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Interview: Tony Varela - GoFlight About GoFlight And You Tell us a little bit about yourself and the sorts of things you have done or enjoyed besides flight simulation? (This can include jobs, education, interests, hobbies, accomplishments, places lived, etc.). From an early age, I had a huge passion for flight (from watching too much Top Gun I'm sure). A hobby that resulted out of this was building model airplanes, from WWII through modern aircraft. I also discovered my fondness for building, and through this, I ended up choosing an education in architecture, over aviation, mostly because it seemed safe and was offered more readily at my school of choice. After a long time in the design field, and a series of 'fortunate' events, I found myself working closely with the world of aviation, and now I couldn't be happier! Outside of work, I try my best to soak up all the great outdoors of the Pacific Northwest. From skiing and snowboarding in the winter, to backpacking and white water kayaking in the summer, I can usually be found outdoors on the weekends. The adventurer in me also loves to travel, and while it's nothing to boast about in the flight community, I have travelled quite a bit. I love meeting new people and experiencing new things at every turn. When did you first get involved with flight simulation and what got you interested in it? I really didn't get too involved in flight simulation until I worked for a company that worked closely with GoFlight. It was really unknown to me that you could do something like this on your home computer. I thought it was only reserved for the full motion sims you only see on TV. Once I started working closer with GoFlight, I jumped right in! I'd say it was interest and curiosity of flight from an early age that made the decision to get involved with GoFlight a no brainer. Do you have any real world aviation experience, fly any planes, or own any aircraft? Obtaining a PPL at the very least has always been an item on the bucket list, but, it has been more than just another line item. Being around flight simulators and pilots, I see the life style of it all and it continues to fascinate me to no end. I don't own my own plane (yet) and only started shopping around for lessons. I only have a few hours in a real plane taking more or less discovery flights. Who do you consider your mentors in the flight simulation development world and why? GoFlight wouldn't be where it is today without the talented team that has been assembled. The founder of GoFlight, Frank Bouton, and our head engineer Gary Moffett, both had a hand in starting ThrustMaster in the early 1980's. A few others came along with them and are still here today. They bring a wealth of knowledge and give me a lot of guidance in the way of simulation. Tell us about GoFlight - who founded the company, when, where, why, maybe a little history? As I briefly mentioned above, GoFlight was founded from a few guys who got their start with ThrustMaster. Frank Bouton and Doyle Nicholas worked together at ThrustMaster, before teaming up to start GoFlight Inc. GoFlight was founded in Beaverton, Oregon in 2000. At that time, there were joysticks and controls, but there weren't too many options, if any, for radio stacks and other flight controls. The GoFlight team set out to alleviate that problem. How many people does GoFlight employ and what are the key rolls? GoFlight employs a staff of eight people. Key rolls would include our engineering/R&D, where Gary is the lead engineer; Front Office is led by Tanya Long; and finally Marketing, which is my primary roll. How is the hardware/software development divided at GoFlight and why? From the beginning GoFlight has been a hardware developer and we have not had any interest in developing software. For this reason, our software development team has remained as a contract relationship with our out of house developers. We design and manufacture the hardware and then, through our team of contractors, they update the software interfaces on our behalf. GoFlight's mission is stated on your web site, but what is GoFlight's vision? This is a good question. Recently this vision has been changing quite a bit. For a long time, GoFlight seemed to be content as a small company providing flight sim equipment. While we are still small, we envision big change! Easy to just say that, but I would like to see multiple product lines and markets served. Not just modular pieces of equipment, but eventually offer full, complete, airplane specific environments. Really, the potential here is limitless. When did you start at GoFlight and what is your job/role there? I started with GoFlight just under three years ago. My role here has primarily consisted of managing the sales and marketing of the company. When I got here, we underwent a large restructuring and rebranding, which has received a lot of praise. Aside from the sales and marketing, I contribute to the design of new products, and lead the general day to day operations of GoFlight. Sales Where are your products sold - primary, secondary, tertiary markets? We enjoy a worldwide marketplace. We have international reps in every major continent and market. While we rely heavily on indirect marketing in both international and domestic markets, we do deal a little bit in direct sales. The number one market is still the flight enthusiast. We are however, getting more and more real time pilots that are buying our equipment. Through which channels do you sell your product - web sites, stores, other? We are almost 100% sold online. There have been a few companies that have sold our equipment in traditional brick and mortar stores, but for the large majority, sales are online. What do you brand your products? If I understand your question correctly, our products are branded as video game computer peripherals. What are your top three selling