Interview - VirtualCol - Jose J. Gonzalez

Conducted by Dominic Smith

Tell us a little about VirtualCol as a company - who founded the company, where is VirtualCol located and when did it start?

VirtualCol was borne in a hard moment in my life. My company (other), at that time, it was going through a difficult situation because we were working with "Multimedia Software" for instruction in medical laboratories, but the progress of the Internet was ending the business. No one wanted CD-ROM or training DVD-ROM if they could upload it to a web site. The Christmas of 2002 I was flying in my FS2002 and the area of Colombia, where I'm from, it was "void" and not real, no traffic and this FS was the first using AI Traffic. There was born the first sceneries of Colombia, called Colombia 2003.

Before me, other friends developed sceneries in Colombia also, however I was a "rookie". As I was joined a virtual airline called Aerocol since 1998, I sent to member mail list some screen shots with previous of my work and this was my first incursion in development for FS with a kind help of Mr. Jose Clopatofsky, a renowned journalist of motoring in my country and lover of flightsim. The first sales were in March 03th of 2003, this is the birthday of our company: 03/03/03. My first web site still exists in Tripod:

http://virtualcol.tripod.com/quienes.htm

After several years developing sceneries, one day I wished experimenting with airplanes and my first project was EJETS VIRTUAL in 2007, however not all was "rose color". In 2011, Virtualcol fell into a hard situation for several situations and errors of manage, when I tried to follow other projects simultaneously with my work with Virtualcol. Additionally, it wasn't good see my work selling in streets of my city as illegal copies.

The company was sold and for three years they only work with airplanes and really they established the real route of this company. With the help of my wife I recovered the company in October of 2014 and since this year we following the route "AIRPLANES, FRIENDLY FRAMES TO LOW COST".

Today the company is located in Colombia but with collaborators in several countries: Canada, UK, Norway, Venezuela, etc., thanks to Internet connections and this beautiful hobby: The Flight Simulation.

How did you come up with the company name VirtualCol - is there a specific idea to the name or does it stand for something specific?

After the success with the product COLOMBIA 2003, I wished to use the name COLOMBIA VIRTUAL and the next sceneries of this country had this name, but when I tried to register COLVIRTUAL as my company, this name already existed, so I decided to use VIRTUALCOL and this was the name of current trade. In 2010 I register this name because a friend suggested it, and today this is a TRADE MARK. The real name of this company is VIRTUALCOL FS SOFTWARE.

How many people work at VirtualCol and what are their key roles?

Today our company has six collaborators plus me, one in technical support, one tending the store, two in administration and financial area and three in development. Until some weeks ago we were nine members but the hard situation of this year, forced to us to let out two excellent collaborators, but this is the business.

What is VirtualCol's mission and vision?

MISSION: We develop add-ons to enjoy flight simulation without technical limitations, monetary or knowledge, just click to start and enjoy to fly!

When you have little money, a lot of passion, a not very powerful computer but a lot of desire to fly in something better than a freeware version, but not as complex as a professional one ... When you do not have time to read long or extensive checklists and user manuals ... When you have only moments of freedom to recreate a flight and do what you like, but not to learn to fly from the beginning ... That is Virtualcol, airplanes with the best effort to make them beautiful, volatile and that allow to recreate the illusions of the virtual pilot, without having to incur the complications of the real world ... far from requiring a license for it!... just fly!

VISION: Being the brand of flight simulator recognized and preferred for providing products of good quality and little resource requirement and at LOW COST.

Not everything should be perfect, it should also be allowed to those who see in this tool, the possibility of flying without the need to invest large amounts or need supercomputers that allow them to enjoy the flight. Once we all start with the simple and others still want to continue like this, for them we will continue here. If exist low cost airlines with a good service, why not an FS developer LOW COST?

Now, tell us a little about yourself; do you have any interests besides flight simulation?

I'm passionate about my family, I want to be able to give them all my possible time and so I get used to them. It's been 26 years since I got married and I love my wife like the first day and my children like no other in this world, because of them I have always worked independently and I will continue to do so. I like soccer too and dedicate time to God, and obviously my other BIG passion: aviation.

When did you get the interest for flight simulation and how?

Wow, that was love at first sight. The first time I saw the Flight Simulator was at a friend's house, his father was a flight instructor and he had an FS2 installed on an old Macintosh. Unfortunately, he stopped talking to me when I accidentally deleted it trying to restart the computer after a power failure. In 1995 I took up the subject again, I could do it, I had how and since then I have devoted my whole life to this beautiful hobby.

Do you have a pilot's license yourself and/or own any aircraft?

No, I had the opportunity to try a glider flight, but my resources in youth did not allow it and with the divorce of my parents, my dream of being a Commercial Pilot went to the drain. I was an aircraft modeler for many years, I made airplanes up to cardboard and even tried to develop with some friends an ultralight but it was not possible. My oldest son is an Aeronautical Engineer and I think it is the closest thing I am to real aviation. He collaborates with us too and it's a professional support for me.

What is your favorite aircraft in real life and why?

