People ask me all the time: "Austin, how can you compete with bigger companies? You cannot possibly stay in the Flight-Sim business, since you are only one person! You will be out of business by the end of the year!" (Never mind they have been saying that since X-Plane was introduced in 1994!)

PART OF the answer to that question is that I have a secret weapon that helps me develop X-Plane at a much faster rate than any would-be competitors. While other teams are struggling to keep their organization and computers working, I and my team are able to work quickly and freely with no computer glitches holding us back, unlike almost everyone else using computers today.

Naturally, I can NOT tell you what this secret weapon is, because I do not want to give away my competitive advantage! Message to my competitors: Keep working with your current computer and Operating Systems! I WANT you to!

Anyway, here are some recent pictures of a myself (center) and some of my European counterparts at a recent secret meeting in Germany. And again, our secret weapon that allows us to build the best flight sim in the world is a secret. I will never tell you what it is.

These people are, from left to right:

Didier Cheveaux, flight-tester of a new high-fidelity light plane coming soon from Sergio Santagada, Stephane Muarel, and Mathias Farouz
Jean-Marie Edquist, author of the current startup screen in X-Plane
Me, continuous thorn in Microsoft's side and annoyance and blessing to all
Sergio Santagada, author of basically all the best artwork in X-Plane, and a major X-Plane innovator
Joern Reick, host of our secret meeting.

And, below, the inspiration for our picture, which is so cool because we are too cool to look at the camera.