Recently FlightSim.Com had the chance to talk with Fernando Herrera, one of the two founders of Carenado, the company that makes a wide variety of airplanes for Microsoft Flight Simulator and now for X-Plane.

The Company

Who first started the company, when and how did it start?

Carenado was founded on 2001, when Microsoft Flight Simulator 98 and 2000 was around. Mauricio, an schoolmate of mine, came up with the idea on 2001 after seeing how many downloads some freeware aircraft were getting.

At the same time, I was doing my private pilot course, I realized that there weren`t any good aircraft for Flight Simulator to learn and practice for students, which in some ways validated Mauricio's feeling.

We were and still are very fanatic of Flight Simulators, we used to play together first versions of Microsoft Flight Simulator using an old Atari computer in the late eighties.

Currently Mauricio and I are the owners of Carenado. Mauricio is in charge of the "what you see" area and I am in charge of the "what you don't see" area including running the business.

What is your background or experience in real aviation?

Mauricio is a very talented designer with many years of experience in the advertising industry. He is very passionate about aviation and is a real pilot.

I am an industrial engineer with an MBA. I have worked mainly in the M&A and venture capital industry for many years. I am also passionate about aviation and am a real pilot.

How did you come up with the name Carenado?

Carenado is a Spanish word which means "fairing" or the "pant wheels" of aircraft, it is something related to aviation.

Where is Carenado located and does everyone work local or from around the world?

We are located in Santiago, Chile where we have an office with developers, programmers and designers, plus people working from their homes here in Chile and others working from their homes but outside Chile.

The Team/People

How many people help develop products for Carenado? Are any of them pilots or have real world aviation experience?

Currently we are about 12 people (some are coming and going because they work for specific projects) and about 30% of them are real pilots. Half of our crew is based on Chile and the other half is spread around the globe.

What are the different roles in the company (i.e., modellers, graphics artists, programmers, flight dynamics, marketing, sales, webmasters, etc.). Can you give us a few paragraphs on each of those roles and what they consist of and how they fit into the workflow of a design.

We are divided in two main areas: The "what you see" area dedicated to models, textures and promotional material. This is a primarily an artistic area where designers, modelers and soundmen work.

And the other is the "what you don't see" area dedicated to programing the aircraft behavior and developing all the systems, gauges and avionics. On this area works mostly programmers supported by real pilots or people with aviation experience.

The process of making an aircraft starts in the "what you see" area which models and texturizes the aircraft. At the end of that stage the "what you don't see area starts working on FDE and gauges. This stage is large and requires a lot research. At the end we have an integration phrase where everything is bound together and both teams start fixing visual and non-visual bugs. After that, the beta testing process takes place before the aircraft is completely done.

On your web site you mentioned that you used highly trained professional staff and state of the art equipment and technology. What type of professional training and qualifications does the staff have?

Yes, we have very talented people working with us in all the areas. We have real pilots, who have been trained for years (they of course don't work exclusively for us).

Because this is an industry where technology advances very quickly we have to stay current all the time. For that, we promote personal training and the autodidact way of learning which has turned out to be the best and quickest way to learn new techniques because it is difficult to find local courses here in Chile that teach us "the last" in technology in our fields.

What equipment and technology do you need to develop such incredible designs?

Good computers, good bandwidth, passion for aviation and eagerness to deliver a good product.

What software is used by the various groups?

Popular 3D software such as Blender and Gmax, Photoshop for textures and several others for programing.

The Products

How many products has Carenado developed over the years? What was Carenado's very first product? Why does Carenado just focus mainly on aircraft?

I would say around 70 have been released since they company started. Our first three payware aircraft were the PA28 Warrior I, PA28 Warrior II and the PA32 Saratoga TC (in that order).

We have been developing only aircraft because that is the area we like the most and also we have developed a strong team and knowledge in that field.

We also feel that aircraft are the most universal add-on for FSX, because all people feel attractive by then, more than sceneries and missions for example which are appealing to some people.

What are some of the unique things your product can do that others do not?

We think we have a very good price/quality relation. Our products are very good in all the areas and prices are very affordable. We also think that we have known to balance the relation between simulation and game. Our products are easy to operate, but they are very good to practice and simulate a flight at the same time.

One of our objectives is to recreate the most popular aircraft, the one that people know things about them or have looked at them in any airfield over the world.

Which of the simulators do you find it most rewarding to design for?

FSX is a great platform, even though it has more than six years since it was first released; possibilities and functionalities are many. We can develop good quality aircraft for FS2004 and X-Plane, but it is more rewarding developing for FSX because the user base is huge which means more people can use our products.

Do you find you can do more with a design in one simulator over another?

Absolutely, there are features that work better in FSX than X-Plane, but there are other features that are present in X-Plane which are not possible in FSX. Both platforms have their own pros and cons, but in general terms I would say that FSX is a great platform.

Have you ever done exclusive or custom aircraft for companies?

No, we have never done that. Our vision is bringing general aviation simulation to a broad audience. We have several special work requirements every month, but we have rejected all of them.

In what ways do you see product development changing in the future?

Modelling won't change too much probably, but we see a big change in the texturing process allowing to have better visual effects such as shadowing and reflections. Now we have to create them, in the future we will just add the right materials and their properties so that the simulator engine will reproduce all these effects.

We also see a change in the engine of simulator, probably a more universal engine, one where you can simulate any vehicle or anything. In that regards, physics and dynamics will turn more important.

How do you choose your next design or product?

It is based in several points such as popularity, attractiveness, availability to take pictures and access to real pilots of that aircraft among others. We have many years of experience and we reach a point when we know from "guts feeling" if a product will be good or bad in term of sales and acceptation.

What has been some of the most interesting uses of your products?

The most interesting use is for student pilots who want them for practicing procedures. The weirdest use was many years ago when a journalist got our Saratoga to recreate the Kennedy Jr. accident near Martha's Vineyard in the USA. He created a video note which appeared on TV.

Your Thoughts

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

We think we are in the end of an era. We are pretty sure that a new flight simulator will be released and will be popular. X-Plane 10 could have been it, but it wasn't become popular, probably because people feel the product is not finished yet. Laminar has released many updates and improvements, which has created a non-stable sense in the public. But it still has the chance to become the most popular simulator, we will see...

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

I think the main challenge is to reach "offline" audience. Our estimations are that about 75% of people who own FSX don't know they can get FSX content online. If the community could go and capture the offline users, I am pretty sure the community will be bigger and the hobby will become more professional.

What are some of the most important things a site or community can do to help the developers?

Feedback is the most important thing when you do something for a community or niche. Because this is a global community and you don't talk with your customers, you NEED several ways for getting in contact with them. Social media such YouTube or Facebook helps a lot, but a specialized page could help even more for this purpose.

What would you like people to know about you or your team and work?

We want to be known as a leader company which develop GA aircraft for people around the world. We don`t care about the platform, because we will develop for the most important and popular platform existing whatever it is.

Fernando Herrera
Carenado Products