Difficult to speak of only one because for me aviation is not tied to "an airplane", "a model", "a type", is rather an expression of the human being to reach not only the power to fly, but also to enjoy when your you do. When I was a kid I loved (and I still love) the Boeing 727 because it was the first airplane that my parents allowed me to fly when I was only 8 years old back in 1977, but I've also had aircraft like the P51 Mustang in model aircraft, The Concorde, I loved the noise of full-power Caravelle engines or listening to a DC-8 increase the power of its engines. The modern airplanes like Airbus A320, A220, Embraer E Jets, Boeing 787, etc., are beautiful and would be a fool if I said that I like only the previous models. Aviation is constantly moving, I just think that I will not like it when flying depends on a machine and that the pilot is sitting in an office ... that day the theme would be over for me because the magic of this beautiful profession would be lost.

You develop for multiple platforms but which platform is your own favorite and why?

I have installed from FS98 to FSX, Prepar3D 1 to 4 and X-Plane to X-Plane 11 and I love them all. In all I have a plane or an airport that I still like to use or a tool that I like. We are working for someday to be able to have planes in X-Plane, it is not simple but I hope to do it soon, because it is the only thing that I need. It is not easy to develop for all, for example we had to close development for FS2004 because the new tools that allow us development for P3D do not allow us to return to FS2004 and to do so we would have to do everything again. We have several FS2004 customers who still claim because we not to continue with support for this simulator but they do not know what I would like to continue, only that the costs do not give us.

Which creation is your own personal favorite and why?

Hard to talk about one. I think I have a fortune if I say so, to be able to enjoy each of my airplanes and sceneries development. The only bad thing is that I always see the mistakes or I want to improve things, sometimes it cannot be a matter of time or resources, unfortunately it does not always depend on me improving or correcting things. But if you observe, I have repeated several projects trying to improve them, for example the E-JETS already go to their 4th "overhauling" with the version that we are working from the first version that I took out in 2007, the Dash 8 is in course of a new version 2.0 and the ATR's entered the hangar again for a version 3.0, and each change costs us a lot of money, but I know it's worth the sorrow. My wife says that I am crazy about repeating projects that are already closed, that I look like a Hollywood director redoing old films, but I think that if things can be improved, why not do it?

Which product would you characterize as being your flagship and why?

I think we have to divide this answer into two parts: I would say today that there are airplanes in PACK type that contain several series. The Dash 8, the ATR and the EJETS, and in part two, and more for the history of Virtualcol, it's very sad to say, but for many years it was the sceneries of Colombia. Many don't know that this is the main obstacle that caused the virtual disappearance of Virtualcol in 2011, because my dream was to create all 110 airports in my country in a single package, but the costs of that development would be extremely high for what was collected and if I add to that the issue of piracy, it was what almost ended with me (really, at some point I thought about ending my life because of the problems that this caused).

Today I see with happiness that there are others creating sceneries, very beautiful and of high cost for my compatriots, but God willing I wish one day I could take up the theme. What happens is that everything nowadays costs money and sometimes dreams are not possible to reach when they have such a high cost, but someday it will be. By the way, very soon, when I finish correcting some things, I will donate the whole COLOMBIA VIRTUAL package and the Bogota scenario to freeware, as I recently did with other scenarios and the first version of ATR.

Why do you think these products are so popular?

I think there may be two things: The first is not very frequent aircraft to find developed, until very recently other developers have been interested in the regional aviation turboprop, and the other is that for a low cost, perfectly half the price of a single professional model, you can get several different series, liveries and a very acceptable quality above the freeware product.

How do you select your next project - does it come from your own interest, market research or general input from fellow flight simmers?

Basically in two ways: The first really for personal taste and the second because we frequently receive requests from customers on our web site about the products that interest them, we evaluate them and if it's within our possibilities, we begin to gather the basic information. As we don't create professional models, basically we continue with the basics, such as Microsoft® or Lockheed Martin® made with their default models in their respective simulators, only that we make them a little more complete and detailed, although not so exact.

As for personal taste, it has a great influence because there is nothing uglier than working on something you don't like. Virtualcol has not only been a source of work for me, my family and those who collaborate with us, it is also my playground, so I really enjoy this work and I feel fortunate and blessed for it.

In what ways do you see development changes in the future - now when e.g. the 64-bit platforms have arrived?

Not only the 64-bit theme, virtual reality is already playing these platforms. Surely more precise environment effects will come, meteorology with greater detail and precision. There are still movements that I feel are still very unreal, for example at the time of a turbulence, the clouds are not yet gases or particles, they are still flat images, so there is still much to be done, but in general it has been a huge advance since the first FS2 that I saw in my life!

What would you like people to know about you, your work or products that we have not yet covered?

I think your questions covered everything! But I would like people to understand that we don't develop the same as others and that we can share a space who still see the Flight Simulator as a personal virtual space, far from the hustle and bustle of the real world and its conflicts. This virtual space is so wonderful that not even planes can fire to harm others, we just fly and observe a world in peace, without danger, without fighting, without hatred or resentment. Not all must be professional pilots or all people should have a real license to fly in FS and much less need one, you cannot mistreat others, as well as there is space in real life for a simple and inexpensive vehicle that meets the needs of those who buy it and there are also expensive vehicles that allow you to enjoy luxury and comfort even when you do the same as the economy, in the same way there may be space for those who just want to fly and have fun!

God bless you and enjoy life that is too short to be bitter!

Jose J. Gonzalez
Virtualcol

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