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Interview With David Rowberry Microsoft Flight Simulator Aircraft Developer Conducted by Dominic Smith Development When did you start developing for flight simulators and what got you interested in it? Aviation has always been an interest of mine. Beginning with assembling plastic Airfix kits, and balsa Keil Kraft flying models as a child, I graduated onto the real thing when I joined the RAF as an Engine Technician. After twenty two years of service I left and set myself up as an antiques restorer, retaining my contact with aviation through hang gliding, but my passion for making things also saw me as a longbow and arrow maker, model maker and miniature artist. In 1998/99 a series of retinal detachments and only partially successful operations left me with depleted eye sight. With no depth perception and unable to work with the required precision I was used to, it meant I had plenty of time on my hands, so I swapped my motorbike for a computer (literally), and began to see what I might achieve with it. A program included free with a magazine - TrueSpace - got me interested in 3D graphics, and on their forum I was inspired by a letter from a chap who had created a glider and flown it in FS8. This was quite involved as it was first drawn in TrueSpace and then imported to Gmax using the MDL converter! The first hang glider I created finally emerged as the Wills Wing Sport. I have to admit I initially chose a hang glider not least because I didn't know how to animate controls. The thrill I got though from seeing something I had created actually flying in the sim was fantastic. Anyway I soon had to learn about animation because I decided I just HAD to have the pilot run to takeoff and land, and so I graduated to using Gmax for all the modelling (I still use it now). Tell us about the nature of your designs and what you do? Well you might have noticed I like flying wings! This love affair probably started as a boy when I saw a photo in Aeromodeler of some enormous free flight flying wing gliders. I remember thinking how elegant they looked. Because of my enthusiasm and experience of real life hang gliders, I have tried to represent the various types known; flex wing (Airborne), semi-rigid (A.I.R. Atos), and rigid (Aeriane/Brightstar). What do you consider your best or most popular work? I'm learning all the time, so to me each model is better than the previous one. As for popularity, I would say the Mitchell Wing UL has developed the most interest. However, the Aeriane I created for FS was so successful that the manufacturers of the real glider actually received enquires from people who had flown my model! What do you find to be the most challenging aspect of a project? Initial research (for me) is the most challenging aspect of a project. There are projects that I have started, that have become dead in the water, purely because I just couldn't find enough information on that given project. Research though, is a part of the project that I enjoy enormously. Another challenge is in creating the code so as to get all the custom animations working. I'm not a natural coder, so there is generally lots of trial and error involved before I get it right, but it's so satisfying when I finally do! What have been your favorite projects? Of the gliders I have created, the Horten is my favorite, as she was so ahead of her time in both appearance and engineering. She was just beautiful. I was able to find lots of information on her construction, so I was very happy with the final result and also the models accuracy. However the aircraft that is closest to my heart has to be the EE (English Electric) Lightning (having spent half a lifetime working on it), and I'm still in touch with the Lightning Preservation Group. http://www.lightnings.org.uk All the research I have been doing to create the model has brought back a lot of old memories, so that is my latest and best project. Not a flying wing I know, but I hope you'll forgive me for that. What software packages and tools do you use to develop? As I have already mentioned, I still use Gmax - I tried 3Ds but I felt it was just Gmax on steroids - and as I am probably only using it to a third of its capabilities, 3Ds is only giving me more functions I'm not going to use. I have recently found a converter for Gmax to 3Ds so maybe one day I'll try again. For the artwork I use Paintshop, again not as good as Photoshop I'm sure, but it does me; for converting textures to .dds I use DXTBmp and for creating bump maps I use GIMP. AirEd and AircraftAirfileManager suffice for the dynamics, and Audacity and FS Sound Studio is used for creating sounds. Would you recommend Gmax as a starter tool for readers interested in creating their first aircraft? If so, why? Absolutely! Firstly, it's free (it's provided with the sim; all you need to do is go online to Turbosqid and register your copy) so if you decide developing is not for you after all, you have not wasted any of your hard earned cash. Secondly, it really is a very good, powerful modeling tool. Tutorials for creating all aspects of a model are plentiful, either in written and diagram form, or YouTube videos, and there is also a forum to help, such as FSDeveloper or Free Flight Design Shop. If you find the idea of starting from scratch a bit too daunting you can even get source files of complete aircraft to practice with. Who would you consider to be your mentors or inspiration in the development world, if you have any? That's a tricky one. I suppose in those early days I would have to pick out Kazunori Ito. He was so prolific. Do you develop payware/freeware or both and why? Most of my models have been freeware but there have been a few exceptions to the rule. I originally intended for the American Aerolites Falcon UL to be free but as I was on a beta test team for one of Aerosoft's modelers, I thought I would be cheeky and ask if I could get them to also run the Falcon through a beta for me. As it happened, fortune