King Air 350i eXtreme Review - by Perfect Flight Discussion

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Hello Flight Sim Community,

This thread will be the place to discuss the review below for the King Air eXtreme by Perfect Flight. I am re-directing the conversation from YouTube to this thread in case of some type of takedown notice.

1’st Post: This one
2’nd Post: E-mails from me/SIMULSHOP
3’rd Post: Support thread at SIMMARKET
4’th Post: E-mails from www.flightsim.com

NOTE: IF YOU PURCHASED THIS FROM THESE RETAILERS: SimMarket / Flightsim.com / PC Aviator / Simulshop, please start the return process by contacting them. If you have any resistance or trouble getting your full refund (not credit), please contact me in this thread and I will chase them for you.

I have varying promises from these vendors and a forthcoming review that your experience with them will guide. I will use this as leverage to ensure what they have promised me (your refunds) are followed through with.

If you did receive a return for instance (a number of you said that flightsim.com gave you a return immediately) let me know also so that I can point out those retailers who are being fair.

UPDATE 10/23/2020 6:30pm: flightsim has both removed the product (they said they have although still live, may be taking time to propegate) from their site and said they will issue refunds to anyone who purchased this. Simulshop has not responded after sending them the notice about hosting copyright material although I believe simulshop may be the developers storefront.

UPDATE 10/23/2020 5:45pm: flightsim has issued a refund without hassle and was pleasant to deal with. I’ve requested they remove the copyrighted material and offer customers refunds.

UPDATE 10/23/2020 9:15am: SIMMARKET issued a refund after the developer approved the refund. SIMMARKET was not willing to refund me without this permission being granted. -SimMarket 0/10

UPDATE 10/23/2020 8:20am: SIMMARKET removed this product from their site without addressing their customers. Still referring to the developer who is scamming people. Without the developer’s permission, no refund. Am I likely to receive a refund from a dev who is stealing already?

UPDATE 10/23/2020 8:00am:
Plot thickens, AVSIM just removed the post with nothing but the review link and a warning to users not to buy this:
NOTE FROM AVSIM: I’ve hidden your post with the embedded video. It’s clearly plagarised software which you aluded to so no further action. Please do not post any more like this.

UPDATES 10/23/2020 7:30am:
Developer has confirmed directly in two e-mails so far that these are only liveries and missions in response to asking SIMULSHOP and FLIGHTSIM.com what is in the package.

SIMMARKET will not address me directly as they have confirmed that this is an actual aircraft and that the description and placement in their Aircraft category is correct.

I have contacted Asobo in regards to speaking with legal about copyright infringement. I was careful to make screen recordings and collect and gather as much information as possible before I posted this video. Its why it wasn’t released earlier.

I would have liked to wait another few days to see where the cards fell with the online vendors of this product, but a post on Facebook that seemed to be a kid appealing to the dev that he got ripped off convinced me to post this right away.

You can see the review here if you like:

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Original e-mail sent to vendor(s) requesting return (each are similar):

Hi Nels,

Thanks for your quick response. I appreciate that.

I have however purchased this product. I’m guessing the marketing material on your site was written by the developer itself as I surely want to give you guys the benefit of the doubt.

I recognize your no return policy, however, the product listing for this purchase states:

Here is the complete representation of the most popular business turboprop in the world.

On top of this its listed in the MSFS Aircraft Category of your website.

I’m sure this was an oversight on a website that carries a lot of products, but I would kindly ask that you consider refunding me for this purchase.

I made this purchase under the assumption based on your product listing that this was a complete representation of a King Air and not just liveries and missions.

Nowhere is it specifically or explicitly stated that this is only those two things. It seems I am not the only customer who have realized this the hard way as their facebook page and site have similar complaints.

I appreciate both your time and consideration in this matter.

Sincerely,
David

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Response from SIMULSHOP:

what seems like the developer who also runs simulshop (I’ll explain why later)

David, I am sorry you are conused but the info page clearly states: King Air 350 eXtreme offers you an exaustive and realistic simulation experience with beautiful liveries – taken from real world – and a set of Discovery Flights “ CUBA ESCAPE”.

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NOTE: I removed his name from above response. Simulshop offered free download to replace this. Not unreasonable, but there are no other MSFS products right now so I don’t know how that would work. The only two other products they have are MSFS approaches which is exactly what this ■■■■ is that IMO they tried to pawn off as an aircraft.
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My Response below:

Hi M,

I do appreciate you taking the time for me.

Nothing in the below statement that you included alludes to the fact that this is not an aircraft.

