VRFW 009: Calum Martin, FSElite Co-founder Talks Flight Simulation

Announcer (John Melley): Welcome to the VR Flight World Podcast. The place where flight training and your home office collide.
Get tips, tricks and in-depth interviews about flight training, virtual reality and flight simulation.
With your host, Dan Caston.

Dan Caston: Hey everyone and welcome to the Flight World Podcast. Today we’re gonna have a special guest on the show, Calum Martin. So Calum is one of the co-founders of FSElite. He’s very knowledgeable and I’m really excited to have him on the podcast today. So without holding you up any longer, here’s Calum Martin.
Hey Calum. Welcome to the VR Flight World Podcast. I’m really excited to have you here. Would you mind just going over quickly, give us a run-down of how you got into VR Flight. Sorry, into FlightSim?

Calum Martin: Sure. So, I got into FlightSim when I was probably about eight years old and my parents bought me a copy of FS2000 and, just FS2000 actually, because some of my family used to work on Concorde. So the big selling point of FS2000 was the ability to fly a Concorde. So my parents got me that and, yeah, I just remember booting it up on my PC back in those days and I didn’t have a joystick or anything like that, so I was trying to basically fly this Concorde with a mouse and keyboard which, as you can probably imagine, didn’t go down too well.

Dan Caston: Yeah, for sure.

Calum Martin: And a couple of years later after just not really being that involved in the Internet and stuff and eventually I discovered this website called Afsim and then discovered that actually you could expand your whole platform with [inaudible 00:01:46] ,aircraft, and then, from there, my world just grew and grew and grew to where it is today. And, yeah, I think ever since FS2000 I’ve doubled in and out of flight simulation and stuff, depending on what’s been going on in my life, but I think I’m firmly involved in that community now which is pretty awesome and I think it’s a really exciting time, and certainly that threw me back in a lot was this whole introduction of virtual reality and stuff, and that’s what drew me to your website as well.

Dan Caston: For sure. So what kind of system are you running right now?

Calum Martin: So I’m using a Gtx 1082 Ti, but my biggest challenge is I’m not using it to it’s best capacity. I’ve still got a 10ee monitor and, again, the reason I bought a graphics card that was probably way out speccing of my PC, was because of the RN, this whole kind of hype around this particular card was really suited for virtual reality and, like I said, I want to start delving more into that, into that eco system as it were. So I thought I’ll invest now and hopefully it’ll pay off in the future. And then my primary platform for flight simulation is Prepar3D v4 at the moment.

Dan Caston: Okay. For sure. Yeah Gtx 10 Ti is a nice card. I’m actually only running the 1060 with 6 gigabytes so, for me, I have to lower some settings and that kind of thing. But with the 10 ee you should be, yeah, you should be doing pretty well when you go into VR.

Calum Martin: Well what sim do you use, just to-

Dan Caston: I’m actually running, mostly I run X-Plane 11. That’s what I’ve been running.

Calum Martin: Yeah.

Dan Caston: I’ve looked, I haven’t actually went into PreparD yet, but just today I was actually looking at that and I’m probably gonna get into PreparD as well. What drives you to PreparD versus the other sims?

Calum Martin: I think just my … so FS2000 was an ESP platform and I’ve kind of grown up with those platforms and investment as well in terms of the aircraft and I’m sure it we’ll come onto this in a little bit, but I enjoy flying heavy aircraft and studying the systems and stuff and, for me, the only mark I really kind of saw that that level of aircraft at the time was all in FSX and PreparD v1.2. So I invested a lot of money in those aircraft and since then developed a [inaudible 00:04:42] ouverture. Version 4 which is 64 bit which, again, kind of kept me with that back [inaudible 00:04:48]. But, again, I’ve really started to see how X Planes really began to come into its own. I mean the 727 was just released and apparently that’s really great. And there’s a whole bunch of other aircraft for X Plane that offered that level of system depth that I would desire to really enjoy that side of simulation as well.

Dan Caston: Mm-hmm. (Affirmative). For Sure. Okay, so you mentioned you mainly fly with the heavy aircraft or what else do you like to fly when you’re flying sims?

