, and they could approach it from a perspective of, you know, we don't really care about the competition because we know whatever we put out, you know, whatever, whatever product we release is, you know, the quality alone is gonna speak for itself as it relates to one influencing one's buying decision. You know, if I'm gonna go PMDG or Offline. But I just been, I mean, I just I don't know. I mean, I I could I could I think that argument would stand a little firmer if we had if we if users had already seen work from IFLI aside from Macs as of late.

SPEAKER_01 23:36

I mean like I'd I'd a part of that too is also like just ease of managing your platforms. Like I'm going to probably for a number of different reasons that we've already hashed out here, I'm I'd probably lean closer to the PMDG Macs. Like if they both for whatever reason dropped at the same time, like some something happens and damn PMDG and iFly are dropping their Macs within a week of each other, whatever. I'm probably gonna pick up PMDG, even though I have the Macs in 2020 from iFly already. But it's like you know, when you think about, especially the way PMDG just do their aircrafts, everything is configured in that op center. Uh and you can transcend all of your settings and configurations and you know where the certain things lie, where they live, how to get it configured. Uh it's all gonna be the same across their entire platform. So uh for ease of use, for ease of use, unless you've got something super compelling like it's about free because I own the 2020 version already, or it's just that much better, I'm gonna go get the PMDG because I already know that it's gonna get added to the same area where I configure and get all my updates, where all the liveries live, how to configure all the settings, because we know there are a thousand settings for the PMDG aircraft, all in that FMC, like there it it's ease of use, it's it's your creatures of habit. There's many things that we have to manage already as it relates to add-ons and and the hobby that is flight simming. You're gonna make your life easier and pick up PMDG. So that that's the other thing that they're they're facing. I don't know, man. And and to carry that thought from earlier forward, it's not just the 737 line. I think if we were to do a comparison, it's the wide bodies as well. I think we have more Airbus wide bodies done by more developers than we have Boeing wide bodies. Again, PMDG leads that market. Now again, X Plane, you've got two of those guys. Fly Factor. Fly Factor. They've done a phenomenal job with their stuff in X-Plane. Oh yeah, like the the core native FSX, P3D, Microsoft product platforms. I mean, that's all been on lock by PMDG, with the exception of the I don't know, six, seven-year run Quality Wings had and then disappeared off to the face of the earth. So it's it's it's unfortunate. It's it's like a it's a really puzzling question as to why we don't see more developers attacking the Boeing line in its totality when compared to Airbus.

SPEAKER_04 26:20

Nope. Ah man, you're no you're you're spot on, man. Because I'm I'm I'm not gonna lie. Like um was the last time that thing no, what's today? Saturday, no, Thursday when that thing when uh Dash 700 dropped. I mean, man, just oh my gosh, man, that operations center is a game changer. And y'all know how critical Y'all know how critical we are of uh of PMDG, you know, and and and and a lot you know, when when we're critical of developers, it's not because we're here in the bash, you know. I've you know being in this industry for like, you know, gosh, I'll lose count, you know, for over 20 years at least, you know, you you grew up with these people. So it's just like, you know, I mean, I'm just yeah, I'm I'm gonna be critical because I buy everything you guys freaking put out. I mean, they could put out Mac truck and I'd buy it, you know. Just point blank. And, you know, you know, you you you you look at how the product has matured over the years. And I've noticed that, you know, they've, you know, seems to me that they've put a lot of emphasis on user workflow. And you the you just you just can't beat the operations. Man, you you you know, I went, I picked it up, had no issues at all, and I bought like right when the release, I mean I was in the car. Like right when they were like, you know, the Dash 700 release, I'm like, oh, you know, like bye. And I got home and it was just like amazing, oh my gosh, man, the just the feeling of being able to download a product and load it up in the sim, and it works, it's just like being in a club and it's amazing, man. Oh my gosh. So it's just beautiful, man, and just you know, in the light. It's just amazing.

SPEAKER_02 28:16

That's getting clipped, bro.

Ops Center Workflow And Habit

SPEAKER_04 28:17

You know, it's just amazing, man. And it hits every time. So, you know what? I'm just gonna be, I'm just gonna keep it a buck with you guys, man. You're gonna pay that third. I mean, I'm just that's just what it is. You're gonna pay it like a utility bill, yes. Like a utility. Hey, man, I'm gonna go ahead and pay this, uh pay them this BMD, PMDG bill right quick, yo. Hold on. You know, man. Matter of fact, put them on bill pay, bro. Go to your bank, go to your local bank, go ahead and put PMDG on your bill pay because you it's a it's a guarantee. Especially especially when I wait till when 2028 drops, you know there's gonna be some asinine, whatever that developers are gonna have to do to make their products compatible. I say 2028, whatever it is, 2030, 2019, year 5,000, whatever. 2899. Yeah, 2899, 99, 2000, whatever. You know, whenever that drops, there's gonna be some, you know, wild out of this world, you know, you know, adjustments that developers are gonna be gonna have to make in order to make their product more palatable in that in said platform. And they're gonna charge. I mean, that's just you know, and BMDG's not the only one gonna do that. You're gonna have to. That's not free.

SPEAKER_01 29:35

That's almost always it ain't getting any easier, man. It's uh oh heck no. I mean, depends on who you ask, but it's what are they gonna drop a kite with a GTN 750?

SPEAKER_04 29:49

GTN 750, bro. I'm copying, man. I'm talking about the old, I'm talking about the dollar store kites you used to buy, bro, for like six bucks, and you gotta like, you know, take the little balsa wood or whatever, get it together. I mean, nothing that wasn't even boss wood, it was like a little plastic straws and like spring them together and a little plastic, get the little string, whatever. Hey, bro, throw GTN 750, man, and um send it. I had the cop, send it, man. Send it. Freaking bats him and all, bro. Bats him and all, man. Like that freaking A man, like that freaking caravan of massive. Oh my gosh, man. I gotta tell y'all.

SPEAKER_03 30:26

Well man. Well man, so they're gonna be holding for release. Oh, yeah. He's still holding short.

SPEAKER_02 30:48

Like many eyes on a Friday morning, bro. That's him didn't know what to do, fam. Like, they had that little F and O when it was, bro. Yeah, I told the one who told you about it, bro.

SPEAKER_01 31:00

It was the it was the fam. What was it, man? I-90 FNO or something like that. Like, I told you about it so you could fly a jet in there.

