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Canada4XPlane Developer Interview with Patrick Putland Conducted by Dominic Smith Development Patrick, when did you start developing for X-Plane? I first started to get into flight simulators in the summer of 2016 - I had always planned on having a sim, but never really got into it until then. I was flying the default C90 in X-Plane 10, from Calgary to Vancouver, when I realized how limited the default scenery was in this area. Aiming to improve on this, I searched a few tutorials, and after getting used to WED, produced Canada4XPlane's first scenery. I have to admit, that scenery was extremely crude compared to what we are now able to produce! Can you tell us about the nature of your sceneries and what you try to focus on? We try to keep everything as close to the real world airport as possible. Many of the airports we have done, we have visited on road trips, or have seen while flying. Scenery development has also taught us a lot about how beautiful Canada is. Out of all the sceneries you have created, what do you consider your best or most popular work? Personally, I like CYLW Kelowna, but I think our most popular airport would either be CYOW Ottawa, or YXE Saskatoon. They both feature wonderful custom ground textures, and custom buildings. Suffice to say, a lot of effort was put into the development of both. What do you find to be the most challenging aspect of scenery development? To be honest, I personally don't find anything challenging anymore, unless there is a mesh/elevation issue. Sometimes it can be fixed, and sometimes it can't. You just need to go through a large list of steps to find out if you can fix it. What have been your favorite scenery projects? My Favorite project would have to be either CYLW Kelowna, or CYKA Kamloops. I have visited both airports many times, both by aircraft and on the ground, and the approaches and scenery are always fun to experience. What software packages and tools do you use to create your sceneries? As a team, we mainly use WED, SketchUp, and Gimp. We used to use Overlay Editor, but if you know X-Plane inside and out, WED works much faster. Who would you consider to be your mentors or inspiration in the development world if you have any? We don't really have any "mentors" but there have been many people along the road that have taught us both the good and the bad of scenery development. All of us at Canada4XPlane would like to thank them for all the help they gave us. It means a lot, as without their help, we wouldn't be here today! Patrick, do you and the team develop payware/freeware sceneries, or both? Since the creation of Canada4XPlane, we have received plenty of emails saying that we should do payware scenery, but all of us in the team love the thanks and encouragement we get from other X-Plane users, and this down to the high standard of our freeware work. How many people are in the Canada4XPlane team? Right now there are three members in the team. All of us have been long time friends, and share an equal passion for aviation. This makes the hobby of scenery development even more enjoyable for us! What do the various members of the team do? We share most of the jobs, but to give you an idea, I assemble the sceneries, and the other team members create the objects, edit textures, and respond to emails. The work is shared equally among all three of us. Do you have any experience in real aviation? I don't currently have my pilots license, but I hope to get it very soon once funds allow, and I stop spending it on X-Plane enhancements! I do, however, have many hours flying with friends in the right seat, or tagging along in the jumpseat (always fun). Patrick, what started your interest in aviation? My father has the aviation genes, so I have him to thank for my hobby! Do you have any memorable flights in real life? One memorable flight I had, was in a Basler BT-67. This was a thrill of a lifetime and what I remember most about it were the sounds of the engines; they were simply amazing! Have you ever considered doing flight simulator development full-time? If anyone ever needed me, YES! I would love to do this full time (who wouldn't?). Patrick, how do you and the team choose the next new scenery project? I have a list of airports that the team and I want to create, but we haven't even finished a third of what's on there. What simulators do you design for now and which ones do you plan to develop for in the future? For myself, I plan to stay with X-Plane for the foreseeable future. The reason for this is because I see so much potential in both the community and the simulator itself. In what ways do you see scenery development changing in the future? I can see more and more people getting into X-Plane development. The reason being, there is simply so much more information available online now (pictures, charts, videos, etc.), that it makes replicating a real world scenery so much easier. You don't even have to visit the airport anymore. Your Thoughts What can sites like FlightSim.Com do to support you and the hobby better? I like sites that promote freeware developers and their work. These developers put a lot of time and effort into creating sceneries, so as to share them with others, so it's nice to see that people respect and realize this. How do you feel about the future of flight simulation in general? Personally, I'm very excited to see where flight simulation is headed! Even in the relatively short time that I have been involved (two years), I have seen so much improvement. What are some of the most important things a site or community can do to help the developers? I think the best thing a site can do for developers, is make sure people know how much time and effort we put into our work. Lastly Patrick, what would you like people to know about you and the team? I am thrilled to tell you, that the CFXP team will be creating high quality freeware scenery for years to come. Our scenery is free and always will be! Patrick Putland Canada4XPlane Download Canada4XPlane scenery