Calum Martin: It depends really. When I fly with a group of mates I quite enjoy flying the smaller aircraft, like the Piper Cherokee, for me it’s way out, it’s an incredible aircraft just because I think there are quite a lot of sceneries out there that are so detailed and full of depth that when you constantly fly jets, jet liners and stuff, you miss all those really cool details and points of interest, and I think we take it for granted quite a lot of the time as Simmers and quite often, try as a developer might, I don’t think they always necessarily give you every information about that product they have so you quite often miss really cool little quirks or details.
So, yeah, when I fly with a group of mates and stuff, trying to fly low and slow is pretty awesome ’cause you can check out different areas and you can compare and make your own little challenges and stuff, which I think is pretty awesome. And, again, it’s why I want to go into VR because trying to fly these aircraft with a static 2D screen is enjoyable, but the numerous times I’ve tried VR at different events, it’s blown my mind every time, but I’ve just, I’ve been a bit too scared and too cautious to do that investment in terms of the headsets and all that sort of stuff.

Dan Caston: Yeah, for sure. Yeah it’s kind of neat to be able to look around and actually see the plane around you and it brings you right into the plane. You can actually feel it a little bit when you’re doing different things.

Calum Martin: You get a real sense of speed don’t you? And you’re almost ducking and diving to try and find certain things-

Dan Caston: Yeah.

Calum Martin: …and you must look crazy from the perspective of someone watching you but when you’re-

Dan Caston: Yeah. You do.

Calum Martin: [inaudible 00:07:17] It’s amazing.

Dan Caston: For sure. Yeah, you watch people play other games with the headset on and they’re swinging their arms around. It’s pretty funny to watch from the outside but it’s pretty neat when you’re in there.

Calum Martin: Oh, really?

Dan Caston: Yeah. Alright. Right now you have FS-Elite. What is your role with FSElite? Is it your website or how are you involved with this website?

Calum Martin: So it’s myself, a guy called Greg and a guy called Jordan. We’re all co-founders of FS-Elite and our vision at the time was to challenge the norm for media outlet within the Flight Sim community ’cause we felt we could do it a bit better, a bit differently and find a way to just engage with the community a little bit more. And that was just over two years ago. Without trying to sound too arrogant I think we’ve done a decent job at the minute of doing that, especially that when we’ve attended events and stuff we’ve had those people come up to us and just express their passion and desire for us to succeed, which is really good motivation for us. And the reason I got involved: I’ve always dabbled in running websites, even since I was ten years old, I was doing some gaming stuff which was fun but obviously the gaming market is significantly different and you’ve got massive players out there, so trying to run your own little blog and stuff was almost impossible.

Dan Caston: Mm-hmm. (Affirmative).

Calum Martin: But I enjoyed that aspect of voicing my opinion or writing a story or an article or a review. Just that … even if one person reads the review and finds it somewhat helpful, to me that is kind of success. But I think we’ve been very fortunate as a community FS-Elite. We’ve got an amazing team, like 20 people who will support the website in their own unique capacity, whether that’s a video producer or whether that’s someone who just checks our articles to make sure that they’re all spelt correctly and all be flow and consistent. So, yeah, I’ve got an amazing team. They’re the ones who really should be at the forefront of all the praise and stuff ’cause they do a remarkable job at keeping stuff running whilst I do other things and stuff as well.

Dan Caston: Yeah, for sure. Actually I’ve had one of the people that follow my blog and my podcast come up when I started this interview section they said: You have to talk to the people at FS-Elite and get someone on your podcast. So that was actually a request from one of them. So when you reached out and I thought that, for sure, this would be perfect.

Calum Martin: Oh my God! That’s awesome! I know I said I wasn’t really aware of your website until you interviewed Sergio who, I think, he is such a passionate bloke about helicopters and stuff and you mentioned helicopters in the FlightSim World and you just automatically think of Sergio.

Dan Caston: Yeah, for sure.

Calum Martin: He’s one of the best guys out there for sure. So when I saw he spent some time with you and I listened to your podcast. Right, I need to contact you guys and, look, I checked out your site and I think it’s great. So that was why I messaged you in the first place was just to say: Hey, this looks awesome. So-

Dan Caston: Yeah, for sure. That’s awesome. Okay, so just jumping ahead here. If you were to get into flying airlines and that kind of thing, where would you start, even without VR right now, if you were start getting into aircraft with airlines, where would you start because you’ve obviously had a lot of experience with that?

