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Interview: Bob May / Premier Aircraft Design Development When did you start developing for flight simulators and what got you interested in it? When I first joined PAD in 1999, Barry Blaisdell was running it on his own, although in the four years previous to that, he had collaborated with several other developers. At the time Barry was receiving lots of requests for repaints of his existing models and he needed someone to work on the paintings, which would enable him to work on new aircraft designs. After a while I learned web design and took over the running and ownership of the PAD web site. I was also the chief flight tester and eventually did all the flight dynamics and design work. Tell us about the nature of your designs and what you do? As the lead designer, Barry would choose which aircraft we would all work on. The aircraft he tended to choose, were aircraft where he knew we could talk to somebody who had either worked on, or flown them. A lot of the information we received about the aircraft we built, came from either pilots or engineers, and helped tremendously with the authenticity of the aircraft we modelled. In the early years we were fortunate to get lots of real world information about DeHavilland aircraft operating in Canada, and so we worked our way through the DHC-2 Beaver, DHC-3 Otter, DHC-5 Buffalo, DHC-6 Twin Otter and DHC-Dash-8 series. We produced many variations of each of these aircraft and it was a challenging, but always rewarding experience. When I first started with PAD, FS98 was the current version of MS Flight Simulator, but as each new incarnation of MSFS became available we had to re-design and update all of our models. In its sixteen years of production, PAD created over 60 original models. What do you consider your best or most popular work? The best ones were always our latest designs because we learned things as we went along. The Beechcraft 99 and the Fokker 100 are technically the best PAD models we created, but in terms of popularity measured by the number of downloads, the DHC-6 Twin Otter and the Bombardier Dash-8-Q400 remain the most popular. What do you find to be the most challenging aspect of a project? From my own personal point of view, the most challenging aspect of a project, is getting the model to fly right. Performance data of aircraft is widely available (especially because of the internet) but juggling the numbers in the air file and aircraft.cfg file to match the published figures is a long process of trial and error. Getting the "feel" of the controls is also quite a challenge because how the controls feel depends to some extent on the how the user's stick or yoke is set up with his/her FS settings. Whenever possible we asked a real life pilot to try out the controls and suggest improvements. PAD created models with beginners and moderately advanced simmers in mind; people who fly for fun. We never set out to cater for the hardcore flight simmer who demands that every last detail is simulated, but even so we tried, and mostly succeeded, in producing models that flew as close to their real life counterparts as we could make them. What have been your favorite projects? I think the slightly quirky ones, such as the Republic Seabee, the Britten-Norman Trislander and the Dornier Seastar. They were all fun to make and to fly. What software packages and tools do you use to develop? Over the years the lead designers on each project had their own favorite design software. Udo Lemmob and Pavel Toman both favored Gmax and produced some great FS2002/FS2004 Twin Otters and Katanas for us. Jean-Pierre Brisard, who made most of our FS2004 and FSX models, favored FS Design Studio. Who would you consider to be your mentors or inspiration in the development world if you have any? I think Milton Shupe was probably my earliest inspiration. He started FS design at about the same time as I joined PAD, and the quality of his work and his dedication to freeware is just outstanding. Barry Blaisdell was also an inspiration, as he was always willing to help new designers and painters. My colleague Jean-Pierre also ranks as one of my FS heroes; he was just such a delight to work with and I still miss our daily interchange of emails in our own peculiar lingo of mixed up English and French. He and Barry were great losses to the FS community when they passed away. Do you develop payware/freeware or both and why? Because we never really got deep into gauge designing (we mostly used a lot of freeware gauges from other designers) nearly all our work had to be freeware for copyright reasons, but that was always perfectly acceptable, because right from the start, our work was always going to be a hobby for us, and we never regarded it as a source of income. We just had fun doing what we fancied, and when we fancied. We briefly dipped our toes into the payware market when we sold the copyright of a few models to a well known software publisher, but that was a short lived project that never really worked well. What advice would you give to flight simmers thinking of building their first aircraft? Be prepared for a long uphill struggle, but one in which you will learn a great many things about designing aircraft. 