In fact the statement you sent only say’s that the assumed aircraft has liveries, not that they are only liveries. All of the pretext say’s WITH beautiful liveries AND a set of discovery flights. This assumes something comes with liveries and flights.

I don’t want to get into a back and forth with you on the subtle nature of that text. It is intellectually dishonest at best, and outright deceitful at worst. There is nothing clear about it.

Furthermore, and of more concern to me,

The included package has the full default Asobo King Air included which is copyright Asobo. This is clearly marked in the .xml files included in the item purchased from your site and included in the download.

If the addon is only liveries, why was a complete default Asobo King Air (copyright Asobo) included in my purchase. I want nothing to do with this purchase.

I have received an aircraft that is not allowed to be edited, distributed or sold and has been done so I believe illegally.

I do appreciate your response, and look forward to yours again.

Regards,

David

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UPDATED 10/23/2020 8:47AM

Thread from Simmarket support: (CURRENT STATUS IS WAITING FOR DEVELOPER TO APPROVE RETURN. SIMMARKET WOULD NOT WITHOUT HIS PERMISSION) I don’t agree with that decision under the circumstances.

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David
Date: 10/23/2020
Status:

Open I’m guessing the marketing material on your site was written by the developer itself as I surely want to give you guys the benefit of the doubt.

I recognize your no return policy, however, the product listing for this purchase states:

Here is the complete representation of the most popular business turboprop in the world.

On top of this its listed in the MSFS Aircraft Category of your website.

I’m sure this was an oversight on a website that carries a lot of products, but I would kindly ask that you consider refunding me for this purchase.

I made this purchase under the assumption based on your product listing that this was a complete representation of a King Air and not just liveries and missions.

Nowhere is it specifically or explicitly stated that this is only those two things. It seems I am not the only customer who have realized this the hard way as their facebook page and site have similar complaints.

I appreciate both your time and consideration in this matter.

Sincerely,
David

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Olaf - Support
Date: 10/23/2020
Status: Closed Dear Customer,

Please contact the developer and ask him to give us permission to give you a store credit. Please note that (developer) has to give us direct instructions.

We hope you understand.
regards

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David
Date: 10/23/2020
Status: Reopened Thanks for your quick response.

Under normal circumstances I could understand that.

However, the included package has the full default Asobo King Air included which is copyright Asobo. This is clearly marked in the .xml files included in the item purchased from your site and included in the download. I have compared dozens of files in the default package and the package provided by your store.

I want nothing to do with this purchase.

I have received an aircraft that is not allowed to be edited, distributed or sold and has been done so illegally.

I do appreciate your response

Regards,
David

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Olaf - Support
Date: 10/23/2020
Status:

Forwarded to Vendor please contact your customer

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David
Date: 10/23/2020
Status:

Reopened Hi SimMarket,

I don’t want to have to go down this road with you, I assumed the above information of a product sold to me under these circumstances was enough for you to by-pass your regular policy and look after your customer.

I do however ask that you do not make me deal with your vendor here.

I have purchased every single MSFS Aircraft you have listed so far under the category MSFS Aircraft which this is not one.

I would/will purchase every MSFS aircraft you list in future as I have a very appreciative set of viewers who rely on my product reviews on YouTube and flightsimulator.com forums.

I also pointed to the potentially illegal distribution of copyrighted material that I want no part of.

Please be aware that this interaction itself is now a part of my current King Air eXtreme Review.

I can appreciate your position and no-refund policy.

I believe this does not apply in these circumstances.

I would hope that Simmarket does not support either the sale of copyright material by anyone but its owner (Asobo in this case), nor the deceit of its customers through this product.

I look forward to your response.

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Olaf - Support
Date: 10/23/2020
Status:

Forwarded to Vendor this product does contain an aircraft so i is listed in the correct category.

anything else can only be anserwed by your contracting partner Perfect Flight so please await their reply.

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David
Date: 10/23/2020
Status: Reopened

I can appreciate that, I have also given you the benefit of the doubt.

The developer has confirmed that this is only liveries and approaches in two emails from him.

I have confirmed that the aircraft I downloaded from simmarket is a complete (unchanged) copy of the default King Air copyright Asobo.

There is a large conflict here.

You are either now selling a copyright Asobo aircraft in your store,

or selling me an aircraft that is only liveries.

I urge you to deal with me fairly on this matter.

I do appreciate your time, but my time is also valuable.

This will be my last request to you directly.

Thank you,
a customer,

David

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Olaf - Support
Date: 10/23/2020
Status:

Forwarded to Vendor we are selling the product as supplied by the vendor, this also applies to the description and any other material. without the vendor’s request nothing can be changed by us. we will wait for his reply.

