Ariane 737-700 X2

[jastheace]

Hi guys,

well i took the plunge and brought the Ariane 737-700 last week, have just recivied the activation key, so i will be giving this a/c a bit of a work put, see if it is as good as claimed, will post some pic and thoughts later as i get to grips with the bird, initial impression so far is it looks stunning, just like a real 700, the vc is a work of art, much better than wilcos classic 737's. thought you all might be intrested to see what you get for the $100+ a/c

oh also can some one from nz and oz pm me, i want to see if you can get their foum page to load, i keep getting bigpond page telling me it can't find it

cheers

Jason

[Ian Warren]

I have heard a lot off bad reports and issues with Ariane 737s and there service backup , i hope im wrong , be looking forward to your screens , maybe Ariane listened to the flightsim community .

PM to you there Jas , hope it helps

[AlisterC]

The review avsim did of their 900 series wasn't exactly flattering.. and I've heard forum murmurs of poor service and over priced around the place. Let me know if the 700 you have got has functioning VNAV path (the 900 model avsim reviewed didn't). Seemed pointless having an FMC without that functionality. My PMDG does 737 so well I don't see the point of buying an Ariane (my PMDG is now merged with POSKY models to get the wing flex)

http://www.avsim.com/pages/0709/Ariane/737.htm

[jastheace]

well so far so good, it is activated, get great fram rates with it, now to figure the bird out, couple of things so far, manuals, first up was told that the activation process was explained in a pdf file that was added wheb i installed, problem was it never installed that file, have sebt an email stating as such, ot expecting a response, second thing is the manuals included, are good but do not flow 100% they tend to have bits added all over the show, and you can fly the aircraft from them, but they are not like the manuals you get with say leveld, captian sim or even dare i say it, wilco. there is some useful information but alot of performance charts and such are missing, v-speeds and such. to get this information you have to buy the seperate manuals from ariane and 70odd euros a pop, and there are three of them. i know enough about the 737 not to need them, but it would have been nice, oh and with the manuals, you cannot print them, you can only view them on screen.

the manuals seem to have been written at the time the -900er was released and mainly pertain to that aircraft.

have discovered another strange quick, wich is not mentioned anywhere in the manuals, that i can get the engine running with wverything ready for take off, but if you max the throttles the engines shut down, got to investigate this further, i am thinking that it is me being impatent.

will post some screen shots today and give another report later on

Jason

[jastheace]

well doing some more flying today, here is an update,

flight model is very nice, flys by the numbers with very smooth and fluid frame rates, now here are some problems, not sure if the 737 has anything to do with them or not, but active sky advanced has stopped working since i installed the 737, and now i am getting random fsx crashes, which i have never had before.

engines work as they should now, with the advanced model you have to advance to 20%n1, then increase thrust as you start moving, hand flying this bird is great really nice experience.

vnav, now i am not sure if it works or not, selecting vnav allowed the aircraft to climb, but as the nav database on the fmc has no stars for wellington it would not descend, and as i was starting to descend manually i had a random fsx crash.

there are some sids and stars, but mainly for auckland, no where else, haven't flown the 737 anywhere else, but i get the impression that unless it is a major airport you won't have coverage in the nav database, this is an interesting issue, as it would seem that to get the navdata tool you will have to pay for it, when it is released.

the 700 has included liveries at the moment, araine is doing a special deal, saving about 20 pounds. the screen shots are the included livery of the pacific blue 737.


overall i like the bird, now if i can nail down why asa is not working and why i am getting random crashes i will be happy, but i have a feeling that i will have to uninstall the a/c to get these working again, even in the manual it states to remove iinstalled add ons until the problem is fixed. so maybe i have to have everything else removed to get a crash free expereince.

