My thoughts only

I have been downloading many aircraft over the past several years and have come to some conclusions. I have 200 aircraft in my collection of varying types. If someone is going to design an aircraft for downloading to the general public , I believe that aircraft should be as complete as possible. I am tired of downloading aircraft that have no radio where appropriate, no autopilot where applicable, defaulting to other panels or sounds, planes that yaw all over the place, planes that climb straight up after takeoff, planes that almost go out of control when adding flaps and so on and so forth. If you are going to design an aircraft for any of the flight simulators, when you are finished with it, fly it like a test pilot and make sure everything is working properly down to the last detail. Nothing is more frustrating than to download an aircraft where the texture is great only to find that many necessary items are missing including of all things no radio.

My thoughts only

i agree there are some really badly made aircraft i keep downloading then learning it doesnt fly as good as the real aircraft etd etc...

All the best planes are payware to be honest. If somebody is going to put the time, effort, and skill into making a good quality aircraft, they usually ask (and deserve) to be paid for it.

What Traches said... very few people actually put a lot of effort into freeware. Of course not everyone can be a Dino Cattaneo, or a Piglet, but yeah the old adage of "You get what you pay for" applies here as well.

There is actually alot of payware quality aircraft out there as freeware. Just have to have to look hard. Personally i found it easier to download a freeware aircraft that has positive reviews and such along with quality images than to download the first aircraft i saw and then realize it sucks and go through the hassle of deleting everything...

I beg to differ here, the freeware Project Airbus and IFDG Airbus are superb freeware models (in fact better than most payware Airbus models) and it really does'nt take a lot of effort to find a panel and sound for them!

Give Milton Shupe's Aero Commander a shot. Simply magnificent GA.

Later ... Art

I agree. I will vouch for IFDG. Prior to my getting Wilco that was the best one out there as far as Airbus goes.

I think we're only scratching the surface here. As Art says, Shupe's a/c are magnificent - payware dev's won't touch his type of a/c for obvious reasons, no money in it.
Then we have Lionheart who works on the same principle: Make quality products but choose 'rare' a/c which the big dev teams won't touch... except he charges money for his work and gives it all to his church.

So here we have two one-man dev's (who sometimes do get a little bit help from their friends), both of whom produce quality... one freeware, the other payware.

And then there are the other freeware one-man dev's, Dino and Piglet as bel mentioned, Mike Stone in the past and Piglet must be the most prolific of them all, on the other side of the coin again, Dino Cattaneo less prolific but work of the highest quality. Running the risk of repeating myself, D.C.'s F-14 for FSX stands head and shoulder above the rest... well, what do we have, the Iris comes to mind and I think there might be another or two payware F-14s out there.
I also have a strong feeling that no payware teams will make another F-14 for FSX, nor will they make any carriers considering that the Nimitz and the Clemenceau are freeware and the high quality of these carriers.
Back to FS9, Olson's F-16 and all his other a/c are free and there are no better ones out there, the same goes for the F-18 by the Japanese FS KBT team. Oh yes, the 'Superbug' F-18 (payware) was announced and I got all excited... it's back in the hangar collecting dust. When I wanna fly an F-18 in FS9, I use the above mentioned freeware product.

Now let's look at helicopters. The Nemeth Brothers have always made high quality choppers for FS9 and now for FSX - payware but the quality and detail could be compared to PMDG and the Level D 767 in the airliner department.
The hit-parade of choppers would be covered by payware Alphasim (now Virtavia). I certainly do not want to belittle Alpha... for their enthusiasm and what seems like an endless stream of 'yet another model' alone, they deserve 5 stars, plus so many of their helicopters (and other a/c) where never made by anyone else.
BUT... compare the Alpha payware Blackhawk with the HoverControl freeware Blackhawk and you'll get a big surprise.
Many of the frreware helicopters from HoverControl are superior to any of their payware equivalents.

I could go on, but you get the drift... I think I'd sum it up like this:

Those flightsim enthusiasts who joined the community because they wanted to fly airliners and have consequently explored both freeware and payware products will usually express their preference for payware.
Generally speaking I agree but... again there are exceptions as pointed out above by Welshflyer. Further, let us always be mindful that our die-hard airliner pilots have never or hardly ever flown anything else, this is especially true in the case of those who started out with FSX. It is also a fact that available 3rd party add-ons for FSX are scant when compared to FS9... so the 'noobs' certainly can't be accused of being narrow-visioned.

Ergo: IMHO the debate whether payware or freeware is better in general is and always has been futile. Thankfully we have both... and thankfully we are individuals.