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Interview With Steve Choi - VRInsight Conducted by Ray Andersen About VRInsight And You Tell us about the company - who founded it, when, where, why and maybe a little history. Mr. Chris Han / CEO, Mr. Ilho Kook / Developer and vice president, Mr. Bang / Product director and Mr. Steve Choi / Sales manager. It was a hobby of our developer Mr. Kook who was a well-known semiconductor (electronic integrated circuit) designer. He saw some flight simmers wanted to have their own flight control unit but till that time, there was no affordable hardware. Some would break a keyboard to re-form as flight controller, but the result not always good because any flight simulator uses very complex key combinations. Mr. Kook who already knew how to make it all with electronic circuits using generic controller and even dedicated programmable ICs and software writing, made primitive MCP and CDU and supplied to Korean simmers. It was just one time products but the response was hot. It's not possible to supply requested units privately. So, he decided to build a flight simulation company with current company members. This is the beginning stories of our company. The company is founded in Seoul. What is the company's mission and vision? Since its founding, VRinsight provided affordable products and continues for the future. More to this, we will target upper-level simulator units and other simulation areas such as ship simulator and train simulator. Rescently, we developed glass cockpit gauge for military and real pilot training use. How many people are employed and what are the key rolls? We have five members. Each of them handles different part. Mr. Chris Han / CEO, Mr. Ilho Kook / Senior Developer and vice president, Mr. Bang / Product director, Mr. Park / Junior developer and Mr. Steve Choi / Sales manager. When did you start at the company and what are your key rolls? We founded VRinsight in 2008 located at Suwon, Korea. Recently we have moved to Incheon city near to Seoul. Tell us a little bit about yourself and the sorts of things you have done or enjoyed besides flight simulation? (This can include jobs, education, interests, hobbies, accomplishments, places lived etc.). Most of us are related to semiconductor and programmable IC, i.e. FPGA design. Especially my boss Chris Han worked at Samsung Electronics. All members of VRInsight are positively minded and enjoy their life with various interests. Steve loves fishing and watching and playing baseball. Bang plays video games on the net or portable devices, iPad and smart phone. Kook enjoys Ham radio, call-sign 6K2HJI, electronics homebrewing and watch night sky, star gazing. Mostly he loves CW, radio communications with Morse code saying he prefer classical slow way of life in the fastest modern computerized era. Mr.Kook holds Ph.D EE. Do you have any real world aviation experience, fly any planes, or own any aircraft? Unfortunately, we have no real world aviation experience. Who would you consider your mentors or people you admire in the flight simulator world Maybe Charles Augustus Lindbergh... Bruce Artwick, creator of flight simulator on the PC. It was about 30 years ago when I met Flight Simulator on the Apple II computer. Since then I was longing for my cockpit. 30 years later, I became a creator of flight simulation devices. Sales Where are your products being used or sold - primary, secondary, tertiary markets? Most of VRinsight products are sold to the secondary market especially for personal users. However, more and more demands from schools and flying organization have risen. How do you brand your products Basically, we condense the features of the product and name it. Through which channels do you sell your product - web sites, stores, other? VRinsight has two distributors: Simware Simulations in Belgium and eDimensional Inc. in US. VRinsight exports products through them every month. And they distribute product to their resellers (more than 40 resellers). Most of them sell products through web sites but Simware Simulations has its own show room. VRinsight has its own online-shop, www.vrinsightshop.com. What are your top three selling products and why do you think they are the top three? V737 Overhead, Prop Cockpit Trainer and MCP Combo II Series ( Boeing MCP and Airbus FCU). What is the company's mission and vision? Which product is your flagship and why Prop Cockpit Trainer is our flagship. Prop Cockpit Trainer is an integrated propeller training device for individuals, a club or flying school. Customers want to practice and experience regardless of the time and space limit. And that it should be an affordable price. What makes your products unique from other hardware Our main developer knows well about flight simulation, FPGA design and that he knows how to integrate both. We manufacture products slim and portable. Development How do you choose your next project - inquiry from flight simmers, market search or other? As I told you, we have no real aviation experience. So before we develop a new product, we refer all requests from our customers and try to hear our reseller's opinion. Is all the hardware and software developed in the company? Yes. What do you find to be the most challenging and interesting aspects of a project? Production cost and its retail price. I, a developer and flight simmer, always consider "affordability". As experienced working engineer of electronics, I can make a flight simulation unit's circuitry easily. But making it as selling products is another. To make it good looking appreance and handling, the cost goes up higher than I expected. Which platforms do your products support FS2004, FSX, Prepar3D, X-Plane, other? Mostly FSX and some units still support FS2004. X-Plane and Prepar3D are partially compatible. Future How do you feel about the future of flight simulation in general? Unfortunately, the future of flight simulation is quite bright. Since we attended overseas show from 2008 in Belgium, it has been getting difficult to find young visitors. However, the aviation business is getting bigger so we may expect many serious young simmers. In what ways do you see development changing in the future? Aviation changes very slowly due to safety. We don't imagine there will be a significant change. But for the flight simmers, more integrated and affordable products will show up. Which new products do you have lined up in your pipeline? We are moving to jetliners. Our next product is Airbus Overhead (V320 Overhead) and we will make a more integrated unit for jetliners like a prop cockpit trainer - 2S. In General What is your favorite flightsim platform to use and why? FSX. Since FSX provides us better interfacing circumstance and relatively enhanced map data so far. What is your favorite product and why? My favorite is Flight Master Yoke. Reasonable price, good handling and sturdy. Steve Choi http://www.vrinsightshop.com