Development

When did you start developing for flight simulators?

Oh dear, ancient history anyone? Around 1995 I purchased my first copy of Flight Simulator (Version 5.1) and almost immediately the things that interested me the most were the inner workings of the sim. I didn't really understand them at that stage, and tinkering too much lead to the need for various reinstalls, but it was the guts of the sim that always fascinated me. In those days Flight Simulator was a closed system with no SDK, so it was inaccessible to all but the most accomplished programmers.

However, one part of Flight Simulator that was a little more open was the Adventure or scripting language called APL (Adventure Programming Language). This allowed you to hook into events in the simulation and control some actions, as well as play sounds. So I took my first baby steps and created an "ATC adventure" for Flight Simulator 5, it was an ATC-guided flight from Melbourne to Sydney (YMML-YSSY) with spoken ATC messages (.wav files). It was very basic and I uploaded it to the Flight Sim section of Compuserve, in 1996.

By about 1999 when FS98 was out I felt comfortable enough to share my work with a larger audience and I see my first uploads to the FlightSim.Com file library date from around April 1999. Slowly over the years that progressed to opening a website dedicated to ATC adventures (fsadventures.net - now only found on the web archive) and then eventually to launching TweakFS in 2003 and FSWidgets in 2004.

Who would you consider to be your mentors or inspiration in the development world?

As someone basically self-taught and not having a computer degree or IT background, back then for me this was crucial. Unless you are especially gifted and can work it all out on your own, to begin with you need a little hand holding to guide you along the way.

As far as the initial inspiration to get started, that was Wilco van Deijl, a Dutch 737 pilot who released the famous GPWS Adventure for Flight Simulator. My first foray into coding as mentioned above was, with his permission, adding an ATC Adventure onto his amazing GPWS system.

However the one person who was pivotal to me becoming a proper FS developer was my FSWidgets development partner John Hnidec. Some may recognize him as one of the few remaining true "FS gurus" from the early days, from those "we don't need no SDK" times. I put him in the same category as someone like Pete Dowson, a staggeringly accomplished programmer for whom digging into the innards of Flight Simulator is child's play. When I'm hitting all sorts of walls, he's only just getting warmed up. I'm still in absolute awe of his abilities. Without his patience as he "showed me the ropes" in the early days, or his continued support and friendship down to this day, my developer career might have been very short indeed.

What do you consider your best or most popular work?

As for the best work, that is something only others can really judge and it is hard to be subjective when you are so close to it, but I would like to think that the most recent work is always better because it benefits from all the cumulative past experience and know-how. However, if popularity or sales statistics are the true gauge then the numbers do not lie, they're hard to argue with.

On the TweakFS side of the fence, the most popular product is TweakFPS for FSX, a utility that helps the FSX user to quickly change their scenery display settings. The whole idea grew out of a suggestion from FS aircraft developer Geoff Applegate (of B33 Beech Debonair fame), who wanted a tool which basically behaved like a pair of invisible hands that adjusted scenery sliders and settings with one click. So I came back to him a few weeks later with a prototype of what eventually became TweakFPS for FS2004 and was later re-written for FSX. In short, Geoff will never have to pay for TweakFS software again, or for that matter any drinks if I ever meet him in a bar.

At FSWidgets our most popular work by a long shot are our mobile products, both for iOS and Android. In a very short time they have outperformed any of our previous desktop apps by a factor of at least 4:1 which is surprising to me. I initially identified the iPad as the ideal vehicle for an FS moving map add-on but was unsure how many flight simulator pilots would adopt it. It is in effect a double niche market. I am glad to say there appear to be quite a lot of folk out there with iPads and Android tablets!

What do you find to be the most challenging aspect of a project?

Coming up with a feasible idea in the first place is a real challenge. Of course anyone can come up with a whiz-bang concept for a product, but deciding on one that you have the developer chops for is another story. Especially in the early days of your development career it is important not to bite off more than you can chew or your project could get bogged down and never see the light of day, which can be very demoralizing. I have a couple of ideas that died a slow painful death and never flew because they were either too complex or just took too long. I have learned to minimize that by picking the project very carefully. Most of the time I create things that I want for myself but cannot find, that certainly makes the task much more exciting.

The other aspect that I find challenging is thinking in terms of solutions, not features. It is all too tempting to cram in a bewildering array of features into a product thinking that this is what separates it from all others, or that makes it really good. I have come to the conclusion that this can be a big mistake, not to mention you increase the chance for bugs in the program. I don't necessarily think that a product has to be simplistic or a one-trick pony.

