How A Coast Guard Mission Generator Makes Flight Sim Feel Alive

We sit down with “Not Matt” from Miravia Softworks to talk about building a procedural mission generator for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 based on US Coast Guard operations. We dig into the aviation bug, the realities of shipping software, and why the best flight sim add-ons balance realism with fun. 

• catching the aviation bug early and why it becomes lifelong 
• building software with an MVP mindset to avoid feature creep 
• filtering community feedback without derailing the roadmap 
• designing procedural missions that stay immersive and replayable 
• partnering with the US Coast Guard and handling trademarks properly 
• search and rescue mission ideas from Kodiak to roadside medevac edge cases 
• the Blackjack intercept mission around DC airspace and compliance logic 
• dynamic AI behavior, scoring, and why the hard problems are worth it 
• add-on quality, pricing pressure, piracy, and why free trials rebuild trust 
• MSFS 2024 versus MSFS 2020 versus X-Plane and how competition drives innovation 
• how flight sim supports real-world training and keeps procedures sharp 

Check out https://www.miraviasoftworks.com/ . Definitely join the Discord as well to get you know the latest up to dates on on the product. Flightsimexpo.com/register. So if you have not gotten your ticket yet, please go ahead and register as well. 

Website: www.closedtrafficpodcast.com

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Transcript

Welcome And Weather Banter

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Live from the laboratory, welcome to the Close Traffic Podcast, an aviation and flight simulation show. Welcome aboard.

SPEAKER_03 0:42

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Closed Traffic Podcast. We are back yet again with an action packed show for you guys today. It's been a while since we've had a guest on, so I am super excited, but we'll get to that in a second. And the interim, Charlie, what's going on, man? How you been? Say hello to the people.

SPEAKER_05 0:58

Man, been good, bro. It's good to be back. Missed the last one. Feel like every time we try one of these, something pops up with one of us.

SPEAKER_03 1:05

With somebody, right?

SPEAKER_05 1:07

We always have at least two here. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good thing about three in the crowd. You always got two.

SPEAKER_03 1:13

We always got two, man.

SPEAKER_05 1:16

How about yourself, bro?

SPEAKER_03 1:18

Not bad. Surviving. Surviving. Trying to throw it. Did you survive that heat out there? Dude, it's it's March and it's been like August SoCal weather for the last month. It's crazy.

SPEAKER_05 1:28

Man, it's weather here is nuts. It'd be 80 today. I think the high today is like 50. It's it's nuts.

SPEAKER_03 1:36

At least mine is pretty steady. I can't deal with the fluctuations. That's nuts.

SPEAKER_05 1:40

It is. Then you add the pollen and all that for spring. It's it's tough.

SPEAKER_03 1:44

Yep, yep. Oh gosh, guys, man. This is gonna be a great show. Like I mentioned, we are joined by not Matt from Moravia Softworks. Matt, what is going on, man? Say hello to the people.

SPEAKER_00 1:57

Howdy, everyone. That's funny that you're talking about weather. We've had the exact like opposite weirdness in uh Germany. For example, today it's been snowing all day.

SPEAKER_05 2:08

Oh yeah, my sister sent us some pictures from Garmish and that guy.

SPEAKER_00 2:12

It's just exactly I'm looking over at the window and I'm like because uh a couple days ago it was sunny and about I don't know 68 degrees, and it it's snowing, so yeah, uh some odd weather that's going on. That's nuts.

Introducing Not Matt And His Story

SPEAKER_03 2:30

Yep, man. What are you gonna do? It's uh it's definitely weird across the the country, across the world, obviously, with these weather, these these weather patterns. But hey man, without further ado, Matt, it's been it's been already awesome to have some offstage banter with you back and forth before we actually hit the record buttons. But we're glad to have you here. Glad to have you on with the Close Traffic Podcast and our audience. We typically like to do just basic intros, man, get the audience to know you, who you are, you know, your background, and and obviously we'll we'll get into your product here in a second, man. But but tell the folks a little bit about you, what drew drew you and continues to draw you to aviation.

SPEAKER_00 3:10

Yeah, so flight sim is so not Matt, Matthew. You might see me in my Discord as the guy that posts uh sometimes photos without any context. That's that's kind of my shtick, and that's what I like to do. I like to keep everyone guessing. Like, what is he doing now? I don't know. Um yeah, but the the funny thing about aviation and me is flight sim aviation, my personal aviation career, everything has always been linked. When I was a kid, the the first flight I had was on a Southwest 737 300 jet from 300. Yeah, from it might have been a 500. I think it was a 300, but it might have been it was an old the old the uh the old school uh 73s, and it was from Oakland to John Wayne. My family and I were going on a vacation to Disneyland, and I tell you what, I don't remember the Disneyland trip, but I remember that that 737. I got to sit on the the chair and you know everything in kids, even adults now. I still try to get sold when I got the time. But that's kind of like what kicked me into I think aviation. I call I call it disease, I do, because it feels like we're all infected with bug, right? It makes us spend money straight up. What separates aviation people from non-aviation people? It's this bug. Like you catch the aviation bug. You either catch it and you get over it, or you catch it, it's a lifelong ailment. To me, it's been a lifelong ailment. Yeah, that's pocket draining. I have never heard someone describe it so perfectly. You are spot on. That is true. Yeah, I mean, it's it's literally because I always look at my friends who, you know, they've done aviation stuff. They they went with me when we went flying, and they just don't have that same like like draw to it, right? Like, yeah, it's like, all right, well, you either got it or you don't. Like anyone could be a pilot in my mind, but anyone I don't think everyone could be a pilot who likes flying, right? You gotta you gotta have that that that bug. So yeah, it's a it's a lifelong ailment. I've been afflicted since the early 2000s. So I love that. Yeah, I love that. But yeah, that's that's kind of what what you know it ever since then my entire kind of life's been aviation focused. So one way or another, my last few jobs, I worked in uh big tech. In my last job, I was working in the air cargo side of big tech. And yeah, you know, it unfortunately I got met with a layoff, but it's okay because I actually got to do something for once. I feel like in my life I'm doing something that I'm having fun doing most of the time. Anyone that's familiar with software development will tell you the same thing. It's cool, like sometimes, and other times it really just makes you reach for the ibuprofen constantly. So uh it's really fun when it works. When you like think of this idea, right, and you got it planned out, and you're like, all right, here's how I'm gonna architect this, here's how I'm gonna implement this, and you do everything, and then like it either like doesn't work or like crashes your sim, for example, working with flight sim. It's a it's a heart-wrenching moment, and then you just you just keep building on it and you just keep fighting it, and then eventually it's gonna stick, or in my case, I'll pivot off it. If it's something I find myself a lot of times just kind of sometimes going down these rabbit holes of like, I want to do the coolest thing, and you know, we'll talk about my product, but I want to do like the coolest thing that I can and I can get away with. Yeah, that's not you know dumb. Sometimes I go down these rabbit holes where I'm like doing all this extra stuff, and then I have to sit there and go, is this really a good use of my time? Like it is this actually gonna improve the user experience or the user enjoyability or whatever. And if I say no, then I'm like, Yeah, I'm gonna pivot off it. This is not a it's not a good move right now. We'll come back, we'll circle back if it's really worth it.

SPEAKER_03 6:50

So at least you have a logical way about going about it, man. That's true. Not a lot of software developers have that level of discipline, especially when they're developing something that they're passionate about. So that's pretty cool. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:04

Yeah, you gotta be able to be able to separate it. Yeah. My last you know, big tech jobs taught me that. It was you just gotta you gotta be always ready to hard cut and move away if it's if especially if it's if it's draining your resources, right? And you're not and the gain that you're gonna get out of it may not be massive. You gotta pivot and focus on something that that will be a massive gain, right? Make up for that time. I'm not saying throw all those features out of the window, but maybe circle back to them later. Because that's how, in my opinion, it's how you get a lot of delays. Delays come from unforeseen events. Trust me, I've been a part of that. And then delays can also happen because of feature creep. Like you start building this really cool thing, and then you're like, Well, wait, what if I had this? Well, hold on, let me add this. And it's like you're slipping so far away from your MVP, your minimum viable product, that you know, you should be riding a what was called an MVP dock before you even start building something. And that that is your your baseline. So I always when I get too deep in the weeds, I always look back at my original MVP doc and go, Yeah, I'm kind of off basis here. I should I should probably realign myself back in the the direction of what I wrote about what I what I want to happen. So yeah, no, that was long-winded, but uh that's uh there's no such thing as that on that show on the show.

Catching The Aviation Bug Early

SPEAKER_03 8:20

No, you'll you'll get to know that and our audience know it, man. There's uh no, that's that's who we are, that's how we do it here. Man, it's that's an awesome story. I think you hit you hit a couple of different points that I think you know I want to extrapolate on, especially in the context of this community and and developers. Like we've got several planes out there now that were promised a year plus ago. I mean, we still have not been able to get our hands on them. I won't drop names for the sake of not creating uh hate hatred on us. But yeah, I think you know, if a lot of other developers took that same principle and applied it to you know their their development of their product, I think we would see a lot of folks stick closer to the timelines that they they mentioned to the community. Obviously, a lot of it too is like especially in flights and this and you could talk about it in a little bit here, but there's so much complexity, right, and it comes to developing against a sim like Microsoft Flight Sim, you know, the they're they've got their own timelines and and milestones and and roadmaps, and it's almost like you're constantly trying to play catch up with and hit a moving target, probably. So I get that part, but I wonder how much of it for all the developers is that scope creep that you mentioned.

