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Interview: Mark Verschaeren About You Tell us a little bit about yourself and the sorts of things you have done or enjoyed besides flight simulation? Marketing and communication have been my job and passion the whole of my professional career. But next to that, I have always been a flightsim enthusiast. Actually, I started as a hobby cockpit builder myself. And I still build for myself. Next to that, I like to travel, overseas if possible (always hoping I can have a peak in the cockpit). I am pretty into documentaries and movies and a Mac-adept. Oh, and I have a big twenty-something daughter and a little 10 month old boy. Great fun! What types of designs and projects have you worked on over the years? Flight Illusion has been extending its range from just Boeing and King Air gauges to a staggering range of over 100 type specific gauges, covering airliners, business jets, general aviation and helicopters. We also developed products for the professional market and we are proud to have Boeing, Airbus and even a railway simulator company amongst our customers. Do you have any real world aviation experience, fly any planes, or own any aircraft? Yes I do, for many years I have flown ultralights. Due to circumstances I had to quit, but every opportunity I get to fly with someone else, I am off. Flying stays the most liberating and amazing thing to do. I am planning to take up the flying again, but unfortunately time often keeps me from it. But one day I will. And until then, I keep myself sharp by flying simulators. When did you first get involved in flight simulation, what interested you and influenced you most about it? Way back in the nineties, I discovered Sublogic's ATPL. It was the first simulator with a credible cockpit. Actually, it was a photorealistic cockpit panel and allowed for a very credible flight experience. Later came Microsoft Flight Simulator 95 and that changed the external view. From that point, I was so into simming that I wanted to get rid of the mouse and keyboard and really act like a pilot, using radios and throttles. I had a small panel - I can't remember the name - that offered almost all functionalities in one. And later on I had an extensive range of GoFlight modules. Then I started with gauges from Simkits, but as that is a single plane and I was building a B1900 panel, I needed to look for other solutions. That's how I met Marco and that's how the story really took off. Do you have any particular flight simulator you enjoy working with or using yourself more than others? I have my own cockpit. Hence, at one point in time, I committed to sitting every time in the same plane. I use the Eaglesoft Citation, but any business jet could have been OK, as long as you have a correct mix between steam gauges and early EFIS. The Company Tell us about how Flight Illusion got started? Who founded it, when, where, and a little history. As I said, I started as a hobby cockpit builder myself. And as we all do, I wanted to have my panel as realistic and accurate as possible. In my search for engine instruments for my King Air 1900 panel, I met Marco and Peter, two engineers who created the most beautiful gauges. We found ourselves to be complementary in the way we approach the market. They liked the way I worked, I liked what they did and a new collaboration was born. Now, eight years later, Flight Illusion has become one of the major players in the simulation gauges business. What is the company's mission and vision? Flight Illusion develops and integrates technologies for flight simulators. We believe simulators and their sub-assemblies can be made a lot cheaper using a no-nonsense approach in modern technology. We offer a complete range of solutions, from generic, off the shelf, avionics to the more integrated, personalized displays and control panels. If you need an interface for your home built cockpit project, or any other challenging requirement for combined use with flight simulator, turn to the engineering and manufacturing team at Flight Illusion. Every solution reflects our expertise in electronics, design, software and is so easy to use that you'll be up and running in no time. Having more than 8 years of experience in building simulator hardware and software, we can guarantee highly qualified products and very stable software. Although our prices are very reasonable, we do not do concessions as to the quality of the components we are using. Next to the hobby market we also make custom-made simulation gauges for the professional market and complete training panels for flying clubs and schools. How many people are employed and what are the key roles (including when you started and what your role is now if that was not answered above)? All members of the Flight Illusion team are just regular flight sim enthusiasts. There are four of us plus the occasional freelancers to help us produce the gauges. Matthijs and Marco are engineers and specialized in developing hardware that looks exactly like the real deal. Peter is our software guru. There isn't anything he can't program. And I am doing sales, marketing and am the direct contact person for our customers. Tell us about your top selling products and how they are being used by customers? There isn't really a top selling product. The Boeing range is the most popular, but that's a no-brainer, as the B737 is the most emulated cockpit, both in hardware and software. The force feedback yokes are a relative hit given the price is high, but every customer agrees that it was a very good decision to spend money on something that keeps you inside the simulation. What would you consider