Calum Martin: That is a tough question. I think the best advice is just firstly to have fun. I mean there are so many aircraft out there that are different from one another, whether that’s a big 747 or if you’re trying to learn how to fly like a little CRJ or something. There’s a whole breadth of aircraft of different levels of complexity out there. So there’s this big debate between current … some developers about whether one aircraft is superior to the other because one’s more complex than the other, but ultimately at the end of the day, if someone’s moved to the hobby and wants to learn to fly a plane, then the ultimate goal is to have fun.
So if they pick up one aircraft that maybe isn’t as complex as another, the standard operating procedures are kind of the same. If it’s a certain aircraft, it’s a certain aircraft. But as long as they start that learning process somewhere, you kind of develop as you go along. So I would start with just making sure you follow the tutorial flight if there’s one supplied because nine times out of ten they cover the basics and then a few little extras. But the best resource I’ve ever found is just by practicing, flying with friends and just getting involved in different communities, whether it’s Facebook or Discord or forums and just ask questions and be sincere and just be honest with people and just say: Look I’m trying to learn about this. What advice can you give me? And I think that’s probably where, if I were speaking back to ten year old Calum however many years ago, that would have been the advice. Oh, and definitely get a joystick ’cause trying to fly with arrow cues and a mouse is definitely not gonna help you with learning a large airline to fly. That’s for sure.

Dan Caston: For sure. Any communities out there that you could recommend? Someone to look into?

Calum Martin: (chuckles) I think the first community I would go to is whichever developer or publisher you bought the aircraft from. Go to their support forums because obviously they’re gonna be the most experienced of people who understand what you’re asking. But I think there’s a whole breadth of Facebook groups out there. You could just Facebook search PreparD v4 and you’ll find twenty different groups.

Dan Caston: Mm-hmm. (Affirmative).

Calum Martin: And if you just ask the question someone’s gonna give you an answer. I know one of the groups that we help to run. People ask questions all the time and there are plenty of answers and plenty of knowledgeable people. So, yeah, I would just source out … definitely, if you want a specific aircraft, then go to that developer’s website ’cause that’s where you’re probably gonna find the most useful answers.

Dan Caston: Okay. You mentioned joysticks too. Is there anyone that you use in particular or one that you would start out with if you were going to start?

Calum Martin: I think … what did I have? I think I had something called Sidewinder when I was young. And, again, if it’s someone who’s brand new, starting out for the first time, it’s perfectly sufficient to use one of those ’cause they’re cheap. I think they’re about 30 Pounds.

Dan Caston: Really.

Calum Martin: Maybe about 45. [inaudible 00:14:57]. But they’re perfect. They’ve got a little throttle. You can fly around with it. I know there are people out there that buy their first one, it’s the Hotas. This massive thing with about a billion buttons on it.

Dan Caston: Right.

Calum Martin: I use it in a minute and it’s just really embarrassing to admit. I had some issues with joysticks. I bought this game for my PlayStation 4 a little while ago and it came with a plug-in joystick, like a combat sim, or something like that, I can’t remember what it’s called, Top [inaudible 00:15:29]but I use that now ’cause it functions fine as a joystick. It does what it needs. But again I know people who have more sophisticated hardware from Saitek and that stuff is really cool as well. So if you wanna splash out a little bit more cash then that’s definitely a route to go down I would think anyway.

Dan Caston: For sure. Yeah, the Sidewinder seems like a good starting point ’cause you do have throttle versus just grabbing any joystick out there.

Calum Martin: I mean if you don’t wanna buy a joystick and you already own a controller from a games console, I mean they’re not perfect but again you’re only starting out and want to keep your costs down then that’s definitely a way to do it ’cause ultimately you’re trying to learn how to fly something not necessarily … just trying to think of different ways for people to get involved and stuff because that is the point of this, I suppose. For someone new.

Dan Caston: Yeah. For sure. And you mentioned: would you start in a little plane or go straight to the large aircraft? I guess large aircraft seems a lot more procedural and that kind of thing but, yeah, I’m just curious if you would start in something like a Cessna, like a typical flight train? Or would you, because it’s FlightSim and you can crash as many times as you want, go straight to the 737 or something big?

Calum Martin: I don’t know really. It’s really hard because when I started I just booted up the Concorde straight away and tried my luck with that.

Dan Caston: Yeah. It’s the joys of a FlightSim. Yeah.

Calum Martin: Yeah, exactly. I think I wouldn’t wanna say what someone should start with because I think it should be whatever holds your interest. I mean if you go into FlightSim because you wanna try flying a 737 then screw it, just jump in and turn on the engines and see what happens. And I think that’s how you’re gonna learn from things very quickly. And I think the great thing about airplanes is the logic applies to pretty much any aircraft, whether it’s a Cessna or an Airbus or a Boeing. You’ve got the same laws of physics working with or against you, so if you can grasp that concept then applying it to different aircraft doesn’t really matter what you’re doing as long as you understand they all fly a bit different or the procedures are a bit different. And, yeah, that would be the advice I would give.
But it’s so hard because it’s been so long since I started that whole journey but I’d be really excited if I was new to the community again just to see the breadth of the products and stuff out there. I mean it’s just insane.

