Exclusive interview with... Steve Halpern

Exclusive for Airdailyx, a few questions to the CEO of FLIGHT1, Steve Halpern. You want to join the distributor, to know how it make decisions among new projects. Here are some clues.

1°) Airdailyx : Compared with other distributors, can you tell us what's make FLIGHT1 different from others ?

Steve Halpern : I cannot really say how we are different. I would just like to focus on our key elements. Always provide that extra level of quality, support, and community, for our products. We like to think that our products are very innovative. Our customer service is very important. I cannot say we make that occasional mistake, but we hope those are few and far between and that we believe our service is some of the best out there!

 

2°) Can you remind us when was founded FLIGHT1 with whom and where ?

It was founded in late 1997 by myself, in Atlanta, GA, USA.

3°) What can you offer to a new developper willing to join FLIGHT1 ? What kind of support and services ?

We offer e-commerce services for developers wanting simple ecommerce for their sites. For certain developers, we partner with them in the publishing process, and those products become supported by both the developer and the Flight1 staff. Some products may now be listed in our sister SimStop site, but that site is still young and just starting out.

4°) Considering for instance GA aircrafts projects, what's your criterias prior to launch a new development ? What's about SimStop ? more developments soon ? how many downloads already (if you can tell us).

Steve Halpern : Most of our new products in GA are in association with our relationship with Cessna. In the latest case, we have the 162 Skycatcher pretty late in the development cycle. Regarding SimStop, we are moving it forward but it does take time. We are in the middle of our technology review process of the Connect part of SimStop, with a new version about to be released. We feel the site still has a way to go, but we are glad it is public now and users can visit the site.

 

5°) What is FLIGHT1 position about new FS platforms ? Did you take a look at Prepar3D for instance ? Can make a list of some current projects for X-Plane 10 ?

Well, Prepar3D is the only new platform out there really. Flight One Software does not support Prepar3D because that is licensed only for professional use. We will support Prepar3D in other ways however, through our professional services division. X-Plane 10 definately looks promising. The main thing required to support X-Plane 10 is that there would need to be a way to utilize our existing technology, at least partially, to make our current products work with X-Plane. This way it is not a ground up task to get them to work in X-Plane.

Many thanks to Steve !

Dom