SPEAKER_04 31:10

We're about to see this caravan here, man. Like, bump everybody. That's what we're doing.

SPEAKER_02 31:13

People dump in a caravan talking about, yo, they gotta be holding four.

SPEAKER_04 31:22

You know, that's you know, you know me, man. I like to be, you know, I like to do that. Gotta be different, man. Now I'm just like, you know what? They're so used to these jets or whatever. Because like they'll have like jets. I'm like, let me get this MD80 in here. You know what I mean? Like, like I'm just, you know, I'm just I'm just that guy. But you know, I'm like, huh. You know, Black Square released this slapping caravan that no one freaking sends. Let me just send that. Man, I'm fired. But I I I love the caravan because fired up, bro. I got my clearance, man. I was ready to taxi in like two minutes. So that saved me a little bit. Yeah, bro. You know how it goes, man. Like, even in your serious, like, it's not like from the time you pick up your clearance till you ready to taxi, like the time's not long at all. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 32:07

Yeah, you're right.

SPEAKER_04 32:08

So, you know, I had If for a matter of fact, I think like I think I flew the departure out and then the red. So it wasn't even anything crazy. Yeah. So I went, you know, fired up because again, you know, Black Square, you know, they they they hit on all cylinders, so you know, you gotta watch your electrical XYZ. So it's not like, you know, hey, let me just fire up my barriers, get everything going, take, you know, 10 minutes to where they get my clearance and think I'm gonna be cool with my 20, 20, 23 and a half volts to fire up my PT6. No, bro. Let's go ahead, let's go ahead and get fired up, get going, get the AC going, pick up my clearance, and let's skedaddle. So, you know, called them up, got my clearance, you know, gave me tax instructions, no issues, man. And there was like a conga line of jazz behind me. I'm like, I know they're about to stack me up, bro. Golly. I was hoping to kind of get up, man, because it was already like nine o'clock at the end. It was late, bro.

SPEAKER_01 33:07

I was like, because I had just I landed like probably 45 minutes to an hour before you decide to get going on there. I was done with them. And I was like, this guy's about to go fly it now. I'm like, ah, he'd be in and now it's a quick, quick jet flight wherever he's going. He sent the screenshot of this thing, man, sitting on the line. So they got me holding for release.

SPEAKER_02 33:29

Bro, so bad, man. What you in? The freaking black square.

SPEAKER_04 33:35

Man, so like I pulled up, bro, and like they they had jet, so they I for I I forget, I forget what point they had me, they had me holding on like three five laps, one of those in DFW. And like, so they're having like Jed Eric, like Jen Eric had to take like the you know, either like the uh full length or the other stuff behind me. Yeah, to get around me. And man, you he was just sitting there, and he was like going around him, and he was like, you know, he finally cleared me. He was like, like, man, but like, bro, we're gonna basically, bro, we're gonna need you to make an immediate or like right turn. Like, just like, hey, hey, bro, hey, bro, you rotate, get the hell out of Dodge, basically. So I depart, you know, I depart or whatever, and like, boom, man. I mind you, you know, I mean, like, you may you you you're coming up with like 75 knots, you know, some stuff like that. So like, boom, like, we're up, bro. We're I still got another like three or four thousand foot of runway until I get to runway's edge, man. So I'm I'm not even I'm not even doing full length, man. Like, we were like beelining out towards Arkansas.

SPEAKER_02 34:43

Well, being real, you know, turn it over the freaking edge.

SPEAKER_04 34:46

Yes, bro. And that's what they wanted, because they had aircraft on final behind me. It was awful, dude. It was fun, man. It was bad. I loved it. I loved it. Because I knew they were like, ah, you got to pull their hair out, man. It was pretty hilarious.

SPEAKER_01 35:00

You can get them a test.

SPEAKER_04 35:02

Yeah, man, got to, because I mean, real world, you know, it happens all the time because you know, you got you got Southern Express, uh, DFW. They they do a lot of routes to Heart Spring, um, not Heart, Hot Springs, Arkansas. About two-hour flight in the caravan. And when you look at it, you know, you guys get an opportunity, pull that flight up on Flight Aware. When you see them depart, they're not hitting full length, bro. Like, they're like rotate, boom, hitting that right to the north, uh to the northeast, bro. Out of there, fam. Like, get out of here. Like, literally, like that's you know, because some of those ridings you can kind of look and make sense, you know, as far as the the you know, controllers logic. Right. And like when you see like a lot of those caravan flights, they're either trying to cut them in early to get them in and get them out the way, or cut them out soon and get them the heck out of the, you know, get them the heck out of the way. It's it's it's it's it's it's it's awesome. I love it.

SPEAKER_01 35:58

Maybe send some of them uh LAX got I think a Southern Air 208 that comes.

SPEAKER_04 36:04

Yeah. P you know I think they run like a 208, PC-12, and then, you know, you got them FedEx ops, you got Mountain Air, I mean, all these kind of flyby now operations, bro, going in there. And that's that's one, and I don't think to me, and that's yeah, I guess it's going off the tangent, screw it. You know, uh, you know, putting, you know, heck, I think I've 10 hours in like the Black Square caravan, I do not think that aircraft gets enough attention in in the industry like at all, bro. Because it's slow and it's boring and no one, you know, it's like whatever, you know. But you know, I in my opinion, and you know, this is coming from someone who has like actual actual hours in aircraft, it's probably one of the most solid aircraft, solid two A experiences I've seen in sim, period. Period, bro. It flies when just 2024 uh same period something. Period. Like X-Plane, period. Period. When you when you look at the aircraft and you imagine how that thing flies, that's exactly how it flies. Like a freaking box truck. Yes, yes. I can I can you you can get you some time in 182, jump in the 208, well, a few trips around the pattern, you you'd be pretty comfortable. And that's by design. I mean, it's literally by design from Cessna. And I mean, the thing's a dog. I mean, it can carry its weight, you know, in terms of useful, but it's a freaking truck. Climbs for crap, you know, but it's just it's uh it's tough, you know, can carry a butt ton of useful. That's why a lot of that's why a lot of cargo carriers love it, because you know, you can toss a bunch of crap in it and then freaking send it. Now it's not gonna get there quick, but it'll get there. You know, and I I'm I'm here for it, man. I'm totally here for it. There's a lot of lot of little small, you know, you know, a lot of small airports you can show love to uh to get in and out of. And and it's funny in the mail how like you didn't see didn't see any streams with him, fam. I mean, you may have seen like one or two. No, I didn't see him. I didn't see him. There may have been like one or two streaming it, but it it it wasn't many, Mike. Like, you know, you know how they do like the little pre the first, second, third, fourth, fifth looks or whatever. Yeah, you're right.