3D modelling can be a slow and frustrating occupation. Start simple and learn to use the basic tools of your design program, and then, and only then, join an online design forum. The members there will be happy to answer questions and help fill in all the gaps that the manuals usually leave out. Also, try and remember that an aircraft (especially the first one) can take up to and even over a year to complete to a satisfactory level, and that's if you do a little bit here and there every day. Scenery modelling on the other hand is slightly simpler. The Team How many people work with you or your team? For most of the productive period of PAD, the core team consisted of three people; Barry, Jean-Pierre and myself, but over the sixteen years that we made our models, we collaborated with lots of talented designers, painters and individuals, with all sorts of specialist knowledge. These included aircraft owners and pilots, with some being airline pilots. Real Life Do you have any experience in real aviation? I have some. As a boy I grew up next door to the airfield where the Spitfire was designed and flew and so I spent a lot of time with my face pressed against the fence watching these aircraft come and go. I joined the Air Cadets and got quite a bit of back seat flying and stick time in Chipmunks. I served in the RAF for four years as a photographer, having failed the medical for aircrew, and later was a member of a gliding club and took a flying course in a Cessna 150 but for financial reasons did not accrue enough hours to get a Private Pilot's Licence. What are your plans for the future? PAD's production line stopped in July 2011 when Jean-Pierre sadly died and although I've had tentative inquiries from a few fledgling designers, it seems unlikely that a new model with the PAD name will emerge in the foreseeable future. I am keeping the web site alive with repaints of our back catalogue and the help desk is still very active. The PAD web site still gets around 400-500 hits per day which is not bad for a little hobby site. Bob, if you could fly on any aircraft and route, what would it be and why? Funny you should mention that, because I have already flown on my most 'wished for' flight, and that was flying over the Grand Canyon in a Twin Otter, but I still hope one day to go on a whale watching flight in a DHC Beaver along the North West Pacific coast. What can sites like FlightSim.Com do to support you and the hobby better? Do more of what you have always done; provide a one stop shop for freeware downloads, payware downloads, and provide a place for forums, discussion, help topics and articles of general aviation interest. How do you feel about the future of flight simulation in general? As long as there are wannabe pilots like me out there, home computer flight simulators and add-ons will always find a ready market. Many thanks. Bob May http://www.premaircraft.com

The Story Of PAD By Bob May Premier Aircraft Design was founded by Barry Blaisdell in 1995. Barry was an ex USAF and U.S. Army pilot and aviation enthusiast who was grounded on medical advice and wanted a hobby to keep him in touch with the aviation world and aviation people. A short synopsis of Barry's flying career can be found here. In 1995 flight simulation on personal computers was still in its infancy but was beginning to be opened up to budding developers by the publication of tools to create models for Microsoft FS5. Barry took up this challenge and began to make and publish his models. At first PAD (Premier Aircraft Design) was a one man band but soon Barry began to co-operate with others. Trev Morson was one of Barry's early collaborators and they produced several variants of the Douglas DC-3 together. Other collaborations followed, the most notable being with Kevin Pardy, Jens Borgstroem, Udo Lemmob and Pavel Toman. A history of PAD would not be complete without these mentions because they helped to lift both the quality and the quantity of the early work that PAD turned out. Today there are over 1100 files listed in the FlightSim.Com file library with either Barry's or PAD's name on them. My own involvement with PAD started in 2000. Like many, probably most, flightsimmers I was, and still am, a wannabe pilot. I spent several years in the RAF as a photographic technician and I've had flying lessons and also belonged to a gliding club but through a combination of not enough money and family commitments, (they go together!) I was never actually able to achieve the goal of a pilot's licence in my pocket. I flirted with a few computer based flight simulators but never had the necessary hardware to get the best out of them until 2000 when at the age of 61 I was able to purchase the almost latest PC and I immediately trotted down to the software store to pick up the latest MS Flight Simulator, FS2000. Everyone now knows that FS2000 was a dog but I didn't know that and I was enthralled with it. This is where FlightSim.Com and PAD come into my story. I wondered if it would be possible to buy additional aircraft for FS2000 and a search turned up FlightSim.Com. I discovered to my amazement that not only were there hundreds of different models available but they were free! I downloaded a lot and found out pretty soon that some were better than others. Some of my favorites were Barry's models, they looked good, flew well and installed without any fuss or "file fiddling". I decided to drop an email to Barry to thank him. He replied the next day with his usual "You're welcome" but added at the bottom " Can you paint FS models? I'm snowed under with repaint requests and it's slowing down my design work". At the time I was into watercolor painting of landscapes so I replied and said I can paint but I don't have a clue how to paint your models. He then offered to send me the necessary software tools and to teach me how to use them. And that's how I came to join Barry. After a few months he generously added my name to his work as his partner and my involvement in PAD grew to web site