SPEAKER_00 9:34

I can actually I can speak on that a little bit. I'm not gonna speak for them or any other developer, but I I know a lot, like I want to touch on that aircraft thing, because trust me, I'm in the same boat. I I I had to come to terms in the early 2000s that I am a flight sim nerd. And you know, a lot of people take that offensively, and I take it with pride. Like the flight sim community is one of the coolest communities ever, in the sense of, yeah, we're all nerdy, we're all playing with flight, like you know, fake airplanes, and some of us fly fake airplanes online, whatever. But yeah, the basis is cool because there's a lot of physics, there's a lot of math, there's a lot of engineering, there's all kinds of like multifaceted, like complex areas. It's not just oh, I'm flying a fake, yeah, I'm flying a fake plane, it's I am doing all these processes, and I think that's what gives us fulfillment. But yeah, so as a flight sim nerd myself, the airplanes that we're waiting for and desperately wanting, right? And that we you know keeps us up at night. I can actually absolutely understand a lot of the delays that come from some of those developers. Again, my my my idea was that the the feature creep, you know, it happens, but there are some there are some preventable things. So I hope that anyone that's looking at this video that wants to start their own product or whatnot heeds this advice from me, which is plan, plan, plan. If and I've seen this a lot with a lot of the different like developers and for aircraft or scenery or whatever, if you're gonna do it, you gotta go full 100% because what you're doing, if you do it halfway, right, and you're not developing at a hundred percent capacity, or you're not planning to make this like a real thing, but then it turns into a real thing later, you're gonna have to scrap your entire model and restart over essentially from scratch. So if if you're gonna run it, make sure you're running it with like everything you got. Don't don't either do it full or don't do it at all, in my opinion. Now that might sound a little harsh and a little mean, but like it you're creating a lot of work for yourself. I can give you a really beautiful example from my own problems. Um, when I first started creating my application, which I'll I'll just I'll explain in a minute, scoring was an afterthought. I didn't really think that scoring was gonna be you know so sought after. And I it was a big oversight by me because even as a flight sim guy myself, I I somehow missed that, right? And so I built this really like robust app, and then people were like, Well, how are we gonna close a little feedback loop? And I said, Oh rats. And then I realized scoring had to come in, and ever since then, all I've been doing is fixing that initial oversight by constantly having to rewrite stuff, make sure that things slot in because I didn't build it at the ground level, right? I didn't put it in as a foundation, and that was bad planning on my end. So that that didn't cause my original delay. My delay I did have a delay, but that was due to something else that I'll explain in a second. But yeah, plan, plan, plan, and then if you ever feel lost or you're like kind of like floundering or wandering, that's why you have that really good document that you wrote that's that it defines very clearly the like here is my minimum viable product, like here's what I need to get to to have a V1.0 release, the minimum. You can add a couple things in there, but you should really keep that tight and not not mess around with it too much because that's how you get that feature creep. So, yeah, plan, plan, plan, y'all. Plan. You heard it here, man. You heard it here.

SPEAKER_05 12:54

But I want to say something too, though, man. I could I could understand folks getting sucked into the feature creep because you're building something from scratch, and it's like you have an idea, you're coding this one thing, it's like, oh, I could do this, and then it just you know, it just keeps going. It's like building anything in a wood shop, you know. Oh, well, I can add this little piece of inlay on this piece of wood, and then you know, six months later, it's like crap. I'm nowhere near having this thing done.

SPEAKER_00 13:24

I was supposed to build a birdhouse and now there's a table. Yeah, now it's like it's a whole kitchen cabinet. Like that's not how the YouTube video showed it.

SPEAKER_05 13:33

That's right.

unknown 13:34

That's right.

MVP Planning Versus Feature Creep

SPEAKER_00 13:35

That gonna be 100%. Yeah, that that's why planning and having that document that just it's kind of like an anchor, right? It keeps you centered on what you're doing. Grounded. Exactly. You can keep adding stuff. Like, it's okay. I've added plenty of stuff to my my MVP document, but the base stuff is still there, and there have been times where I'm just like, nah, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna mess with I'm not gonna add anything else like right now. This is the direction I'm going, and the focus. And that gets that gets challenging with the community because I'm trying to support the community as best as possible. I mean, that's another that's another vector for feature creep, is you know, if you want to be a in my opinion, like a good, good, responsible developer, you're listening to your community, right? It's where you filter out, and I've told this a lot to my my Discord that's growing, it's modest, but it's growing, is there's a there's a direction I want to go, a direction that I can go, and a direction I will not go. And if your ideas, that's why I asked everybody, like, give me your feedback, give me your ideas. If your ideas align with the direction I can and want to go, and they're not they don't require an entire refactor of my entire code base, I'm with it. Like, especially if they're easy. There's been a lot of good ideas that came out from testers or beta testers, and they were like, You should add this, is a great quality of life. I'm like, Alright, done. Easy. And yeah, like that's but that's another vector of feature creep is if you're too willing or too accepting, or you're not scoping all those changes and whatnot, and you're not saying, All right, well, this will take me two days, this will take me two weeks to implement, and you're not triaging them. Yeah, that's another another great example of feature creep. Yeah, that makes sense.

SPEAKER_03 15:14

Yeah, and I I think it happens more than people realize.

SPEAKER_05 15:18

Yeah. But yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, you want to make the customer happy, or they're not gonna buy your product. So, you know, there is that kind of like, well, crap, I kind of have to. It's a balance strike for sure. It is, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 15:32

Yeah, it's a hundred percent like a I call it like a nice little ballet. You're you're constantly kind of like balancing and like doing some cool, like, I don't know, backflips. I've never seen a ballet, I don't know what they do. I'm assuming they do some backflips, right? Some some sick backflips and uh 360s and but that's ballet on steroids. We should start that one. You guys want to start a ballet on steroids? Call it street extreme ballet. Extreme ballet.

SPEAKER_05 16:01

I promise there's nobody wanna see me try ballet.

SPEAKER_00 16:06

Look, man, I I think there's a place for everyone to try ballet in the extreme steroid ballet that we're gonna start. All right.

SPEAKER_03 16:14

Don't sell yourself short, Charlie.

SPEAKER_00 16:16

Don't sell yourself short. This is gonna be really cool to see it. But yeah, no, um again, thanks a lot for having me. I I kind of if if you're cool with it, like I feel like I've talked a lot about the like the inner workings of the product, but I haven't talked about what the product is. Yes, sir.

SPEAKER_03 16:31

Please tell the folks about your product, man.

SPEAKER_00 16:35

Yeah, so I uh I'm building a mission generator application, so procedural mission generator application for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024. I'd like to bring it backwards compatibility to 2020 that's still on my scope, but that'll happen after release. The reason I'm leaning so heavy into 2024 is there's just and a lot of people are gonna get mad at me for saying this, but there's it's just a lot better in many regards to 2020. The base assets that are available, the scenery, the flight models, which I'm not developing aircraft, but still it just 2024 is now, especially where it's at right now. I mean, I've I've only I've actually exclusively used 2024 since Phoenix did their service pack update and brought their A320 over. I deleted 2020 after that. So I would like to bring it back to 2020. That's on my docket, it's on my scope, but right now it's exclusively for 2024. It is based, so the missions are all based on the real US Coast Guard. And what's really really awesome is I have a uh production of support agreement with them, so I work with them now. Oh wow, and oh yeah, yeah. So they they give me ideas, we meet. Unfortunately, they've been affected by that DEHS shutdown. But the original plan was we're I was gonna head out there, tour their their radar, like their little sector areas where they get calls, go for a little ride along on with them on some of their helicopters and their fixed wings. Oh man, that's dope. We haven't been able to come to an agreement on that because they've been shut down, right? They can't you can't be planning cool stuff when you got no funding. So yeah, hopefully that shutdown will end. And but yeah, so when I first started developing the application, they were surprised, surprise, shut down. And so I'd reached out to them last year and I was like, hey, I would love to, you know, first stars. Anytime you mention or use their logo or their insignia, you have to have this kind of agreement with them, legally speaking. Anyone that does not have an agreement and is throwing on the U.S. Coast Guard, their emblem is technically outside of their terms and services because they are trademarked, their their their logos, their emblems, their name, even their name. So yeah, I'd reached out to them, and the you know, they were shut down due to the government shutdown that went on way too long, and then they finally got back to me and they're like, Yeah, we're super excited, we want to support this. Because you know, I'm trying to give the US Coast Guard a real a voice here, right? And I was telling them in my my meeting, first, I think what they do is awesome. I you know, it's uh definitely an unsung hero, right?

SPEAKER_05 18:57

Like the Oh 100%, man.

SPEAKER_00 19:00

Exactly. But like the the you know what the first thing comes to my mind when I think of the US Coast Guard, and I I I'm I swear they probably hated this. I said Ashton Kutcher in that movie.

SPEAKER_05 19:09

Oh the guardian!

SPEAKER_00 19:12

Yeah, yeah. And they were like, I I I you know they got poker faces, right? Because they're still military, but I could swear I could see in their soul, and they're just like, mmm. But no, they were they were super excited to to like have like a vector for like you know, telling this kind of story. And when we first started meeting, I you know, I was very clear with them that I'm not aiming for 100% realism. There's a fine line there. I told them I'm aiming for about 80%. You know, if you do 100% realism, you're gonna start losing people because it gets boring. Right. My biggest uh my example of this is if you made if you made a 100% realistic police simulator, nobody would play that game. It's six hours in your car writing reports. Don't forget your weekends and your overtime in court. And so you gotta scale it back a bit, right? And that's where I find that like that 80% is a really good sweet spot where you have a lot of realism, but also there's some either you know flight simisms that are thrown in there or it's slightly simplified or whatever, just to give it again realistic but fun, because that's what we're trying to do at the end of the day, right? We're we're trying to have fun, so yeah. I feel like that's that sweet spot where people don't say, Oh, this is arcadia, this is dumb, but it's also not like oh this is mind-numbing and like I hate this very much. Yeah, like this is too nah, it's too much like work, which you know where I currently live right now in Germany. The Germans love work games. Uh, I believe Farming Simulator is the one of the best uh simulation sellers here. Guilty. They they have a culture, they have a culture. It it see, and you're like Charlie's like, yeah, man, my fields need to be getting tended to, actually.