Dan Caston: For sure. Alright, so just moving on here. If someone was into FlightSim already and they want to take it to the next level, they wanna start bringing more out of their sim, like they have the basics; they just have the standard scenery, they have standard weather, everything’s just basic. Where would you suggest they go next? What would be a first purchase you’d make if you had to buy something like weather, textures, planes or anything like that?

Calum Martin: Ooh. That’s a really hard question because I think it depends what you want from the sim. I think you have different people who would prefer something to look good compared to someone who maybe wants to maybe make the experience better in terms of the flight. So I break it down into your aircraft, you’ve got utilities and you’ve got scenery and they all do their own unique thing to enhance the simulator. Oh, I don’t know. That’s really hard because maybe my best advice would be if you’ve learnt the basics then I would pick up a scenery like maybe your home airport or something ’cause there’s so much out there. I’m sure it’s just … maybe like even some developers do regions and stuff so it’s not just one airport but it’s a whole city or a whole country or a whole continent. And just start exploring and then build up your portfolio from there and, before you know it, you’re gonna be adding on hundreds of Dollars worth of stuff.
For me, I think, the one of the best purchases I made was a weather engine because the default stuff is not very … it’s fine for just doing maybe … making a couple of circuits and stuff, but when you start doing more adventurous routes and stuff and you wanna experience different weather formations or learning about how weather will impact your aircraft, then you really need to buy a Payware add-on to enhance that. And the great thing about this community is there’s such a choice, whether you’re flying in PreparD or whether you’re flying in Xbian, you’ve got options for whatever you need, whether you want to be more visual or whether you want more realistic effects, you can do a bit of research and find the one that’s right for you.

Dan Caston: For sure. So what are the kind top contenders for weather?

Calum Martin: (chuckles). So, in PreparD’s world you’ve got high phase, active sky, which is what I predominantly use as my weather engine. You’ve also got a company called REX who have been in this industry for a long, long, long, long, long time and they produce some extremely good texture sets for different weather systems, different ground markings, and their latest software Sky Force integrates the weather engine aspect as well. So, again, and because they’ve got that texture stuff, both of them have texture sets and stuff but, yeah, I think you’ve got a really good choice there. In Xbian’s world I wouldn’t quote me on this because I’m not an Xbian expert and I don’t preach to be one, but you’ve got a couple. I think there’s something called [inaudible 00:22:14] weather and xEnviro. Again, two weather engines. I don’t know really what either of them really do in terms of the specifics, but a bit of research will be able to tell you whether it’s the right engine for what you desire in your simulator.

Dan Caston: Okay. I had Bel Geode on the podcast just before Sergio and he was mentioning that some of the weather doesn’t co-operate with VR, so I guess when you turn your head the actual weather changes and the clouds rotate or they cause issues like that. But have you had anyone come up to you and say: It’s not working for me in VR with PreparD?

Calum Martin: I think VR and PreparD is still quite in its infancy. I think none of my team members have really talked to me about it. I think one of my video guys did some video work on it. Hasn’t really done much since. My knowledge would be that it’s still … so I know there’s lots of issues with weather in terms of, like you said, if you move your head and the clouds start doing spins on its axis and stuff, I think that’s just down to the simulator and the oldness of the engine as such.

Dan Caston: Mm-hmm. (Affirmative).

Calum Martin: I’ve not really heard of any issues with VR and the weather, not so like what Bel Geode had said, but I can’t really speak from experience, having not really seen weather in either of those sims in VR.

Dan Caston: Okay. Have you used any of the air traffic control systems out there like the VATSIM? I see you had a recent article on VATSIM or PilotEdge, like those kind of things. Have you used those before?

