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Interview With X-Plane Scenery Developer Bruce Erwin Bruce, when did you first start developing for flight simulators and what got you interested in it? It's hard to recall, but guessing it would be around early 2014 when I first started building airports (X-Plane 10). At first these were local regionals associated with the western end of the Ohio River where I've lived, worked, then later retired to the huge twin lakes area of western Kentucky. Prior to X-Plane 10, I previously had X-Plane 9.0 running on a highly overtaxed Mac Mini. Therefore, my first hometown build was KEVV, later KPAH which is now considered our home regional airport nearest the retirement lake house, although we airline-fly out of BNA. Next, I branched out in all directions throughout the mid-south. Worth looking up is the historical Republic Aviation, WWII relationship between KEVV and KFRG, Farmingdale NY where the war's number one U.S. European campaign fighter aircraft was built. Therefore, KFRG was also an early build along with a few other northeastern airports surrounding it. It should be noted, my primary fight sim preference is GA and corporate aircraft, never airlines. Therefore, build preferences up to now* have been GA/executive airports such pilots prefer to avoid, due to airline traffic congestion, jet turbulence and long taxi-line waits. *Recent and current build efforts will be explained below. Could you tell us about the nature of your designs? The nature of my designs (all exclusively for X-Plane) are 3-D airports which are made using freely available 3-D structures and other objects from third-party sources. Having taken a stab at 3-D CAD/CAM art, I decided it consumes too much time which detracts from airport builds (I want to go places, to immersive airports). Mostly my attempts (where possible) are to pull existing airports into compliance with AirNav specs and satellite views; in many instances adding scenery immediately adjacent to airports. However, the latter only happens when the default scenery lacks-good shopping center-motel/hotel structures, etc. As a prime hobby, I try to attack airport builds with the immerse intensity of a model railroad builder and consider it my daily work replacement with similar hours devoted (or more). Call it an addiction, but it helps sweep out the mental cobwebs and is easily affordable. Builds from here are usually submitted to the XP Gateway first, and omit third-party scenery elements (non Laminar), which at present, the Gateway unfortunately refuses to accept. Later, I either add or replace WED default scenery objects with third-party scenery elements, and place them into Dropbox for a select group of XP flying friends and FlightSim.Com to download. Bruce what have been your favorite projects so far? Favorite builds off the top of my head and which are now bundled into XP are: KBNA, KIND. There's also the intense build of PANC-PAL, plus the complex airports of KFRG, KPWK, PAFA and KNEW. However, all are far more immersive with third party objects and aircraft added (hats off to the numerous authors of OpenSceneryX and especially Mister-X's outstanding work for making this possible). Who would you consider to be your mentors or inspiration in the development world if you have any? My initial mentor in XP was Jack Oliphant, a CFI and instrument instructor, plus a part-timer for X-Plane support. Jack advised in setting up my initial SIM system and he and I have become regular-conversing online friends. Also Randy Witt (XP support), the whole XP team and Julian Lockwood, Gateway Chief Moderator. All have been very helpful at times and I'm certainly not shy at attempting to help them. Bruce do you work by yourself or as part of a team? I'm a one-man band here, no others are on my team; in fact there is no team! Joking aside, with the intensity of my efforts here, I feel like a virtual, unaccredited member of the XP team. Do you develop payware/freeware or both and why? I do no payware, only free immersive 3-D airports built exclusively so as to advance the XP cause and for personal enjoyment. However, one build above was inspired upon a request from a third-party sim aircraft vendor for an FBO having simulator problems. That also was supplied free gratis, with an unsolicited and very nice sim gift surprise received in return. Bruce, would you like to share what you do in real life? In real life, my occupation was as a skilled journeyman color prepress film assembler. This was for just over forty years before retiring at age sixty (now twenty-one years ago) all of which was computerized, so I both learned and did pioneer work in that field. Do you have any experience in real aviation, including memorable flights? In early-marriage years, in addition to my apprenticeship job, I worked part time on the flight line for the Beechcraft/Piper FBO at EVV (I also privately polished aircraft). The main aim of this was to pay for flying lessons. Aircraft owners and FBO/instructor pilots there somehow took a liking to me, and I think it's fair to say that I have far more unlogged hours than logged! I've soloed and have some logged cross country in a Cessna 140 taildragger, flown the left seat and landed a Bonanza, co-piloted a de Havilland Dove at night and even helped deliver a body into deep Appalachia; also in a Bonanza. Serious illness and lacking young-family finances unfortunately ended all of that, but not a fascination ever since childhood for all things aviation. Last time here at the yoke was an hour's worth of touch and goes at PAH. This was in a recent C-172 and my first crack at using the G-1000 EFIS. Close-in, tight approaches were quite an event after being trained for long legs