SPEAKER_05 20:55

I do that for a living in real world. I'm a cattle farmer. Yeah, okay. Yeah, so I was like, I'll do that all day and then come home and jump on that and jump on the couch and plow a few. That's amazing. You idiot.

Listening To Community Without Derailing

What Moravia Softworks Is Building

SPEAKER_00 21:07

What that's amazing because there's so many real world pilots that do the same thing and sit out in flights, right? Or vatsim in control. A friend of mine, he he runs FS Expo, Evan. He's one of the founders. He's a real world pilot, and he loves doing vatsum stuff, he loves doing flightsum stuff, and I'm like, yeah, I can see it. And you know, he's just like one of the because he's one of the public guys at the route, but there's so many others I know that that they just they come home and they're like, All right, I just flew an A320 for eight hours, so I'm gonna fly another A320, but virtually for three hours. And I'm like, I love those guys because if I ever ask them like a weird question, I'm like, hey, how do you do this on this thing? And they're like, Oh, that's you know, you just click this and that. I'm like, Oh, yeah, cool. Like, you got the inside knowledge, right? It's like, yes, no, please more people come in there because I have all the time I have random. questions that I would I would love to have answered by people that actually do it. So I mean my buddy is a is a delta mechanic and you know sometimes I'll I'll send him a text and be like hey so what happens if you do this and he's like you're talking in the simulator right and I'm like yeah he's like don't do that really don't do that don't do that it's not a great your finest idea um we were talking yeah the the biggest example was we were talking about a um a cover on a um on an engine like one of the the engine covers right the orange ones and I asked them like what would happen if you started the engine with that cover still on and we had like back and forth I even I went so far out that I even contacted an engineer friend an aerospace engineering friend and like we had like a kind of like a group chat where I was like so all right what what I have my team of experts here I'm like all right mechanic man break it down for me all right cool engineering man can I get finance in here to run some numbers how much is this gonna cost me yeah no but seriously those kind of people in the sim community is what I think makes the sim community so great um because you have real world experience with real world people but back to my sorry we got sidetracked there uh back to my hey man we told you before we hit with the cord that's what happens here man it just goes dude this is perfect uh welcome to close trap podcast no i like i said i'm i'm honored to be here it's it's awesome being like a newcomer to the developer world but being not new to the sim so like yeah yeah it it it was it's it's an honor to be here and I'm glad to to to go on these uh side tracks and side quests with y'all but we welcome it yeah but no so the the application is being developed with the uh the real US Coast Guard's opinion and you know what you know a lot of data came from them of how they do stuff and how they don't like to do stuff and whatnot and then even down to the nitty gritty of like asking them about their instructor pilots like how would you how would you grade this you know because that helps with my scoring and whatnot. So the application currently right now what we're slated for when we do release is it'll have the search and rescue missions for both fixed wing and helicopters. It'll have the the environmental patrol missions for the fixed wing more to come on that I'm still building that out and making that nice so it's not just like fly around this area in circles because that's the thing with this is I'm trying to build a story. I'm trying to make it like real in the sense of like immersion not just fly around in this circle and oh look there's a boat cool let's go deal with it I'm trying to at least drive a little bit of a story so that someone feels engaged and they have like you know fun with it right yeah and then the interdiction missions as well are are going to be coming so that is going to be something as simple as like a like a little what I call my narco sub just driving around in in certain areas and you know as a fixed wing aircraft what you're gonna do is you're just gonna kind of patrol an area you're gonna look around there'll be some boats you got to decipher figure it out report the correct one etc etc in the helicopter you're actually gonna follow it for a little while and then where I'm still fuzzy is how I want to like finish that off right so more to more to come on that but the the the the bread and butter is really the the search and rescue so you know searching for an overdue vessel off the coast of Kodiak Alaska or searching for a a vessel in distress ditched aircraft in the water ditched aircraft on land missing hikers one that's not really realistic but I think it's fun so I put it in there is the roadside accident. Oh yeah and what's what's really cool is somewhat of the real life kind of backs me up here. So what I mean by that is when I in my discussions with the US Coast Guard they're telling me a lot of times especially on the west coast or even up in the you know the frontier in Alaska they are the best equipped Medevac or medical like search and rescue agency out there. Sometimes they are better equipped than local agencies. Sometimes they're the only ones that will fly in let's say the weather or whatnot. So a lot of times they they do win out on that and I'm not saying in car accidents general but like a lot of stuff where you'd think oh maybe the sheriffs would do that or you know some kind of like local agency. No the US Coast Guard actually beats them to it. So is it realistic for a a roadside accident? Probably not but it's who's to say it wouldn't happen right the that's what they're yeah that's what they're training for always they're always ready to handle those like edge cases where you know especially in rural Alaska where there's nothing up there you know how do we serve the the US so yeah some unrealistic missions like that but some really fun ones so the one I was telling you all back before we we start recording is the uh the new blackjack mission so it's called the special mission blackjack blackjack is the unit that sits at the Washington Reagan National Airport and their job is to intercept slow moving aircraft that encroach in the FRZ or the SFRA the the the special flight rules area of DC so if you look at DC at zoomed out there's a giant circle around it and that's the special flight rules area and then with inside that circle there's another one called the the FRZ the flight restriction zone aircraft are not that are not like IFR and on flight plans and tracked are not supposed to be in this FRZ and people that are not talking to anyone are not supposed to be in the SFRA at all like there's a whole list of what you need to do to be in there. And of course the FRZ hosts the White House so the prohibited areas for the White House and Naval Observatory and then Mount Vernon which is um the the house of George Washington the monument is also a prohibited area down to the south of Reagan. That's the P73 prohibited zone. So this mission basically allows you to start you know on the ground in the air whatever you want and you can either patrol an area and wait for you know an intruder to come out and what they do is they take off and then they they start flying around and then they encroach in and into this SFRA or this FRZ. You can ask for an immediate tasking so you just click the immediate tasking and one just pops up immediately. And then yeah what you'll do is you just head out there and you'll you'll intercept them like kind of realistic and again 80% you'll approach them from the bag you'll report their tail number to the the sector your your command essentially and then you will try to make contact with them on guard this is all via the the action buttons what whether it's in the app via your voice control or via the EFB app that's that's integrated into the sim and then there's two two ways this can go one they're not responsive they're not talking to you like you get five attempts essentially to try to get them on guard. If they don't reach if you don't reach them on the fifth attempt they're considered an unresponsive aircraft you have two options there one that you should do the other one you have to do. So the one you should do is what's called a a headbutt maneuver that is where the the target aircraft here's my camera and you're back here and this is usually for fighter jets but you can pull it off in a helicopter you swoop underneath them and then you create a very high vertical climb rate and go right in front of them. That's considered a headbutt maneuver and there is a chance if you have an unresponsive aircraft that if you do that it'll flip them to compliant not at always but there's a I don't remember the percentage is a pretty good chance that it might happen. If they're really uncompliant they're not talking to you you'll alert the local fighter squadron it'll spawn a fighter jet off in the distance they'll go mock Jesus to catch up to you and then they'll basically ride the wings of the uh I wasn't I wasn't allowed to say my other word but they'll uh they'll they'll go as fast as they can and then they'll join up on that intruder aircraft and then kind of take the situation over from there. Oh wow and that that'll that'll show up on your your little mission app like you know follow this aircraft the F-35 F-15 the the cool part is it scans your community folder so if you have let's say the DC designs F-15 it'll it'll use that model if you have the Top Mock F-22 it'll spawn that model so on and so forth if you have none of those models yeah don't worry because the sobo has the default F-18 so it'll just use that but if you have add-on models you'll get to see them because they'll they'll spawn those and and bring them out and then so yeah that's the the unresponsive the responsive one is a lot cooler so once you get this aircraft under contact and in your guard frequency you'll be able to you know ask them to flash his lights at you or rock your wings and then ultimately you're gonna click the button that says you know follow me. And so your goal then is to get them out of the FRZ zone as quickly as possible and then on a heading well you're actually going to bring them to the airport that you want them to land at so the app will give you a few choices of what you want like which one like it'll give you a choice of like this airport this distance from you northeast southeast northwest whatever um you get to choose one and then you basically bring this aircraft over to that area and once you're within about 10 miles I think it is 10 nautical miles you'll basically command that aircraft to land and then you'll stay on that that intruder aircraft's wing just like they would in real life and I don't don't quote me on the uh altitudes here but in the app you're gonna stay on their wing until they're about 300 feet AGL and then you're gonna break close to the ground you're making sure they're going to the runway. Wow I think I might need to raise that because I think they don't go that far down but this is just kind of a probably a little bit exaggerated but yeah you'll stay on their wing and then once they get to that area they'll you'll kind of climb up and do an orbit around watch them land once they land it'll tell you like they're good they're done they're going to parking and they'll land on the runway they'll they'll taxi over to the parking area in in MISFIS and then you can either return to base or you can do your debrief right there and get your score and whatnot. So that was uh that was a lot that was a lot and it's not scripted wow yeah it's freaking awesome so it's very dynamic. Very dynamic though that was what was the hard part is you know there's there was two ways I could have done that I could have scripted you know 30 different routes and then had the airplane kind of fly 30 different routes and then that could be what it you know one of those 30 it's hard to tell or I'm basically controlling this AI aircraft and dynamically deciding what I'm gonna do with it. If it's gonna be if it's gonna be responsive there's a there's a probability for that if it's gonna head towards the you know the P56 the the White House the provider or just into the FRZ or do circles just right inside that beginning FRZ circle like it's it's really dynamic which has been a terrible time for me but again it's one of those things where like I'm trying to make it cool I'm trying to make it fun um and yeah with with the company so the company name is Moravia Southworks that's my two dogs names mixed up so I have a dog that was my next question for you man with the naming convention how'd you get there okay two dogs what are the two dogs so the what I call the big one the larger and the uh the older German shepherd her name's Mira and then the uh the younger one is named Ava and so that's cool the Morava sounded weird and so I said yeah you know what let's add like let's make it sound like aviation right and I was like all right and yeah it's just it's just two knucklehead dogs that I decided to name company. Most times they they annoy the hell out of me. But yeah with the with the company though that's kind of like one of the core values is you know I'm trying to basically create cool stuff and one of the the actual pillars is called do it right or get it right and that's you know taking the time to like chase these partnerships with like the US Coast Guard and get their actual data and get their their sign off not approval they can't approve things that are not life jackets and whatnot but they can sign off on like hey yeah this is we're good with you this you can use our name you can use our logos whatever and then it's also you know this part of like coding where you're trying to get it right in the sense of like I don't want to fake things unless I have to like if I can make an airplane actually fly around that that's the best thing. And so that's kind of what I'm doing with this intercept mission is I'm basically creating a little AI pilot outside of the MISFI system which is a pain to deal with um they do have yeah so MISF does have like an AI pilot that you can use the issue with it is it's not very good at following what you tell it to do. When you're scripting like waypoints for it to follow it might cut those off it might kind of go too low too high and you yeah you don't really have like that granularity control over like yeah if I want it to turn left for example the the intruder aircraft when they turn there's a math formula that's checking all right if they're at 105 knots and they're turning 20 degrees to the right what's their actual rate of turn right and that's was it true airspeed divided by 10 plus seven so a hundred that that gets you to three degrees of bank or three degrees per second which is a standard rate of turn so 100 100 speed divided by 10 it's 10 plus 7 that's 17 so you would need 17 degrees at 100 knots or so a bank to go three degrees per second. So again yeah it's like it was working backwards from all these like math equations and formulas to to actually make it look like this plane is flying there were a couple times where I almost gave up and said I'm just gonna I'm not gonna do this anymore I'm just gonna make it work some other way and I was like no but this is stick to unfortunately this is like a this is like the actual core part of this isn't this wasn't feature creep this was ah this is just terrible to implement it's complicated but like complicated but I'm sure well worth it because like and again the the community can tell when a developer has gone above and beyond and get it right.