Calum Martin: Yeah. I use VATSIM, not as often as I probably should. A lot of the time if I’m doing some flying I might do it in the background while doing some work or something so I don’t really wanna be distracted by air traffic controllers all the time, but when I do fly it’s predominantly on VATSIM. PilotEdge is an interesting one because what they offer is very unique, I think, and really good for the community. It’s just not in a region that I particularly would want to fly in. So if they start expanding to Europe and stuff, then maybe I’d be a bit more keen.
Then there’s, obviously you’ve got IVAO and you’ve got a few other ones in development in the minute, such as Koskon. But, again, I think it’s a really good tool. Again, if we’re thinking about new people to start learning to fly in the flight simulators and stuff, I think they’re really helpful. They can be quite scary. I remember my first time I wrote down almost like a script of what I was gonna say ’cause I was worried I’d get told off by a controller. And it’s not to suggest that you’ll get told off, but you don’t wanna step on anyone’s toes or embarrass yourself.
So it can be a little bit scary ’cause a lot of the time we fly in our bedrooms and we don’t really speak unless its via text. So my advice is just get involved, get stuck in. There’s plenty of You Tube content out there to show you how it works or show you how to set things up. It is quite straightforward. But if you don’t feel confident with ATC online, if I remember rightly there’s some software prepared called PRO-ATC/X. I think I used it years and years ago. I’m not sure if it’s still available, but it’s a good tool to start learning phraseology and procedures and stuff to enhance your experience if you decide you’d rather fly offline than online.
But honestly, flying online is great ’cause you meet people, recognize names if you fly to and from airports consistently and it’s certainly how I met a lot of the guys on the FSElite team as well where we’ve just being chatting online and we fly together and stuff. So it’s a pretty cool experience.

Dan Caston: Okay. Cool. And you said PRO-ATC/X is the one? That’s the one that like a computer ATC?

Calum Martin: Let me just quickly Google it whilst I’m here-

Dan Caston: Sure.

Calum Martin: …’cause I’m sure it exists. I just haven’t seen it. Yeah, it does exist. Is it for sale? I think it is. Yeah.

Dan Caston: Okay.

Calum Martin: It’s 50 Euros. That’s a lot.

Dan Caston: Okay.

Calum Martin: When was it? Ah! Upated back in May. So there’s quite a lot of work. I haven’t used it in here so I’m not suggesting everyone should buy it.

Dan Caston: Yeah, for sure. Yeah, people should do their research before going into it, but I’ll leave a link anyway. Some people can make their decision if they wanna check that out.

Calum Martin: Definitely. From what I remember it was pretty decent as an alternative. So-

Dan Caston: Okay. So, as you’re flying around is there anything else you could use that if you’ve been flying around for a while, you start to get in the same routine? Is there anything else you could do that could take you out of that routine and maybe add some extra, like I’ve heard of FSEconomy? I haven’t actually used it but those type of things that almost bring a situation into flying?

Calum Martin: Yeah, FSEconomy is really cool from what I remember. I haven’t used it in years. There was a … what was it? I think it was called an FS Passenger and that was a really cool tool at the time because even though you were the pilot of the plane, you were also the cabin crew.

Dan Caston: Oh, okay.

Calum Martin: You had to press a button to serve the coffee and if you didn’t the passengers would get annoyed and then, before you know it, there’s like a fight broken out on board so you’d have to end it, divert. (chuckles). And it was [inaudible 00:28:28] thing available and I swear I had a heart attack on my flight every single flight.

Dan Caston: Yeah.

Calum Martin: So that was pretty cool. There’s a couple of others as well that simulate kind of cargo ops, which I think are some of the more interesting things you can do in the sim because there’s so much freedom with cargo operators and, yeah, it just kinda, like you said, it brings new situations and scenarios into it as well.

Dan Caston: Kinda gives you a goal.

Calum Martin: Yeah, and I think as much as my imagination would help, sometimes it’s nice to be given the goal as well.

Dan Caston: Mm-hmm.

Calum Martin: But what I also like as well is that a lot of developers for aircraft in particular at the minute are integrating. So basically if you do something in your aircraft and you do it really wrong or you push it to its limits, it has a lasting impact. So A2A’s a really good example of some of this. If you do too much of something, you might ruin the spark plugs or you might cause an engine failure; you might break your flaps and that effect will last until you repair it. So that kind of stuff also helps with that whole situational awareness of you’re actually flying a plane, you’re not just flying a model on a PC. You’re actually flying something that you can technically break.

Dan Caston: Yeah. Yeah.

Calum Martin: That kind of thing is really quick in the minute as well.

Dan Caston: Yeah. That’s neat. It takes it from being a sim to actually doing flights. You wouldn’t be doing crazy maneuvers in your Cessna if you knew it’s gonna break.

Calum Martin: Yeah.

Dan Caston: Brings a little more realism I guess.

Calum Martin: And it beats the whole, if you have the Crash Detector on and stuff and you do something like that, and then the sim just freezes with a little green box at the top that says: You crashed.(chuckles).

