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Jenn Kimball and Alex Stephens (A-Pilot) Interview Conducted by Dominic Smith Development When did you start developing for flight simulators and what got you interested in it? We both started developing X-Plane aircraft in early 2015. We had always wanted to learn how to model aircraft for simulators but didn't get started until we got our noses into X-Plane. With all of the tools readily available, such as Plane-Maker and AC3D, we quickly acquired the basic knowledge of how to make a very simple, animated, flying aircraft. It's a bit of an addiction, because each plane we make gets a little "better" in some way. Our first serious project was Alex's AL-60, which taught us a lot of what we now know. Could you tell us about the nature of your designs? Our primary focus is on creating general aviation and light sports aircraft. However, we have also created a few custom designed aircraft such as the GO-XP and AP-120. Put simply, our ultimate goal is creating aircraft which are fun to fly. What do you consider your best or most popular work? The Piper Cub series is easily our most popular work. Who doesn't love a Cub? This little aircraft has so much character that we just had to build one. We went all out on this project, and did everything to the best of our ability, so as to make the flight experience as true-to-life as possible. We even flew a real Cub during the project just to make sure! Fantastic! Have you received any feedback from actual Cub owners regarding your X-Plane model? Not as yet. But if you're a real Cub owner and have X-Plane installed, we would love to hear from you! What do you find to be the most challenging aspect of a project? Haha...fine tuning the 3D model, so as to be as accurate as possible! It's no exaggeration when I say this is really tedious (but has to be done)! For custom designs, the biggest challenge (and perhaps the most fun) is making sure the designs are at least somewhat plausible if they were real. What have been your favorite projects so far? You know Dom, we have quite a sense of humor, so we'd have to say the "River Rat"! This was Alex's idea for a flying fishing boat, and has to be, without doubt the most amusing and entertaining project done to date! He even installed a fish finder and a radio which, when clicked, plays a motivating tune while you fly around. If this wasn't enough, the 'soda can' in the cup holder oozes green slime during turbulence! On a more serious note, getting the floats and tundras on the Super Cub was a real blast, especially the test flying portions of development. I think it's fair to say that each project in its own way, is an adventure. Green slime? Are you sure it's drinkable? Well, er, yes... we haven't personally experienced any side effects, but a word of caution: it's mighty addictive! When creating your designs, what software packages and tools do you use to develop? For our designs, we use AC3D, Gimp, and Plane-maker. We also use some X-Plane specific plug-ins with AC3D. Do you develop payware/freeware or both? At present we focus solely on freeware, but in the near future we wish to try our hand at payware. We will however, continue to provide quality freeware aircraft at the same time...so don't worry! What additional challenges do you think might come with creating a payware aircraft? With the jump to payware, everything will have to be as accurate as possible; this includes flight dynamics, instrumentation and custom made sounds. By design, a payware aircraft should have more functionality over a freeware model. For example, in a freeware aircraft, you can get away with a baggage door that doesn't open, but in a really nice payware aircraft, people are going to want all those extra goodies. The Team How many members are in the A-Pilot team? We're a duo--Jenn Kimball and Alex Stephens (oh and the cat). Could you tell us a bit about your different roles? We both do a little bit of everything as it depends on the project. Sometimes one will do most of the work, while the other member concentrates on something entirely different. Some projects are of course 50/50 and combine the talents of both members. Real Life Do either of you have any experience in real aviation? Yes we do! Jenn is a private pilot, and Alex hopes to hold a light sport certificate one day soon. Do you find that your real world piloting skills help you in modeling your designs? Most definitely! Real world piloting makes it much easier to get both the physics and handling of a model to a highly realistic level. On top of that, being in and around airplanes a lot gives one a greater understanding of the systems and how everything looks and works. Not surprisingly, because of the modeling work involved, X-Plane has also helped our understanding of real aircraft. What started your interest in aviation? We both wanted to fly since we were kids, but neither of us pursued any certification until several years ago. Do either of you have any memorable flights in real life? Yes, quite a few have been memorable. A standout would have to be flying the Waco VPF-7 (Victor Paul Frank) which was pretty spectacular for both of us. We're proud to have gotten the chance to take the controls of such an amazing piece of aviation history. What other things do the two of you do for enjoyment? We're both musicians and make mostly rock and roll or techno. We play guitars, drums, keyboards and bass. We also enjoy simple arts and crafts and every once in a while, we'll fly a scale model aircraft on a quiet evening. Have you ever considered doing flight simulator development full-time? No, not really. It's a hobby and we do it mainly because it's fun! Full time would kill the enjoyment! Future How do you go about choosing your next new design or project? If we find a plane that we feel would be a good addition to the X-Plane experience, we'll do some homework on it and start on the project within about a week. Our custom designs often come out of an imaginative, lengthy conversation about what could be fun, possible, and interesting. There's a lot of tossing around of ideas. What simulators do you design for now and which ones do you plan to develop for in the future? For now we only develop for X-Plane, and don't have any plans (yet) to migrate to another simulator. What are your impressions of X-Plane 11 so far? We love the feel of the lighting and the general look of the sim. Sure, it's got its flaws, but hey, it's still a beta! The default planes look absolutely fantastic and are a great improvement over those found in X-Plane 10. What would you like to see from X-Plane 11 in the future (both from a designer and a simmers perspective)? An improvement on clouds, and the way they impact on frame rates would be nice. The team at Laminar Research seem to be working on this though. Your Thoughts What can sites like FlightSim.Com do to support you and the hobby better? We love it when sites help point us in the direction of talented developers and their content, both freeware and payware. Reading comprehensive reviews, and seeing what everyone is up to in the world of flight simulation is equally important. Yes, we're developers, but we're also flight sim enthusiasts, and so we like to keep abreast of what's going on. Luckily FlightSim.Com provides all of this to the simmer. How do you feel about the future of flight simulation in general? The future of flight simulation depends not just on the quality of the simulator as it stands, but on the support of the community. It's fair to say that great add-ons, freeware and payware, are crucial to the continuing success and growth of the simulation community, but so too is community participation. So far, we're all doing a great job, and we should keep encouraging newcomers to learn how to develop their own quality add-ons to share. It's fun, rewarding, and benefits the entire community. Half the fun of a simulator, to us at least, is getting add-ons to enhance and customize our simulation experience. We're sure we're not the only ones who feel that way! What are some of the most important things a site or community can do to help developers? Few things rival the power of articles and reviews. Showcasing a developer's work is a great help to developer and really puts them in the limelight. Lastly, what would you like people to know about you and your work? The most important thing which we'd like people to know about us, is we do all this because it's incredibly fun! Not only do we enjoy making and flying our aircraft, but we also get great satisfaction knowing that other people will be having a blast flying them too! Jenn Kimball Alex Stephens (A-Pilot) Download A-Pilot Files