SPEAKER_01 38:30

QA pilot, of course, does his thing. He's got two obvious content on this. Mm-hmm. He says the most advanced turboprop.

Black Square Caravan VATSIM Chaos

SPEAKER_04 38:39

Wow. You know, now I don't know about advanced. I mean, it's it's still along the lines, like from a turboprop operational perspective. I mean, it's if you've ran black squares, anything black square PT6 driven, it's it's along the line. It's all of them have been good. You know, there's some things, and I think, you know, you almost kind of do yourself a disservice having the opportunity to be in the real thing and you know, see some little quirks and nuances in terms of operational, you know, in terms of operating it, and you don't see that in sim, and it's you know, kind of throws you off, but it's not because it's, you know, anything wrong. It's just, you know, you the aircraft you're in may have had a weak battery that day, or it may have been cold, or you know, the gauges may have been sticking, you know. Like, for example, like the typically, you know, a lot of the turtle prop aircraft we see, you know, you'll see the NG come up and it comes up smooth. And that that doesn't always happen in the real world. A lot of times, you know, the NG come up and they kind of stick and then it'll just kind of come up, you know. Really? Yeah, there's this is never like what you see in like a seminar airbus or something like that. No, heck no, hell no, especially with like an old clapped out, whatever. Hell no, man. Friggin' oh sometimes you like you'll see like the penicillin, sometimes you see the NG NG gauge, it'll come up, you know, whatever, you know. Of course you gotta have the sound effects in there. I'm getting y'all. But you know, you see MG come up, kind of and then kind of come up all the way or whatever. And you know, you just kind of have to watch it, you know, and then it'll, you know, it'll hit max motor, and then you you know, you're kicking your gas or whatever. But yeah, it's it's it's it's you know, some of them now, some of them, yeah, it's it's especially fairly new, you know, it'll come up, you know, nice and smooth, whatever. But yeah, you know, so I I noticed that, but you know, and and I was a couple other things, especially like the first, the first release, the client performance was a little weird. And I was like, man, this thing's a little, I mean, it's not sporty, but it should be a little more sportier than this. But he did fix that. And there's like version 1.0.1, whatever. So I mean, overall, I'm happy with that. You know, I just want to, and not that, you know, not to again not go off on a tangent, even though I totally meant to go off on a tangent. But we do this, man. That's totally what we do, totally what we do, man. But you know, I definitely wanted to shine some light on uh on that 208, man. It's an absolute solid, solid aircraft. You know, if you if you're looking for a you know a solid turboprop experience, even the ground handling, it feels good because it's I think probably the thing I can best describe as far as taxiing to 208, you kind of have to be careful because it does kind of do this on you. You know, when you're taxiing. Yeah, you know, especially, especially when you got a lot of gas, you know, she'll she'll do that a little bit on you.

SPEAKER_01 41:25

But I mean per minute full stroke.

SPEAKER_04 41:28

It's wide open, bro. It's all giving her all she's got, yeah. But hey, she'll get there, bro. And it's not like you can get above 10 anyway, man. So it's like, hey, go ahead and catch that five or that seven, bro, and keep it moving, man. Keep it moving. That's true. But no, man. I mean, she's uh she's a solid performing aircraft. I mean, like I said, the ground handling to me was, you know, fell feels a lot more dynamic. You have that inertia that you get in that, you know, that you get that you would fill an aircraft of that size. And yeah, I mean, it's just a really fun airplane. I even tried the float version, man. What? No, I said I hadn't even tried it. Oh, I thought you even tried it. I'm like, because where in the hell would I take it? Yeah, but you know, Charlie's post, Jedi's spitting out the exhaust, you putting so much on the room to wide open, man. Man, bro, you'll tort that thing out, bro. Probably come and slap off, man, by the time you um get any kind of performance out of that thing. But but uh there are some modifications that that they do do to the uh caravan. There's an upgraded PT6, because I think for the box around like 6600 semi ship horsepower. There's a Garrett variant that's putting out like 870, something stupid like that. So she's a little more sporty out of the hole, a little more fuel efficient, I think, that gear with that gear driven. Because I think it's like a TPE 3301 or something like that. Uh I forget. But you know, y'all, you guys keep me honest in the chat. But yeah, I mean there's there's there's definitely a lot of modifications that you know folks have done their STC, you know, with the caravan. But just like I say, it's just a fun airplane, man. If you guys want one to put around, it has GTN 750 in there. If you don't like that, you can do a uh 530 or 430. Man, I bet I thought matter of fact, might be saying pick it up. I thought you were gonna pick it up, bro. What happened with that? Uh see what it is. Them long, them long hauls got the hidden two hawkes.

SPEAKER_01 43:40

They hit too hard, man. I just I don't know what it is, man. I just I I've lost the affinity for them them them local circuit flying, man. It's just like, bro, look.

SPEAKER_02 43:53

I'll show you right now, man.

SPEAKER_04 43:54

Hey, you know what's funny, Mike? Like, we couldn't even get you on the long haul, bro.

SPEAKER_01 44:00

Paperwork fam. Oh, you can't even see this. A camera. This is legit paperwork. There you go.

SPEAKER_04 44:09

Yeah, baby. That's not paperwork, bro. That's a dissertation, fam.

SPEAKER_01 44:13

Legit paperwork from my from from my oceanic today.

SPEAKER_04 44:17

Oh my gosh, man.

SPEAKER_01 44:18

Oceanic clearance with Vatsim and everything, bro.

SPEAKER_04 44:22

Man, someone call ADP, bro. Man, get the man's hours. I need a check.

SPEAKER_01 44:26

I need that check. I just hits two different. I just and again, we've come so far in in flights in where we're able to fly these wide-body long haul aircrafts reliably. Back in the day, bro, you had to hope get a CTD. You know, just leaving Shannon's airspace or in the middle of the Pacific or Atlantic, bro. But on approach. Or on a after 12 hours.

SPEAKER_04 44:59

Man. I'm not I'm not simping for the next two days, man, when I go get that.

SPEAKER_01 45:05

I'm putting this down a week.

SPEAKER_04 45:06

Yeah. I'd knock on wood.

