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Bill
Lyons is best known for his 'Golden Eagles Squadron' payware, but he has had
(and continues to have) a long and honorable career as a freeware developer.
Like many FS pioneers, he came to flight simulation by a circuitous route. 'I
flew radio control for about 20 years from the early 60s when we made our own
radios and was later a part of the early RC helicopter movement. I gave demo
flights for various civic organizations and eventually got into giant scale
with a 1/3 scale Fokker Eindecker,' Bill told me. 'In the 80s I joined EAA and
built a very light two place aircraft in my garage which I flew till I retired
in 1990. Scaling back on possessions I sold it and after a while got into MS
Flightsim through a friend. I started with version 5.1 and wanting some different
aircraft bought Flight Shop to learn to build them.'
The first addon Bill did was a Goodyear blimp for FS5 (BLIMPS2.ZIP) posted on FlightSim.Com in late 1996. I guess we should have known at the time that there was going to be more to come - because it takes a special kind of mind set to kick off a career in flight simulation development with a dirigible when most users have a need for speed. But the blimp did pretty well for its day, and despite the web being barely out of diapers and having a minute fraction of the number of users it enjoys today, that file still managed to score over 2600 downloads.
The blimp was quickly followed up with a more conventional Beech Bonanza, which also did pretty well for itself; and then, based on his radio control experience, Bill released a series of choppers, including a Bell JetRanger (JRANGROZ.ZIP), Hughes 300 (H300C5.ZIP), Bell 47 (BELL476.ZIP) and an SAR pack. The 47 did particularly well and became one of the most popular FSFW95 downloads ever - possibly because Bill included some lessons on how to fly it!
Then
FS98 came along. By now Bill was fairly well known and his first major release
for the new version of the sim was a 1955 straight tail Cessna 310
(SKYKNG98.ZIP),
which was his first 10,000 download package. Part of the reason for the 310's
popularity was that it simulated the plane from the much-loved Sky King TV show
and I have always wondered if it was Bill's plane that inspired DreamFleet to
release their superb payware addon. After that, more helicopters, including
various Aerospatiale Ecureuils and a British Aerospace Harrier GR3 that stormed
past even the 310, racking up a solid 15,000 hits.
At that point, Bill began a separate career as a payware developer, with his 'Golden Wings' package for FS98. Although payware is outside the scope of this series, Golden Wings was to be a big influence on Bill's subsequent freeware. The idea was to create a 'Golden Age of Flying' environment for FS98, created with a blend of scenery and aircraft upgrades and addons to the basic Microsoft sim - the basic scenery package cost something like $15 and most of the planes were released as freeware.
The golden age idea had its beginnings in Bill's childhood, 'I learned about aviation from my grandfather who saw Lindbergh on his tour and also took one of my most prized possessions, a photo of the Graf Zeppelin passing over my home town,' he told me. 'From him I learned to love the Golden Age of Aviation so it was natural for me to gravitate to those type of aircraft and sceneries.' The only fly in the ointment was that as every freeware developer discovers, popularity has its pros and cons. It is great to get the recognition for work well done, but goodwill can't be used to pay for download bandwidth and in any event only a tiny percentage of users take the time even to type a short 'thank you' email. So faced with the hard fact that his hobby looked set to become an unsupportable expense, Bill took the plunge, 'To help defray the cost of running a web site and to supplement my retirement a little we decided to try some payware packages and they have been for the most part kindly supported by the flight sim community. Lynn (Bill's wife) is my heroine who unselfishly cares for the elderly and handicapped,' he said. 'In her spare time she is my one supporter and adviser who keeps my spirits up during the rough times.'
It is our good fortune that Bill never quite managed to draw a line between his freeware and payware stuff - starting right in the beginning, when his Golden Wings Beech 18a (BCH18A.ZIP) was released as freeware. The Beech was followed by a Pietenpol Air Camper homebuilt and a Monocoupe 90-A cabin tourer (30SPORT.ZIP) that were downloaded over 4000 times, a Sikorsky VS-300 (GOLDROTR.ZIP) that did even better, a Boeing 40a mail plane (B40AM.ZIP) and a Bellanca 14-9 and 1962 Cruisair (BELVINT.ZIP) in case users had any hard disk space left. In between, most of the FS5 addons were upgraded and it was around this time that Bill got involved in some collaborative projects, including a classic1913 Deperdussin Racer with Joe LoGrasso (DEPER.ZIP) and some vintage Maine scenery with Tom Constantine (MEVNTGW3.ZIP). These became enduring partnerships and Joe and Tom are still very active on the development front.