at EVV, but I pulled it off nonetheless, LOL. How do you choose your next new design or project? Inspiration: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Loop From the twin lakes here, you can boat around the entire eastern half of the USA in one grand loop and return. Fortunate folks have done that in their watercraft and received some sort of Presidential accommodation (but not me). For myself, I thought; why not do it in a GA simulated aircraft...and perhaps go a step further and go around the Gaspe' Peninsula? So, with the excellent Carenado F-33 Bonanza in hand, off I went and flew the entire route described above, and in real time! Eight intense flying days later, after noting all the airports I had landed en-route, I was glad to return to PAH. The event was highly educational as there were so many islands in all types of waterways! What came next was building the noted airports in 3-D. How do you choose your next new design or project? (Continued) I also have a fascination/affection for Alaskan airports, so I have built a series of them from PAFA (Fairbanks International Airport), moving south-southeast down the Canadian coastline to KRNT. Each build has a common a relationship, that being seaplane facilities. The above, plus flying these long lakes and their main tributaries developed an interest in flying amphibious floatplanes. Note: Kentucky Lake, its TVA chain of large tributary lakes and rivers and many airports alongside, are now only fully replicated within XP 11.0+ (unless using HD Mesh in X-Plane 10). The same is true for Lake Barkley and its Cumberland River tributary, plus its large lake chains eastward beyond Nashville TN into Appalachia. My current fascination is flying to the Bahamas and the Antilles; from the USA to Trinidad and return. I've laid out a flight plan of reasonable GA hops and in the process, developed the 3-D airports found on the islands. However, as a slight departure (no pun intended) all of these will be international airports, with very lengthy runways capable also of handling heavies. So if you're an XP airline jockey, you can enjoy them too! Perfect for a Caribbean cruise flight! What can sites like FlightSim.Com do to support you and the hobby better? No complaints here about FlightSim.Com, but hoping it will soon adapt to widescreen screen captures. How do you feel about the future of flight simulation in general? In my opinion, flying has lost a great deal of its romance among the younger generation. Many assume flying is a) just another way to get around with someone else at the controls b) only for those wealthy enough to own and support an aircraft and c) for those who approach it professionally and who need simulators. Worse off, they may wrongly assume flying an aircraft is easy and something anyone can do with just a little training. While correct to a degree (GPS coupled to an EFIS makes navigation far simpler), actually having the flight control in one's hand, coupled to all the natural and other dangers present when in the air, is an entirely different story. Flight simulators should never be sold as "games", but as intense skill challenges. Example: My young grandson last night said after a training session that his knees were shaking uncontrollably. I told him, in real life, all pilots feet dance on the pedals from time to time, aircraft carrier pilots even more frequently! Other info and comments offered (Non FlightSim questions-related) The control system here is all Saitek, Pro-Yoke, dual throttle quadrants, and pedals. I'm pleading Laminar to develop and incorporate into XP, a dual yoke/joystick option, which after each is initially set up, could be easily be switched back and forth without redoing Control Settings; even better, link the applicable control device to the proper aircraft automatically upon aircraft startup. The remainder of the system here is a SIM-only dedicated iBuyPower PC propelled by an AS Rock gaming MoBo and its Intel i7-3770-K CPU, with 16 GB RAM. The air-cooled 3.5 GHz Intel is not over clocked and runs cool in XP. The GPU is a recently purchased, Nvidia GTX 8GB 1080 running at very high settings to maximize XP-11's massive new pop-up scenery detail. WIN 10+, XP and WED all reside on a Samsung 850 GB SSD for lightning PC startups. A 1GB Seagate Barracuda serves as backup for airport build storage, with an ADATA 125 GB SSD riding along separately. Viewing is accomplished upon three, BENQ 27 inch monitors, inner bezels of outer monitors underlapped into the center monitor's bezels forming a single, semi-curved 72 inch wide panoramic view. Cockpits using this system view nearly full-sized in the standard forward view mode; very immersive. Your mind senses aircraft attitude and motion changes. Also when viewing an airport via satellite on your left or right monitor, then zooming-in on it, is very convenient for picking up fine detail to add to your builds being constructed in WED on the center of your three 27 inch monitors. Actually if you like, WED can be spread out over the entirety of two or three monitors! A high-resolution Logitech Bluetooth G7000s mouse is preferred for working or flying across three large monitors. It also greatly enhances scrolling around large airport builds. The small, wired keyboard selected to lay atop (Velcro-ed to) the Saitek yoke is an SIIG. Nearing the end of its many days of hard work, I have another little wired guy of another brand, but before that will try the new mini-Logitech round-keyed wireless unit. That's about all of 'your' time I deserve to waste, Folks. Hope you enjoyed this dissertation. Best wishes and always, your blue side up! Bruce Erwin View Bruce Erwin's Scenery Files -
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