SPEAKER_01 45:09

I don't I don't have an issue. I think I had one thing a couple of months ago, and before that, another six months. Like it's just it just works now, which is a testament to how far we've come and how reliable these developers continue to be.

SPEAKER_04 45:24

Absolutely, man. Absolutely. So again, you know, shout out to uh shout out to our good friend over there at uh Black Square. Heck of an aircraft. I mean, this guy, man, he and he'll do like a couple of aircraft a year. It's nuts. It's nuts. I think he did, he did like last year he did the Duke and then he did Starship. And you know, he did the carry, got the caravan out and LaGlore. I think he's working on a commander, if I'm not mistaken, which oh my gosh, man. You like that thing? Yeah, yes, bro. There used to be when the at the flight, the flight school I went to, there used to be I've been looking at one of them. An air ambulance, air ambulance company, and they they operated Lyre 35s and commanders. So we heard those Garrett's man fire ups. Oh, dude. You you'll be in the 172, bro, idling, like you know, uh, you know, idling, no headphones on, bro, and you'll still and you'll still hear that uh hear that commander coming through, bro. It's it's it's man. I don't know. It just looked cool to me. I don't know, something about the commander of those goals. That's a very quirky aircraft, which you know, I'm your guy. But it's I don't know, man. I I can't wait. And it's, you know, truth be told, guys, let's just be honest, man. I love to see diversity in the airports. I just love it. You know, we have gotten to, you know, in my opinion, I think we have gotten to a point of stagnation with, you know, a lot of these aircraft, you know, because we we all know unpopular aircraft don't sell. We get that. But the problem is it creates an ecosystem of the same type of aircraft, especially if we go into VAT sim, you know, you'll see like one or two aircraft appearance, and that's it. You know, man, give me give me a metro out there, you know, give me, you know, give me a MU2 out there, which I think there is M22 for um 2024 now, so that's cool. Um yeah, uh, I think who did it? Oh, who did it? I think any bills did it actually, believe it or not. I think they did it.

SPEAKER_01 47:30

Uh Golf 6. I just had to pop a lats in because you said that and I'm looking at the variants of aircraft. Somebody has a Gulf 6. Where do you get that from? Gulf Stream 6?

SPEAKER_04 47:41

Yeah. That gotta be on they must be on the X-Plane.

SPEAKER_01 47:44

Is it Gulf Stream and X Plane?

SPEAKER_04 47:46

AKD, bro! Oh my Lord Hammer. Like solid hammer hammer. No way, bro. Y'all, y'all, y'all come get Mike. Y'all come get him. No way. Come get him. Come get him. You did you miss all of my posts? Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_01 48:03

I probably did, bro, because it probably started with X.

SPEAKER_04 48:07

My man Chet slapped out like that. No, I'm good. No, I'm good. Man, hold on. Oh, here it is. A K D. Did you look it up?

SPEAKER_03 48:18

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_04 48:20

Yeah. It's it's not, it's believe it or not, man. Now, it doesn't have like the texture awesomeness that we're accustomed to. But it's, it's, it's, it's, it's I ain't going. It's it's it's it's pretty solid, man. But you can even you can even add the Starlink antenna to it. Because you know a lot of aircraft are on Starlink now, which, you know, yeah folks are like, oh, I'm going over, you know, what's that limit now they got on, man? Folks were freaking out.

SPEAKER_01 48:49

Oh my gosh, my aviation phones are blowing up people flying. My gosh. Million dollar aircrafts crying about$200 a free.

SPEAKER_04 48:58

Crying, bro. Crying. Let me see here. Uh let's see. Yes, so they have two plans now. So they have a 300 mile an hour plan and a 450 mile an hour plan for Starling. Now, mind you, if you're in anything, I mean, let me let me look directly at the family. If y'all are in anything going over 300 and some miles an hour, you can afford the freaking 300 mile an hour. All I'm saying, bro. What are we talking about? All I'm saying, like, just like yours, my my my groups were blown up. It's mine too. Blown up. Oh my gosh, we now we have to pay extra. Now what I'm gonna what am I gonna do with my eclipse? How are we gonna have our streaming services? Oh my gosh, my phenom is gonna be dead in the warrior. I gotta kill.

unknown 49:57

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_04 49:58

Shut up. No one, no one wants to hear that right now. We're in 2026 now. Folks is in the struggles, guild, barbecue chicken, y'all. No one's trying to hear that right now.

SPEAKER_01 50:14

Listen, man, amount of Jet A and 100 lole, you guys are out there saying that I don't want to hear it.

SPEAKER_04 50:19

Catering, all that, man. My man just paid two grand and catering, 15 grand to get the aircraft DK detail, but man, we were like crying about, man, all right. All right. Whoo.

SPEAKER_01 50:31

Anyway, I had to do more than that and give me a feel bad for you, bro.

SPEAKER_04 50:36

I'm sorry. How am I gonna send my vision jet, Mike, when I got to pay all these extra costs, when I gotta give Elon all this extra money? I just don't get it.

SPEAKER_01 50:48

All this extra.

SPEAKER_04 50:49

You know, like we're like like how are my kids gonna stream Netflix on our trip to Cabo when when I have to pay this extra money to start? Like, I just uh I don't know. I'm uh I I'm I don't know. I'm just I'm in shambles. I I'm vexed right now. I I I am vexed.

SPEAKER_01 51:17

Hey, they made fun of me on that podcast.

SPEAKER_03 51:22

That's exactly what it'll say, man.

SPEAKER_04 51:28

Hey, if they're tripping to my Star Lane, bro, hey man, they know you know they're coming for us.

SPEAKER_03 51:39

Oh my gosh, man, let me quit.

SPEAKER_04 51:42

But anyway, so yeah, it's been a lot of other releases, right, as it relates to um fights in uh 2024 that no one's talking about, you know. Maybe I don't know, because you you know, you gotta like you can't just like press a button and like do anything. I don't know. But though so just no any builds, yeah. Any builds really just released the uh Lockheed L1011 on the marketplace, which I don't know, man.

SPEAKER_01 52:06

Yeah, you gotta give us you gotta give us the download now, man. That's yeah, so we'll never said so.

