Which do you prefer?

After a cursory examination...I can't tell the difference.

To my best recollection, PC Pilot always seemed to have a higher quality of writing.

You can't tell the difference? You're kidding, right? Computer Pilot is about 70% ads, and 20% instrument flying, which I don't care for. PC Pilot has a much better balance. They have a lot less ads and a lot more articles. They balance information/articles related to visual flying and instrument flying. PC Pilot's reviews of the top flight sims tend to be more detailed and interesting, although neither mag publishes negative reviews. Finally, PC Pilot has no peer when it comes to publishing "How To" guides, especially instrucional guides on flying different types of aircraft (helicopters, commercial airliners, general aviation, etc.) in FSX.

I used to read Computer Pilot, but grew tired of sifting through 70% advertisements to get to the good stuff. PC Pilot contains half as many advertisements as Computer Pilot, which means twice as much of what I'm looking for--articles that have nothing to do with instrument flying, VOR and all that stuff.

well i only compared one issue to another issue so my opinion was not indepth in any way...

but tks for the info, very interesting

I think one of the mod's writes for pcpilot

I do write for them - so I'm biased..

But if you'd like to check out a free issue of PC Pilot I think you can still get a PDF version here: http://www.pcpilot.net/freeissue/

I'm enjoying writing a new series for them called "Challenging Airports"...



The thing I do like about PC Pilot is that we do include a fair bit of non-FSX/FS9 stuff as well. I've reviewed several planes for X-Plane, and enjoyed writing articles on Flaming Cliffs, a whole series of tutorials on Black Shark, DCS A-10 previews and reviews, etc.. Having grown to know the staff over the past couple years I can say they have a great handle on a wide range of topics with lots of GA, airline, and military experience on the staff. The cover CD they send with each issue is nice too since it includes a lot of quality freeware stuff like aircraft, scenery, and utilities.

Anyway, check out the free issue and see if it is to your liking. I'd also recommend checking out Computer Pilot and seeing which suits you best.

And if any of you have any suggestions for content for PC Pilot..or things you'd like to see us cover more or better, I can certainly pass along suggestions to our editor..




Chris "BeachAV8R" Frishmuth

Don't read any of them.

I read all of your tutorials, Chris. Your tutorials and PC Pilot Magazine overall are top notch. However, I didn't like the 80/100 score on COD, a ridiculous score that is the result of an editorial policy (guessing here) never to publish a negative review. The rationalizations by the author for his so-called "score" were absurd. Wasn't it convenient that anything and everything clearly awful about COD were features coincidentally he personally didn't care about so he didn't consider them in his grading? That's like admitting there were clearly awful things about Adolph Hitler; however, because we personally don't care about those things we'll disregard them in our evaluation of the man. He wasn't so bad.


Anyway, you can't have it both ways. That "review" is the only recent black mark on PC Pilot that I can think of. It's far superior to Computer Pilot.

Can't comment on the COD review since I don't have COD and probably won't get it because it isn't my ear/cup o' tea. (edit - but I guess I do anyway..lol..) Regarding review scores - they are certainly subjective depending on what the author is looking for. I've given reviews with scores of down to 70/100 even though the product was part of a lineup that was a heavy advertiser. We get no direction or pressure for our review scores (subtle or otherwise) and I can honestly say I've never once been challenged or influenced on review scores by editors or anyone else. Speaking for myself, developers know when I speak the truth. For instance - I'm a stickler for documentation and if a great product has poor docs (cough - Carenado Saratoga) it suffers in the overall score. I've seen reviews with scores down in the 50s, but I've not come across any add-ons that warrant that (thank goodness) but only because I haven't been assigned piece-of-crap software to review (yet).

In a way I'd be interested to give COD a shot and give my assessment, but I fear I wouldn't be knowledgeable enough to give an accurate review. See, I skipped the entire IL-2 series. I bought them, and have them on CDs and DVDs (and Steam) laying about, but I've never played them. So for me, if I fired up COD..I would probably be wowed by the visuals and explosions and cockpit details...probably far more so than someone who has a long history with the IL2 franchise. So there are so many variables to reviews that you have to read them, add them to the collective opinions spread across the web and user communities, and then make a purchasing decision.

Also - the whole first paragraph of the article titled "A Difficult Beginning" is pretty clear that the COD release was (is) a troubled affair. There is a section later in the review titled "Unresolved Issues" and further critical comment in the "Summary". On the whole - 80% is a pretty poor score for something when you compare it to something like DCS A-10 which received a 95% and a PC Platinum award. When a crappy single plane add-on for FSX by a poor design studio gets a 70% or so score, I think you could argue that people would get more value and fun out of even a flawed COD, so the 80% recognizes that while it is better than an FSX add-on that was a miss, it isn't as good quality-wise as a great FSX add-on or a great stand alone combat sim such as Black Shark or A-10.

One thing I've tried to do in my reviews for both SimHQ and PC Pilot has been to keep a balance within the article of pros and cons that is proportional to the overall product quality. So..in pure mathematical terms, if I have a 1500 word article (and space is tight in print articles..as opposed to the long winded articles I can write for SimHQ..lol..) and I feel that 85% of the product is great and 15% could use work..then I think it is proper to allocate the body of the article in equal proportions. Which means there might only be a paragraph or two total of negative while 85% of the article highlights the good stuff. That isn't totally accurate for every article..but I strive for a balance within that gives a proper valuation of the product. It isn't a science for sure...

Hope that explains a little bit without sounding defensive. Thanks for the input and our editor reads the forums here at SimHQ, so I'm sure he will take note and consider some of the comments (both pro and con) about our magazine.

Regards..!
BeachAV8R

Main reason I got this months magazine was the Challenging airports article as i had been watching a TV programme about the same thing a few days before and was planning to do my own challenging flights in MSFS soon. So its great stuff. Also the Rise of Flight and CoD stuff will get me buying it. Not so interested in the MSFS addon articles but I appreciate that they are a major reason for the magazine. I generally prefer the 'how to' articles more than the reviews but overall its a great magazine and the only computer mag I buy these days now that PC Gamer and its ilk are so lame.