sounds are nice, if very quite, on the outside you get the full fsx doppler effects, which sound very nice, also the hud is a great feature which is very easy to use. would i recommend this, well it is hard to say, i think that the PMDG 737NG is going to be a more affordable aircraft set, it may not cover the high gross weight version and special versions that the ariane 737-700 does, but i think it will be a more polished product overall, which will work happly with any add on i may have.

also you must start the flight witht he default cessna, or else the 737 will not work, if you start your flight witht he 737 it will not work properly.

enjoy the screen shots





















































hope this is of some help to you all, if i can find out why i am having these issues i will update here

would i buy this knowing what i know now, hard to say, i don't think i will be buying any other 737's from ariane, i will be getting the PMDG 737, will be intresting to compare the two

Jason

[Ian Warren]

I'm pleased you showed us this model , PMDG i think would be extremely hard to beat , im guessing Ariane unfortunately is starting to show its true colours with the problems and maybe the service , 24 hrs before getting a key at $100 bucks and with that should be a manual .

[waka172rg]

Thanks for the info Jason looks good in virgin cant wait for the PMDG NGX

[Chairman]

QUOTE (jastheace @ Jan 26 2010, 06:47 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

vnav, now i am not sure if it works or not, selecting vnav allowed the aircraft to climb, but as the nav database on the fmc has no stars for wellington it would not descend, and as i was starting to descend manually i had a random fsx crash.

Why not manually build the star in the FMC, all they are is a set of waypoints with altitude restrictions, no different to manually building any other part of the route.

Cheers
Gary

[jastheace]

QUOTE (Chairman @ Jan 31 2010, 09:43 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Why not manually build the star in the FMC, all they are is a set of waypoints with altitude restrictions, no different to manually building any other part of the route.

Cheers
Gary

that is half the problem, most of the waypoints aren't in the navdata included. for an aircraft that is over $100aud you wouuld think that it would be included, or atleast be able to get navigraph support, when i entered manul height restrictions, the a/c would not compute the descent profile.

[Chairman]

Hmmm ... on every chart of a star I've seen the waypoint positions are shown, maybe you could enter them as lat/lon waypoints ?

[jastheace]

QUOTE (Chairman @ Jan 31 2010, 10:15 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Hmmm ... on every chart of a star I've seen the waypoint positions are shown, maybe you could enter them as lat/lon waypoints ?

i would if i had the charts, but again it is beside the point, you shouldn't have to do this with a aircraft of this cost, especailly when you would have to do it every time you flew, as you can't save custom waypoints (that i could find anyway) and then if you were flying online and the approach was changed that could seriously screw you up.

it seems that unless you are in america or britian, you don't get the coverage, that age old flight sim issue, navigraph are good, using real world date is brilliant, i use it for all my addons. LevelD, wilco etc.

i think the thing that has reallly annoyed me the most is that FSX has become what it used to be like 2 years ago, it would randomly crash when ever it wanted to, it is doing that again, and the only thing i have added is the 737, it was working fine up until that point, and arianes solution to remove modules one at a time until the cause of the conflict is found does not hold water with me, if it is a problem, it is a problem with the ariane aircraft, as every other a/c i have (and i have a few) play nicly together without a problem.

i am now debating with myself as too wether to remove the 737 and see if the issues are gone, i sure hope that it will fix it, because i will be fuming if i have to do a fresh install of everything again. oh and i am still awaiting a response to an email i sent them about manuals

jason

[Chairman]

I'm not suggesting it as a workaround, just as a one-off to give you a star to fly so you'll know how well vnav works. Most airport charts can be found online, especially for 'mainstream' countries like Australia and NZ.

Do Ariane show signs of doing anything after you've found which of your existing addons theirs won't play with, or do they consider "remove the other addons" to be a permanent solution rather than a diagnostic step ? A good user community might be your best hope, works for PMDG and LevelD and Dreamfleet.

