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Interview With Manuel Velez / Opencockpits Tell us a little bit about yourself and the sorts of things you have done or enjoyed besides flight simulation? First of all, I appreciate the opportunity that FlightSim.Com offers me to let know something about myself and what do we do at Opencockpits. My name is Manuel Velez Campos, I was born in Huelva (Spain) and since my childhood I was a passionate about electronics, informatics and aviation. Presently and since more than 20 years I work as a Manager of Informatics at the Tax Agency in Huelva. My formation initially was in Informatics, but my inquietudes made me also to study electronics, which allowed me to work in hardware and software as a whole. In my scarce free time, I like aeromodelling. I own some big scale models of airplanes and helicopters as well. In summertime, my homeland being very warm, I rather prefer to practice boat sailing. Do you have any real world aviation experience, fly any planes, or own any aircraft? Although some time ago I planned to get my pilot's license, I very soon realized that I didn't have time enough to spare for this hobby, so I resigned myself to fly with my many pilot friends. So I have been able to fly ultralights, light planes and even helicopters, but not alone. When did you start at the company and what are your key rolls? Well, presently my role in the firm is becoming lesser, thanks to having surrounded myself gradually by many workmates. Initially I really did almost everything. Tell us about the company - who founded it, when, where, why and maybe a little history? Opencockpits S.L. is not a classic undertaking, as it really was born from the OPENCOCKPITS.COM web site. Originally in the beginning more than ten years ago, I designed the needed hardware to link the physical elements of a flight simulator with the program itself, Microsoft Flight Simulator at the moment, albeit lately we linked it to other platforms as X-Plane, Condor, Lock-on and many others. Even car simulators like R-Factor. I freely offered all these designs so people could build their own cockpits, for as long it were for their own, non-commercial use. Because of the complexity of some electronic boards, many users contacted me asking me to manufacture and build for them. Having not much time, I contacted a small manufacturer for this job, but they very soon did not see it as a good business, so they abandoned the job. It was then that I decided to hire an employee to do it, I looked for components wholesalers and I started selling thru a web site, kits as well as fully built up cards. Customers were glad to have an option to build by themselves or buy it all built up and checked. What is the company's mission and vision? All along time we have kept our philosophy of helping the cockpit builder. We keep the cards needed to build a flight deck as the initial idea was, but now after some time we have grown and we practically offer all kind of elements. How many people are employed and what are the key rolls? Presently some 12 people work at the firm, which are reinforced by some others in the rush periods. Due to the great quantity of elements needed, we are assisted by some other manufacturers that produce some parts that we lately couple together. Printed circuits, plastic parts, metallic parts or those complex parts that require much specialised tooling, are manufactured by third parties under our direction. Is all the hardware and software developed within the company and do you machine the hardware parts yourself and why? Our present tendency is to order outside the manufacture of such elements that demand a very special machinery and quality levels that we cannot offer, always trying to make the final assembly at our premises so we can apply the quality controls that allow a good final product. We have just inaugurated a whole automated assembling line for printed circuits in SMD as well as in TH. The present volume allows us to maintain this work frame and assembling our own printed circuits we get much better dynamics and working times than depending upon third parties. In what ways do you see development changing in the future? For us development is essential, because we do not only work for the great public. We also perform professional customized works for other firms that require something more specific. That's why we have empowered ourselves with a good laboratory and some machinery that enables us to build prototypes in a short time, what enables us to sensibly shorten the phase from development to production. How do you choose your next project - inquiry from flight simmers, market research or other? In principle, what we want is to "close the loop" of those products for Boeing 737, 767, 747 and A320 simulators which are the more favored by the customers. For me, it's foremost that from Opencockpits we can offer any of the elements of the simulators that the users may need to build their flight decks. So we work incessantly to make all this available to them. What are your top three selling products and why do you think they are the top three? Apart from the electronic board (our Master board is the most sold with a difference, with more than 20,000 units up to date), users highly rate our CDU, MCP and rudder pedals. What is your favorite product and why? Personally my favorite product is the 737 Overhead all built and ready to use. I think that it is of an excellent quality at an unbeatable price. Furthermore, with this product we make a follow up of the user from the moment of its purchase to the moment that he has it fully working. As soon as we receive the order and while building it, our Support Department is in close contact with the customer in order to know where it is going to be installed and with what software it is going to work with, so we immediately can share experiences, offer advice and provide him with specific configurations for the surrounding chosen by the user. Why did you choose to operate with the SIOC programming tool? SIOC (System for IOCards) was born from the need to communicate our electronic cards to many different platforms. All of it for a user not being very technical. From the beginning we tried to balance simplicity and power. Most powerful tools have a tendency of being more complicated and I think that the success of SIOC was just that. You don't need to be a programmer in C or Pascal in order to build an script in SIOC able to do whatever you want. The user that has never programmed is a little afraid at the beginning, but once he sees how it works he very fast sees his power and he really can do all he wants and all he imagines. SIOC can be used in big or small things. I presently use it in my full motion simulator and it performs the simulation of all the systems in a "neuronal network" mode with the simulation of the physical connection between systems. I also believe that there are three important facts that make it such a widely used tool. It is free for non-commercial environments, there is an enormous amount of documentation about its use and programming and always stays updated thanks to the thousands of users who report new ideas as well as weak points. You make hardware for various aircraft - can you tell me if you are also working on a solution for the Boeing B787 or the Airbus A380? Presently our efforts are directed to Boeing 737, Boeing 767/747 and A320, but very seemingly all along this year there will start to show some new elements for this and other simulators. Initially in form of panels, more elements and modules. You have an excellent overhead panel for the Boeing B737 - do you intend to expand this program to also include other overhead panels - I mean for other aircraft? We are now working in the upper overhead of the B737 that will be ready in the first semester of the year, and in the complete pedestal and the whole MIP. We hope that by the end of the year it will also be ready the A320 Overhead that already exists in form of panels. Which product would you believe is the Opencockpits flagship? I believe that it is more than just a product, Opencockpits is known because of this different idea of an enterprise. Always trying to bring the best quality to price ratio in all its products, always trying to help with products that go from schemas, building tutorials, parts kits, simple faceplates to already built modules. You have the USB LCD PCB card - do you also have the LCD screens in your product range? In short we will also have the LCD screens because it is a part very often required by the user. We also want to integrate in SIOC the control of the USB LCD, although it is now managed from SIOC, it works with a different module. What would you like people to know about you, your work or products that we have not covered? Our present work, besides of what has formerly been advanced, goes toward offering one more quality level. In short we shall issue a line of products with inner backlighting as used in the real aviation panels. We just opened a special line for these products that will allow the manufacturing of all these panels. Many thanks from all the Opencockpits team for the space offered in FlightSim.Com. Any doubt or information will be taken care from: Sales: sales@opencockpits.com Support: Support@opencockpits.com Shop: http://Shop.opencockpits.com Web site: http://www.opencockpits.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Opencockpits YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/manolovelez Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/opencockpits/