The real challenge is to come up with a solution that produces the result you are after in the most unfettered and intuitive way, especially from the viewpoint of the user. We recently had the opportunity to focus on this with FSWidgets QuickPlan where the brief was to create an app that would churn out a flight plan file for FSX, FS2004 or X-Plane, in record time and with the greatest of ease for the user. I think we got pretty close to that aim.

What are some of the more unique or special aspects of what you create?

Very early on in the piece, I made the conscious decision to focus on application programming, as opposed to traditional FS development (aircraft, scenery, etc.), or other categories that were already well represented. This approach means you can create products that communicate with the simulator, but that work outside of it as a separate process and so you are not restricted to the official SDK.

Generally speaking we try to focus on things that are not already in existence, so you will find most of our work is fairly unique, at least when we first release it. We also try our best to cover all the main simulators and platforms on the market. In the case of FSWidgets QuickPlan, we released it on four separate platforms - Windows, Mac, iPad and Android.

Whenever we can, we also try to apply new or emerging technologies in a way that has never been seen before. Sometimes being ahead of the curve is not the best thing because it can scare or confuse some. We initially saw this with our Cloud Based aero chart and nav data products, but now that Cloud is a well-known buzzword and everyone loves the convenience it brings, folk are really warming to it.

We also experienced this initially slow user adoption with our moving map product GMapHD for Android. We released it back in 2010 to a rather luke-warm reception when Android was still the poorer cousin to Apple's iOS. Now that it's the dominant mobile platform and there are tons of cheap tablets on offer we see a healthy number of sales, rivalling the iPad edition, so we're very glad we positioned ourselves early.

What software packages and tools do you use to develop?

Oh, there are so many, simply because no one tool can do it all.

The development environments we use are:

• Xcode
• MonoTouch
• Delphi
• Visual Studio

A good programmers text editor like NotePad++ or Textmate is also a must, and we also use a hoard of other assorted tools and utilities too numerous to mention.

The actual languages used, that I can remember, are:

• C
• C++
• C#
• Objective-C
• Pascal
• PHP
• JavaScript/JQuery
• MySQL
• Python

On the graphics side of things, of course the ubiquitous Adobe PhotoShop is a must. For image editing we are also using Pixelmator a lot on the Mac which is now our primary development machine.

Do you develop payware/freeware or both and why?

Definitely both!

TweakFS has a well-stocked Free Tools section, the most recent addition was the FSX Scenery Config ToolBox.

At FSWidgets also we have a strong culture of releasing freeware products like GMap for FSX, FS2004, X-Plane and MS Flight.

I think that FS add-on companies should think about having some free stuff for those that perhaps cannot afford purchasing a payware product. It is also a great way to showcase your work, or you can release it as Freemium where the core of the product is free but folk have the choice to add premium features if they so wish. That is what we did with our GMap moving map utility.

The Team

How many people work with you or your team?

TweakFS is my solo pet project, but for FSWidgets I team up with John Hnidec. We are both located on the east coast of Australia.

What do the various members of the team do?

Being an "indie" developer I like to keep things small and manageable so as a two-man team at FSWidgets we compliment each others abilities well. We don't have rigid or clearly defined duties because we both are heavily involved in coding apps and providing support so there is a lot of crossover, but in a very general sense:

• John - Windows, Android and iOS apps, database, simulator internals, support
• Fermin - Windows, Mac and iOS apps, graphics, website and online shop, support

What other developers or teams have you worked with?

In our small FS community it is not uncommon to team up with and help out other developers. In my case I haven't officially joined any other teams as I think caring for two websites is enough, but in the interests of variety on occasion I do some work for other developers. Specifically, FS2Crew where I develop many of their supporting software like front ends or "Config Managers", installer utilities and graphics. Recently I have also helped out PCAviator with the automatic FSX scenery configuration feature in their MegaSceneryEarth installers.

Real Life

What started your interest in real aviation and developing for flight simulators?

As with many of us, I have always had a love of airplanes since I was a boy. That progressed to buying books and magazines on aviation, going down to my local airfield to do plane-spotting, listening to ATC on the radio scanner, and - at least before 9/11 - paying a visit to the flight deck on airline flights. Then about 20 years ago while on vacation I took a joy flight around the picturesque Glasshouse Mountains in Queensland, Australia. The pilot handed me the controls for most of way, that pretty much sealed it for me.