products and why do you think they are the top 3? The MCP-Pro, GF-TQ6-ADV and the GF-166 have been our bread and butter. Both the MCP-Pro and the GF-TQ6-ADV are both designed to replicate the 737 equipment. A large portion of our customer base prefers to fly the heavies and this is why those items sell more than the rest. Development What were some of your favorite developments in your portfolio and why? I would have to say the two major projects we just completed have been among my favorite, namely because I worked on them, but also because they have been rather successful. The projects I am talking about are the 737 Throttle Handles and the 737 ProYoke System. These have been among my favorite because they have moved the company closer to offering a full 737 environment. What do you find to be the most challenging aspect of a project and why? The most difficult part of a new project has to be scheduling! There are many different moving parts to successfully completing the release of a new project and many of those tasks can always be done better than the last time. But getting them all to work together, and on time is a tall order. Plus you have the pressure to get it to market to satisfy all the customers that are eagerly waiting for it to drop. What do you find to be the most interesting aspect of a project and why? I find the R&D to be a pretty interesting part of the project. I take pleasure in working with some of the designers and figuring out how something should work and how it should look. In what ways do you see development changing in the future? Well whether we like it or not, I see the need to implement more and more software. With the glass cockpits becoming ever more popular, people want that more often than not. That is not to say that steam gauges are going to disappear, but there is a big change in technology happening right now, and we as sim developers need to be mindful of. Which platforms do your products support--FS2004, FSX, Prepar3D, X-Plane, other? I think you pretty much cover it there. We are still working on some of the last items for the X-Plane plug-in but we are almost finished with this. Company / Products How do you choose your next project - inquiry from flight simmers, market search or other? We definitely take a lot of input from all of the above. Market research, seeing which way people are moving towards, and what is needed directs some of our paths. We try really hard to listen to our customers too. If they are asking for a certain item, in large numbers, and it makes sense for us to develop it, it gets put on the list. Really, the yoke was moved forward because of customer input. Also, we are working on a rudder system much in the same way, through customer demand. The GF-TQ6-ADV has been your flagship for quite some time, but now you have a brand new development - the GF-Yoke. How has this unit been accepted by the market? It is interesting, because the GF-TQ6-ADV is still a young product. But you are correct; it has quickly become a flagship, if you will. But that wasn't your question. The GF-Pro Yoke has really begun to grow its own set of wings and take off. When we released it, there was a lot of talk about it being priced too high and that it would never sell. We understand that we are not in the market to serve everyone and while we certainly do not want to turn anyone away, we do need to continue creating the same high quality that GoFlight has been known for. The GF-ProYoke is just that, exceptional quality, and in my opinion, the best built yoke for flight simulation on the market! As with every new project, it takes some time for it to sink in, but eventually, once the word is out there, people respond well. The yoke has been no exception to that rule. Your portfolio covers various plug and play modules, a throttle quadrant, a DIO board and now also a yoke system - will GoFlight expand to also include rudder pedals to have a complete fixed wing setup? Well I guess I should have read through all the questions to save the anticipation... I think I mentioned it one or two questions prior. The short answer is yes! We are currently in development of a rudder system, 2.0. Years ago GoFlight developed one set, but they were too heavy and impossible to ship internationally. We have done a complete redesign and paired a lot of the weight and size out of them. We are committed to getting these to market as soon as we can, but I am not going to say a proposed release date. Future How do you feel about the future of flight simulation in general? Very, very optimistic about where we all stand in the flight sim world. From everyone I have met, worldwide, we all seem very committed to seeing this industry grow! Earlier this year we attended the AVSIM Conference and Exhibition in Wichita. This was the first show in a few years off because general interest was down in years prior. But the interest levels seem on the rise. New platforms are ready to step up into the spot light that Microsoft left when they pulled out. The amount of developers seem to be growing as well. So I remain very optimistic about it. What is GoFlight's focus right now and what new products are you thinking about doing? Well I cannot say exactly. But we have been working closely with a few other companies that offer related products. It may be safe to say you'll see some more complete set ups in the near future. Does GoFlight have any plans on also developing a helicopter setup or is it only the fixed wing setup that GoFlight has a focus on? This has not been a large focus for us, I would never say never. What would you like people to know about you, your work or products that we have not covered? Simply put, we are a bunch of flight enthusiasts putting out product, for other flight enthusiasts. Our mission is to provide the best equipment to make the most real experience for ourselves and our customers and that's all I can hope for!