If version 4.04 comes with an AUTOUPDATE field then why should the default be "Y". Surely it should be "N" to keep the control with the user?
Don't worry, you'll still be able to tell Radarbox to NOT autoupdate in Preferences:
Although from my beta testing experience, with the high quality of updates provided by the database update team, most users will probably want to accept the updates from the database update team. During beta testing, I completely emptied the aircraft table, and since then the 1000+ aircraft details added to my local database have been of high quality, with no need to manually edit any of them.
I think most users will:
1. Turn on autoupdate in Preferences
2. Leave nearly all aircraft records with AUTOUPDATE = "Y"
3. Have a very few aircraft where they make a manual update for some local reason. They will mark these with a "N" to prevent them being autoupdated from the database update team.
You can judge the quality of data from my log of yesterday's flights while beta testing.
See
http://www.tarbat.gofreeserve.com/data.htm