Do you have any experience in real aviation?

Yes, I now have my PPL and started flying in 1999, mostly single-engine Cessnas and Pipers.

Any memorable flights in real life?

Aviation gives you many great (and some scary) memories, but I do have one that I particularly treasure, and I wasn't even flying myself. It was a trip from Mangalore to Canberra and back (YMNG-YSCB-YMNG) with Major-General John Cantwell of the ADF (Australia Defence Force) who was one of my FSAdvetures development teammates back in 2002.

John was twin rated on the Piper Seneca and graciously invited me on one of his flights up to the capital. I'll never forget the moment when, getting ready to meet the Defence Minister, John stepped out of the Canberra Airport locker room in his dress uniform, sporting his beret and with shoes so shiny I could see my face in them (not kidding). To think that someone with such a high station would be kind enough to allow me to accompany him was very humbling.

On the return trip later that day we had the opportunity to come back via Mt. Hotham (YHOT), Australia's highest airfield. We did a flyover of the runway which allowed me to take some great photos which we later used in the graphics for our Moorabbin to Mt. Hotham (YMMB-YHOT) VFR adventure for FS2004 which we released soon after (also available in the FlightSim.Com file library). The company was delightful and the scenery over the snow-capped Australian alps breath-taking, it was a truly memorable flight.

Would you like to share what you do in real life?

Nowadays it's software development full time, both flight simulation related and some mainstream work. Before 2004 I was working for the family construction business and a did variety of other odd jobs as a young person.

Future

What simulators do you design for now and what ones do you plan to develop for in the future?

Right now we have products for FSX, FS2004, MS Flight and X-Plane. Some of our products already work with Prepar3D with some tweaking, by virtue of SimConnect, but in the near future we may also add specific support for this newcomer if the demand for it increases enough.

In what ways do you see our hobby changing in the future?

Unfortunately foreknowledge is not something I am blessed with (just as well), but I think one thing is certain: expectations will get higher. That can only mean one thing: add-ons will become more complex to develop or will have to stand out in new and different ways.

Something else that is very likely to happen, and already has to some extent, is more fragmentation of the flight simulation genre. In the past Microsoft Flight Simulator, particularly FSX and FS2004, ruled supreme. X-Plane was just a fringe dweller, but not any more, especially since Version 10 (now fully 64-bit). Today we also have other options like Prepar3D and a couple of other more localized simulators like MS Flight and Aerofly. What you may see is that more and more will be leaving the FSX/FS2004 fold, or in the case of newcomers to the hobby, they will just go straight to one of the alternative simulators.

Your Thoughts

What can sites like FlightSim.Com and the community do to support you and the hobby better?

In my opinion, I think FlightSim.Com are already doing a very good job. Their site, file library and forums provide a great focal point for all who love flight simulation and they strive to do it in a clean and friendly environment. One look at some of the "gaming" forums around will remind you how good we have it. We particularly appreciate it when they publish our news releases. I can say without a doubt that if it were not for sites of the calibre of FlightSim.Com it would be impossible to get the exposure needed to survive in such a small industry.

For the community in general, I would encourage it to continue on supporting their favorite developers, whoever they are, and be understanding about the realities of operating in such a niche market environment. If making big money is the aim then this is definitely not the best place to do it. Most of us in this industry are here because we love it, not because of the so-called profits. As a consumer of FS products myself, if it we didn't have add-on creators I think we would still have a hobby, but it wouldn't have the same appeal - at least not for me.

How do you feel about the future of flight simulation in general?

I am very optimistic about the future of our hobby, and you need to be if you are going to stick around. There is always going to be an natural attrition rate and some of the recent developments, such as the demise of the FS Aces team, may have been discouraging to many at the time. However look at the bright side - FSX add-ons have remained compatible for longer and most of us now have systems that run it very sweetly indeed, with all sliders to the max. For once our hardware has caught up with and passed our software requirements.

In the meantime X-Plane has progressed significantly and we have Prepar3D on the scene. For the FSX developers, their products have had a much longer lifespan than otherwise would have been the case and the intellectual property or know-how gained on FSX can be developed and applied further in new and interesting ways. Things are looking good to me!

Fermin Fernandez
tweakfs.com
fswidgets.com