Day two of Flight Sim Expo is at an end and I wanted to provide a bit of a summary of some of the sessions I watched and how you can get more information on some of the presenters.

Improve your helicopter flying

One of my favourite sessions that I watched today, and its one that I had to go back and watch the start of later because I was watching another session, was Sergio’s ‘Get to Da Choppa’ session where he talked about improving your helicopter flying.

As usual, Sergio’s enthusiasm for the hobby and for helicopter flight simulation had the crowd listening intently and learning as much as possible about flying simulated helicopters.

Sergio is the creator of HeliSimmer.com so be sure to bookmark his site.

How Open Source can change the flight sim community

Those not into software and programming may not be fully aware of what Open Source is and so the folks at FlyByWire, the dev team behind the excellent FlyByWire A32nx for Microsoft Flight Simulator, filled us all in. It is, in short, software that anyone can use, copy, study or change so long as the source code is shared freely.

Open Source development has plenty of advantages and some challenges and so Philippe and Boris walked us through the work that they have done to make it all come together. The message that they had? Open Source development can work and it can bring together impressive teams making incredible products such as the A32nx and A380x for Microsoft Flight Simulator.

Home cockpit building

Two presentations I watched focused in on DIY home cockpit building. The first presentation I watched, with Sebastian Möbius from MobiFlight, talked about how you can make anything from a switch to a full-size home cockpit using 3D printing. The second, by Trevor Olsen, runs a website and YouTube channel called CaptainBobSim.com where he details how he is making a Cessna 172 home cockpit.

Both worth checking out!

Content creators

A bunch of sessions featured content creators with one pannel talking about the shared inspiration and reason why each creator got into it. CaptArash, FlightsWithJoel, PilotStudd, SparkyPilot86, and TwoToneMurphy were all part of the panel and it was both heartwarming and inspiring for me!

The business of flight simulation

There was a great session called “The Business of Flight Simulation” and it featured a star studded group of developers and creators all there to talk about getting into the business and what challenges developers face. That list included Nick Sdoucos from FlightFX who moderated and various panellists including Blu Games (Content Creator), Lars Pinkenburg (Founder and CEO; Contrail), Nicki Repenning (CEO; Honeycomb Aeronautical), Steve Daniels (President; Hype Performance Group), and Laura Laban (CEO; Infinite Flight).

Hype Performance Group’s Steve Daniels gave a great description of the early days of HPG and the challenges that they faced going from their H135 freeware helicopter (check out my impressions here) in a time before helicopter support was officially in to the payware H145 and the challenges of releasing that as an early access product.

Laura Laban too provided all kinds of great information about development for Infinite Flight. We learned about how they use data to help inform design decisions and how they, as developers, have to work to recognize when their vision for something isn’t working and how they need to do something different. It was a fascinating session all around!

Even more sessions

There were other sessions with tutorials on how to create liveries for airplanes in MSFS, a session with a USAF Enlisted Aviator who was involved with the operating and flying of MQ-9 Reapers and there was a Q&A on P3D.

Although all of these sessions are now in the past, registering for the Expo’s online access gives access to them retroactively so you can always pick them up and listen in later on. One of the benefits of the online show!

Of course, in addition to all of this, there were plenty of stories coming from the show floor and I’ll be looking to report on any big news items if and when they emerge. It all looks like a lot of fun and I wish I was able to make it this year. Maybe next time!

I’ll be back tomorrow with a few more summaries of what we saw during the final day of FSExpo 2023.