design and upkeep, panel design and flight dynamics design. I tinkered with Gmax and FSDS but I never really got my head around all that node pulling and smoothing. PAD moved up a gear in 2004 when Jean-Pierre Brisard, a retired architect living in northern France, asked Barry for some help with a couple of models he was working on. His work was impressive and Barry and I immediately offered to help. Working with JP, as we called him, was a real pleasure. He was very good at design work but always ready to learn something new and he was a fierce advocate of freeware. JP soon took over all the external design work, leaving Barry free to do the panel design and myself to do the flight testing and churn out the repaints that were being constantly requested. We now had a production line. During this period we collaborated with several other aviation enthusiasts who had specialist knowledge of particular aircraft and their names were included in the credits as technical advisors. JP could make a new model in a week but it took a further ten weeks on average to refine the model, add the panel and VC, the flight dynamics and external embellishments. During our "production line" period 2004 to 2011 we were often working on two or three models at the same time, each one in a different stage of development. It's as well that by this time all three of us were retired, we would never have found time to go to work! Barry's health deteriorated in the period 2004 to 2008 and he then announced to us that he could not continue any longer in an active role so he became our non-active President. JP and I continued as a two man team, both of us learning new skills as went on to fill in the void left by Barry's departure, and those last three years 2008 to 2011 were probably the most productive, JP's work just got better and better. Our last published model was the Fokker 100 airliner, released in July 2011. A few days after that release I heard from JP's son that he had passed away suddenly at home. He was working on a new model of the Dassault Falcon 20 at the time, a model that he had always wanted to make but had put on the back burner whilst he dealt with the many model requests that we had. To add to the sadness Barry passed away on 3rd October 2012, he was the youngest of the PAD team but had suffered poor health for many years. So what now for PAD? Since JP died no more new models have been made, nor will they be, but he and Barry left a legacy of over 50 models for FS2004 and FSX that are still being downloaded and enjoyed by the flight simming community so I have set myself the task of keeping the PAD web site alive for as long as we get visitors. At present we average over 800 visits per day and 15,000 downloads per month. With the help of Stephanie Lawton and Jim Harris, my talented repainters, PAD offers several new repaints each week and the list has now grown to over 500 repaints available. We also publish repaints of PAD models by other painters who care to send in their work. I also update and re-release some models periodically on FlightSim.Com, judged by the number of downloads this has been a success and I hope that as a result some new users have been introduced to PAD. The support desk is still very active and I'm happy to continue Barry's policy of encouraging and helping newcomers to our hobby. I guess in a way the ending of the Microsoft Flight Simulator franchise with FSX has prolonged PAD's existence. If FS11 had come along we would not have been a player in providing freeware for the new sim and simmers would have moved on from FSX without us. As it is FSX is going strong, payware developers are still making add-ons for it and the scenery now available is wonderful. Even FS2004 still has its fans and we are happy to provide models and repaints for them. The FlightSim.Com file library is growing as fast as it ever did which shows that interest in flight simulation has not diminished so I'm hoping to be a part of it for a few more years to come. Bob May www.premaircraft.com

The Dornier Seastar My Fantasy And The Professor's Reality By Bob May Have you ever day dreamed about what it would be like to be a multi-millionare and own a private jet or a seaplane to whisk you off to a palm fringed tropical island? Of course you have, you're a flight simmer and us flight simmers day dream all the time about such things. We can escape to our virtual worlds for a hour or two and become airline pilots, jet fighter jocks or bush pilots any time we like. My favourite fantasy involved the aforementioned seaplane and tropical island. I got to thinking "What would be the best plane to have?" It would need a decent speed and range to get me there in a reasonable time, after all, I'm a multi-millionaire and my time is valuable. Not too big, it needs to get into some pretty small airstrips and harbors. Did I say airstrips? It needs to be an amphibian then. So, a fast amphibian with STOL performance, enough room in the back to stretch out and relax and all the modern navaids of course. Hmmm, a King Air on floats maybe? Not really a practical proposition. Fortunately for my day dream such a plane does exist though, because back in the 1980's a certain Professor Claudius Dornier Jr. designed and flew the Dornier Seastar. The Seastar has two Pratt & Whitney PT6A-112 500hp turboprop engines. The wings and hull are made of non-corrosive composite material, it has a clean, high lift, wing of advanced design, similar to the Dornier 228's, and a cabin for 6-12 passengers. Who wouldn't want one? Unfortunately for Prof Dornier the late 1980's turned out to be not a good time to sell