Specials and Discounts

Special #1 – Going In and Out and In and Out of Business Sale!

Effective February 1st 2016 from 00:00 Zulu time through 24:00 hours Monday February 29th 2016:  All BareBones Kit Cockpits are now 10% off (for DK-1, DK-2, CS-1, CS-2, and Airliner X models only). All fully completed RTA Kits (same models) are 5% off.  See each cockpit page for any other possible sales or discounts. 

Please know that this may be our one and only, and likely last kit cockpit sale for all time so please get your spring order in now!  Depending on sales interests we may accept final orders up to June 1st 2016.

Effective April 1st 2016, we are  suspending general “home user” kit cockpit orders to focus on commercial Pro-Line customer interests. All other aspects of our business will remain open.  While we know a lot of people want our products we’ve come to the reality that most people do not possess the skills, tools, or time to do what we do, so it’s off to the sunset we may ride.  We’ve always known flight simulation and cockpit building is a small niche market.  Unfortunately we did not know just how small.  The truth is, if you blink…you’ll miss it. ;)

As of summer 2016 we will continue to offer Pro-Line services for the DCP, DK-1, DK-2, CS-1, CS-2, and Airliner X models only.   All other designs will remain available as DIY do it yourself packages and this includes all older legacy designs which can be seen under the “Designs in Hangar” pages. As we have time, we will continue to update and or revise older models as well and hope to release new DIY designs in the future.

While we would like to continue kit cockpit sales for everyone, there is simply not enough market demand to sustain such a low cost business in a home-hobbyist market where many people are ok with either buying our designs to build a unit themselves or are already satisfied with their own creations (good, hacked, or butchered lol) or perhaps have also taken cues from our designs to create something very similar.  Unfortunately, the overall demand for any product we offer is low.  Ironically, while many people seems to want one, it seems no one can afford one.  And please believe us when we say we already offer all of our kits at wholesale or below wholesale prices.  Due to low demand we just can’t price ourselves out of business more than we already have. On average, even a small kit like the DK-1 takes a full week at minimum to produce, paint, pack, and ship.  A large cockpit such as the Airliner X takes 4 weeks.

While we’ve strived to keep prices as low as possible to gain new business, we’ve also found that no matter the price, there is just not enough demand (at any price) to stay in business long term.  And while our kit cockpit sales may come to an end in the next year, we will however maintain our DIY options long term for those few monthly DIY customers who enjoy what we do.  Our DIY plans, manuals, etc are all things which can be emailed and therefore are things which are sustainable long term.  Regardless, it’s soon coming time for SimSamurai to truly move onward, upward, and beyond.  We greatly thank all our customers for their ongoing support and encouragement over the years and in time we hope to continue to expand SimSamurai in new and diverse ways. 

If you’ve never ordered from us before…please do so today!

Special #2 – UGTAFS UPGRADES and DISCOUNTS

The current edition UGTAFS is v1.9.8 (324 pages) released on February 1st 2016.  Cost for new customers is $22.00.   If you are a returning customer who would like to upgrade your edition please continue reading below;

We do plan to take the FS2004 / FSX UGTAFS up through a final expanded 2.0 edition even though due to overall dismal sales since 2014 we feel that to do so is likely futile. However, we do plan to release a final 2.0 edition by end of 1st quarter 2016 alongside a new edition for Prepar3D.   Just know this effort takes a lot of time.  Our main money is actually from building cockpits for people, not from book or print sales so it’s often hard to make time to finish up a product line that maybe sells only 10-20 copies a month these days. As both FS2004 and FSX have aged, so has their demand. 

Regardless, and as we have available time between kit cockpit orders we plan to finish up the re-engineering of the current UGTAFS for Lockheed Martin’s Prepar3D v3.0  as well wrap up the final FS2004/FSX 2.0 edition.  At this point we feel our energies can be best used to move forward with the times rather than backward.  However we had been slowly working on the final 2.0 edition for FS2004/ FSX so at this point we really want to go ahead and finish it up too because it’s close.  If you still use FSX or FS2004 and were hoping for a final 2.0 edition please email us to express your continued interest as it helps!  So far we’ve had zero requests but we are putting in the efforts regardless.

As can be read on the current UGTAFS web page;

–If you are a current v1.9.5 customer (or below) an upgrade to any current UGTAFS version (such as v1.9.8) will be $6 and the  2.0 upgrade when released would then cost you another $6.   This means if you are a v1.9.8 customer and above, the 2.0 upgrade would only be $6 when released.  As a bonus for all customers who have purchased any upgrade, old or new, we will also offer the brand new Prepar3D edition to you at less than half off for just $12. Otherwise the new cost will be $27.  Once the new Prepar3D edition has been purchased (via upgrades or any outright purchase) all future revisions of the Prepar3D UGTAFS will always be completely free to you — but to receive this bonus you must purchase the two upgrades or the Prepar3D UGTAFS v1.0 by itself within the first 30 days. 

Once again, if you have the FS2004/FSX version 1.9.5 or below, the upgrade fee to the current edition is just $6, or $12 for the future 2.0 upgrade.  Regardless, purchase of either upgrade entitles you to purchase the all new UGTAFS for Prepar3D at a cost of just $12 (instead of $27).   Therefore you can get both versions for as little as just $18 or possibly $24 and do not forget that if doing so within the first 30 days of the Prepar3D v1.0 release entitles you to free future upgrades for life!  Sound good? We thought so too.

We hope our customers feel this is a fair option and price to be able to get both volumes. We know many people have looked forward to a final UGTAFS for FS2004 and FSX but will obviously want the new one too and so we wanted to make it affordable enough for everyone.  To possibly be able to buy both editions for just $24 is extremely fair.

