A few weeks ago, over the weekend of March 16th and March 17th, 2024, the FSWeekend conference took place in the Aviodrome Museum in Lelystad in the Netherlands. This conference brings together Flight Simulation enthusiasts and professionals from around the world. The Aviodrome Museum presents the perfect environment for a flight simulation event with its rich presentation of the history of aviation through several exhibits and a large range of aircraft from different time periods.
FlyByWire Simulations was present at FSWeekend with a large booth and fourteen of our most dedicated developers and team members. We welcomed hundreds of fans to our booth who got to try out flying the A32NX and our new project, the A380X.
Our Booth and Team
For the FlyByWire Simulations team, events like this are the perfect time to meet up with each other in person and build our personal bonds even more, while also showing what a Free and Open Source developer group can achieve when working together on a passion in the flight simulation community. This included having several dinners as a group and some even rented a house together!
As a team, we worked on designing a booth with great marketing material and graphics, making sure everything is in our branding style. This included multiple stand-up banners to highlight how people could join and support our community, a large backdrop with the outlines of our two projects and multiple stickers for people to take home. We brought together skills and people from around the world to set up a booth that looked amazing and inviting to our visitors as you can see below.
The booth also had two setups where visitors could fly the A32NX and the A380X. A lot of people were very excited about flying the A380X as it was the first time we gave people the opportunity to actually fly it in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020.
Our booth was a huge success and there was always a buzz of activity with many fans coming up. They shared their experiences and asked questions about the organization, the different aircraft and our progress on different features. We also gave out a lot of stickers to anyone who visited, so hopefully you'll see these pop up in the wild more and more!
Several streamers and Flight Simulation media outlets came by and had chats with us, including FSElite with an interview of one of our team members. Be sure to look for more articles and recordings from your favorite channels to catch a glimpse of all the activity at our booth!
Our team was very delighted to be talking to all of you that came to visit us. It is amazing to feel that appreciation and support from the community!
A380X Trailer Reveal
This year, a new concept was introduced by the FSWeekend organizers, where the theatre was managed by FSElite and where exhibitors could give a presentation or showcase about their products or latest developments. Of course, we jumped on the opportunity to create a new trailer of the A380X to be released and revealed at FSWeekend.
On Saturday, we were faced with a packed room of people eagerly awaiting our presentation so we jumped straight in with first talking about who we are and what it means to be a group of volunteers working purely out of interest and passion on Free and Open Source projects in the flight simulation world.
After that we played our new A380X trailer for the first time, while it was also being streamed live on the FSElite Youtube channel, as well as being released on our own Youtube channel, where you can watch it in its full glory.
In the style of "One more thing", we decided to show off the work that has gone in our cabin in the final 30 seconds of the video as a surprise. Stay tuned for more!
A32NX Live VATSIM Flight
For the second time in a row, our team set up a live flight with the A32NX on VATSIM. Both to promote our beautiful A32NX project, as well as promote VATSIM as an online ATC experience that enhances the realism of flight simulation.
The live flight took us from Groningen airport (EHGG) to Rotterdam (EHRD) in the Netherlands and we worked with the Dutch division of VATSIM to have full coverage of our flight.
While two team members of FlyByWire Simulations were flying and communicating with ATC, one person from VATSIM and another of our crew members gave live commentary on the flight. This commentary explained how VATSIM worked and how to get started as a new pilot, or as a new controller.
What's Next?
As FSWeekend 2024 came to a close, our team started packing up and immediately started to think about the next event where we want to show you all the amazing things we do.
FlightSimExpo 2024 in Las Vegas - June 21-23, 2024
Our first stop will be FlightSimExpo 2024 in Las Vegas in the United States of America. This expo will take place between June 21st and 23rd. Our team will be present with a large booth, similar to the setup of FSWeekend, where we will offer people to fly the A32NX and the A380X in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020.
We are looking forward to meeting all of you there!
Support Our Booth at FlightSimExpo 2024
As you are aware, we are a group of volunteers, who spend our spare time working on Free and Open Source projects for the global Flight Simulation community. All our team members who join us at these conference do so on their own expense.
You can help us out by registering for FlightSimExpo 2024 using our affiliation link.
By using this link, you help us finance our booth as every registration lowers the cost. If you've already registered and want to support us, please ping a moderator in our Discord server, and we can help move your registration to our link, so you support us!
FSWeekend 2025 - March 15-16, 2025
FSWeekend has also announced their dates for 2025 and FlyByWire Simulations will be present at this event again. We had an amazing time this year with all of you and we are looking forward to repeat that experience for all of us.
Stay tuned for more information as we get closer to the event!
General Information
Stay up to date with information from FlyByWire Simulations by following our social media!
If you require support or would like to submit a bug report please see the links below:
When submitting an issue or asking for support to do the following:
- Visit our Reported Issues Documentation for common problems and workarounds.
- Ensure that your issue has not already been reported on our GitHub.
Download the latest version of the A32NX:
Pictures in this article are made and provided by our team members Davy and Komp. They retain the exclusive rights
Editors: Valastiri, Holland