SPEAKER_04 52:12

Yeah, man, it was there's something about the L1011, and this is just historically speaking for my for my aviation nerd nerdery that I really appreciate. You know, it was one of those aircraft that I think, in my opinion, and opinion, and then you know, and again, you know, for the other aficionados out there, you know, definitely, you know, drop us some feedback in the fan mail and the chat as your y'all's thoughts on like what killed the L1011. But I think Rolls Royce played a huge role in the in the reason why we saw way more DC-10s than we did L1011. Even though when you look at it from a technological standpoint, the L1011 was just miles ahead. I mean, you guys gotta look. I mean, the thing was, you know, one of the first aircraft to have fly-by-wire technologies. It was a you know, a lot of the some of the technologies that utilized was the fly-by-wire, you know, precursor. I mean, it also had direct lift control, which, you know, those uh those DCS guys out there are familiar with it in the F-14. So basically, you know, for those who aren't familiar, direct lift control or DLC basically to make-what is that? Yeah, so basically to make landings like stupidly smooth, Lockheed implemented a direct a direct lift control system on final approach, the aircraft will automatically deploy spoiler panels on the wings to maintain the descent angle, meaning the nose didn't have to rapidly pitch up or pitch down to stay on glide path. So literally, literally it was all throttle, and it's just like that three-degree. Like it was well ahead of his time. So, you know, between the flight control systems and one of the first aircraft to Autoland to have uh Autoland functionality, like no one else was doing this, Mike, like during this time. Like a lot of the technologies that Lockheed pioneered is one of the reasons why we see it in your embrace, your airbuses, and all that today. Of course, it's you know, one, I guess probably one of the most iconic features is you know, the you know, S design, you know, housing the uh Rolls Royce RB 211. So basically what happened, Mike, if you're not too familiar with it, is you know, you got Lockheed Martin and you got McDonald Douglas, you know, you had air carriers like American and the American United, all those, you know, they're like, hey, we're you know, looking for a long hauler that didn't that don't have four engines like 747. And, you know, Lockheed and McDonald Douglas, like, hey, we got you. So, you know, they, you know, they get in the lab, they're doing their thing. McDonald Douglas, where McDonnell Douglas or Douglas aircraft, they took a unique approach. They're like, hey, we want to keep this simple, you know, boom, you know, third engine in the towplane, a bunch of unique engine options and a simple flight control, simple tried and true flight control system, nothing special, nothing fancy, boom, here's your jet. Whereas Lockheed took the approach as like, okay, we're going to be like the apple of trijets, right? You know, we're about to cram all of you know the technologies and all of, you know, any like, you know, we're we're about to break ground with this aircraft. That's what we want to do. But the problem was, instead of, you know, most aircraft having, you know, different engine options. Let's say, you know, you want you want a Pratt or a GE or you know, Rolls, you know, you got a you know, a bunch of different variants there. They went solely with Rolls-Royce, and they went all in with Rolls-Royce because what Rolls Rolls-Royce and Lockheed were kind of in l aligned with the whole we're about to break freaking ground with this thing, because they were doing carbon fiber, uh carbon fiber blades for the N1, which no one was doing that, but no one was messing with carbon fiber back then. They just didn't think it was reliable. Well, they it it took time, you know. Rolls Royce ran ran into a lot of you know engineering challenges with the you know, carbon fiber blades and some other issues that ran time and ran stupidly over budget to the point to where, had it not been for the British government, Rolls Royce almost uh wouldn't have went bankrupt and whatever.

SPEAKER_01 56:44

I didn't know that.

SPEAKER_04 56:45

But it it it got bad. They went all in on the on the RB211. And so while they're going through their struggle, while while they're in Strugglesville with his engine, Lockheed's sitting here waiting, like, dang, we sure need this engine. And all the while, Douglas has already dropped the DC-10, they're sending them. You know, so if you look at the amount of aircraft, you know, that were that were manufactured in terms of, you know, the DC-10 and Lockheed, you know, and the LT11, I mean, the DC-10 just blows it out of the water. Why? Because Douglas got it, uh, McDonald's Douglas got it out first. So it wasn't so much of the aircraft, and then there were a lot of, there were some issues as well. I think there was a lot of some rain issue, some range issues. I'm sure that thereafter at the Lockheed came out with the Dash 500. I think Douglas beat them on the range, you know, like I said, Douglas beat them on the range, so they came with the, you know, they came out with the Dash 500. And uh there's there's some other things, the maintenance costs as well, because you got dealing with the S duct design. Because essentially the essentially the the third engine, or the uh second engine, if you want to, you know, how you look at it, was sitting kind of it wasn't in the tail like on the DC 10, it was more kind of in the fuselage, and you kind of had that, you know, as we see, like, you know, around the horizontal stabilizer comes down, S ducts, and then boom, like there's the rolls worse there. You gotta dig into all that to work on it. So, you know, you know, higher maintenance cost. There's just a lot working against it. Even though, you know, the thing was fancy, you know, you talk to, I don't think there's a there's a person who crewed it out there that didn't like flying the L1011. There was like uh they'll, you know, they've said it's an amazing flying airplane, technologically advanced, everything was there. It just didn't check all the boxes for the airlines when they wanted all those boxes checked. And that's what makes money, man.

SPEAKER_01 58:49

I I get it, it makes sense.

SPEAKER_04 58:51

Yep, that's what killed it.

SPEAKER_01 58:53

So I didn't even know any bills was was why do I keep disappearing my freaking background? I didn't know any bills was working on that problem. It just goes to show you, man, like if it ain't something modern, I'm probably not paying attention to it.

SPEAKER_04 59:10

Man, you're not the only one, Mike. I mean, I had no idea they were working on that. This was another one where you know no one really paid attention to it at all. Yeah. No one really streamed it.

SPEAKER_01 59:21

I know XP had a stream on it.

SPEAKER_04 59:23

Yeah, yeah. I think XP, I think the man XP's kind of taking a liking to it because I think he did like several streams on it.

SPEAKER_01 59:29

Yeah, he's done a couple of them, a couple flights.

SPEAKER_03 59:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 59:32

So it's good to see. Yeah, it's really cool to see. And I mean, there's like a lot of cool features with I mean, the the cabin is extremely spacious, man. It's one of the few aircraft that actually has a lower lounge. If you go in on the lower deck, oh the lower lounge. Wow. And in addition to that, near the lower lounge, there's also a set of air stairs as well. I'm not sure if you've seen any of the screenshots.