By
now, it was early 2000 and FS98's star was on the wane, so after releasing a
few more packages including a very popular Luscombe 8a
(LUSC8A.ZIP),
Bill began
to move on, though FS98 planes continued to appear and were still being released
three years later, reflecting the loyalty many users had for that version of
the sim, which had a better combination of speed and stability than any version
before or since.
Among Bill's first releases for FS2000 were a very popular 1938 Piper J4 Coupe (PIPJ42K.ZIP) which was downloaded over 7000 times and a modified 1942 'Cannibal Queen' Stearman biplane from the Stephen Coonts book of the same name (CQUEEN.ZIP). It wasn't long before users had the opportunity to fly these over Bill's 'Classic American' VFR Ground Scenery Textures, which made the mid west look like it should (CAVFR1.ZIP and CAVFR2.ZIP). Then came a Cessna 120 in wheel, float and ski versions, developed in association with Tom Constantine (C120LL.ZIP).
Like most developers, Bill found FS2000 a frustrating platform for development purposes, and so he shook its dust from his feet as fast as he could, signalling the change with a Fleet Canuck 80 for FS2002 - a plane that was so good it won a Developer's Award (CANUCK80.ZIP). Interestingly, the Canuck was only marginally more popular than the Jaguar XK120 that followed hard on its heels and got itself downloaded nearly 14,000 times (JAG120.ZIP). You don't often see automobiles developed for flight simulators, but this surely must have been one of the most popular ever released. Bill has continued to release the occasional classic auto, usually as part of his Custom Classics payware packages and some of these have subsequently found their way back into the freeware world. There are also several Lyons boats to be found, and as I dimly recall, a skier.
I
guess that Sky King 310 must have been at the back of Bill's mind, ever since
that Beech 18, because in December 2001 he uploaded a Cessna T-50 Bobcat, developed
in association with J.L. Stubbs. I can rarely recall being so impressed with
an addon as that one, which captured the feel of flying a bamboo bomber about
as well as it is possible to do in a simulator
(SKYKING2.ZIP and
SKYKNG2A.ZIP).
As far as I am concerned, that package is still one of the best examples of
freeware ever released and I am belatedly going to give it an Armchair Aviator's
Award. The Bobcat was followed by an upgrade of the Goodyear blimp
(GYDEF.ZIP)
and this package hit the big time with 15,000 downloads and another Developer's
Award. With his tongue perhaps in his cheek, Bill joined forces with Joe LoGrasso
to release a 1941 Indian 4 Motorcycle for FS2002
(INDIAN4.ZIP)
and a collaborative
hot air balloon set that really
caught
my imagination
(BLSN2002.ZIP).
5000 other users thought the same way, but
I reckon it was only the lack of a working flight management computer and glass
cockpit that stopped the balloons being a major hit. The simulated champagne
sure tasted OK.
At this stage, Bill's payware was well established in its own right, and he could have followed the path so many developers have taken and shut down his freeware activities; but he chose instead to do a very generous thing, which was to release the FS2002 payware packages as freeware, rather than charging users for upgraded versions for FS2004. This meant that some classic addons suddenly appeared on the download pages, including a DeHavilland DH82a Tiger Moth (CCTIGER4.ZIP) a Waco Classic Biplane (WACO4FRE.ZIP), a Piper J-3C-65 Cub (CCCUB4.ZIP), a Ryan STA (CCRYAN4.ZIP) and a Globe Swift (CCSWIFT4.ZIP). Since these had been - at least in my opinion - great value for money when they were payware packages, their release as freeware was a big surprise, but since Bill has moved on and carried on releasing new 'Custom Classics' payware, everyone got something out of the deal. The links supplied here are to reviews written when the packages were payware, but you can download the files for free nowadays, thanks to Bill.
The latest software from the Lyons' keyboard is his excellent FS water environment textures (FS9WAT.ZIP). I use these all the time and although they generate some weird visual effects when you are near the surface, they look so good from a few thousand feet up, they make me want to go for a swim. And of course, we are flooded out with repaints for his very popular payware Grumman Goose, but that's off limits for this review, beyond the fact that Gene Davis makes it sound fairly irresistible...
Andrew HerdDownload all Bill Lyons related files