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Perfect Flight Project
Date: 10/23/2020
Status:

Pending Please if the Customer is unhappy with the product, refund it.
Thanks.
MM

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Olaf - Support
Date: 10/23/2020
Status:

Forwarded to Vendor: He is not only unhappy he accusses you to have included copyright protected material from Asobo. what do you say about this? Do you have a licence from Asobo or Microsoft? Unless we received an answer from you and you shown us a licence agreement or removed any material from other developers from the download file and amended your product description we have to remove your product from sale.

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Perfect Flight Project NOTE: THIS IS FROM THE DEVELOPER TO SIMMARKET
Date: 10/23/2020
Status:

Product include default elements only to make easy the installation. However, i am preparing a new setup file wich includes only textures folder, with no default material. I will inform you when i uploading new zip file .
Thanks
Marco

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CORRESPONDENCE with flightsim.com

Hi N,

Thanks for your quick response. I appreciate that.

I have however purchased this product. I’m guessing the marketing material on your site was written by the developer itself as I surely want to give you guys the benefit of the doubt.

I recognize your no return policy, however, the product listing for this purchase states:

Here is the complete representation of the most popular business turboprop in the world.

On top of this its listed in the MSFS Aircraft Category of your website.

I’m sure this was an oversight on a website that carries a lot of products, but I would kindly ask that you consider refunding me for this purchase.

I made this purchase under the assumption based on your product listing that this was a complete representation of a King Air and not just liveries and missions.

Nowhere is it specifically or explicitly stated that this is only those two things. It seems I am not the only customer who have realized this the hard way as their facebook page and site have similar complaints.

I appreciate both your time and consideration in this matter.

Sincerely,
David
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-----Original Message-----

From: N A
Sent: October 23, 2020 11:52 AM
To: Dave
Subject: Re: FW: King Air

Hi David…

I’m sorry you are unhappy with your purchase. The product’s description in the store was exactly as supplied by the publisher. Your purchase records shows you never actually downloaded it, so I have issued a refund through PayPal.

I’ve also updated the product description to makes things clearly for future customers.

–Nels Anderson

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Hi Nels,

Thank you for handling this so well.

I must inform you that the content of that package includes MS/Asobo Copyrighted material. In fact it includes the entirety of the default King Air developed by Asobo. It also seems to include community developed liveries which I am working on confirming right now with their creators. It’s the former that you don’t want. The latter just ■■■■■■ off the community.

You are not the only vendor that has been unaware of this, and I commend you for changing the description, other e-tailers have been less favorable in this matter.

My suggestions mean very little I’m sure, but If I were you I would run very far from this package as it stands. You may get caught up in the distribution of copyright material from MS/Asobo.

If you would like some context you can view my review (investigation at this point) here:

Further to this, I believe in a fair and open conversation between myself, publishers e-tailers and viewers to my channel.

I will be reviewing 4 e-tailers in regard to this listing and resulting transaction.

If you would like to make a statement that I will include un-edited (I don’t believe in any type of censorship), please feel free to e-mail me.

Regards,

David - NOTAM

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OK, I did not know about the Asobo content in the product. That is a different problem from an incorrect product description. But before tarring this vendor, do consider they’ve been around for twenty years and have created lots of flightsim products; this isn’t some shady guy in a basement trying to get rich quick. It also wouldn’t be the first time I’ve had someone accidentally include things in a zip file they did not mean to include so don’t jump to conclusions on intent.

I don’t feel the need to issue a statement, but I hope you see that we listened to you and treated you fairly.

–Nels Anderson

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Thank you Nels,

I believe that you have done both of those things. I think you’ll find I’m extremely fair in my judgements and do not make them in haste.

I also do not take these accusations lightly. Unfortunately, it is already been concluded (via e-mails from the actual vendor to another e-tailer that have been shared with me) that the vendor knowingly included these assets in his distribution. I’m not implying any intent here, just stating known facts.

This was not a mistake by the vendor. This might be easier to overlook if it were not accompanied by marketing material that implied that this was a full-scale model. Enough so that another e-tailer believed it as such.

I do appreciate your time in this regard and would ask you two questions that I would like to include in my review of your website.

  1. Will you be removing this copyrighted material from your store?

  2. Will you offer those who have already downloaded it compensation in some form or an outright return (preferred) for this product if they wish?

Thank you Nels,

Dave - NOTAM

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-----Original Message-----

From: N A
Sent: October 23, 2020 6:09 PM
To: dave
Subject: Re: FW: King Air

The product has already been removed.