SPEAKER_03 35:51

You know we've seen folks take shortcuts before just for the sake of getting a product out and and and even worse just just trying to make money off of it. But for you to take the time and the due diligence to really ensure that to your point it's as close to reality as possible but not too close you know because you want people to actually enjoy it but to really ensure that there's a level of realism and dynamics I think is what makes flight simming even even even better. You know I I say these guys all the time I love the VAT sim network say intentions and beyond is is getting there as well but because you you're in you know this flight sim world but it's very dynamic because you're not flying with real world pilots and all air traffic control is on the network and anything can happen at any time. So it really takes the aviation and flight sim immersion to the next level so for you to put that same sort of principle and logic in the product too is very cool.

Working With The US Coast Guard

SPEAKER_00 36:49

Yeah I mean there's a so I uh partnered up with Aerosoft they've been an amazing partner they're helping me with like 3D models and whatnot so the external sim models because we're trying to get some more cool like effects and more to come on that but we're building some really cool stuff in the background and so full disclosure I partnered up with them but they released that that TOLUS A340 right yes sir one thing that the one thing that Torsten did which was it blew my mind when um I got to sit in and try it is his even down to his little door lock right the cockpit door lock if that door that switch is in the lock position the cockpit door behind you won't open and it was like it's stuff like that like those little like uh yeah the interconnectivities where it's like that's cool that you you you went that far to think of that right because yep yeah most people won't even care or notice but it's like yeah like that level of let's try to make this cool and like realistic exactly those little unnecessary but really cool details I feel like make or break products very it goes a long way though a lot of people like in these forums within our community say you know things like oh who cares about the cabin like oh does everybody care about the cabin I don't care what it looks like get rid of the cabin if you know it makes the development go faster or makes performance better I'm just like you know that to me that's that's that's half ass in it like you know at the end of the day yes we're we're there to fly the plane but the entire immersive experience matters you know you you you technically in the real world walk through the cabin to get to the cockpit right so you know it it it does matter and it is really cool to see and it ties everything together so I you you're spot on in that regard.

SPEAKER_03 38:31

I don't know sometimes I'm team like get rid of the cabin I don't care really other times some other times I'm like yeah it's necessary I I think there's a balance I think there's a really nice balance oh no for sure yeah for sure like your cabin your cabin shouldn't be so detailed to the point where you know and and and any builds has sh has been better with this but when they first came out with their products like it's so overly detailed that it's killing the performance of anyone's computer. So I definitely agree and s inside with that for sure.

Search And Rescue Mission Design

SPEAKER_00 39:03

Yeah I think it should just be basic because like here's what I do especially longer flights or when I feel the urge to I have those little custom cameras set up so I can was a shift F4 or whatever. Right right go you know back to the wing and look at the wing because it just gives you like you're that feeling like you're a passenger right or but as far as like you know hard inspecting the cabin and like ah this doesn't look correct or ah it's been like that's where I'm kind of like team like get rid of the cabin but then again it's necessary right so I understand both sides of that I I think yeah just make it make it as little intrusive as possible to the user experience because I think I think Phoenix had something similar when they first launched I think they also had really intensive they did they also run external to sim but they also had very intensive like texturing and whatnot that they finally they finally worked out. They finally figured it out but I remember when they first launched I was like okay well I got a 14900k and a 4090 like this should not be dying right now. Yeah drag yeah yeah but yeah I was like well this is dying for me I ripped to the uh the the lower end systems that are trying to series cars yeah yeah but they did they did amazing and they've done honestly they're they're one of my like use cases in terms of how they they deal with the community they're very responsive with the community like that's the kind of developer I try to aspire to be is you know be engaged talk to them because you're without your community no one's buying your product and if you're not making community happy they're not buying your product but they're also talking smack about your product so you want to make them happy as best they can and you also you gotta see you got them you have to get them to see that you're you're a person right yeah you're not just uh some cool gamer tag behind the scenes on discord you are a you know person that is trying their best to to bring something cool at least in my my aspect so yeah hats off to the aircraft devs guys because let's say just a silent round of applause like there's so much that goes into that that it's exactly yeah yeah like you give them an applause shout out to the devs man shout out to the devs shout out to them I mean even even like like scenery developers that that go above and beyond like you know flight beam or jet stream designs and whatnot those guys and they're you know I know some of them I met flight uh mirror from flight beam recently those guys are just like their their commitment their level of detail like they go out to the airports and they they like take photos and they're like out there like you could have seen this if you're at flight sim weekend they had a video of the jet stream designs and the flight beam guy Mir they were out at Phoenix and they were you know out at different airports and whatnot taking photos and their like vests and whatnot and it's just it's really cool because that's how you get your best you know development is taking actual photos and then modeling that and just yeah hats off to everybody in the in the sim that hats off to everybody that tries hard and is not doing this just to you know make money or get money quickly there's a few marketplace scenery developers and aircraft developers that they have to be successful but you can see you know you can see the comments you can see the comments and they speak for themselves so yeah exactly right we've talked we've talked we've we've had our fair share of conversations on this show about them so we all we know yeah I mean I'm I'm not I'm never in like the position to really talk smack to our but there are some people that I just and I won't name names but there are some people and even like of the A list I would consider them A list companies that I'm just like what are you what are you doing? Like why are you behaving like this? Like this is I mean here here's one thing that happens a lot right now piracy right piracy is rampant in the community and I feel like that's partially because one there's a lot of develop not a lot there's developers out there that are breaking trust with the community they're releasing either subpar or bait and switch type style tactic like whether it's scenery aircraft a tool and you know people got hurt by it they spent 40 bucks and they're like this is not worth the 40 and there's no refunds in this space right most of the time unless you buy through like PayPal or something or you contact your credit card company and say this is a scam there's not really a lot of like recourse there. So that I feel like one that's number one. Number two is there's not a lot of free trials anymore. Like you're not able to get out there and like attempt to use it. So the weird thing with like scenery the the you uh unique thing I guess with scenery and aircraft they're really hard to contain sometimes just because of the nature of them right they they're usually scenery is usually a community folder asset that goes in there and you know they're Unfortunately, like prime targets for bad actors and malicious actors to steal them and upload them. And I just wish that everyone that that does that, I one, I I hope that they're going on the I just want to try it and I'm going to buy it eventually uh road. But number two, I just wish they would understand that. Yeah, it's a virtual it's a virtual product, right? It's not something that you hold in your hand, but that virtual product took a lot of time and a lot of development uh for most most honest developers. And what you're doing by you know pirating, ripping that off is you're just taking that away, that time, and that desire for them to do another product. So I mean, if you like the stuff that you you got, you gotta unfortunately pay for it. And don't get me wrong, if there's some prices that are out of control in the flight stem community. There is the yeah, there is that. So yeah, I think for this product, my product, I'm gonna be offering a free trial as well. I'm kind of already doing that with the beta weekends. That's one testing and getting awareness out there and the beta periods, I should say. But two, it's like, yeah, I want to I want to cut down on the the trust factor. I want people to to be able to like try it and decide do they like it or not. Because I'm honest, like if you hate it, you can tell me absolutely like no, I hate this thing, like this is stupid or whatever. Like, I get I got I to quote a friend of mine, I got broad shoulders, I can take it. That's right. No, man, either like it or you don't. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_03 45:28

It goes a long way. I think I I think it's gotten a little better in terms of like the pricing models for a lot of these add-on products in the community because we have great developers and and and developers of principle and morals that have sort of set the baseline for the community. So now when folks are out there trying to price something astronomically high, it's like, wait a minute, this doesn't make any sense. And the community has the right reaction towards that. So, you know, shout out to to you and the other developers out there, you know, that has seen you know what's been going on in the space for a very long time and then taking the appropriate action to price your products, you know, for for for consumers that can actually you know afford it and and and really strike the balance between the time and effort that obviously you know you've put into it. So you know, we talk about it here all the time.

