FSExpo -The Ultimate Convention for Flight Simmers

By Spencer Doyle

On June 21st, flight simulation enthusiasts, developers, media, hardware manufacturers and more flocked to the Rio Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, NV for the 5th FlightSimExpo. The expo took place over 3 days, with Friday’s schedule being dedicated to attendee registration and product announcements, followed by 2 days of flightsim-related seminars and an Exhibit Hall displaying the latest hardware, software, and community products.

The flight simulation hobby, which used to be considered niche, has grown considerably over the past few years, with more accessible sims like Microsoft Flight Simulator, DCS, and an updated X-Plane 12 coming to market. With MSFS boasting over fifteen million simmers, this is no longer a niche market. When compared to real aviation, the flightsim hobby is accessible to those who cannot physically fly due to disabilities, time, and budget constraints as well as people of all educational backgrounds. While millions of gamers are using flight simulation for casual entertainment, 33% of FlightSimExpo attendees are certificated pilots and/or using flight simulation as a real-world training tool.

With this growth in the hobby comes growth with the FlightSimExpo event, with 2450 attendees traveling to Las Vegas for this year’s event. This is a 25% increase over last year’s event in Houston. FlightSimExpo appeals to a wide range of simmers, where half of attendees consider themselves Experts or Advanced, a quarter in the Beginner and Novice category, and the other quarter consider themselves Intermediates.

Announcements

Friday afternoon was dedicated to a host of announcements, with a 5-hour barrage of various hardware and software companies taking the stage to highlight their newly released products and to present surprise announcements.

Bluebird Simulations: CEO Shervin Ahooraei kicked off the announcements by showcasing Bluebird’s upcoming Boeing 757 with a video trailer. Bluebird Simulations, founded in 2020, promises the 757 will be the “most accurate and immersive 757 ever created for flight simulation”. The aircraft has been in development for MSFS for 3 years and has been tested by real 757 pilots to create accurate flight dynamics within the simulator. Bluebird has recorded audio from the real aircraft, which will have fully automated systems, accurate night lighting effects, and a fully custom autopilot with 3 FCCs (flight control computers), LNAV/VNAV, and SimBrief integration. Shervin stated that their autopilot will create curved courses as well, which has often been a struggle to achieve within the simulator. The 757 will be a 1 to 1 representation of the real 757 by using a blend of real measurements of the real aircraft, thousands of photos, color scans, and 3D scanning technology. Shervin also showcased their upcoming 767 before announcing a future 787.

Flitesim.com: Fabian Lim was next on stage all the way from Singapore. Fabian has quite an extensive and interesting history with flight simulation. If you have ever doubted whether simulation experience translates well versus real aviation, look no further than Fabian Lim. He is the Founder of Flightschool. sg, which is a flight school that exclusively uses simulators and WingsAcademy.sg, which is a retail flight simulator center. Fabian, a flight simulation enthusiast himself, obtained his PPL in 19 days, his instrument rating in 10 days, multi-engine in 5 days and Eclipse 500 single-pilot jet rating in 14 days, all due to extensive experience within the flight simulator hobby.

Fabian presented Flitesim.com’s existing and upcoming hardware. The company focuses on higher end force-feedback peripherals. Fabian showed off his CLS 60 & CLS 120 yokes, force feedback stick base, and force feedback rudder. The yokes are a full-sized replica of the Cessna 172 yoke but can be swapped for a Boeing 737-800NG yoke in the future. He also announced the upcoming FC-50 Flight Console, which is a G1000 replica.

Nimbus Simulation Studios: Santiago with Nimbus showed off some very impressive tools for X-Plane that are used for real-life training. Firefighting instructors can utilize this tool to create training scenarios within the X-Plane simulator, allowing students to train in a safe environment. Nimbus Simulation Studios’ mission creation tool allows users to create similar missions to share with others within the community. They also announced the future development of a 707 and announced/released Charlotte International for X-Plane.

SayIntentions: Brian, the Founder & Lead Developer for SayIntentions presented a video showcase of their AI-driven ATC product. SayIntentions is a very impressive ATC tool that utilizes AI technology. Brian also announced that AI cabin crews are coming to the product and a price reduction from $29.95 to $19.95 per month.

Kav Simulations: James Kavanagh presented new airport LED boards by Kav Simulations; a hardware company focused on meeting the needs of home cockpit builders. These are top-down maps of various airports, with colored LED lights which mark aircraft in real time at the airport. The user can switch these to show real-life aircraft or in-simulator aircraft with the flip of a switch.

WinWing: Tony Lin, with WinWing, took the stage to announce a host of upcoming hardware. WinWing announced several airline panel products for both the Airbus a320 and the Boeing 737, including EFIS displays, MCDUs, ACPs, Transponders, MCPs, etc., all reasonably priced. Tony also showed us their F18 joystick, called the 18 Joystick V2, their Ursa Minor Airline Joystick, which are Airbus sidesticks, and their Cyber Taurus, which is a force feedback option.

SimFly: Roberto Capodieci, presenting remotely, promoted the SimFly simulated economy software product. This runs alongside the simulator, measuring all your statistics and rewarding you according to your performance. You can purchase aircraft and airports with the product and use them to earn their currency, called PAX tokens.

