Opinion Pieces

After months of planning, thousands of miles travelled, and hundreds of magazines printed, FlightSimExpo 2019 wrapped up just over a month ago. In the few weeks since the event, it has given myself along with the FSElite team an opportunity to reflect on the event. In this article, we’ll look at how did the event went, what we would like to see at next year’s event, and why we’re already excited to pack our bags for Las Vegas in 2020!

Before we move on, be sure to re-cap from the event on our Archive Hub Page.

Building On 2018

Whilst the people involved in FlightSimExpo have experience in event planning from previous events, the event in Orlando is only their second event as part of the FlightSimExpo brand. Last year in Las Vegas, the expectations around attendance numbers, organisation and more were completely blown away. This year, there was even more pressure on the event to not only deliver but to exceed expectations again.

After what was probably a year of extensive planning and organisation, Phil and Evan, the co-founders of FlightSimExpo, took to the stage on Saturday 8th June 2019 to announce that they had outdone themselves yet again. The opening video showed a stunning takeoff and as the aircraft climbed through the sky, an altimeter appeared on-screen. Of course, that wasn’t just representing the number of feet the plane was climbing, but the registered attendance number. Watching it back, the cool footage, the epic music and seeing that number go up and up and up still gives me chills. The wooing and clapping you hear is totally reactionary to just how incredible the achievement is.

The FlightSim Community Survey 2018 Results have been published by Navigraph and partners, and it has brought some surprising revelations. You can view the full PDF report here.

I just wanted to spend some time to collate my thoughts and note them down here. This article is going to be pretty much an assorted musing kind of thing, so don’t take it too seriously. I’m also keen to hear your thoughts in the comment section below.

Understanding some of the key data

Prepar3D V4 usage compared to X-Plane 11

I think one of the more interesting results (and surprising: see below) was how many people voted for X-Plane and showed there was a lot of usage of the sim in the community. I’ve seen various forum posts and Facebook groups state that this means that X-Plane is now more popular. Without going into any kind of fanboy debates in our comment section (you’ve been warned), it’s important to note what these stats tell us:

• More people voted for X-Plane 11 in the survey than other simulators
• Although less people voted for Prepar3D V4, it is the simulator used “most of the time”
• FS2002 is still being used – by MORE people than use Prepar3D V1 and Prepar3D V2.
• FSX, although declining in terms of popularity, remains the 3rd most popular to be used (if we were to assume that Steam Edition and regular FSX boxed edition are voted separately and we combine them, FSX as a platform becomes the most voted for platform)