SPEAKER_02 46:18

It's just some of these developers out there, because they've been charging for the product for so long across various iterations of flights and over decades, some some of them, you know, they think they can continue to charge that. And I think the reality is the the the the hobby and and and software development and and some of the expectations of the consumers have shifted. So you've got to come along with the times, and they're just they're just not doing it.

SPEAKER_00 46:49

I want to apologize for a second. I've been drinking a lot on your show. I'm still getting over whatever I have, whether it's I don't know if it's COVID, I don't know if it's a cold, maybe it's bird flu, swine flu, who knows. But um, I got something, and I am desperately trying to fight off, and sometimes I just have like these like spells where I'm like, I am in the Sahara Desert, I am dying of thirst. I need liquid. So apologies for no drinking on the podcast. But yeah, to hit on your to hit the head on your like you hit the head on the nail right there with your your your topic is I think, and again, I you know, I'm not gonna throw shade at anyone, but I feel like there are some developers in the scene that have lost sight of that you know, there's a lot of new people in the in the market, there's a lot of new newcomers. You're not the the top dog anymore, or you know, you you can't quite act like that anymore, or you can't price your stuff like that anymore, because you're not the only one out there doing that stuff, and you're not the only one capable of doing that stuff. But on the same token, there's also you know, it's consistency with some of the what I would call like legacy like flight sim developers, like at least their their product has been very consistent. Like you know that what you're buying is what you're gonna get. Like, there's been no other than a certain developer. Nah, yeah we all know which one I'm gonna talk about, but there's a certain marketplace developer now that used to make really good products back in the day, and now they're just visual models with default internals. Yeah, and yeah, that was a weird switch for me. That was a hard switch for me. I was not prepared for that because yeah, I used to be all over that in FSX days and and before, but yeah, it's just it's a new world. I think uh 2020 coming out blew this space up. Yeah, yeah, 100% sure. Thank god they did, right? Because X Plane, I'm not a big fan of X Plane. I I like the concept behind it, but I can't, and I'm very public on this. I just can't get behind the visuals. The visuals kill it for me. But X-Plane's been chugging along. Austin has been chugging along forever, and I'm glad that there is now a new competitor to his product because you know it's not a war, it's a competition, and it's amazing to watch what what they do. Like X Plane has to now fight against Microsoft again, and Microsoft has to fight against X Plane again, and it's great, it's because that's how you get cool new features, like it forces innovation. If they don't innovate on their side, you know, Microsoft, they lose to X Plane. If Austin doesn't innovate on his side, he loses to Microsoft. So like it's it's fun to watch these races of people like like they're racing to get to an imaginary non-ending finish line. And I'm like, let's go. That's exactly right, man.

SPEAKER_03 49:32

We talk about it all the time, man. It it breeds innovation and it is good all around for the community because we we all benefit from it. Oftentimes we get into this Microsoft versus X Plane debate, and some of it's healthy and some of it's just pure crass. But at the end of the day, and and what it boils down to, it's it's great for everyone. Number one, it gives you options, right? You know, 2020 or 2024 is pissing you off one day. I'm just gonna go fly X Plane, or vice versa. You know, there's certain products available in one SIM versus the other, although the parity there is is is definitely the gap there is definitely closing. But yeah, it's again overall, it's great for everyone, and and we continue to welcome it.

SPEAKER_00 50:13

Yeah, 100%. I mean, I have I don't have it installed right now, but I I did have X Plane 12 that I messed around for a few months. I just couldn't I couldn't get over the visuals, like missing. It's hard, man. It's hard. Like the the flight models are amazing.

SPEAKER_05 50:28

See, that's what drives me to X-Plane. If I want to go fill a heavy aircraft, I'm gonna go feel it in the X-Plane. It's just it's what it is. Visuals aside, as bad as I hate it, you know, block looking clouds look like I'm in Minecraft or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 50:44

But uh oh, you got that Minecraft mod on, yeah. It's gonna be a pilot coming up to you with a little axe going like this so you get in the door. No, I mean they've they've done an amazing job, I think, of like even bringing their visuals up, like in oh yeah. Well, you don't have a choice.

SPEAKER_05 51:05

It's either exactly either sink or swim.

SPEAKER_00 51:08

That's where you're exactly exactly, and no, that's amazing. Like, I love to see it. Like, I don't wish you know, I don't wish any X Plane users like ill, like I don't I want their product to keep getting better because the better their product gets, the better, you know, the flight sim product has to get or sink or swim, like you said. As a whole, yep, yeah, no, so it's exciting to to see this like space just exploding. Like 2020, I it really was the catalyst that you know brought it back. I know Microsoft did that, whatever they call it, Microsoft Flight 2012, which was like a weird you remember that, yeah. That was that was it was that it was like free to play, yeah. It's and you can only go in Hawaii, and I I don't know what they were trying to do that.

Blackjack Intercepts Around Washington DC

SPEAKER_03 51:52

I don't know, but that's why a lot of this the sim community when 2020 was announced was so hesitant, and it was just like, yeah, I hear them trying to, you know, more money grab. But how how how passionate and how intentional are they going to be to really support this product, invest money, time, and resources into it. And you know, here we are six years later, and and happy to say that they've they've stuck to their word, at least for now. So it's great to see.

SPEAKER_05 52:17

Yeah, I but you still got that in the back of your mind always, like when they're gonna pull the ground. It's a business.

SPEAKER_03 52:23

We know at the end of the day, it's a business. They're in it to make money first and foremost. They probably won't never say that out loud, but you know, we we get it, but it's always good to enjoy what we have for now, right? And um, you know, I'm gonna count it.

SPEAKER_00 52:38

I'm gonna count you on that. I'm gonna counter you on that. I think Microsoft as a whole 100% is there to make money, and they would be in my opinion, the ones that ripped the cord. I think a sobo actually does do this 100% for you know, because they love it. They like this. Oh, that's yeah. So yeah, Microsoft for sure, they'll pull that ripcord, they'll be like, yeah, we're done. We don't want to play with this anymore. And then a sobo is like, but why? Like they're like, they're definitely with their flaws that they've had. I mean, even with the disastrous release of 2024, they've still done very right with the community. Hey, I was involved in that too, so I can speak about that. I was sitting there trying to get that thing to launch on launch day, and I'm like, you know what? This this ain't happening. I took a day off.

SPEAKER_01 53:22

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And I'm like, ah, what do you mean I can't turn it on?

SPEAKER_05 53:29

I played the beta, the beta was. Sitting there having to click the mouse to hit hit your password. Oh my god. That's crazy.

SPEAKER_03 53:36

I didn't touch it for like the first two months because of that. And then I got it and it drove me crazy. So then I uninstalled it, and then it took me another like eight months before I finally was in it. I'm like, yeah, this is way better than 2020 now and deleted 2020. But yeah, I definitely have.

SPEAKER_00 53:55

What got me was yeah, doing the beta test when they had that open beta. The when I was flying around on a little Cessna, it just felt so I am a real world uh private pilot. And I don't know, it just it felt like that little Cessna felt so much more realistic than 2020 Cessna. Like I was doing, I think I was doing a short field, a soft short field takeoff, which is where you just lift that nose up and you keep that nose up until you gain enough airspeed, and then you sit back in ground effect. And they the short field takeoff is with 10 degrees of flaps. So I call it my soft short field takeoff. But uh yeah, anyways, it you know, lowering that nose down, it just felt leaps and bounds better than 2020 did because in 2020 it would just kind of like it would go and then it would go up like that, and then you're like tail striking on the back. I don't know, for maybe I was maybe I was imagining it, but I could feel like a little bit more back there that I was like, okay, this doesn't feel like it's on a rail because that was the biggest argument that I still hear X-Plane fans say about 2020 and 2024 is all the airplanes are on rails. And to to some degree, yeah, that's true. My but my other take on that is and Charlie's for you, you want to feel a real heavy plane, and again, it's not due to my my uh my affiliation. Check out that 346 from from Tullus and Aerosoft. That is amazing. Even even the I and I, I love that I and I A343. It is so much fun. They did such a good job with the little CRT, and I'm not affiliated with them, the CRT screens. Oh, it was so cool. I love that retro stuff. Charlie could probably attest when he started up the he started up my app, like there's a the splash screen is like an old CRT floating. It was awesome. That's like that's my that's like my my my theme. Like I that's what I like seeing. So when they give you the option to do CRT screens, I'm like, oh absolutely, let's go. Like we're fine.

SPEAKER_05 55:44

No, the Tori.