Dan Caston: Yeah.

Calum Martin: Definitely adds a bit more realism in that kind of outcome if you were to do that just by default sim.

Dan Caston: Right. Yeah, for sure. Is there any Cessna 172s or 152s that you’ve seen that have come out that would be a realistic sim for someone that actually wants a very solid flight model or is it just something that looks really good?

Calum Martin: The company I mentioned just now A2A.

Dan Caston: A2A’s the one. Yeah.

Calum Martin: They do incredible GA aircraft and they also do Cessnas as well. So, yeah, if you’re looking for something that not only does it look photo-realistic, but it also, like I said, has all those extra characteristics so you can damage the plane and stuff like that, then definitely check out their stuff. They use some technology, I think it’s called AccuSim, and it kind of just replicates a living, breathing environment inside the sim which the airplane reacts to. So you can practice anything from your stored techniques to speed turns and you’re gonna be able to tell the difference between that and any other aircraft.
I mean there are some other great stuff out there for sure but I think if you’re a student pilot and you’re looking for that level of detail to practice when you’re not actually flying in the actual thing, then I couldn’t think of any other aircraft. When it comes to X-Plane users, again I’m no expert. I couldn’t tell you. If your listeners are interested I can ask a couple of my guys and I can forward you a link as well and we can include that.

Dan Caston: For sure.

Calum Martin: Yeah?

Dan Caston: Yeah, if you have something, we’d definitely include it on the show and know it’s there for people to check out. Are any of your staff … is there any pilots on your staff? Or are they all just flight sims experts?

Calum Martin: (chuckles). A bit of a mix.

Dan Caston: Yeah.

Calum Martin: Jordan, who I mentioned earlier, a pilot for an airline in the States, who fly dominantly Saabs. So he’s always sending us pictures and stories of how they operate and stuff, which is quite unique. We’ve also got quite a few private pilot license holders as well within the team. So they’re very useful for people like myself for example, ’cause I’m hoping to learn to fly in the next year or so. So they’re really helpful to get that sort of information as well.

Dan Caston: Yeah, for sure.

Calum Martin: But, yeah, it’s nice to have a mix of pilots, not pilots, pilots, sim fans. Maybe not everyone on my team is a massive flight sim expert but they just have real passion for it and they learn a lot from being a part of our team because of the range and experience that we have as well. So that’s something else that I really appreciate of the team that I work with.

Dan Caston: Is there anyone on there that does instructional videos?

Calum Martin: So we have our own You Tube channel but the way we produce our content is we have a really good team of video producers who also have their own channels and stuff. So on the team we’ve got a guy called Patrick, who’s The Flight Sim Deck and he’s not a real, real pilot but he does really take the whole learning thing very seriously so a lot of his videos on his channel are showing you how it operates but based on his learnings and stuff. So he goes into quite a lot of detail in terms of how he learns certain aircraft. Shane is another one, Aus Flight Simmer who, again, he just does a lot of research into the way he flies; and a guy called Kuwait Pilot as well who, again, I don’t believe he’s a real world pilot and, if he is, he’s kept that very quiet from us. But they all contribute their own things to the channel, which I think is really cool and adds kind of variety to the content we produce. And also from different perspectives as well which I hope the community see.
In terms of who I would follow: when you asked that question there was one name that came to me and he does incredible videos I feel of A320 operations, and I believe his You Tube handle is BlackBox. There might be some numbers at the end of it but he’s really, really detailed and he shows you more than just how to take off a plane. He will show you the integral systems and the hows, the whats and the whys which is crucial, I think, to learning aircraft of that level. And there are plenty of … I mean, I think that’s the great thing about our community, is that you can search very easily for something or someone and you’re gonna get a really helpful individual who wants to share their knowledge and experience at the other end.
So, yeah. I can’t really at the top of my head just think of loads of people for loads of different products but it doesn’t take too long to figure out who you think will be helpful. And again it depends on who the person is. I mean you may resonate with the person teaching you or you may not. And if you don’t then just find the next person in the long list of people who will teach you how to fly an airplane.

Dan Caston: Yeah, for sure.

Calum Martin: You see.

Dan Caston: Okay. And so that one you said was A320 was the BlackBox? You figured something like that we could always put a link to him in the show notes as well.

Calum Martin: Yeah. I’m pretty sure it’s BlackBox. Mm, yeah. We can add it to the show notes after.

Dan Caston: Yeah, for sure. Alright. What is your favorite plane to fly and why?