SPEAKER_01 59:56

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've seen them. Yeah, it looks at nice. Don't get me wrong. Oh man, speaking of complaining, dude, and anything always.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:02

And if you go towards if you go towards the rear, towards the rear of the cabin, there's a ring of laboratories, and all of those doors are functional. You can actually go into those laboratories. Oh, really? Yeah, it's it's it's amazing. Which I have heard the passengers, that was one of the gripes that the passengers had because right just to the engine's like right above that. The the the second engine is right above that. So stupidly loud right there. But I mean, if you're in here, hurry up and poop and get out of there.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:36

I mean, it's like one word. Definitely spend time in there too.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:41

Oh my god, this is really loud. You know, like get off the pot, dude, and leave. Like, that's not like you know, like why are we sitting there?

SPEAKER_02 1:00:52

Like, I'm not like pooping next to your buddy.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:54

Charlie knocked on the next one's like, hey, man, how's it going? Yeah, doing pretty good. I was hanging out at a little bit left.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:12

Oh my gosh, man. I care with you. Charlie, you you're supposed to be on PTO, man. Hey, Charlie, stop encouraging us, bro.

unknown 1:01:20

What?

SPEAKER_02 1:01:21

We I went three minutes in and hit two topics.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:29

Barbecued, bro. Oh barbecue, barbecue, jump on the grill, man, because we're all barbecue chickens. Oh my gosh. But yeah, so it's a solid airplane. They just push their latest release here. And there's I think there's only one that's still flying. That's the uh Stargazer.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:49

I'm looking at these screenshots again, and it's like any bills makes you just want to buy something you have no intention. No, it's done dang well, bro.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:55

Yo, you ain't about to send ish, nothing, but you're gonna pick it up, bro, because like wow, it's freaking beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:02

That's what they do, man. Look how they uh EFB, it looks like paper. Electronic chart paper, paper charts, electronic paper.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:11

Yeah, like that's virtual flight engineer. So it's not like you're on the engineers panel and like the circuit breakers work, bro. It's solid, man. Like, I I I send it, it's so nostalgic for me.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:21

And she's fast, too.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:23

You was telling us, yeah, dude.83. Like, she wasn't us, like it was nothing, bro. Gone, man. Gone. Now, navigation's a bit of a challenge, of course. I mean, look at it. I mean, the thing was like you know, we're like we're in the inertial nav days, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:02:36

So yeah, true. Uh bats and with no nonsense.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:40

You know they're gonna come with the nonsense, bro. You know they're gonna slide step into nonsense, but they uh the a lot of the a lot of air, a lot of the um aircraft operators went so far as to take a 530, a Garmer 530, and throw it in there. And that's legit. I if you pull up some real world pictures, bro, that's a legit with the thing sitting at. It's like right there. Let me look at it. Hey, we ain't got nowhere else to put it right there. Yep. Oh, that's crazy.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:08

Look at yeah, bro.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:11

Hey, bro, you laugh, man. If them folks are paying you 400k, bro, you'll sit and snarl the LK.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:18

I will I'll make it work, bro.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:20

Hey man. Hey, bro, hey, we're RMP fan. We good. We good I man working themselves, bro. Fingers getting crammed, man. Got carpal tunnels there trying to get them knobs together, bro.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:43

Y'all about a cat and give me this visual Zulu for you.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:56

Oh no, we got them T W ate 25, 36.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:06

Let me know if you want the RNA Yankee. The R nab what?

SPEAKER_03 1:04:23

Where were the dust?

SPEAKER_04 1:04:28

Hey bro, that catches alternate, man. Hey, what's the weather in Cleveland, bro? It says that's a very clear out there, man. I need something with a VOR program. Oh yeah. Hey, I y'all got them, y'all got him there them uh NDB list. We're gonna need one of them NDBs, fellas. Oh my gosh, man. But yeah, it's it's it's for for the era. It's a solid airplane, man. But truth be told, I think it was, I think it could have been one of them air crap, but I will I could have easily seen you know, FMS probably making its way in there. Just like the DC 10, man. They freaking retro.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:10

If it had survived, you mean?

L1011 TriStar Release And History

SPEAKER_04 1:05:12

Yeah, if it survived, man, I could have easily seen that getting converted into like a two-crew variant, man. Just I mean, they did it with the DC-10. That's what the MD-10 is. Oh, that's your point. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, bro. All they did was set the engineer's panel out, man, freaking modernize the front end of it, toss it in there, kept it pushing, bro. So it's it's unfortunate, man. I think it was to me, it was one of those tragic stories of, you know, aircraft development. You know, the one that it seems like the manufacturer that took the path of least resistance one. But, you know, it is what it is, man. You know, airlines. Yeah, airlines got the airlines got to make money. But but yeah, so you know, that's been a blast. Uh let's see, X on the X plane side, I think. Yeah, it's Craft's drop. There dropped an update uh version 2.1, which I did pick that uh come out. I don't know. I picked it up and I had the part of it. My bag, finish that. I uh I picked it up the at Scraps 2.1 update. And have you guys and you know, as you're listening, you I don't know, maybe y'all have had an add-on that, you know, have where this has happened to you, but you you the the the aircraft performs worse in terms of functionality than it does. Yeah, after another day, it's like how are we regressing? I departed. And those of you familiar with ERJ, it's pretty simple, you know. FMS, you know, make sure your nav source is set to FMS, you know, depart, whatever, Dave vectors, direct to nav, boom, you're off to the races. Not with that one. Like it was like stayed in B O R mode. I'm just like, I'm like, what's going on here? You know, and I found it was one, it was one of those I legit had to shut the same off because it's I couldn't do anything with it. Like it would not go into nav mode. So, you know, sometimes it happens, you know, you're trying to fix one thing, break something else. I don't know, man. It was, you know, and again, you know, that's when it kind of goes back to the whole PMDG, you know, argument to where it's I mean, there's it's always solid.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:19

I can't remember any sort of catastrophic or close to that, anything near that from PMDG in the 10 years I've been flying their products.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:33

Nope.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:34

Not one.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:35

Not one. Like nothing that was. Now, does it not happen? No, I mean, there's you know, there's a myriad of different uh hardware configurations out there where, you know, hey man, I load this thing up and I see TD. You know what I'm saying? Like it happens, but you know, from a, you know, speaking from a, you know, from a you know, a a broad perspective, you know, you don't see uh you don't hear it a lot to where like you know, a broad spectrum of folks are having issues with their products.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:02

Not at all, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:03

Yeah. So, but yeah, you know what I mean, like maybe, you know, and that's and again, that's what's that's the beauty of having multiple platforms, you know. Hey, I, you know, freaking, you know, it took a crap on me, and I just mosey on over to back to 2024 and went up when I'm about my.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:29

Pndg doesn't have a 737 as working, you get hosed.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:33

Yep. Yeah, hosed, man. So, but yeah, um, that's that's man, that's really all I think that's been going on. But I think I know what you're alluding to, my the uh flight sim studio eJ.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:44

Yeah, yeah, they just had another update as well trying to further improve the V the VNAV logic.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:50

It just I seen it, man, and I was just like, whatever. Oh, I was done, bro.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:56

Johnny's done with them, man. I don't understand what the problem is, bro. Like basic freeware aircrafts and products have figured this out. Like what is going on?

