Bruno, could I begin by asking how you initially got involved in our fantastic hobby?

Like most kids, I believe I became fascinated with aviation from a very young age. One of my first memories ever was playing some jet fighter game in a super old computer from my dad. I think it wasn't even a 286; can't tell what it was. A few years later, roughly when I was about 15 years old, I bought my first "real" flight simulator. I was shopping around in a video game shop, and I saw a copy of Microsoft Flight Simulator 98.

The idea of learning how to fly an airplane for real was immediately appealing to me. I went home, started it up, and found my way to Rod Machado's lessons, which were great.

I learned as much as I could at the time. Let's keep in mind at this time the internet was really just in its infancy, so "knowledge" was not so available as it is today. I learned about the Cessna 172, the traffic pattern, more or less about navigation, and the navigational aids. I never really got into the "big birds". For a long time the "hobby" was dormant. I learned about how much it would cost to get a Private Pilots License (PPL) and at the time it was completely out of the question to me. Thankfully, recently, a lot of things have changed, and now flying is my main hobby.

Bruno, what is your most memorable flight simming experience?

It's really hard to pick one. I guess there are a couple of memorable ones for me. One of them was finally passing the Instrument Checkride in FSX. When I first got FSX, I tried it time and time again, never meeting success. It was hard even to understand what the error was. I got as far as the teardrop pattern, but never made it. Then, recently, with the "invention" of YouTube, and everyone making videos and tutorials, I found one which explained how to pass this checkride. The teardrop part had a kind of a "bug" (maybe just a trick), in that you needed to tune the VOR frequency and course at a certain moment, otherwise it would fail. So, after so many failed attempts, and after so much time, it was such a nice feeling to finally pass that checkride. I even uploaded a video on youtube, with not much added value (compared to other similar videos), but it was mine, and proof that I passed that mythical checkride!

Another very memorable moment for me was a "flash event" from IVAO's Portuguese division that I participated in. Being fifth in line to depart from an airport (all fellow simmers, with "real" people doing the ATC), was an awesome experience. For anyone wanting to really learn about aviation, and for it to be as real an experience as possible on a home computer, I highly recommend joining IVAO (or its competitor, VATSIM). Being part of this community has definitely helped me tremendously in learning about aviation, it has a lot of documentation, is completely free, and is a great tool to practice your communications.

Do you have a favorite freeware/payware add-on you'd like to tell us about?

Regarding freeware, I absolutely adore the photoreal scenery of the Balearic Islands. I've spent a lot of time flying around Palma de Mallorca, Ibiza and Menorca. I think Menorca is the most beautiful, but I could be wrong. The Canary Islands are also available for free and are also very beautiful, but somehow I don't fly there as often. Of course, for people who are flying in X-Plane (as I am now), this is meaningless as with Ortho4XP we can get photoreal from anywhere.

So maybe that's another freeware that is worth mentioning, but I haven't tried it yet, only seen the results, which are great.

Here's the link for the Balearic Islands

Another mandatory freeware is FSXWX (if you haven't paid for a weather engine yet). Coupled with REX textures, it makes for a wonderful combo that will make your weather and skies very believable and good looking.

This is something that disappoints me a lot in X-Plane, and I was watching a video a while back on FSW, the "trueSKY" update and I think they really nailed this topic. Great way to set the bar!

So, other than REX textures for payware, I also like the Airbus A32F fleet from Aerosoft.

For airports, I like the performance/detail balance from Tropicalsim. For people without NASA computers, they are a great choice. Another great freeware are the photorealistic Hawaiian Islands. These have kept me entertained for quite some time. I've taken some pictures of this fantastic scenery (see below).

Bruno, is there a particular route you like to fly, if so could you tell the readers about it?

I do. As you can probably guess from the previous question, I enjoy flying to the Balearic Islands a lot. And since I'm a member of IVAO's Portuguese division (http://pt.ivao.aero), I also fly a lot in Portugal, so a route I like flying is something from Portugal to a Balearic island, like LPPR - LEPA, with vRYR. Palma de Mallorca is a very popular online destination, so it's very common to have ATC and traffic to keep you company. So, combining the popularity, with the beautiful scenery, makes it for one of my favorite routes to fly.

How do you think we can encourage others to join the hobby?

I think it's important to let people know there's room in this hobby for everyone. Young, old, knowledgeable, total beginners, speed lovers, people interested in sight-seeing, etc. I found it interesting that a lot of people don't know about Rod Machado's lessons in FSX. Maybe there should be an article about it. It's the perfect way for a complete beginner to start. For people who already know about the "practical" part of flying, and want to improve their theoretical knowledge, and also their proficiency in communications, joining an online community like IVAO or VATSIM is key. It also keeps people engaged with their events, ratings and badges. Joining IVAO motivated me to start pursuing my PPL license. The knowledge I gained helped tremendously, and the communications in real life were really easy due to all the experience from the online simulation.

How could FlightSim.Com make this hobby better for you?

For me, the site is fine, but I think the site is designed for veterans of flight simming. I'm generally giving this advice to newcomers... If one knows really nothing about airplanes and flying in general, I recommend getting FSX:SE and following Rod Machado's lessons. For people who have already mastered the art of flying, but want to gain more theoretical knowledge, practice communications, or simply be part of a community and participate in events, join IVAO or VATSIM, preferably IVAO.

Lastly Bruno, when in comes to flight simulation, what are your hopes for the future?

My hopes might be utopian, but I would love for the different sims to join forces and resources and create one sim to rule them all. I am super excited with the developments of FSW, but I'm pretty sure the physics will never (or hardly ever) be as great as the physics in X-Plane. I'm also happy so far with the performance in X-Plane 11, and it seems things will only improve. However, the weather engine and depiction are just subpar in my opinion. So much so, that I am growing increasingly jealous of FSW's trueSKY. But...I really like X-Plane's realistically sloped runways; so it seems that the different sims are focusing on competing features, and not one of them will really be fully featured.