Hello there!
Get to know X-Plane developer Chris Serio this month, as well as step by step instructions to further clean up your custom scenery. And don’t miss your free copy of the world’s smallest jet!
Meet X-Plane Mobile Lead Developer Chris Serio
Question: What’s your “official” title with X-Plane?
Chris Serio: Official title? Mobile Product Manager/Senior Software Engineer/Mobile Marketing Manager/QA Lead/Social Media Specialist/HR Manager/Expert Scotch Drinker/Professional Ranter sums up the daily duties.
Q: Can you provide a little background on yourself?
CS: I’ve been contributing to LR since 2008 but I’ve been programming since 2000 in some capacity. My official background is in Electrical Engineering, not Software or Computer Science, but you can learn anything quickly when you do it for 12 hours a day, 6 days a week. I also have a Commercial Pilot’s License.
Q: What type of computer set up do you use? Any hardware or accessories you couldn’t live without?
CS: It may surprise people but we pretty much all have average hardware…not super machines. It’s important that we do most of our testing and development on the type of hardware most users have. My main development machine is a 2013 27” iMac. I also have a PC for Windows and Linux work. It’s just barely average to today’s standards. It’s a Core i5-2500 3.3GHz with a GeForce GTX560Ti and 16GB of RAM. I also have a 2012 Macbook Pro and a desk that’s absolutely littered with every iPad/iPhone and popular Android device you can imagine.
Q: You’re the lead on X-Plane 10 Mobile, and it’s about 1 year old now. Do you have any thoughts about how it changed over the year? Were there any surprises or feedback you weren’t expecting?
CS: I’m not ashamed to admit that I was partially wrong about what I thought users wanted. My goal for the product initially was a mobile flight simulator that was easy enough for a non-aviation-geek to use, yet deep enough in realism that even real world pilots could enjoy themselves…but users wanted more depth than I expected.
We actually do listen to feedback even if we don’t always respond directly to it.
It was quickly apparent to me that we needed to add in all of the complexities that users wanted while doing it in a way that’s not frightening to new users. That’s been our new focus for a while now. It’s always a very difficult challenge on a mobile device. We’re limited on device performance, download size, memory and most of all, controls. Using a touch screen instead of a full keyboard + mouse + joystick poses some difficult challenges. Users often ask for MORE scenery, MORE planes but make the downloads SMALLER, make things FASTER. It’s difficult to find the right balance sometimes.
(This interview has been shortened and edited for space. Read the full interview online.)
Read the full interviewTips and Tricks
We talked last month about the upcoming airport scenery exclusion by ICAO code. But what if you have a lot of freeware scenery without exclusion zones and you see forests or roads running through your airports? That’s where making your own exclusion zone scenery pack comes in!
Before we get started, make sure you have the latest version of the free WorldEditor (WED) software. Keep the WED manual handy in case you need more clarification on terms or using WED.
- Launch WED & create a new scenery package. Let’s name it something obvious like “My Exclusions” and open it.
- To make sure we get the exclusion zone in the right location, we’ll import an airport from the Gateway or the default apt.dat. Pick one of these options from under the file menu.
- WED should zoom in on the airport once imported, but if it doesn’t, highlight the airport name in the hierarchy list on the right, then go to the View menu and pick “zoom selection.”
- Click on the exclusion zone tool (it looks like a big red X in a box). Select each thing you want to exclude in the drop down menu at the very top of the window, then click in the map pane and drag diagonally across the airport.
- Delete the airport we used as a template (but leave the exclusion zone) and save your work. Go to the File menu and select “Export Scenery Pack” to create the apt.dat file for X-Plane.
- Start X-Plane and check out your newly fixed airport scenery!
Featured Freeware
The BD-5 Micro series are small, single-seat home-built aircraft. The aircraft kits were produced by the now-defunct Bede Aircraft Corporation in the early 1970s, and only a few hundred BD-5 kits were completed. The BD-5J variant is the world’s smallest jet and weighs only 358.8 lb (162.7 kg).
Get your hands on a Guinness world record holder with this freeware Bede BD-5J Microjet by Quantumac. The jet features a custom 3D cockpit, sounds, and panel. If you’d like to try simulating your own homebuilt aircraft tweaks, the author has also included source files.
Happy flying!
— The X-Plane Team
