How it started
Till the age of 14 I wanted to be a Pilot, however at that time I got my first computer (a Commodore VIC-20, the predecessor to the notorious Commodore 64), so gradually the thoughts about becoming a developer was more appealing (and a lot more realistic <G>). However I've kept my interest in planes and have used quite some time in the virtual cockpit flying both fighter planes and civilian planes . For years I was a member of a few Virtual Airlines (Noble Air Gatwick, Knight Air Prestwick and Duckling Air), where I (beside flying) was hosting/maintaining a web-site, repainting planes and building a virtual representation (for FS98, FS2K and FS2002) of Prestwick Airport (Scotland). Work and other interests have kept me away from (virtual) flying for a couple of years however January 2005 I once again became bit by the "Flight Simulator-bug" and is now back in the saddle (and once again back at Knigt Air).
Realism is the Keyword
When flying I want it to be as realistic as possible, and this means that Microsoft Flight Simulator (MSFS) is not cutting it on itself and various 3rd party tools are necesary to raise the realism-bar. In 2005 I became a beta member for the product called Radar Contact, which brings realistic ATC (Air Trafic Control) to the virtual world of flight simulation (a must have item if you want it as realistic as possible).
I'm not sure that the fact that the Boing 747 took off for its first test flight in the very same year/month that I was born is the reason, however the Boing 747 has always been my favorite. PMDG has done a very fine job with their PMDG's Boeing 747-400, and it is my prefered plane of choice (I'm looking forward to their upcomming FSX version). While Waiting for the PMDG Boeing 747-400 to be finished for FSX I had to find another plane to fly and the choise ended up being the Level-D Boeing 767-300 (a fine plane to fly and it's got the Boeing avoionices "that I'm used to"). Big jets like the Boeing 747-400 and 767-300 are normally operated by a 2 men crew (not counting the cabine crew), hence sitting alone in front the PC is not a true reflection of the real life operations. Here FS2Crew can help with a virtual Co-pilot who help out in the cockpit both by operating the panels and going through the various check-lists (making sure you don't forget the job at hand).
The product Active Sky brings to the table both eye candy in form of better/more precise looking clouds/skyes, but also more realistic weather based on real world METAR/TAF-data downloaded as you fly, resulting in a dynamic and constant evolving environment (a lot better that the build-in weather feature in MSFS). The product FS Flight Keeper doesn't add additional realism as it simply tracks and records your flights. However the fact that your flights are recorded and judged/scored makes you make an efford to fly as precise and smooth as possible (hopefully it will be out for FSX shortly). Last but not lease you need to plan your flights and here Navigraph's nDAC comes to the resque. The nDac software is not a Flight-planner, but in stead a tool that can show various charts: Instrument Approch Charts, Landing Charts, Ground Charts, Standard Arrival Routes, Standard Instrument Departure Routes and lastly high/low-altitude Enrounte Charts. You'll have to buy credits at Navigraphs website, and then you are able to (using these credits) download the charts you need via the nDac software.
Should you be interessted feel free to download the FlightPlanner-Form that I use for my flights.
Deveoping for Flight Simulator
Being a (real life) software developer and being interested in Flight Simulation it was only natural that I joined those two worlds and thanks to Peter Dowson's FSUIPC that is indeed possible. Beside FSUIPC (and WideFS) Peter Dowson has also created a SDK for various programming languages and it was hereby got in contact with Peter helping out by making the Delphi-part of this SDK (at the time Borland Delphi was my prefered development platform). Beside the Delphi-part of the SDK I also made a program called FS-Interrogate that is bundled with the FSUIPC-SDK, which programmers and cockpit builders can use learning about the data that MSFSxxxx has to offer.