SPEAKER_00 55:46

Like I want this thing, like I I tell people this all the time. If I ever buy an airplane, it's gonna be basically a rust bucket on the outside. I want it to like make the FAA question if it's air or not. I want to I want to show up to the fly-ins and it's like how did he get there?

SPEAKER_06 56:05

Yeah, yeah, yeah. How do you get here?

SPEAKER_00 56:06

And then the inside is clapped out, like just premium, like luxury everything, and the motors as well. Like, I don't want any mechanical problems, I just want it to look like it sat at the bottom of a lake for six to eight years. It's like it's hilarious. So when aircraft devs like give you the option to make it like dirty and old, I uh the slider goes all the way to old and all the way to dirty.

SPEAKER_05 56:31

That's hilarious.

SPEAKER_03 56:32

But it's something for that experience. Yeah, well, it's funny because we were talking before just before the show, that 340. I picked it up when it came out over the weekend. I think Johnny just got it last night, so we've got to get his feedback when he finally gets to fly it. But yeah, you are spot on. And it goes back to the X-Plane conversation, right? It's great to see Tullis now coming over, partnering with Aerosoff and diving into the the the Microsoft space. That was a I did a fly, uh I called it a fairy flight because they obviously don't run this in real world, but I did Kennedy to to LAX with uh Luftanza repositioned flight, and manza that Luftanza. That was cool, man. It I I was blown away. You know, I and it's we've I've had aerosol products since the beginning of the FSX days, and you know, they've always been solid, don't get me wrong, but you know, the FS Labs and the and the and the oh my gosh, Phoenix has always been a cut above. So I wasn't expecting a whole lot, but I was blown away. This this D40 is is remarkable and really, really fun to fly. So you're spot on there. To your point, it does feel like a heavy aircraft, you know, within the confines of of 2024, but it it does feel great. And you're spot on because even one of the first as bad as the initial launch of 2024 was, most of the commentary was, oh yeah, the flight dynamics are much improved versus 2020. So you knew you certainly weren't the only one in that regard.

SPEAKER_00 58:04

Yeah, and they gave they just gave devs like a lot a lot more freedom, I think, in 2024. I think 2020 was just a test bed. Obviously, 2024 is not brand new code, right? It's it's a carryover of 2020 expenses, but 2020 was like a test bed for them. They really it's what what we call POC a proof of concept, and I think it it turned in from a POC to like an actual like product. I don't think they were expecting the reaction to get from it because in this is me speaking on my own accord, like I'm not affiliated with the Sebo or Microsoft, but I feel like they were not expecting the the community to still be there after you know that 2012 incident. And then I feel once that they realize how successful 2020 was, they're like, all right, we need to make this better. And the only way they can do that is by doing 2024. I was part of the original camp where I saw that announcement, I'm like, dude, what what do you mean you're making a brand new simulator? I just got here.

SPEAKER_03 59:04

I just still have broken. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 59:07

Like, how you how you gonna get fired on your day off? But uh Craig.

SPEAKER_00 59:14

I'm glad I'm glad they did though, right? Because it it made it it made it better. They they expanded a lot, and there's still obviously a lot of issues with 2024, but I believe they're working on it at a okay pace for any large developer studio. You know, they have meetings too, they get they get their schedules bogged down, and I I think the larger a developer gets the slower it takes for them to actually get products done. Because then you got a lot of bloat, you got internal bloat, you got reproval chains that take weeks and and sometimes days or months or whatever to to make this one you know pull request and close it or whatever. So hats off to them. I think they're doing well, and I'm excited to see what they force X Plane to also pull out of their hats, and you know, vice versa, like we're saying. But yeah, the the 346 from TOLUS is awesome. The 340i also from I and I, oh it's it's great. I love it. I love that plane. I love both of them. I'm not even an Airbus guy, I'm a I'm a Boeing guy. Like, I really like to lean towards Boeing, but those 340s, especially that 343 with four hairdryers attached to the wing. Um if you do a max takeoff roll out of LA, so like LA to like Munich or something, and you load it as full as it will possibly let you with the the baggage and the fuel and whatnot, yeah, and you go off at a max takeoff or what LA, you were gonna climb at like 600 feet per minute, because that's what I was doing. I had to let because I was flying on Vatsim, and I had to let the ATC guy know. I'm like, I'm not gonna meet those restrictions on the unable to say restrictions, yeah. Yeah, I'm not gonna hit those. Like, well, how far off you could be? I was like, oh, according to the FMC, like 2000 below. He's like, ah, it'll be fine. So yeah, like they did because there were there was some discourse I saw like the forums and whatnot, they're like, oh, this feels too powerful. And I'm like, not for me. I I had an embarrassing climb out of LA, and then you hop, then you hop into that 600, and it's like, oh wow, this feels like it actually has four real adult-sized engines on it, and not you know, four hairdryers that were duct taped to the bottom of the wing. Airbus said it was like, Yep, good to go. Uh it'll work, it'll work.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:28

No, it's cool, man, because it's good to see, like, again, especially if you are flying the SIM as realistically as possible, and you're doing your performance calculations, you're running your numbers, you're on VATSIM with air traffic controllers, like those are all real-world considerations. Like, you know, each of those SIDs have a minimum climb gradient, and you know, you're you're supposed to do exactly what you did and let the controller know if you're not going to be able to meet those. So I think it's uh it's great that you know we also have you know flight sim developers, aircraft developers modeling those considerations and the realism that every pilot out there has to contend with when they're flying the line. It's really cool.

Dynamic AI Control And Scoring Challenges

SPEAKER_00 1:02:12

Yeah, 100%. Yeah, but I've been flying that that 737, you know, from PMDG since FSX days. And there's still stuff in it that I don't know that you could do that, but you can do. Like, I still haven't I've heard about, but I've never tried like the John Wayne cutout climb because I don't know how to keep to the departure. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, yeah. But I I knew it's possible. I I think that someone's probably made a video of it, but like that's what's so cool about these planes is like they're there's so much that you could do in them, especially like the Phoenix, the the the PMDGs, the even the I and I's and the the you know aerosoft uh with their partnership with Tullis. I mean Tullis Torsten is amazing and his team is amazing at at Tullis. I they his dedication for like the getting it right and whatnot, like down to the minute detail. There were a couple times where I was asking him, I'm like, well, why can't you just do this? He's like, it's not in the real aircraft. I'm like, but I want it. He's like, it's not in the real aircraft. I'm like, all right, fair enough, fine. It's uh yeah, I mean, it it's just like I said, it's fun to see all these developers, whether or not they like each other, but it's fun to see them all out there, you know, especially like FS Weekend or Expo in the wild in their natural habitat. It's like yeah, it's like wow, I've I've seen your I bought your products. I I think I've spent like a thousand dollars with you. Yeah, like how's your kids? Because I know I put them through college. But yeah, no, I mean this this hobby is this hobby is crazy, and it's just getting bigger. You can see that if you buy a bats and you can see that the the membership has like spiked, like there's so many people now, and it's only gonna get bigger as you know developers like X Flane and and Sobo the more they put into it, the more they appeal to like that mass audience, more marketing. I mean, that was the great thing about 2020, 2024, they had Xbox behind it marketing for it. So you had people that with their massive budget they were doing to market the launch and the release of it, you had people that would never even consider a flight sim hopping into it now. And then let's not even talk about consoles. I mean, yeah, we can we can give them grief. Yeah, we can give them grief. But what I what I tell people all the time, especially when I you know interact with them on Reddit or whatever, is like console, because you see this a lot, it's like how can I do this better? And I'm like, console is a really amazing like entry point, and to learn like whether or not you got the bug, whether you're immune to the bug or not, I guess. Once you decide like I love this, I want to I want to go to the next level, you have to go to PC after that. It's the only way to get all those peripherals or whatnot. But a console at least is an entry-level way to figure out if you even like doing this, right? I have friends of mine that I play games with, and they're like, Well, how do you sit at a computer and fly a fake airplane? I'm like, I don't know, how do we play shooter games? Like it's you just turn it on and then you start doing the process to to complete that task, right? Yeah, they're like, Yeah, but it's it's so boring. I'm like, well, I mean, I'm you know, longer flights, I'm not sitting here the whole time. Usually I'm like vacuuming or exactly watching a video or something. It's just it's relaxing. It's it's the procedure, it's the process, and you know, as a as a real world pilot, it it makes it it makes me have like that muscle memory still. And what's what's weird about that is I took a hiatus from flying for like I want to say five years, maybe six. And when I went back in and I started doing like refamiliaration, uh refamiliarization flights with like a CFI, right? He was like, You really haven't flown in like five or six years, and I just like oh no, I I'm a flight sim nerd. I like flying fake planes, so yeah. I mean, he's like, Well, that that had to have helped you because it just it keeps like procedures and your mental models intact and warm. Might not be able to pull out one for one those skills into a real life scenario, but if you have those foundations baked into you, and then when you sim, you use those same foundations, it uh it just keeps it warm, it keeps it fresh in your brain.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:12

It it does, and we've said that many a time through the years, and we've had real world pilots on here, commercial pilots, airline pilots on here, and they say the same thing, man. You know, it was very earlier on when you know the industry looked down on flight sim, and you know, a lot of people were, you know, you can't take any of those things and apply it to real world and this and that and get off my lawn and blah blah blah. And it's great to see that, you know, as the as new folks have entered the industry that have really come out of flight sim, like a lot of pilots out there are you know, especially the younger generation, they're flying on the line because they fell in love with Flight Sim. Um and they're ahead of the game in a lot of regard, especially for those that use like VAT sim, right? So I you know, I remember when I was getting my my PPL and even instrument, radio communications was the the very least thing for me to worry about because I've been doing for almost a decade with VAT sim already, right? So you know, I had that was one less thing I had to worry I had to worry about. So it definitely goes a long way. And I think you know, the the more and more people that you know get into the hobby should certainly you know look to understand, you know, if it is the bug, right, and and it is something they want to pursue in the real world, how do they use those skills to transition it? Because it is available and it is there.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:32

