Monday, April 30, 2012

Real Airplane Simulator: Same Scam, Different Dress

I have written before about the solid scam that goes by ProFlightSimulator, Flight Pro Sim, and so many other names. Here's a new twist on the scam. On Facebook and other places, you will find ads and links pointing to http://realairplanesimulator.com/ . That webpage asks for your name and email address (don't do it!)  as payment for downloading a document called "The Easy Guide to Choosing the Best Flight Simulators."

The website is very well put together, by the way. The footer includes links for "Terms and Conditions" and "Contact Us," and they sound absolutely legit. The top menu bar includes links to a couple of so-called articles, one of which includes a short video. I don't know for sure, but I think the video was recorded from a different flight simulator, not this one.

If you scroll further down the Real Airplane Simulator webpage, you will see that it's pushing ProFlightSimulator Suite and Flight Simulator Plus, two other incarnations that I've written about before.


But all of this is just for appearance. It's a tissue-paper-thin facade whose sole purpose is to make the whole enterprise legitimate. In other words, it's a sham covering the scam. Don't fall for it.


The downloadable document? Well, Cody Moya or one of his sock puppets (namely, Charlie Taylor, Dan Freeman, Michael Ortiz and Eriz Cremonti) ripped off a bunch of stuff on the Web, compiled it all with some of his own bogus literature about ProFlightSimulator, and published it in a PDF document, purporting to be the definitive word about the subject.

The definitive word about the subject is not found in this deceptive, self-serving, waste of bytes. It's found in this statement from FlightGear.org.

 If you do fall for their hype and hand over your money, well, I feel sorry for you. But I told you so.

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