Search the Community
Showing results for tags 'martyn northall'.
Found 2 results
-
Interview With Martyn Northall - Just Flight Conducted by Ray Andersen Tell us about Just Flight as a company - who founded it and how did it get started. Just Flight was founded back in summer 1996 by Mungo Amyatt-Leir (RIP) and Roger Large, and in 1997 they were joined by Andy Payne. Originally called The Associates, they changed the name to Just Flight to give the business a more recognizable brand in the world of flight simulation. As Andy Payne explained "We had no office and worked from home, using the internet and meeting up once a month in a hotel to chew stuff over. We were a virtual company before that was even a thing. Mungo was the ideas man, Roger was all about sales and I did everything else. It was fast, furious, frustrating, hilarious and mostly chaotic. When we couldn't get any magazine coverage for our flight sims, we decided to set our own specialist print magazine up and called it PC Pilot. When we decided to branch into train sims, we set up our own label, Just Trains. All the time, Mungo, Roger and I would see no barriers and just get on and make things happen. We did a joint venture in Italy and one in the USA. There was very little time for planning, indeed if I did plan, Mungo took little or no notice, we just had a load of fun. We eventually got an office in Cambridge in 2000, which we shared with PC Pilot and designers Fink Creative. We painted the office and furnished it like it was our own flat way before Google made that stuff cool. We shared fantastic times with our friends and fellow workers, Alex Ford, Dermot Stapleton, Mark Embleton, Wolfgang Schwarz, Marc Siegel, Ruth Chaloner, Martin Wright, Richard Slater, Simon Martin, Richard Pomfret, Scott Phillips, Paul 'H' Hyslop and loads more." What was the idea - the vision/mission starting Just Flight and how many people are today working at Just Flight? Back in the day, the FS add-on market was a very small niche in the computer games business, but it was growing, and Just Flight was set up with the idea of publishing, professionally, some of the great content that was being created. Just Flight then began working with developers directly to create content and the huge range of add-ons that were created for Flight Simulator and Combat Flight Simulator are fondly remembered by many simmers. When retail stores fell out of love with PC games, Just Flight swiftly made the jump to selling their content by direct download and created their own DRM and download system - before Steam was even a kettle of warm water. There are now 14 of us at Just Flight team and many of the team have been on board for over 15 years. What about you - how did you get interested in aviation and do you have other interests besides aviation and flight simulation? My interest in aviation comes from my dad who served in the Royal Air Force for 24 years. I was around aviation from birth and we enjoyed regular visits to air shows and aircraft museums, as well as using early PC-based flight simulators. FS2000 was my first introduction to the MSFS franchise and I was a keen Just Flight customer before joining the company. Away from aviation I love photography and travel, although both of those do involve some aviation! Do you have a pilot's license and do you own your own aircraft? Yes, I have a Private Pilot's License (PPL). I started learning to fly aged 18 from Conington Airfield on the Cessna 152, hence our development of Conington Airfield scenery and the Flying Club Conington aircraft fleet! I don't own an aircraft but rent from the flying club when I have time to fly. Now back to Just Flight - you have a huge portfolio but what product is your own personal favorite and why? I've always enjoyed flying our Canberra PR9. It is an unusual but very capable and interesting aircraft type, and it was the first aircraft I was involved in developing. Our recent Avro Vulcan B Mk. 2 is a close second. Like the Canberra PR9 it has the vintage military jet appeal, and it is also visually stunning! Every company have a product which is their flagship - which product would that be at Just Flight? It's hard to chose just one as we release so many products each year, but I think the Avro Vulcan B Mk. 2 would be our flagship aircraft, and Traffic Global our flagship utility. 747 Classic and Traffic Global for X-Plane 11 will likely take over the flagship roles this year though! Why do you think this product is so much more popular? The Avro Vulcan B Mk. 2 features the latest and greatest standards of visual fidelity which create a very realistic cockpit environment. It's an iconic aircraft type with lots of character and it's a pleasure to fly. There is also plenty of functionality to keep you busy either at low or high-level. Traffic Global is the latest iteration in our long-standing AI traffic series and our most popular product of the past year. Our Traffic range has always been popular with our customers as it provides you with a simple way to populate your virtual skies with hundreds of aircraft types and thousands of liveries. A new project is very challenging but also interesting for sure but what do you think is the most challenging and interesting aspects of a project and why? The most challenging aspect of any project is collating enough reference material. For the level of detail and complexity that is expected of products nowadays we need to have a huge collection of material