amphibians and for 20 years his brainchild existed only in the form of a few prototypes, however, in 2009 it was announced that a new company, Dornier Seaplanes, had been formed to manufacture the Seastar and that manufacture would commence in Quebec, Canada in 2011, the price would be about $6 million. Well, 2011 has come and gone and things have gone a bit quiet on the Dornier Seaplane web site, one can only hope that things are still moving. However, back in 2010 when my day dream started I was a virtual multi-millionaire, six million virtual dollars were easy to come by and I was determined to have my Seastar. As a member of the Premier Aircraft Design (PAD) team at the time all I had to do was to speak nicely to my colleague Jean-Pierre (J-P) and send him some photographs of my heart's desire. In due course J-P produced the goods and I set about painting it. The livery of the prototype D-ICKS looked pretty good to me so I stuck with that, and the real life registration appealed to my sense humor, maybe Prof Dornier shares my sense of humor, or maybe it means something else in German. The performance specifications of the Seastar were in the public domain so I was able to tailor the PAD Seastar's air file to match the real life Seastar pretty closely. All I had to do now was to load up the champagne and the shrimp cocktails and set off to explore the Caribbean for a suitable island. Starting from Miami Tamiami Executive I figured that the Seastar's ample range of 1150 miles would get me to Montego Bay, Jamaica via the Bahamas island chain, in two and a half hours at 190 kts IAS cruising speed, even allowing for a diversion around Cuba, and still have nearly half a tank of juice left. Montego Bay would be a good base from which to explore the Caribbean. With one notch of flaps the Seastar needs only 1400 feet for take off, fully loaded, so Tamiami's 5000 foot runway 9L was way below us by the time we flew over the threshold headed for the Bahamas. A water landing at Montego Bay, just in time for lunch was now on the cards. Yes, my Seastar was a good choice. A Few Facts About The Real Seastar The Seastar is not like most general aviation seaplanes. Dornier says that it is a boat that flies rather than a plane adapted to float. The hull is a speedboat's hull, it has no floats on the wings because stability on the water is maintained by sponsons on each side of the hull. The sponsons are multi-purpose, they house buoyancy chambers, the fuel, the main wheels and also act as convenient platforms for entering and exiting from a boat alongside. The lack of wing floats also makes mooring alongside a pier or jetty a simpler procedure. Dornier say it is so stable in the water that it can be used in "speedboat mode" up to 60 knots! You can see from the attached pictures that the Seastar's engines are mounted above the parasol wing, in-line. This arrangement has some obvious advantages: 1. The engines and propellers are out of the way of sea spray during water take offs and landings and 2. There is no yaw effect when flying on one engine. A pilot with time in the Cessna 337 Skymaster would feel at home in the Seastar. The Dornier Seaplane Company had one eye on the military/paramilitary market when they re-launched the Seastar and pointed out that one engine could easily be shut down to extend patrol or loiter time. I can't think of any disadvantages of this layout except perhaps the engine technicians would need a taller step ladder when doing the servicing. A Few Facts About The PAD Seastar This model was one of the few that we did on our own without expert help from a pilot or engineer who knew the plane. The reason was of course that very few people have actually seen a Seastar, let alone flown one or serviced one. Fortunately for us there are lots of photographs and drawings of the prototypes and the Dornier Seaplane company have published a lot of information about it. The model took approximately 180 man hours to produce. J-P used the FS Design Studio (FSDS) program to make the model, not everyone's cup of tea but J-P was comfortable with it. The panel was the hard part. The Seastar has, or will have if a standarized production model is ever produced, a "glass cockpit" with all electronic gauges. A few elements of the flying gauges already existed as freeware but most did not and J-P had to learn XML programming to make many of the gauges. Flying the PAD Seastar is not difficult. She handles very responsively and predictably, in the air she feels very much like a DHC-2 Turbo Beaver and with the wheels down she can land on just about any air strip, paved or grass. As with all floatplanes and seaplanes water landings need to be practised if you want to be able to stop at a pre-determined spot on the water. I can't do any better than to re-print this paragraph from Flying Magazine written by J. 'Mac' McClellan after he first flew the real Seastar in 2010. "The approach is really just aiming into the wind and allowing the Seastar to settle in ground effect - or is that water effect - and then holding it there as you bring the power back and allow the hull to settle onto the surface. The visibility over the nose is so good I had no difficulty judging the correct attitude, and the landing worked out fine. I tried several more and found the Seastar to be amazingly easy to handle". If you want a Seastar and don't already have the PAD model you can download it from the FlightSim.Com file library. The file names are seastar_3_x.zip (FSX) and seastar_3_9.zip (FS2004) There are a couple of pretty good review videos of the PAD Seastar on youtube.com: Bob May Premier Aircraft Design