Yeah, I mean, not to tie in my product here, but that's kind of what I would like to do with the product is you know, showing this whole other side that's deeply underserved right now is like search and rescue pilots and whatnot. Like there's oh yeah there's not a lot of people that are joining up, even not even like coast US Coast Guard aside, there's still other private agencies that also have recruiting you know problems because not a lot of people remember that that's a thing until you know, because you don't interact with those guys unless it's one of the worst days of your life, then you're probably interacting with them. But you can be as you know, assured that if you give anywhere within the US continental waters, if you tell them, Hey, I'm singing, I need help, they're gonna be out there as quickly as they can. And they might not get to you with a helicopter immediately. That's what's cool about the app, but they will get to you with a maybe a fixed-wing aircraft that goes way faster, and they'll drop you, I don't know, a life raft and medicine, which is something they do routinely out of C-130s. Basically, they they tie a little like like for like a life raft or radios or a or a medical kit, they'll tie like a rope on it, and then they'll drop it the rope and the item. Yeah, it's kind of goes across the bow of the uh the shop so that the person can kind of grab the rope and then and reel in whatever they were dropping.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:48

Oh wow, that's really pretty cool.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:51

Yeah, it's uh it was a super thing, a cool thing. I think there's a video, I think I posted one on my Discord about it or somewhere. I was talking to someone about it, and yeah, it's there's like that's like I hope I can inspire some you know younger people or people that are thinking about this and like unlock that like oh wow, this is something I really want to, you know, like look into. And uh when the product releases, I'm gonna probably put something on my website like hey, you if you've tried it here, you should check out you know your careers here and you know, obviously link to the Coast Guard, maybe some other like local like agencies that are not military-based, just to get like people like an outlet, like, yeah, I really like doing this. Now I will warn you that the app is a lot more fun than I think it might be in real life, but um, yeah, it's still pretty stressful stuff right there. Yeah, yeah, at least in the sim you go, oh no, I crashed. Yeah, um in real life, it's a little different. But if that's your kind of line of work and that's something that excites you and gives you passion, then you know, and if I can unlock that or at least show someone like, hey, this has been really fun, I've enjoyed this, then mission accomplished for me because that's you know, I'm telling a story and I'm trying to get people to have fun. And if I can do something productive out of that, other than those two goals, and let's go. That's right.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:06

Spot on, man. Let's go indeed, folks. Again, man, if you're you're you're out there listening, we appreciate you all tuning in with not Matt from Arabia Moravia Softworks. Check out Moraviosoftworks.com. Definitely join the Discord as well to get you know the latest up to dates on on the product. I I listen, man, this is certainly I think it is an underserved area in aviation in general in the real world, but certainly in the sim as well. So you know, as a community, we definitely appreciate your time, your dedication, your commitment to this. It looks like it's going to continue to grow and and be better and and and and really give folks an opportunity to venture into the other side of aviation and and what can be, you know. Hopefully you get back with the the Coast Guard once they they settle all the budgeting stuff out. Yeah, that that'll be really cool as well.

Add-On Craftsmanship And Tiny Details

SPEAKER_00 1:11:04

I mean, yeah, hopefully, hopefully I can do that. And then as far as what this entails, you know, after the product is released, I'm hoping to have more clarity on that when I actually release the product, but it could be something like uh I'm planning expansions afterwards, and so nice. It may be it would be a modest, and I know there's some people that said modest, but I'm meaning modest between like a five and fifteen dollar range. It really depends on what I'm putting into it. If it was something really simple, that kind of expansion, that'd be at the five dollar mark. If I'm putting a lot of effort into it and you know, new models and whatnot, then probably closer to the 15. But I'm thinking like Medavac, like true Medevac stuff. So airport to airport, hospital to airport, hospital to hospital, whatever. And then I'm thinking maybe some kind of like military thing. I was a real big fan of that like TAC Pack idea that came out for P3D and FSX back in the day. Yeah, and it would be really fun to see if I could try something like that in like 2024, because I have a lot of the inner workings already in this app. It's just not applied in those directions. But that'd be kind of cool with like a military-style pack where you get to intercept aircraft anywhere, not just in the DC, not just in the DC area, or you know, getting ground targets to to at the practice range and in Nellis or the Nevada test range. And then, you know, something that's already been done, but you know, I could add that as well as like the air-to-air refueling, so you can do like uh air-to-air refueling and whatnot. That would be cool to do. We are as a company kind of expanding right now. We're working on a separate thing that I can't talk about yet, but hopefully when I when I can talk about it, it's gonna be well received. It's not quite flight sim related, but it is kind of aviation related. So more to come on that, you know, not to dangle the carrot and then run away with the carrot, but yeah, yeah, it is right now. It's so it's so under under wraps and like so early in its development that yeah, I can't really speak about it yet, but no, it it'll be it's a passion project of mine. It's something that I've had an idea for a long time. And I find a I found a partner that's willing to do it with me, because I'm I'm completely hands off on that just because I got my own you know, dev cycle. I gotta hit my own goals on on the product I'm developing. But yeah, when there's more to talk about that, yeah. And you know, make sure the entire town gathers around an old English village like hey, hey, yay.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:42

Oh, we'll be standing by for it, man. Looking forward to it. Hey, would you be at a flight to expo?

SPEAKER_00 1:13:48

That's a big question mark for me right now. Okay. The reason is not that I don't want to, obviously, I would I would love to be there because Evan and all of them are are awesome dudes. It's kind of far, so I I live in Germany, as you guys know. And I don't even know like if it would make financial sense right now to show up. Yeah, but I hear you. To be to be determined, if I could find out a really good way to swing it, then yeah, absolutely. It's I mean it they're both invaluable. Uh Flight Sim Expo and FS Weekend, they're just they're amazing gateways. Again, to get the the end user to see us as developers, as people, you can come talk to us, you tell us you don't like us. Like I've heard I've heard in some of these shows through colleagues or friends of mine that there will be people that come up to them and just like look them dead in the eye, like, I don't like your product, and like alright. So I'm not surprised. Not to welcome that or condone that behavior, but it is hilarious to hear about it happening to someone else. So like, ah ah rats. But no, uh, Flight Sim Expo is a big, a big if. I I definitely want to try to make it just because it um I've never been, and it looks amazing. Evan and the team really they they they pulled out all the stops. They're trying their absolute best, and they're trying to give you the coolest experience. So I'm not affiliated with them in that way, but that's my honest opinion, just for both sides for weekend and uh expos. Just amazing work that these guys do.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:24

It's it's it's yeah, we've been a couple of times ourselves. We will be at this year's Flightsim Expo again as a reminder for our community. Uh, we're also one of the sponsors, so happy to be sponsoring again. We're looking forward to seeing you all in Minneapolis. So don't forget if you haven't registered already. Charlie, could you pop that back up? Sorry, I've always forget the uh thank you, sir. Flightsimexpo.com backslash, no, that's forward slash, register. So if you have not gotten your ticket yet, please go ahead and register as well. It's it's almost April. It's insane, man. Like the year I feel like it was just January, not too long ago.

SPEAKER_05 1:16:02

I just hope they don't quit jacking with my flight. They've already moved it up like an hour. And I'm like Already, yeah. I'm like, this is like three weeks away or three months away. That's why are you changing itineraries now? Wow.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:18

It's psychological games, they're trying to get you to not show up for that flight. Yeah, so they oversell it. Yeah, we overbooked this, though. Now we're just gonna mess with the times and until December. That's crazy.

SPEAKER_05 1:16:31

I'm like, man, it's crazy.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:33

Yeah, I mean, to anyone that's listening, a hundred percent. If you have if you like flight sim, you gotta show up to one one of these events, whether it's expo or a weekend. It once you go, you're gonna be like, this is awesome. Because they they put on a really good show, like they have like good guest speakers, a lot of product launches and announcements, like first hand knowledge. And then, for example, you can test aircraft like there that haven't even been released. Like a lot of developers bring their product, like, for example, me at FS Weekend, I had an unreleased product that I was letting people test out. So 100% do it, do it, do it. It's worth it.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:10

Man, just getting hands on all the hardware and seeing it, it's like, oh man, you just geek out geek out this hardware with seeing it and being able to have hands-on experience there.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:20

Yeah, yeah, it's the hilarious thing. So to FS Weekend, I brought a friend of mine who has nothing to do with the flight sim community. Like, he he is fascinated by flight, he likes it, he likes the idea of it. He has never been to anything with flight sim, he didn't know any of the story, the lore. He doesn't know any of the companies. So I brought him, I basically just plopped him in the middle of this like convention in at in Letstadt in the Netherlands. And I'm like having to like give him the footnotes every time. He's like, Who are those people? Like, that's PMDG. He's like, Who are those people? And I'm like, that's I and I builds. And he's like, What are they what are they? I'm like, that's just flight. They're they make some like cool, like, smaller airplanes and whatnot. He's like, What does PMDG make again? I'm like, a lot of stuff. Like giving him like the lore anything Boeing, uh, yeah. I was like, Yeah, you heard of that thing called Boeing. That's kind of what their their bread and butter is. They did make a badass JS-41 back in FSX, and I was talking to Matthias. I was like, please bring the JS41 back. Like, come on. Uh not the MD11. We we get it. There's no market in that TFDI has done an incredible job. The MD11. Oh please bring back the JS41. That was I remember so many times vividly in FSX where I flew that thing and the the the engines caught on fire because I overstressed them or whatever. So yeah, that plane tortured you, but god, I wish I would give anything to see that bag. Yep.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:49

Dad and man uh we're looking for a 717 as well, man.