including photographs showing every area of the exterior and cockpit. We spend a great deal of time negotiating access to real aircraft, all the way from the humble C152 at my flying club to the Fokker F28 which required a day trip to the Netherlands. The research trips are also the most interesting aspect of a project. We get to explore every inch of the aircraft and are usually guided by expert pilots and engineers. In the past couple of years, we have had full access to a 747, VC10, F28, Vulcan, 146 and a variety of GA aircraft. It's great fun for an aviation enthusiast! What new potentials are you seeing in creating software for the new 64-bit platforms? The latest platforms are providing us with much greater flexibility in terms of adding more detail and functionality without hitting 'hard-coded' limits or performance issues. The developers of the platforms also listen to feedback from third-party developers and respond with changes to the core simulator that make our lives easier and add potential for even greater levels of detail, for example the addition of PBR materials to Prepar3D. This also presents some challenges though, and the gaps between Prepar3D v4 and the older platforms such as FSX:SE are widening, making it increasingly time-consuming (and thus costly) to develop an aircraft for those older platforms. Other developers have understandably taken the decision to focus on developing for only one platform for this reason. XP11 and P3Dv4+ are both very powerful platforms - Which platform would you say is the most challenging platform to create software for and why? Both platforms have their advantages and disadvantages, but as demonstrated by our products which are available on both, we can develop products to a very similar level regardless of platform, meaning that our customers get a consistent experience on all platforms. X-Plane 11 presents challenges with its regular updates, but those updates also provide numerous improvements and opportunities. X-Plane 11 offers more flexibility for developers but the Prepar3D team are also very helpful. What do you find the most rewarding to create, sceneries, regions or aircraft and why? We work hard to develop a wide range of products to appeal to as many of our customers as possible, but my personal preference is for developing aircraft. I love to learn all about the complex systems and quirks of each aircraft and see those accurately simulated in the finished product. Are you expecting to still support the older 32-bit platforms (FSX)? This is something I touched on briefly above. We intend to continue supporting 32-bit platforms in the short-term but longer-term we would like to transition to just 64-bit platforms as our customers do the same, as the latest 64-bit platforms provide us with the opportunity to develop better products. We keep an eye on the ratio of 32-bit to 64-bit platform customers to ensure that we are supporting the largest number of simmers as possible, and there are still plenty of people using the 32-bit platforms. The future of flight simulation - how do you think that will be? It's very hard to predict where the flight simulation market will go over the coming years but it's likely to continue to be quite split, with simmers using one (or several) of a variety of available platforms, for example Prepar3D, X-Plane 11 and Aerofly. There is no longer a single dominant platform as there was in the past with FS2004 and then FSX, and I think that is set to continue with Prepar3D v5 and Microsoft's new Flight Simulator, although there is currently too little information on the latter for any third-party developer to make a judgement on how that will affect them. Do you have some new and interesting projects lined up in your pipeline that you could share with us? We're currently focused on the 747 Classic and PA-38 Tomahawk and have no shortage of new aircraft in development following those, such as the 146 and F28. Traffic Global for X-Plane 11 is now in beta testing and is looking very exciting, and we have just announced our next GA aircraft - the Robin DR400. Further down the line we have an iconic European twin-engine airliner, but more on that soon... You create high quality software but besides that, what do you think makes your products unique? Plenty really. Obviously the main one being the mission to ensure each product we develop and publish is of the highest quality possible and offers value for money to all users. That doesn't always mean add-ons that have taken 5 or 10 years to develop, that's just not possible for us but we ensure what we do supply doesn't leave people short and the work involved and included is of a high standard. We try and ensure nothing leaves the building/hangar unless we're 100% happy with it. We try not to leave it there too. We pride ourselves in looking after the customer and offering the very best possible post-purchase experience for all our customers. We try and treat all customers in the same way that we'd like to be treated. We engage with the community where possible and never shirk responsibilities. We listen and where possible we take on board suggestions and ideas, all designed to offer the best possible package to our customers. We believe we have learnt a lot in the 20 plus years of business and putting this into practice sets us up as 'the' place to shop for flight simmers all around the globe. Martyn Northall Shop Just Flight at the FlightSim.Com Store
-
View full article
