Mavyryk's Place: Flight Sim Ramblings

Weekends with Motoart

Fri, 16 Feb 2007 23:43:19 GMT

Getting "out of Dodge" for a couple weekends I've found myself hanging out with Dave and Donovan down @ their facilities in Torrance. Pictures speak thousands of words between the trip to the Mojave, meeting Tommy Chong of Cheech and Chong fame, to just hanging out being a shop hand, there is never a dull moment with these guys!!!

More to come after their Mardi Gras party Saturday night....

Friends @ Motoart

Wed, 31 Jan 2007 18:41:10 GMT

Over the last year our team has had the pleasure of working with some incredible folks.....one group in particular has been an extreme pleasure to work with, Dave, Donovan, Max and team @ Motoart. Take a look at the pics in the photo section.....the first one being the booth that they build for us to use at 2006 AirVenture....and other subsequent events.

When I have more time I'll post some shots of the making of that booth. The amazing thing with the making of the booth was that we went from concept drawing to the booth being loaded on trucks to Oshkosh in only 3 weeks. Quite an amazing feat to say the least.

More to come......

Boeing Stops by for show and tell

Sat, 27 Jan 2007 01:23:55 GMT

We are working with Boeing to use FSX as a sales tool in the Marketing efforts. The mission in system in FSX allows them to showcase functionality of their planes in a very accurate and "real-time" fashion.

Jim Halvorson and Bill (I didn't get his last name) stopped by so Mike Singer could show off what he has put together to demo their RNP (Required Navigation Performance) approach technology. Very cool stuff in that it saves time and fuel....not to mention given it is computer guided it is safer than RNAV and other more traditional approach methodologies.

We are looking forward to sharing some of these "missions" with the community in the very near future!!!

Been busy!!!

Fri, 19 Jan 2007 02:49:22 GMT

Here are some highlights and pics of "things goin' on" around the studio.....

First, the National Air and Space Museum is upgrading their Flight Sim display to FSX.....we worked with Intel to get them new systems so FSX would be shown off in the best light. Jason Mangold, Microsoft Games Studios hardware guru is "modeling" the system....which at its heart has the Intel® Core™2 Extreme 6800X Processor and a 7950 Nvidia video card. Nothing but the best for our friends at the Smithsonian!

These systems will arrive towards the end of February after we've loaded all the software and built them several custom missions showcasing various planes and scenarios.

Next, this past Sunday Hal Bryan (our Flight Sim Community Evangelist) and I were at the Musuem of Flight as guests of the museum and King FM, a local classical music station. The theme of the event was centered around their Leonardo Da Vinci display.

Hal gave an incredible talk outlining Da Vinci's contribution to aviation and of course adding a personal touch as only Hal can do!

Check out the photo section!

Other things going on around the studio and the community team are our a big office shuffle on Monday where the community team will reside in one big room! We are looking forward to the change as will give a "news room" (or is that war room) feel.

There is another little thing we're announcing, but you'll need to check out the other posting for details......"Choo-Choo"!!!

Happy New Year FS Community!

Mon, 01 Jan 2007 21:31:11 GMT

Just a short note to wish everyone a Happy New Year!!!

Make sure that you check out the photo section on a regular basis as I'll be adding shots there frequently.

Again, have a great New Year and I'm looking forward to working with the FSX community in 2007!!!

Brett "Mavyryk" Schnepf

Oh, and for those fans who want to check out our offices in FSX....

Sat, 30 Dec 2006 00:55:44 GMT

....fly to....

Lat: N47° 40.65'

Lon: W122° 5.43'

Lastly, sorry for the "loud" color scheme with the theme on this site! It is the only "flight" theme they have!

Greetings Flight Sim Community.....

Fri, 29 Dec 2006 23:46:39 GMT

....and anyone else who stumbles upon this blog.....

First off, who am I and what is "my purpose"? Rather than being my long-winded self.....Hal Bryan, our Flight Sim Community Evangelist summed all that up quite nicely.....

A tenured professor and practitioner of the Ronnie Van Zant school of Management (don’t ask), Brett has been at Microsoft over 14 years working as a Beta Coordinator, Test Lab Manager, Sales/Channel Analyst, Product Manager, Technical Evangelist and Developer Relations Manager. Now that he’s joined the Aces Games Studio, he is completely rearchitecting the way we interact with our community. Brett’s work is laying the foundation for communication and real partnerships with the people we cleverly call “customers” – all part of delivering the “Flight Simulator Experience”.

As the Community and Partner Development manager for the team I like to call Microsoft Simulations (aka ACES) it is my responsibility to put together a team that helps people that spend their hard earned money on our products get the most enjoyment out of them. Here is a link to our website....

http://www.fsinsider.com

Where most of our activities will be concentrated. And to the Product and Community team itself....

http://www.fsinsider.com/Community/From-the-Team/

Since starting the community team (and this job) in May of 2006 it has been an incredible experience to say the least. First off there is the product itself. As I would semi-jokingly say to partners and people I'd be presenting to "we are the world....literally". We ship the planet Earth in amazing detail. Uncompressed we are 14 gigs, but we have over 4 terabytes of data we have do downsample from.

FSX is such an amazing product developed and produced by an even more amazing team. I am humbled to be part of this organization. In the months to come you will come to know them more as we highlight team members on the site.

With launch past us (shipped on 10/17/2006 to be exact) and the FSX community growing we are going to be working hard to deliver a wide range of information and content to allow people from hardcore to newbie to get the most out of our product.

During the months of January and February you will see our site evolve. It would be great to get contructive feedback as to how we can serve the Flight Sim community better.

Pictures speak 1000's of words, and as I'm sure many of you wonder about who and where this amazing product is produced....here is a somewhat long link to some pics I took today at the studio...more to come....

http://mavyryk.spaces.live.com/?_c11_PhotoAlbum_spaHandler=TWljcm9zb2Z0LlNwYWNlcy5XZWIuUGFydHMuUGhvdG9BbGJ1bS5GdWxsTW9kZUNvbnRyb2xsZXI%24&_c11_PhotoAlbum_spaFolderID=cns!2B0E57D04486FA97!104&_c11_PhotoAlbum_startingImageIndex=0&_c11_PhotoAlbum_commentsExpand=0&_c11_PhotoAlbum_addCommentExpand=0&_c11_PhotoAlbum_addCommentFocus=0&_c=PhotoAlbum