Calum Martin: I have a big … so I think my favorite plane to fly is the A319 and 20. I used to work for a UK airline that flew those two aircraft so I worked on them quite a lot. So I enjoy … I think because I worked on them quite a lot, when I fly them in the sim I can picture myself, it reminds me when I was working on the aircraft, which I can’t really resonate as much with other airplanes. And I think that’s why it’s my favorite because I think one of the most immersing factors for me is the sounds.

Dan Caston: Mm-hmm. (Affirmative).

Calum Martin: There are some excellent add-ons out there which really replicate the sound quality to exactly how I remember it or exactly as it is when I fly and stuff in those particular aircraft.

Dan Caston: For sure.

Calum Martin: It’s so versatile as well. You can do a 40 minute hop or you can do five or six hours in those things. So, yeah, they’re quite good.

Dan Caston: Okay. What did you do at the airline, if you don’t mind sharing?

Calum Martin: I’d be cabin crew.

Dan Caston: Okay.

Calum Martin: And then I used to work as a trainer as well for the ground ops side of things.

Dan Caston: Okay. Nice. So where would your favorite place to fly be?

Calum Martin: I wouldn’t say a favorite. I mean, depends really. If I fancy a challenge then I know what airports to look for. Sometimes, especially during the Winter, a big factor will be weather. I’d like fly into places that maybe not have great weather.

Dan Caston: Mm-hmm. (Affirmative).

Calum Martin: I dunno. It depends. It depends on the aircraft I fly. If I’m flying a little Cessna 172 I don’t really want to be flying into a big international airport. I’d rather fly into some little bush strip or somewhere a little more unique and where I can take those type of aircraft. Yeah. It’s hard to say what my favorite destination is. I think there’s a big world out there. I think there’s a lot-

Dan Caston: For sure.

Calum Martin: …of variety for what you could fly to.

Dan Caston: Yeah. Definitely. So do you mind telling us a little bit about what’s new in FS-Elite? You were mentioning before that you have a new, is it called directory or DCTRY? I’m not sure how you pronounce it but do you have something new coming out?

Calum Martin: Yes, we got it straight away actually. It’s a new site called DCTRY and actually it kind of links back into your previous question of favorite destination. So basically what DCTRY intends to be is a kind of a, I mean … let me ask you. When you use a flight sim, you use X-Plane and stuff, so when you search for a scenery, what is your process to find a new piece of scenery at the minute?

Dan Caston: Google and probably looking at, following the people on You Tube. I’ll go through and I’ll find for example Bel Geode. I’d look at what he was doing lately. I’ll grab some of his scenery. Wherever I see some scenery I’ll grab it. That’s kind of my process. So, it’s a little bit sporadic at the moment.

Calum Martin: So the whole purpose of DCTRY (chuckles) is almost like I paid you to say those answers but I didn’t. That is your legit answer.

Dan Caston: Oh, no.

Calum Martin: So what we wanna do, because I do exactly the same, I either Google the IKEA code and then followed by FSX or a p3 or whatever.

Dan Caston: Yeah, for sure.

Calum Martin: I will see what some of the You Tubers and stuff they follow are doing. So there actually is gonna be a huge database of all scenery from modern sims to whether it’s p3db4, X-Plane and Evelyn or Aero Flyer, that’s two which, by the way, is amazing for VR. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried it.

Dan Caston: Yeah. I do have Aero Flyer actually.

Calum Martin: But what we wanna do with DCTRY is have all the scenery available for those sims in one place so instead of Googling it, you come to DCTRY and you can search, I dunno, Challenging Approach, because that’s what you fancy to fly, and it will search the database for whichever sim you want and it will find airports that have been defined, and again it’s quite subjective. But it will find things that are deemed as challenging. So you can go: Right, okay, well I’ve got 25 Dollars to spend so you can set your budget and then ultimately you then get a list of three or four airports and it just simplifies that process of trying to find something because it’s all in one place. And what we are trying to do is work with You Tubers and streamers so I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of a streamer called Squirrel, but we spoke to him at the FX Expo and we showed him it, and a guy called Chewwy as well, another streamer, and they both really loved it.

Dan Caston: Yeah.

Calum Martin: And that gave inspiration for … actually a lot of people ask all the time, like You Tubers and streamers: Oh what scenery do you have? So we’re gonna give them a way as well to basically look at our database and go: Right I have these sceneries, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And they can have their own custom page. So if you went to Directory.net/geo for example, he would have his whole, his directory out there. So you can go: Oh, I see he’s got this airport so I can click on there and each airport will have full details. So everything from screenshots, videos, if there’s any news on it from the scenery. The idea is just to put everything into one consolidated place rather than having to try and search 20 different stores or Google it or search dozens of You Tube videos and stuff like that.