It’s standard policy to give refunds on any product that is described inaccurately. We’ve had to do this on occasion in the past when the wrong sims were listed as being supported for example.

–N A

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Nels,

Thank you for all your time on this matter.

I think that is an extremely fair policy and I commend you on both this policy and the pleasant and easy interactions I experienced with your business.

It looks like I may be moving my business to yourself from simmarket. I’m guessing I won’t be alone.

I wish you all the best in your future success.

Regards,

David - NOTAM

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caveat emptor

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Believe it or not, I agree to some extent with buyer beware.

But as a vendor or developer who thinks that I then also believe in protections against angry consumers.

Let us allow the cards to fall.

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I hope Microsoft’s lawyers will be looking at this. Not that I care much about corporate IP but from a consumer’s point of view, this is a scam.

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Oh absolutely. However when I first saw this ■■■■ I thought ‘total scam’ and looked no further, that it did in fact contain actionable material I’d hope it’s pursued to the fullest extent of law. I’m a retired software developer, I get the point. I thought (sometimes mistaken) Europe had quite strong legislation about false advertising no matter how carefully worded.

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Sellers have a responsibility to do some due diligence on vendors wishing to sell products on their platform, this is clearly not the case with some of these sites.

It’s sad that it looks like this responsibility is being passed to the buyer, some of whom will take the product description at face value. It always pays (literally) to do your own research before buying any product, and sometimes just to wait a bit and see what others say.

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Yep…looks like they just copied the default King Air, copied some G1000 documents and checklists from the web and copied some community created liveries from a freeware website. It’s just too obvious…

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Great video, great post. This indeed isn’t a mistake. It’s outright deceitful plagiarism and copyright infringement. Spread the word. Perfect Flight/FS2000.org should be blacklisted by everyone. Let’s hope MS/Asobo won’t allow them on the Marketplace…!!!

And I also know which vendors to blacklist, thanks for that. Simmarket was already on that list btw for a year or two.

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Safe to say you can skip this one. Not impressed.

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If any of you guys are active on any of the community modding sites, see if you can find the liveries included in this package.

I’m not a betting man, but if I were I’d bet he even stole the liveries. Maybe just changed the color.

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This certainly looks like one of them.

https://flightsim.to/file/1346/flight-calibration-services

Of course, the guy behind this livery may be the guy behind the product - I’ve not seen any of the other liveries to my knowledge.

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Nice find, funny thing… that’s one of the best textures in the package, and its a stolen community texture.

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I am impressed… by this scam and the way the vendors, do not care about the shady deals that are taking place on their websites.
Thx trevoC655 for your efforts

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Honestly the vendors responses, specifically simmarket, are shocking to me. They seem to be dodging any responsibility that they are infact distributing copyrighted material, and top of that, a product which is misleading customers. They appear to be passing the blame on to the devs. It is disgusting how they are dodging all responsibility, and are even refusing to step in, instead opting to wait for the vendor to fix it (where it is clear this will not happen as they are imo purposely being misleading)
Safe to say I will not buy anything from simmarket again, they dont care about the customers

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EDIT: After re-consideration AVSIM agrees that the community should see this and un-hid the post. Everyone makes mistakes and they were under the impression that I was showing how to hack a default model. AVSim handled it well in the end.

Posted the review with note to community on AVSIM, got a good response from community until my first takedown notice.

Messaged the forum moderator there the following:

Hi Ray,

You left me the following message:

### I’ve hidden your post with the embedded video. It’s clearly plagarised software which you aluded to so no further action. Please do not post any more like this.

I’m not promoting or telling people how to get it. I’m trying to ensure people are not getting scammed by purchasing this.

I’ve contacted Asobo to take action against the developer.

This removal is clearly not within the spirit of your policy.

I guess I’m confused and would like to know exactly what and whom you are supporting here. The community or this developer?

Thank you for your time.

I’m guessing Perfect flight is a sponsor?

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I’m not sure how anyone could have read this was anything but missions and liveries.
Granted, the wording is very questionable, and if you make a buying choice .2 second after reading, i could see how the marketing wording fooled your impulse buying finger. But again, nothing did say it comes with a plane, as much as the wording tap dances around that illusion.

Digital products man, nothing is preventing you from going ‘Ok, I’m gonna step back and read that again in a few hours, just to be sure.’

but I do agree their wording is problematic it’s truthful used cars man slime selling.

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Seriously MursNine?

Nothing specifically states that the MB-339 comes with a plane either. Its assumed when in the AIRCRAFT category of the site.

Why are you assuming that anyone bought it in 10 seconds?

Simmarket themselves literally said THIS IS A PLANE and is in the right category.

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