Hatty-

I feel your pain man... let's look at it another way. All of the major sims have fallen into a price bracket somewhere between US$160 and US$200. Toward the upper end of this scale are the sims that come with a controller. Toward the lower end of this scale are the sims that do not. If we only compare those sims that have a controller available (and price in the US$200 neighborhood), G3's Interlink Plus is the best there is. (Have you picked up a controller from any of the other sims? Pure Junk that doesn't feel anything like my real Tx.

Now if we look at the sims in the $160 range (without a controller) realize there's a price to pay for that option too... setup time. It took a week to get my 7CAP working with FS One. Phoenix and Reflex picked it up with zero configuration issues, but I've not mapped anything beyond the basic 4 channels yet.

Personally, I think I'd rather see KnifeEdge put their dongle in a box instead of the controller, and drop the price to US$160 (or so) without the Interlink. Only problem then is you'd have a bunch of cheap folks trying to save $40 who can't get their off-brand park-flyer controller to work because they don't want to take the time to setup the channel mapping and software radios. Leave the $200 option available, just don't make us buy it if we're willing to spend the time configuring our own Tx.

I really don't believe that KE or GP told Futaba to "make the thing cheap so we can pocket an extra $5"... In business, there is a given margin that must be made to stay in business. There is an even higher margin that must be maintained to profit. The upper end of what GP can charge for RealFlight has been dictated by the industry, demand and the competition. I would imagine they had a fixed budget in mind to spend wholesale on the Interlink, and told Futaba, "what can you build us in X quantity for X dollars?" The rapid prototype machine spits out what looks like an Interlink, everyone oohs and aaahs at it, and Futaba fires up the assembly line. The problem here really strikes me as a QA issue, rather than a design issue. My Interlink was "designed" the same way as yours, and works fine. Your's just slipped by QA with some bad plastic (maybe a heat seam, dust particle, 1/2 micron difference, bad batch of raw chemical, etc...)

I wonder who will be the first to release a new "Tx" model without the RF circuitry - just to fly simulators? And has everyone checked out the Spektrum module that will fly FS One with your DX7 wirelessly? Interesting!

-Case