SPEAKER_04 1:09:06

Believe it or not, AKD has a pretty, and of course, we're talking totally different platform. As much crap folks give gives AKD, man, you can get from point A to point B in that thing. I'm that's all I'm saying.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:19

It's just don't get it. And that's another area, too, where we're just like not a ton of opportunities, or I should say not a ton of competition out there for regional jets. You know, Aerosoph's got their 900, 1000, 700,000.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:37

I think uh I think FlyFX is also working on an ERJ, but you know, that's right.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:44

We're starting to see a lot of these things phase out. Uh yeah, like they're not even 220.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:52

Man, well to what bro the two the 240 will be out by the time by the time they get the by the time they get the 320 out.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:59

Like four years, bro.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:01

Yeah, it's I don't know. I I do know I think any builds is having uh has a role in it now. Yeah, yeah, so maybe maybe we'll see some movement now, but I mean that, man.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:11

Let's go.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:12

Even though there's only like two two airlines, uh, two airlines I'd fly that's uh jet blue and delta ops, but still, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_04 1:10:20

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:22

Don't breeze run uh don't doesn't breeze send a 220?

SPEAKER_04 1:10:25

They do? Heck, I don't know, man. I don't I don't I don't mess with breeze like that. Do they?

SPEAKER_01 1:10:30

I didn't think so.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:31

I don't know why, I don't know why breeze came to mine. They may it may just be all EJS, I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:37

Oh, they do. Wow, do they?

SPEAKER_04 1:10:39

Okay, dang, for real, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:10:41

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:42

What?

SPEAKER_02 1:10:43

Hey guys, that was right. Breeze operate 53 of them. What?

SPEAKER_01 1:10:49

Oh, that's right. I do remember seeing these. They sure do.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:54

Wow, yeah. Why not? Me neither. Yeah, Breeze, okay, yeah. Charlie just confirmed. He's like, yeah, Breeze does.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:04

Charlie eyeing that too, because his uh his old Delta phone.

ERJ Updates And Regional Jet Gaps

SPEAKER_04 1:11:08

Old Delta, yeah. Yep, man. So yeah, hopefully we see one, Mike. I just I don't know, man. It's I don't know. Like, you know, we'll speaking of which, man, it's so all the, you know, we're talking about all these aircraft, and yeah, we're we're yeah, hitting the mark. Yeah, we're hitting the mark, CTP fam. I'm sorry, we're a little over. But but we we we we're seeing all this, all these freaking aircraft, you know, that aren't getting the love that they deserve. But we're about to get another 350, Mike. Is that is that correct, sir?

SPEAKER_01 1:11:44

Uh yes. I'm gonna screw this name up, uh Rodium Code, I believe. Rhodium Code is a new studio.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:54

That sounds like a periodic element, bro. Rhodium. Is that? Hold on, let me look at it. Well, it's too late now.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:03

I already said it, but the Rhodium Code A350 came out of your developer.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:11

Let me guess I'm gonna drop on the marketplace or something.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:14

I wish they would. Developing the A350 for Microsoft Flight 10 with the first synagogue trailer set to prepare on May 3rd. So not only do they come out of nowhere, they've scheduled their premiere like 25 days out, bro. So we sit here with the. Oh my gosh! Listen, guys, you all know me. Love the Airbus, love the Airbus products, but I just like don't understand why we need another 350. And yes, people are out there still complaining about the WASM, any builds crash. I've had one WASM crash in a year. Y'all need to figure something out. At some point, it's not any builds. Like blow out your your your folders, reinstall the aircraft, and keep it moving. I've done at this point thousands and thousands and thousands of nautical miles and hundreds of hours and is playing with no issues. So you know, the fact that any bills is causing you know anxiety for those of you out there. And you guys are using that to say that it makes sense another developer would come on the scene to do this product. Uh, just doesn't sit with me. It it's they've they've done so much, and again, I'm not defending them. It should have launched the way it is today. Performance was horrendous in the beginning, but none of that to me justifies someone else coming out of the woodworks and saying, hey, we gotta do another A350 because the one out there is just not good. Now, that said, you guys can tell me I'm talking out of both sides of my mouth because for the last hour we've talked about competition being good, but like not a year later, bro. We've got 350 already that everyone that has already gone out and bought and purchased. I mean, it continues to improve weekly, monthly, whatever it may be. I just don't understand where we need why we need this iteration. But listen, I'll get in the benefit of the doubt. I'm going to watch the reveal or whatever this premiere is. I just don't have a lot of hopes. Like the 350 is a very new product in the world, much less for Flight Sim. Not everyone can go and come do this correctly and do it justice. So I don't know. I don't know who this developer is, but I don't have you know the warming fuzzies about it, man. So we'll see. It's very similar to those other guys at Vector 787 that's coming out with that. They they throw us the the nose of that 787 and say, hey, we're a new developer out there doing a dreamliner. Now in that case, it sounds like like there is some history behind who those developers are and all of them partnering together to to do solid products in the past. So I probably have a little bit more faith and hope in that product, especially because 787 has been out for a while as well. But for this 350 to just come out of nowhere, we gotta see.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:06

Again, I'm not gonna sit there and tell anyone what they what they should and shouldn't do. I'm telling I'm not buying it, I can care less. But how like how are we what was missing from you know, like I don't even know how to word this? So like what were we not getting in the Innabille generation, the Anneville generation that you know would warrant me wanting to take on? Because I mean this is 350, dude. You know those things are gonna demand some hours in the code. You know this. You know this. What were they offering that we felt the consumers deserved that we could provide? Like, what was that? Don't worry, I'll wait.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:58