smiled on me - Aerosoft liked it and offered to market it (albeit after a bit more work!). I did not think the Mitchell Wing would be quite so commercially viable so I decided to take the half way route and make it free through Aerosoft. The Lightning F3 was always intended as a commercial project. The Team How many people work with you or your team? I'm a one-man band. I enjoy all the aspects of making a model but I do sometimes feel it would be nice to be able to engage with other people to discuss problems, solutions, and everything else in between! Having said that, my flight dynamics are not up to commercial standards so a professional (John Cagle) has created those for my payware models. Real Life Do you have any experience in real aviation? I joined the RAF straight from school in 1968 as a two year Halton apprentice. My first thirteen years were on the Lightning fleet but later postings took me to helicopters, Tornados and trainers in the form of Tucano Bulldogs and JP's, so my experience is quite diverse. I have even been involved in working on the Vulcan, Meteor and Vampire (what was the vintage pair), a Lancaster, Spitfire and even Me109! What started your interest in aviation? Most of my classmates at that time were interested mainly in train-spotting or football, but not me. Aviation was my love, and it has been for as long as I can remember. Any memorable flights in real life? Well I had some pretty memorable flights in hang gliders, or perhaps should I say scary! But for sheer joy, my "Jollys" in a T-bird Lightning are unbeatable. Lightnings guzzle fuel so they don't generally stay up for long but on one flight, on the way home, we found a Victor tanker and topped up, so we were able to roar off again into the wide blue yonder for some more intercepts. Homeward bound we were offered the services of a KC135. People back on the ground were thinking we had crashed because we were away so long! The EE Lightning was an amazing aircraft; what do you think it was that set her apart from other aircraft of the time? When the Lightning first came into service, its Mach 2 performance put it into a whole different league to the rest of the planes that were struggling to go supersonic even in a dive. It stayed that way until the arrival of the F-15 and F-16 in the 1970's. The Lightning was an absolute delight to fly for the pilots, with its smooth handling and ample power but we ground crew were not quite as enthralled; it was a pig to work on! The aircraft originally had Avon 210 engines, and that was a tight fit, then they shoe-horned the bigger Avon 301 in to it make matters even worse. It was a love/hate relationship for us. I have plenty of fond memories from my Lightning days though (time is a great healer!). Old Lightning groundcrew could often be heard reminiscing, "when (or wish) I was on Lightnings..." (WIWOL). At air shows it was always a great crowd pleaser with its trademark rotation take-off and ear-shattering high speed low level runs along the crowd line. Even to this day the LPG pair at Bruntingthorpe draw in thousands to watch the reheat taxi runs. What other hobbies or things do you do for enjoyment? I used to be a rock climber/mountaineer, and this led me into hang gliding but where I live in Lincolnshire it's rather flat, so our local group was one of those at the forefront of developing the payout winch launch method. I'm proud to say I once coached a sixteen year old lad in the technique...he later became world champion, but I don't think I had much to do with it. As the years have passed though I now satisfy the adventurous spirit with the occasional hike and walking the dog. Have you ever considered doing flight simulator development full-time? I count myself as a hobbyist...but it's a full time hobby! Future How do you choose your next new design or project? Purely by whatever takes my fancy, although the Falcon started out as an illustration on how to get the three view drawings into Gmax for a gent who was having difficulty. He lost interest after a short while but I carried on with it. What simulators do you design for now and which ones do you plan to develop for in the future? I'll be concentrating on FSX/P3D from now on. If you could add one wish feature to P3D, what would it be and why? I haven't tried P3D yet but I have seen videos of models flying in it and the dynamic cockpit shadows look great. I think it is accepted though that the aerodynamics engine in FS2004/FSX is the poor relation to most other sims such as X-Plane and Condor Soaring etc. so that is where big improvements could be made. Quite how it could be achieved whilst still allowing the existing aircraft to operate could be a problem though. In what ways do you see development changing in the future? With the bigger faster computers available now, and FSX being such a flexible platform, I feel just about anything can be achieved given the imagination and skill. It also looks as if Lockheed Martin is ironing out some of the bugs Microsoft missed so I hope what we have will still be viable for many years to come. Your Thoughts What can sites like FlightSim.Com do to support you and the hobby better? No complaints here. Just keep doing what you do. How do you feel about the future of flight simulation in general? Well I was relieved that "Flight" did not achieve success; that would have been the death knell for us 3rd party developers! It's been a hard enough learning curve to get this far with FSX, I don't think I could have faced it all again for X-Plane or any other sim. What are some of the most important things a site or community can do to help the developers? Give us, the freeware guys, feedback. We will have spent months if not years creating the model you have just downloaded and though we do it for enjoyment, it's nice to be appreciated. So if you like it let us know (you used to! but it seems to be a habit that has declined). David Rowberry Download David Rowberry files -
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