the main markets for your products? Actually, we identify three markets for our products. We are born and raised in the hobby market and they remain very dear to us. Anyone looking for type-specific gauges for their cockpit panels will find what they are looking for in our product range. For Boeing as well as general aviation we have almost every gauge replicated. But if you look for something specific that you don't find in our product range, we will look into the possibility to develop it. Next to the hobby market, we are very flattered that also the professional market of (semi-) professional cockpit builders has discovered us and estimate our quality so high that they want to rely on us. You can now find Flight Illusion gauges in professional simulators for general aviation as well as airliners. We even developed custom made gauges for a train simulator. And last but not least, we develop fully equipped, plug-and-play training panels for flying schools and clubs allowing them to prepare flights in a 100% accurate environment, but keeping both feet an the ground. How do your products have an advantage over others like them, and what makes them unique from the competitors? High quality products with a great service are our main goal. One of the most important differences compared to our competitors is the choice of our materials. We go for aluminum bezels instead of plastic and use stepper motors instead of servo motors. This digital technology allows a very smooth needle movement. Also our daisy-chaining system is quite unique. All our gauges can be daisy-chained and connected to the interface which is connected with one USB cable to the computer. So no 'cable spaghetti' behind the panel... Development Do you do all your own development in-house or contract parts of it out to other companies? We conceptualize, design, develop and produce all our products in house. That includes the development and testing of printed circuit boards as well as the software development. All production is also done in our Apeldoorn facility. Most mechanical components are made by us. A simple gauge can be developed in ten weeks, but more complex projects can take up to one year before we have a production model. The attitude indicator had a development time that was way overdue, with seven prototypes and two different production models, but it is truly a piece of mechanical art. Tell us about the build quality and flexibility/expandability of your products? If you build a B737 cockpit, you can start with just a standby set, then move later on to complete the MIP with flap gauge, brake pressure and yaw damper. Then finalize the panel with our clocks. Later you can invest in the overhead gauge set. If you are building a general aviation panel, you could start with the basic six. Later you can add radio modules and NAV gauges and end up with the engine cluster. As the interface can handle up to 64 gauges or modules, it is evident that you can start small and complete your setup at your own pace. Which platforms do your products support FS2004, FSX, Prepar3D, X-Plane, other? We support all of the above: all versions of Flight Simulator, Prepare3D and X-Plane work standard with our software. But next to that we are very open source. So if one of our customers uses different software and can program, we will give him all the codes so he can make it work. How do you choose your next project? Feedback from customers, market research, etc.? We are in very close contact with our customers. We are present on several fairs, shows and salons every year. Not only to show our products but also to meet face-to-face with our customers. By talking to them, we learn what they like about our products, what we can improve and which new products they would like to see us develop in the future. We take this information back to our development guys to see what is feasible and desirable to work on next. But we also receive spontaneously a lot of questions of people asking if we have or can make certain products. And we will also look into these requests, which often results in the development of new products. Future What is your focus right now and what new products are you thinking about doing? Today, we are focusing on new gauges for Airbus and a PRO range for the hobby market, as even they require sometimes the highest level of simulation. This has already led to the RMI-PRO which is a gauge with six motors, needed to move all the needles, compass rose and flags. How do you feel about the future of flight simulation in general? As our business is really a niche market, I guess that it will remain that way. About 7000 to 10,000 people are into hard core sim building. We have still a lot of customers to convince. In what ways do you see development changing in the future? We have seen a shift from hobby market to the PRO market. That will hopefully continue, as we want to expand and get better. Having to work with PRO customers (e.g. Diamond aircraft) produced gauges that are ultimately available to the hobby market as well. What would you like people to know about you, your work or products that we have not covered? I hope that our products speak for themselves. I know that people who see the gauges or radio modules working at flight sim shows are convinced. It doesn't mean they will purchase our stuff immediately, but when they are in the building process, they will consider our products. I truly believe that our effort to make simulation as true to reality as we can. That is the basis for the success that we know. Mark Verschaeren Flight Illusion www.flightillusion.com -
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