Many of us flightsimmers knows TweakFS and FSWidgets as very reliable and stable products. This company is a bit odd in the market because they don’t produce any addon sceneries or planes like almost all others are doing.
But what they do is, more important products like TweakFPS. What do you do with the latest and nicest addon aircraft or scenery if your computer can’t run it propely. There comes TweakFPS to help you out.
Another great product I’ve been using a long time is EFB Electronic Flight Bag. This program brings charts straight to your cockpit without slowering down your simulator. If you are using two monitor system or even the single one, this is the one I’ve waited for a long time.
But who is this man behind these addons we are talking about? Well, his name is Fermin Fernandez from Australia and… Well read for yourself.
I managed to catch him for a little interview between coding and flying.
Mr. Fernandez, tell us little about yourself.
I’m 40 years old, born in Spain and have called Australia (Melbourne) home since the age of two. I’m married and have three furry children (AKA “cats”) who from time to time like to “contribute to the code” by sleeping on and prancing across my keyboard. I have a Private Pilot’s License (fly Piper Cherokee) but rising costs and post 9/11 regulatory madness has limited my flying time lately. On the low-tech side of things I’ve been an avid road cyclist for over 20 years and “break away” from my computer to do about 200-250 KM a week. I also really enjoy cooking (and eating!) and because I work from a home office I often find myself having to whip up dinner for my wife who works outside the home.
Why and when did you start developing products to flight simming community?
Ever since I purchased FS5 in 1994 I was always more drawn to the nuts ‘n’ bolts of how the simulator worked than the flying part itself. I first began dabbling in FS development in 1999 when I started making “real ATC adventures” (fsadventures.net – http://web.archive.org/web/20050104004223/http://fsadventures.net/ ) which were freeware products that began as very simple approaches and ended up as complete airline flights from start-up to shutdown. That continued until 2004 when I started TweakFS and released my first commercial product – TweakFlight for FS2004. The following year I also started working on a separate project – FSWidgets – with my friend and development partner John Hnidec (creator of Moving Map FS98, FSFlightMax and FSGarmin).
My switch to commercial development was as a result of, and I’m sure it’s the same for many FS developers, my wife who noticed the vast amount of time I was spending making software, time that was often being taken away from more important matters, and gave me the ultimatum – be compensated for the time or stop developing. The latter was unimaginable for me so I started creating TweakFlight and never looked back. In hindsight it was the right move to make because I was finishing up my career in the family construction business. Also, as each version of FS became more complex (e.g. FSX/SimConnect) unless you have another source of income/investments/inheritance that allows you to fully concentrate of software development, trying to do it in your spare time after your “day job” would take forever to create a product and by the time you do complete it you may have to start all over again because the next release of FS has arrived.
ferminfernandez
What is your favourite add-on product in flight simulators? (Plane, other?? )
Oh, tough one, there are so many great products to choose from. The one I am most impressed about lately is the FTX series because they deliver VFR capable scenery in my neck of the woods (AU Blue). My all-time favourite plane is a close toss-up between the Cessna T-37 (Tweet, the RealAir SF260 and the Aeroworx King Air – it’s a close match. As for FS applications, it is hard to go past FSNavigator and it’s a real pity it is not being released for FSX but as a developer I can understand some of the complexities in getting such a product working on the new simulator.
What interests you about your product? What do you get from it? (besides huge huge amount of money, right?) 
Good question, sometimes you wonder about what inspires or motivates a developer to create a particular product. In my case all of my releases are things I’ve always wanted myself, but they were either not available or did not exist in the exact form I wanted. So, I rolled my sleeves up and made them myself, but someone should have warned me how much work it would mean! Seriously though, what keeps me motivated is the satisfaction of creating something new, unique and getting positive feedback from Flight Simmers who are enjoying my creations. Generally my software is a little “different” in that it focuses on areas not covered before, such as Aircraft or Scenery products which are well spoken for.
As for huge amounts of money, if you have that idea this is definitely the wrong genre to be in. Even a moderately successful mainstream application will sell many more copies than a top FS title. FS is a very tiny niche market and some of my IT colleagues think I’m crazy to be working in it from an economical survival standpoint (they could be right about that). However I just can’t bear the thought of coding anything non-aviation related – such as an accounting package – that’s just not me.
How hard is it to deal with simmers?
As human beings I don’t think we Flight Simmers are different from any other cross-section of society. I can only speak of my own experience of course, but generally they are a great bunch of folks. A quick glance at any FS forum will quickly tell you it is nothing like what you find in the usual “gaming” forums, it’s much more civil. As the AVSIM demographics survey will tell you, most simmers are +35 years old so that means that you are generally dealing with mature and level-headed people. Of course some of us oldies can be a little irritable at times but generally the most frequent issues revolve around a refusal to read accompanying documentation or registration information. I think we get a bit excited when we first purchase a product and forget to read the manual – been there done that myself. I can’t even remember the last time someone was abusive, but even if the problem is of their own making, when you respond if you afford the “over exuberant” individual some dignity their next reply will be much better.
What do we get next from you?
I’m currently working on the next TweakFS utility (a dedicated FS screenshot creation and display tool) and I am about to release a new “Garmin Edition” of the FSWidgets GMap module (displays FSX aircraft position on Google Maps).
Where would you like to see your company five years from now?
Churning out bigger and better, out-of-the-ordinary FS products for the community (including more freeware ones – http://www.tweakfs.com/store/free_tools.php – http://fswidgets.com/shop/download_files.php ). In the past I’ve generally concentrated on tools that tend to be of more interest to developers or power users, because that’s what interests me. However I would like to broaden that to products that have a wider appeal to the average FS user. At some point I’d really like to do a really big project, one that would take 2-3 times longer than anything I’ve ever worked on.
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