Pricing Trust Free Trials And Piracy

SPEAKER_01 1:18:53

That was uh in the P3D days as well. Wait, isn't there a isn't there a 717? I think seven two, right?

SPEAKER_05 1:19:02

There's a seven two, yeah, yeah. Okay, yeah. I think Sam attempted a seven one seven. Really? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:14

Interesting. Yeah, I've never I've never flown the 7-1. I was never so like the farthest like old I'll go. I it that was to be expected. I don't like personally, I don't like the the struggle bus of older aircraft. What I mean by that is like the having to use a flight engineer, having to either automate the flight engineer better than yourself. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can hang me for that one if y'all want. I mean you're kidding, then oldest oldest I'll go is like an MD80. That's just uh right amount of old, but also still two pilot operations, yeah. Exactly. Like you could still do like an RNA in that thing, but the TriStar coming out sometime in the next year.

SPEAKER_05 1:20:02

Yeah. You start thinking about you know, like operation getting that thing off the ground. It's like, holy crap, it's gonna take me like two and a half hours just to taxi out. So I have that much time.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:15

Even even like I didn't get a chance to try it at weekend because the line was massive and whatnot, but like I get to saw see some people using it. It's just there's so much going on. It's like the Concord, right? The Concord is I I've flown that a couple times. It's fun and all, but oh my god, there's like just give me auto. Give me an auto thing. Like, I want to go fast. Like, I'm Ricky Bobby here. I'm here to go fast. I'm not here to do math, I'm not here to to read books, I want to go fast. Yeah, and like that's always like my struggle with airplanes, is like I can land on just about anything in the sim. If you give me enough time and you give me the right numbers, like here's your stall speed and whatever configuration, like I'll figure it out, right? Yeah, what I can't figure out is the in-route cruise of some complex airplanes because I'm like, wait, what do you mean I have to flip this fuel switch, but only on Tuesdays and sometimes when it's like that's a concord. It's like, yeah, you flip the switch sometimes if the moon is at a I don't know, a full moon, but it was a day before you had pizza. That that's when you're gonna use this switch. And I'm like, I can't.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:21

I just want to fly. That's that's right up Johnny's alley, though. That is John's those kind of birds and loves that kind of stuff. He is into the flight.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:30

Is he a big DC six guy? Like, did he love that plane from PMDG?

SPEAKER_05 1:21:35

Nah, he's not a DC six guy, but like Concord, the Tri Scar. Yeah, he likes the faster ones.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:42

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, because that DC six, I remember I tried that because it was like literally the only thing for 2020 that came up from like a like a premium developer. It was a it's a cool plane, but oh my god, there's so much work. There's so much reading, and like again, it's like you either like that kind of old bird flying or you can't. Exactly.

SPEAKER_05 1:22:02

I'm not that guy. Not either. I am to an extent, but like an automated flight engineer or something like that. 177, you know, you get it off the ground fairly quick.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:13

And they have that in that PMDG, but it's still then you're there's still takes time on. Yeah, yeah. I'm like, eh. Nah, I I could I pride myself on the ability to like start up a 737 like 15 minutes, right? Like just like flip everything on and be like, I'm ready to push. And you know, if I reply with friends, they're like, How are you ready? I'm like, Navigraph. I use sibr thing, and it's just been like that.

SPEAKER_05 1:22:43

Import everything, man, fire the APU, fire the edges, we're gone.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:48

Well, I mean, damn it. Impact on the community. For real, you remember when you had to like make routes and like search them via flight aware that they didn't exist, you had to like skyvector your way and then get the fuel planner. Um yeah, the fuel planter alone was genius because now we got you have to go to a billion sites or like doing it.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:08

Everything is right there, and they're all spot on. Every once in a while, a burn will be off on something, but for the most part, spot on.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:17

I had that issue with the uh with the headwind A339. So when it first came out, I had that yeah. I did a flight from uh Frankfurt to Seattle, and I was over like Canada. And I left it. I was offline, I just kind of did stuff around my house, came back and I looked at it and I'm like, I got like six thousand pounds of fuel, and I'm still like very far. Yeah, I did. I made it, I landed like I think I landed with like a hundred pounds of fuel. I basically climbed up, so I was low, I was at 31. I went to 39, sat there, I reduced it to like I think whatever the econ speed is, and it did very well holding that, but it took longer, which obviously means more fuel burden over time, right? But the thing I I I left it high just in case I did lose an engine or two. I might be able to glide, at least glide and land at Seattle. And I landed with engine power, so it died on the gate. But yeah, I that's when I learned that. Yeah, I learned that Simbrief has the ability to add extra fuel in those kind of cases.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:22

Yeah, so uh that was the headwind 339 is is freaking awesome. I love it, but you know, a lot of these freeware planes still have some work to do, so you know, if I fly them, I definitely always add a little bit more fuel just to be safe in SimBrief.

MSFS Versus X-Plane And Better Flight Models

SPEAKER_00 1:24:38

I just wish I don't know, I wish like Headwind and I wish Flybower would switch over to the the paid model. I know that's completely against the way they do, but if they went that direction, they would be able to divert all their attention, all their resources, because they'd be able to actually get paid and not ask for donations. I agree. They can even do it in a way like I was telling them this at FS Weekend, I was like, you guys could even go in a way where you make this high fidelity aircraft for like 12 bucks, right? First off, you're gonna disrupt the market and make every dev out there mad. But second thing is you make that at that point where everyone can afford a$12 airplane, especially if it's uh the what they have right now, and you take that money, you're you're gonna get so many people that buy at the same time, you're gonna make the same amount, you're gonna have that same market capture as if you price it at a high-end level like current triple A uh aircraft dev. And if you went there out, then then you guys can pay yourselves. You don't have to like do this as a hobby, you don't have to do this in your free time, which is what slows down a lot of the like the the freeware aircraft is just a group of open source people kind of working together. Yeah, now you get to dedicate you know people to this, and yeah, it's just but the work that they've done in that model, that free model, just it blows my mind. I'm like, how did you guys how did we how are we not doing this in FSX days? Like, like this is unheard of.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:01

It's amazing what like it like you said at the beginning, like what 2020 has been able to unlock for new devs and the community and the advantage we're able to take of it. It's it's phenomenal. I've got that 380 probably a couple times a month easily. Yeah, I've had it for a while.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:20

I've tried it. I I think the the tech they have in there is just phenomenal. Like the break to vacate, that the fact that they were able to put that in.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:29

And that freeware product, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:30

And it was like a freeware product, yeah, nonetheless, yeah. And like I've never had a massive except for a few like flight plan things, like oddities, like edge cases where it tries to take you to the wrong spot. I've never really had like a crazy problem with it or even the flight dynamics of the airplane. So now I mean the fact that they did that as as a freeware, like I I would implore them to expand into a you know a paid model, but an affordable paid model, just to so that they can focus on it. Because they love doing it. If you talk to any of them, oh yeah, they're very passionate about the project.

SPEAKER_05 1:27:02

You could tell that speech from FS and you know, you just tell the passion was there.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:10

The passion is there, just turn it into something that's sustainable for you. I mean, I've had that same issue with me, is like you if you try to if you try to go too far, and not for this is not for them, this is for other developers that are coming brand new. If you try to go too far too hard with marketing and and research and paying for stuff, you're gonna bankrupt yourself before you even get the product out. That's how a lot of abandonware happens. And then you'll see a lot of people like they come back because they still release their unfinished product, but like 10,000 people bought it and they're like, Well, I have cash flow again. So yeah, the the more you protect that cash flow and the more you insulate it, the better products you can make because now you're you're you're you're getting compensated for it, right? It's not your wife's not yelling at you, like, what are you doing on the computer? I don't know why that was an older grandmother in my voice.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:03

Too cool, man. Man, this uh this has been awesome. We really appreciate the time you you took to come on here with us and the community. You know, we're looking for great things continued out of you know your platform, your product, and and the the additional things that you're working on behind the scenes. I look forward to seeing it. Uh and if you do make your way to Expo, I'm sure all the folks here will be thrilled to meet you and interact with you. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:28

Yeah, hell yeah. I uh I'll you'll be the first people I'll tell. Before I even tell before I even tell my own Discord and supporters, I'll be like, nah, Charlie, Mike, I'll nice, man. We love it, we love it.

SPEAKER_05 1:28:42

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:44

DM be like, hey, who's got two thumbs and is going to expo? No, thank you so much for having me. It's been an honor. And uh it's been fun. I love these kinds of forums and these conversations. I was telling you all this before we start recording. Like, this is like the easiest, like free flow, like just talk about stuff and talk about your product and talk about what you're doing and what excites you. It's just it's it's fun. It's fun. I was on the uh it wasn't a it wasn't a podcast, but I was on one of the helicopter streamers. His name's Matthew Matthew Crawford from Let's Fly, and he's on YouTube. But super cool, dude. It was just fun being on there and talking to him while he was flying the mission. And he's like, Well, are we supposed to be doing this? I'm like, I don't know, yeah, it looks all right. He's like, What about this? I'm like, Yeah, uh, you know, it's programmed this way, so I guess I could be correct.

SPEAKER_05 1:29:41

Oh, it's hilarious.

SPEAKER_04 1:29:42

Charlie, man, any parting words for our folks? Man, I got nothing. Everybody take care of themselves and each other.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:50

Eat your veggies.

SPEAKER_04 1:29:52

Eat your veggies and keep it blue side up.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:57

Charlie, take us out, man. Let's see y'all.