Combat Pilot: Combat Pilot is an upcoming Unreal Engine 5 WW2 simulator based in the Pacific Theater. Developed by Entropy Aero, they announced that the product will release with the Battle of Midway, followed by the Solomon Islands, and much more, with a targeted shelf-life of 20 years.

Slitherine Games: Slitherine announced an upcoming game called Scramble: Battle of Britain. This is a much different take on aviation where the goal was to slow down the flying aspect to bring the focus more on tactics. They managed to achieve this goal by making it turn-based, so the game pauses between each decision the player makes. Scramble is billed as a turn-based tactical dog fighter.

Navigraph: Magnus Axholt took the stage to present the current Navigraph product and its newest features. To the delight of ATC communities such as VATSIM, IVAO and PilotEdge, Navigraph is adding the ability to see online traffic and ATC sectors.

FlyInside: Rick Miller with FlyInside announced two new helicopters coming to MSFS soon, the Rotorway 162F and the Rotorway Jet Exec. Rick is a helicopter pilot himself and has experience flying many of the helicopters that they develop. Rick then announced that FlyInside will develop four different models of the Mosquito helicopter, the XEL, XE, XE 290 and the XET. Following that, they will work on five different Enstrom models, the F28, F28, TH180, 280FX and the 480. Finally, FlyInside has announced four different models of the Gazelle to be released in 2025, the SA-341D, SA-341G, SA-342J and the SA-341L. That is an extensive lineup coming from FlyInside!

Flying Art: Flying Art took the stage next to present their AI generated cabin crew announcements product, called Cabby. This product works with both X-Plane & MSFS platforms, has SimBrief integration, regional based languages, and custom voices. The developer showed an impressive demonstration which utilized AI to translate his wife’s voice into cabin announcements in several different languages.

Tobii Gaming: Thomas Papa was next up with a demonstration of Tobii Gaming’s innovative technology, referred to as “Camera Boost.” Tobii Gaming makes head/eye tracking hardware, known as the Tobii Eye Tracker, and this new technology boosts the motion of the camera the further you look away from the center of the screen. This resolves an issue that otherwise limits your range of motion.

SoFly: SoFly then took the stage to present their existing products, before showing off some new bundle packs, and upcoming software addons for MSFS. New bundles include the Weather Enhancement Pack, World Enhancement Bundle, and the Sim Starter Bundle. Eco Soundscapes was announced as an upcoming addon pack that enhances and adds aircraft sounds, ATC chatter and global ambient sounds such as birds and crickets. SoFly are also entering the cabin announcement space with their newly revealed Cabin Announcement Pro product. Unlike other offerings, SoFly’s Cabin Announcement Pro will be a one-time purchase price instead of a subscription fee.

Laminar Research: Laminar Research, developers of flight simulation platform X-Plane showed us several improvements to X-Plane, far too numerous to name in this space. Suffice to say, they are improving a wide range of features of their simulator, including new graphics, and lighting models, adding synthetic vision to the G1000 avionics, and a new in-game marketplace.

FlyShirley.com: Fly Shirley is an AI copilot tool developed for X-Plane platforms. Since this is AI-generated, you can ask your copilot almost anything, from details around weather conditions, flight plan, or the area in which you are flying. You can also create & share challenges with the community, and the AI copilot will talk you through them, like having a trainer in the seat. Their goal is to eventually utilize this tool in real aviation to promote safety.

Blackbird Simulations: Finally, to close off the lengthy day of announcements, Blackbird released a trailer of their T-6A Texan II, which was made available for purchase immediately following the announcement.

SEMINARS

Saturday and Sunday of FlightSimExpo were filled with seminars covering a wide range of topics, from flight planning to flying skills, virtual airlines, virtual ATC to virtual cockpits and PC builds and content creation. You can even learn more about flying helicopters in a simulator from Rick Miller of FlyInside and Sergio Costa of HeliSimmer.com. All of these are well worth the time, but we are going to focus on arguably the most anticipated event of the weekend, which was the nearly 2-hour presentation for Microsoft Flight Simulator’s upcoming MSFS 2024.

EXHIBIT HALL

Throughout the day on Saturday and Sunday, attendees can roam the Exhibit Hall, which featured seventy different exhibitors this year. The exhibit hall is the place where you can get firsthand with the latest hardware, software, and add-ons. Often, you can test out products before they are available to the public. There are several giveaways, and many exhibitors often run sales during the event exclusively for attendees. A few exhibitors even have live challenges that you can participate in for prizes.

With so many flight simulator products only being available online, having an opportunity to get your hands on them and physically test them out in-person is an invaluable experience that you just cannot get anywhere else. There are simulators everywhere on the show floor where you can test motion rigs, VR headsets, and the latest hardware and software.

FLIGHTSIMEXPO 2025

Whether you are a beginner in the hobby or an expert, every flight simmer gets value out of attending the FlightSimExpo. Next year’s event will be held in Providence, Rhode Island on June 27-29, 2025, at the Rhode Island Convention Center. Go to https://flightsimexpo.com/ for more information on registering for the event.