May 2015 – Shine a light on dark cockpits and a developer

Question: Can you provide some background on yourself? What was your first experience that got you into aviation?

Ben: I have been working for Laminar Research for over a decade, but my involvement with X-Plane dates all the way back to about the year 2000 and X-Plane 6.

In my past life I was a software engineer working on multimedia software. I became a virtual air traffic controller on VATSIM and (being a programmer by trade) wrote client software for the network. I went looking for a flight simulator so I could fly online too and discovered both Microsoft Flight Simulator 2000 and X-Plane 6. X-Plane 6 had great framerate and looked good on my Mac laptop, while my PC couldn’t really handle MSFS2k, and with that I was hooked on X-Plane.

My first interaction with Austin was when I tried to write a VATSIM client for X-Plane and I couldn’t complete the project. Instead of asking Austin for changes to get a VATSIM client working with X-Plane, I pitched something crazier: I’d create a complete plugin system for X-Plane. Austin agreed to this, so I became a third party developer for a few years and a few X-Plane versions.

While attending an Aviation Sciences program at a local community college, I was hired for a limited time as a contractor. When I graduated, it was clear that there was a lot more work to be done to get X-Plane 8 ready with the new scenery, so I ended up working full time for Laminar Research.

Q: What type of computer set up do you use?

Because I work on X-Plane’s graphics, I tend to have “one of each.” Right now my three computers are:

1. An 8-core Mac Pro from 2008. Right now there’s an AMD 4870 installed. It runs Snow Leopard and dual boots to Mavericks.
2. A Haswell PC that boots to both Windows 7-64 and Linux (Ubuntu 12.04 LTS). It takes a full size gaming card, so I swap between a GeForce 680, an AMD Radeon HD 7900 and the built-in Intel HD motherboard graphics. It’s crucial to test X-Plane on all of these configurations, so I end up leaving the case open.
3. A Mac retina-book laptop with an NV GPU, running Yosemite.

I have people ask me “what machine do YOU use” with the intent of getting the best machine for X-Plane, but my machines are picked for variety and an attempt to have one of everything, and definitely not to have the fastest hardware; I want hardware such that if X-Plane runs decently, it’ll be good for most users.

Q: Do you have a favorite aircraft to fly, or a favorite location?

I like to fly around the Boston area (i.e. my home area in real life); when I had more time to fly online and take real flights, I flew a mix of the King Air and the x737 (a much earlier version). The King Air is a great plane for short hops like from Boston to Cape Cod and Martha’s Vinyard – it’s a flight that can be flown with steam gauges or VFR and it’s short enough to fly one or two complete hops in real time in an evening.

(This interview has been shortened and edited for space. Read the full interview online.)

Read the full interview

Tips and Tricks

One way you can make your flights on your home computer as realistic as possible is having the planes start cold & dark. This is a preference you can change by going to the Operations & Warnings screen (open it from the bottom of the Settings drop down menu). In the Startup box, uncheck the option for “Start each flight with engines running.”

Now when you load a new aircraft, nothing will be up and running yet and you’ll have to start it manually. If you’re in a cold & dark aircraft at night, you might find it rather difficult to do this when you can’t see a thing.

Use a Flashlight

1. You must be using 3D cockpit view and have HDR enabled. (This is a setting found near the middle of the Rendering Options screen.)
2. You can set up a key or joystick button to control it by following these instructions.
3. Or, simply toggle it on and off using the last option in the View drop down menu.

Use Night Vision

1. Night vision can be used with any set up.
2. Toggle it on and off under the View drop down menu, or by pressing Shift+n.

After following these steps, you’ll never be in the dark again when starting an aircraft.

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