Oh no, man. Charlie's saying he apparently he's read that they've been working on it for three years. So that that's a that's a that's a a worthwhile caveat. I think that's a little fair. Uh however, any builds announced theirs two years ago and got it out a year ago. So if you've been working on it for three years, you are well behind the competition in that case. Just a little mad. Just a little. I don't know. The other thing I'm waiting for, because we continue to see this in the industry lately, is hey man, they stole our code. They stole our art. They stole our waiting for the blow-up and the emergency podcast that we will need to that will ensue after those articles and videos come out, bro. I'm telling you, that's coming next. I'm looking at this and I'm looking at these screenshots, and I'm like, this thing looks very similar to any.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:55

I mean, well, that's the 350. They should all be the same.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:59

Yeah, there's only about the three ways you can do it. I'm just saying. I get it, same same five.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:04

Well, New Times Roman, World Caldera, like same five color, all that, bro.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:11

It's dark in this in this screenshot, bro. This thing looks oddly close to any bill's plot. I'm not trying to start no unnecessary rubric. But it just something don't feel like, hey man, apparently they're here. I may go down the road. They uh a small game studio based in California. Oh man, they're your people, bro. You good then. They good people, they my people. I gotta I wonder where they are, bro. Trailer premiere Sunday, May 3rd at 500 Zulu. I don't know. We gotta see.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:52

Man, okay. I'm gonna be honest with y'all. Uh those of you those of you who are 350, 350, and 350, like aficionados and you love the 350, hey, the more the merrier. I'm here for you. Personally, I could I could freaking care less. I'm just gonna be honest with you. I just I just don't care. I mean, like we, there's there's like a billion aircraft on the docket that you know could totally use some love. But hey, if you guys feel, you know, if you guys are what knee deep in this thing, y'all three years into it, and hey, y'all think y'all got something, you know, that can walk that can uh rot the world, hey, more power to you on players.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:27

Man, we're not saying again, I don't want to make it seem like, hey, Mike, you guys just spent an hour talking about we need competition, we need more developers to do more products. Like, yes, but the timing just feels weird. Charlie says it's true that Indie Bill's got plenty of money and devs. I I get it. So they were able to finish faster, but like at what point like are you now entering some cost fallacy? Like, I just I just hope, you know, as we continue to advocate for new developers on the scene, because I think it is needed and and definitely worthwhile across the the flight sim space, I just hope it's worthwhile. Like I hope they see the returns and the ROI that would justify this three-year-long project for a product that's already been out, you know, a year plus and continues to improve weekly.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:16

My man with all that, my man with all that uh executive jargon. Hey, bro, um I mean, best of luck to you. You know, hope it works out, but I mean, I'm good. I'm just hey, it is what it is. But the over it, bro. Yeah, I'm over it, man. It's just like, gosh dang it, dude. Like, I was I was I would have like, I don't know, I guess I would have been like less blown away if it was like another air, another another like 320 or something like 321 or something like that. That would have made it worse, bro. But I'm like, I'm like, uh 350, yeah, sure.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:50

I think it would only be the second one on the scene, but it just still feels it's it's not a high density aircraft. Like we like we don't need that many. I don't know, bro. I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:06

We'll see. More to tell.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:08

I don't know, man. We're I mean, like I said, I'm I'm totally cool with the heat, I'm probably gonna catch for that because this, but I'm still I'm like, I'm still standing on like, all right, dude. All right, cool. You know, like again, I'm not, you know, I'm not gonna tell anyone what they should and shouldn't develop. It's, you know, hey, you know, what's good for the goose, it's good for the gander, but I know me, man. I'm I'm good. And I hear I can hear people now like, yeah, I know, man, that thing drops Jack go be like the first one to cop. I I just first, like, I hardly ever really do, you know, I don't do mini long hauls. Like, I I barely send to any Bills 350. I don't. Like, I just Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:46

I don't really see you in that thing. You've been in it. Yeah. Probably a handful of times.

Surprise A350 Announcement And Wrap

SPEAKER_04 1:21:51

Yeah, every now and then I run like mini to Atlanta or something when I feel the itch. And that's that man, that's about it. And then, you know, PDG dropped that triple seven in them pretty routes, man. I'm not worried about no 350. But that's like in that's me. But yeah, so looking uh looking forward to seeing seeing what uh what uh pre-release trailer or whatever comes out. I'm sure we're gonna say like a you know, billion first look, sturry looks, second look, story looks, whatever looks like it's gonna get it's gonna get some some folks talking. Yeah, it's gonna get some visibility, yes. Hopefully they have expo. Yeah, yeah, I'm yeah, I'm looking forward to it, man. Cause I'm I'm really love to pick their brain. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. Absolutely, man. Absolutely. Well, guys, I mean, heck, uh, you know, uh, again, we'll apologize for remembering a little bit over on this one, but you know, definitely, you know, we we had a lot of our chads. Like a lot, a lot, a lot came up during the way, and I was like, man, we had some strong opinions on. And again, though, this is all of our opinions. You know, you guys are the ones out there that really moves the market. So vote with your wallets on these things. Do y'all's due diligence, don't just look at one person and be like, yeah, that guy's an expert. I'm a cop, and I'm cop because I'm spending my 80 bucks because of him. No, don't do that. You know, go look at multiple sources, do your homework. I mean, you know, Gemini at ChatGPT and 360, all that, bro. All of them, like, you know, CP3O, all of them. Um, you know, and uh before you make these buying decisions, because we all know, man, those those those coins are at a premium nowadays. So, but yeah, man, aside from that, I mean, uh, what else you got, Mike?

SPEAKER_01 1:23:30

I said, man. Well, I'll take it back. I got plenty, but we ain't got time. So uh we will catch y'all on the next one.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:38

Oh, man, awesome. What's funny? It was like I got right here in the ear, somebody looking outside, like coming. Yeah, I'm waiting for a temptation per scene or something. But but anywho, man, let's get out of here, guys. Again, y'all appreciate for the love.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:58

Hey, no, I lied. Sorry. Yo, we are less than not less. We're almost two months of Flight Sim Expo. That's crazy. That's crazy. If you have not gotten your tickets yet, please go and do so. We will be there. We are one of the sponsors looking forward to seeing each and every one of you. I know it's been I think we missed two. No, these guys missed two. I missed one. Look at him turn around. But it's the first time in what two years. Well, all the three of us will be together there. So looking forward to it. Make sure you get your tickets, get your flights booked, etc. Because uh these fuel prices are not coming now, but that's a story for another day.

unknown 1:24:34

Yep.

SPEAKER_04 1:24:39

Whoa. Oh man. Yeah, this I think it's I think it's that time night. All right, guys.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:47

We'll see. Oh man.