(which is not meant to suggest that PMDG / LDS / DF don't have good company support, they do, but with 'power users' being spread around the globe they tend to see and answer the questions before the official support teams have a chance)

Gary

[jastheace]

QUOTE (Chairman @ Feb 1 2010, 07:30 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I'm not suggesting it as a workaround, just as a one-off to give you a star to fly so you'll know how well vnav works. Most airport charts can be found online, especially for 'mainstream' countries like Australia and NZ.

Do Ariane show signs of doing anything after you've found which of your existing addons theirs won't play with, or do they consider "remove the other addons" to be a permanent solution rather than a diagnostic step ? A good user community might be your best hope, works for PMDG and LevelD and Dreamfleet.

(which is not meant to suggest that PMDG / LDS / DF don't have good company support, they do, but with 'power users' being spread around the globe they tend to see and answer the questions before the official support teams have a chance)

Gary

i did realise that gary, sorry i amy not have made that part clear, still think you shouldn't have to do it on the price of the a/c espically as they advertise it works,


it seems that the remove other add ons as a permant step, i would ask the araine forums, but the are not accessable, and i am still waiting to be accepeted onto the old ones, i have removed the 737, and funnly enough everything is working fine, i did a 2+ hour flight today with no crash, so it seems my suspisions where correct, that the 737 was the problem, now i am not going ot remove all my other wilco, CS, level D, weather and other utility programs i have running happly together without issue so i can get one aircraft to work. and further to the vnav issue, it is to be implemented at a later date, as a free patch apparently, if they want more money for it it would not be a surprise to me.

why a company cannot get an aircraft to play nicely is beyond me, it seems that form my research that i am the only one having this particuallr issue, there are other with similar issues and the response has always been remove add ons one at a time unitl you fix the problem.

well i am going to have to wait till the PMDG 737 comes out, there fs9 version was great, just wish they would hurry up with the fsx version.

The thing that does annoy me a little is that you pay all this money for an addon and if it won't work you are stuck with it, unlike othere who will refund you the purchase price. and the worst part i cannot give it away to anyone as it won't work for anyone else.

i had hoped ariane had listened to comments from people in the past, but is appears nothing has changed they will happly take your money and run.

Jason

[omitchell]

I use the Ariane 737-300, have done for years with no issues, great plane. Hopefully they kept up the quality for ya...

[ctcav8r]

I've been semi on the hunt for a 737 myself recently so thanks Jason for your very thorough and honest review of the Ariane version.
like others I might wait for the PMDG NG version to be released for FSX.
In saying that, I haven't been following the development of it, does anyone have a 'rough' idea of when it will be released?
"Coming 2010" isn't quite enough info for me lol

[jastheace]

well i have finally got access to the ariane forums, not much help with the issue, but strangly i uninstalled and the re installed the a/c and all the problems have gone, i did a 2hr flight online without a hitch, and ASA starts and runs fine, vnav does work to a degree, but you have to fly it manually to control descents and such, i did have it flyng the descent on ap, but changed something and that screwed up the descent, so manual control fixed it. it is still alot of money for a product with no navdata upgrade option (at present) you can manually set the stars up, but it will still not fly vanv as this has not been implemented, (see posts above)

the navdata manager will cost you when they release it, price and release info has not been released. so not sure if you will be able to use the data someone else produced in your a/c or not, will have to wait and see on that one.

further flying has made me realise that this bird is great to fly, but i would suggest that you would need to be a 100% hard core 737 freak to pay that much money for it. still the more i fly it the more i like it. love the little things like connection points on the a/c, for instance you can click on the ground power plug and plug in the GPU, nothing else out there i know of does that.

i have proberly confused you lot even more now, i can see that this a/c will be flying in my fleet for some time to come, it may be surpased by the pmdg 737 when it is released,it will depend on the quality of the pmdg 737

Jason

[Chairman]

I'm happy it worked out for you.

Ariane support gets universally slated on avsim, although everyone says the plane is great if you can get it to work (and you can afford it!). Looking forward to some more screenshots :-)

Gary