Despite slow sales over the last year we have always wanted to give it one last shot in the arm before we said goodbye to the original UGTAFS that has helped so many people.  We had been on the fence for a long time about a final 2.0 release mainly because in 2014 an unfortunate incident of copyright infringement occurred from one of our customers (read more about it on the Hangar Talk page under the Summer 2014 Updates section). In short, this person uploaded his UGTAFS copy to a public cloud site which typically makes all of its documents publicly available. As a result over 800 copies were essentially stolen in less than a year.  It was certainly a huge blow to us and did not make us feel like putting any more effort into the UGTAFS, much less any other products.  So for the past two years we have not done a lot of product maintenance as you may have already noticed.  It really took the winds off our wings.  We wondered why sales dropped off dramatically that year and we suspect that was one big reason. That, and as of 2015 we already knew FS2004 and FSX were in their twilight years.  Regardless, we will rise to the challenge one last time and put it all to rest. 

Expect both new editions by April 2016.
 

Special #3 — Standard Purchase Discounts

Whenever you purchase two or more products (such as the UGTAFS and a DIY Cockpit plan set) you automatically receive the Globetrekker GT-1000 for free. That’s always been a great deal.

If your total order for general products (meaning printed or emailed items only - books, blueprints, etc) ever exceeds a $100 total (not including shipping fee) we will discount your total order by 10%. This also includes compounded specials like the three In-flight Bibles for $33 or with the IFR guide too for $43.  Therefore if you order those, a DIY blueprint set, the UGTAFS, etc..you may be entitled to an even greater discount for becoming a “gold customer”.  If you wish to order the whole enchilada and be a true Sim Samurai please shoot us an email to simsamurai@gmail.com and we will send you a customized PayPal invoice.  Because of the complexity of our multiple compounded discounts our checkout cart feature cannot currently handle the math. But we can …so if you are ready to go “all in”, please just email us! 

Special #4 – In-Flight Bible Series Discounts

If you want to purchase all three volumes of our In-Flight Bible series (Single-Engine, Multi-Engine / VFR-IFR) the total discount price is $33. (a $7 discount)  Secondly, if you buy all three Bible volumes at that discount we will also offer you the Ultimate 88 IFR guidebook for just $10 (a $2 discount) ..thus a $9 savings for all 4 volumes at $43 total and you are still entitled to the total volume discount under the Standard Purchase Discounts section.  If you have previously purchased any or all of the In-Flight Bible volumes we offer a $6 upgrade fee per volume or a $15 upgrade fee for all three In-Flight Bible volumes.  Each one is currently in their final edition and have been thoroughly refined and expanded.  If there was just one thing we offer that will make you a better pilot..it’s them.

Special #5 — Desktop Cockpit Panel Series Discounts

RELEASE SALE !!!! — In celebration of our newest release, the DCP panel, support table, and all DCP accessories are now 15% off from Dec 1st to Dec 29th 2015.

XS-1 RTA Cockpit Raffle Cancellation Notice

As of August 1st 2014 the XS-1 RTA Cockpit Raffle was officially terminated.   Since the announcement in early 2014  we received less than 100 ticket sales which obviously did not meet the minimum requirements of $2500 to raffle the cockpit so the cockpit was sold at discount to a customer.  If you had purchased a raffle ticket we  issued all refunds via PayPal.  If you did not receive a raffle ticket refund by September 1st 2014 please contact us with the transaction ID.  Send all inquiry to simsamurai@gmail.com

Please know that it was our original intent to perform a flood of direct marketing to our current customers along with the intended UGTAFS 2.0 release to boost raffle ticket sales but due to ongoing cockpit orders we were unable to meet our own deadlines for the UGTAFS and also did not put continued efforts into it for reasons mentioned before regarding piracy issues, hence the current product purchase notice in all caps at the top of this page.

Reasons For Raffle Cancellation

In July 2014 we discovered a customer (an actual retired airline pilot) had uploaded the UGTAFS to a file sharing website back in November of 2013 and since that time UGTAFS v1.9.2 had received over 800 free ILLEGAL downloads.  We are currently pursuing theft and copyright infringement litigation with both the customer and hosting website but the unfortunate reality for all of our customers is that losses like this don’t exactly motivate us to continue updating our products, nor continue business in general.  

We are sorry that just one customers actions have so easily caused a ripple effect into other facets of our business, including just staying in business, but as the saying goes “all it takes is one bad apple to spoil the bunch”.  Please remember folks; we are a very, very small niche market business that truly lives off every small dime we make each week.  We only sell a handful of actual cockpits per year and only sell maybe 10 books and 10 plan sets per month.  Yes, that’s it!

The reality of this small hobby site business is that it is not any sort of huge money maker to be proud of nor can any one person live off of it. All who are involved in SimSamurai also have other jobs too.  So when a micro business such as this continues to make little money or suffers from things like theft or file sharing then we must simply ask…why are we even doing this at all?

We have only continued to run this business because we keep a very low overhead and somehow the orders still trickle in.  However, when just one person screws us over it can easily put us out of business or will make us decide to roll up the whole carpet entirely.  As of summer 2014 we were getting very close to that. This has always been a very small grass roots operation and it’s only because we keep overhead low and finances tight that we stay in business.

Regardless, we are always doing our best to provide you with this service as well hope to always offer new and or improved products and will continue to do so for as long as we can. Just so long as you, the general public, are here to support us in the ways we hope and desire. 

Thank you for your continued support of SimSamurai.