Dan Caston: Mm-hmm.

Calum Martin: So it just brings it all into one simple place and, yeah, I think it’s gonna be a very beneficial tool for the community. And not only that, but also I think it will support developers a lot more in terms of having their content more viewed. I get the impression that once a scenery is released by a developer it kind of tales off pretty quickly.

Dan Caston: Right.

Calum Martin: So this, hopefully, will kind of help to sustain that a little bit more for them as well. So it benefits everybody essentially.

Dan Caston: Yeah. I can see that. Is this gonna be a paid membership type thing? Or do you sign up for free? Or how is it gonna work?

Calum Martin: So anyone can use it for free. So once we launch you would just go to DIRCTY.net and then be able to use it. We’re gonna have an accounts-based system which includes some more cool details. So, for example, each listing you’ll be able to add to something cool in My Directory account. So if you just click the button then it will populate a list of all the scenery that you have chosen. So you can use that as either a wish list or you can use it as a list of all the sceneries and the stuff that you own. So we’re not gonna say what you have to do it for, but it’s just a function that’s there.

Dan Caston: Mm-hmm. (Affirmative).

Calum Martin: So in the future we’re gonna be looking at doing live pricing so if a store is having a sale on, then you can compare all the different stores in one place rather than having to go to different stores to find it and stuff as well. So that will be-

Dan Caston: Nice. So where can people get in touch with you if they want to, like, website, Twitter, You Tube or wherever you’re out there?

Calum Martin: So the best way to get in touch with me personally is just through the contact page FS-Elite. I mean you can use our Facebook, Twitter or You Tube to message. I might not always pick up straight away so you’re better off just emailing me through that. So, yeah, I think that’s probably the easiest space and I tend to get back to people pretty quickly. I’ve always been very passionate about listening to people’s feedback, whether that’s positive or you’ve got something else you’d like to say to me. But I think we’re on board and I’ll always try and give you an answer or some reason behind our logic and stuff as well.

Dan Caston: Right. Sounds good. Well, I think we’re gonna run out of time here.

Calum Martin: Typical Brit talking too much.

Dan Caston: (chuckles). Yeah. No, it’s perfect. Alright so your website there is FS-Elite.net. Right? That’s FS-Elite.net? Is that correct?

Calum Martin: That is perfect.

Dan Caston: Alright. Awesome. Alright. Well thanks for coming on the podcast. Glad to have you here and we will talk to you soon.

Calum Martin: Thank you very much for your time as well and just before we go I just wanna say you guys have done some really good work on educating for virtual reality. So, yeah, definitely the advice on here has just been amazing that I’ve read so far. So I want to say thank you for your hard work as well on that.

Dan Caston: Ah, thanks man. Talk to you later.

Calum Martin: Cool. Thanks again.

Dan Caston: And there you have it. Thanks for joining us for our podcast. Hope you guys enjoyed it and make sure if you do enjoy you subscribe to our channel. If you’re using iTunes there’s a subscribe button there. Hit that and you’ll be notified any time we have any new podcasts coming out. Also check out FS-Elite. This is the website that Calum Martin has been working on. There’s tons of great information on there. He puts out news articles all the time. So make sure you guys check it out.
So we’re always trying to find new guests for the podcasts and I really wanna make sure I’m focusing on the people that you want on the podcasts. So make sure you send me an email. My email is dan@vrflightworld.com. That’s dan@vrflightworld.com. Let me know who you want on the podcasts and I will look through it and see if we can find some of these people and we will contact them and see if we can get them on our show.
So for anyone interested, we’re gonna have the show notes at VR FlightWorld.com/9. That’s VR FlightWorld.com/9. Doesn’t matter if it’s a number or the word. It will lead to the same place. You can also see the show notes in the description of iTunes and all those links on there will be ones we’ve mentioned, as well as the equipment that I use for my flight sim, as well as anything that’s mentioned by Calum, we will try to include that in those show notes. So I’ll add all the links there and it should make it a little easier to find the information you need.
Thanks again guys for listening and I hope you guys have an awesome day. We will see you guys in the next episode, which will be about two weeks from now.

Announcer (John Melley): Thanks for listening to the VR FlightWorld podcast online at VR FlightWorld.com.