[nicolas]

I have been asked by several people to give a summary of the X-Plane congress that took place last month (May 23-24th). Here it is.

The X-Plane congress was the initiative of some members of the french team (x-plane.fr). Their initial idea was to gather maybe 20 to 30 people from their group. The success of the conference went beyond their expectations as they were able to gather people from all around the world as well as the development team from Laminar Research.

Location: Gault Soigny, France ( a small town of 530 people, about 2 hours outside Paris).

Attendance: An estimated 85 people attended the conference.

Participants came from the following countries:

France
USA
UK
Belgium
Italy
Germany
Austria
Norway
Switzerland


Participants:

From the Laminar Research Team

Austin Meyer, Ben Supnik and Sergio Santagada. All 3 made a presentation.

x-plane.org frequent contributors

Robin Peel, who spoke (in French) about the evolution of the Airport database he maintains
Marginal who spoke about his tools and the challenges faced by x-plane tools developers
After
Tom Kyler
Morten
Beber
Daniel_L
Leglaude
Alpilotx
Propsman
etc .. (sorry to those I didn't mention)

X-Plane news

With the developers on hand, we were able to get some news about the future of X-Plane.

(Ben Supnik doing his presentation)

X-Plane 9.30

9.30 will be final soon. Austin is getting very few bugs reports so he expects that 9.30 will go final soon (don't ask for a date though).
No new features will be added to version 9.30

X-Plane Version 10

• Better Scenery
  • Integration of OSM (Open Street Map)
  • Airport designer (an editor to quickly design your airport)
    • Do not expect all airport terminals to be included by default in v10. with 20,000+ airport, this is virtually impossible . That's why LR will provide this tool so anyone can make their own local airport quickly. Sergio is the leader on this tool.
  • Improved WED and meshtool
• Better weather
  • Very high on Austin's to do list. Expect the weather to be more localized and to change as you fly to new destinations.
• Better default planes
  • Dornier 328
    • Sergio did a presentation on The Dornier 328. It will be highly detailed. From what we were shown, the cabin is completely modeled. All doors (including the bathroom door) are functional and can be open through manipulators.
  • MD 80
    • The MD80, also developed by Sergio, will be the new highly detailed airliner for v10
  • Other planes will be selected
• Improved ATC
  • Also high on Austin's list
• Speech recognition ? (Austin likes the concept, Ben did frown on the idea)
• The list of new features is not set. Laminar Research will still accept new feature requests.
• Technology will also drive new features. As computers become more powerful, the Laminar Research team can add more features to x-plane 10 .
• Version 9 is still the current version and will still be updated. Do not expect X-plane 10 within at least 24 months (my own estimation. Laminar Research will not give any date, don't even ask).

Food

The organizers had scheduled 2 very nice meals. some pictures:


X-plane wine:



Awards
On Saturday night, we gave out a few awards on behalf of X-Plane.org
Winners of the X-Plane.org awards were:

• Marginal. for his contribution (Scenery tools)
• Robin Peel. for his contribution (apt database)
• Pierre Girboux. For creating the french community (x-plane.fr)
• Claude Prevotaux . For organizing the congress (X-Plane Congress 09)
• Daniel L . For his contribution (Historic contribution)
• Beber. For his contribution (Planes, Scenery, congress )

Booths/workshops

The back of the room with filled with computer equipment for a series of workshops.

• Flight initiation by Clochette

Equipped with a quad core 3Ghz CPU and a 50-inch screen, this was a very busy booth.

• Helicopter Station by Milan and Rafaleman

A place for some to display their helo skills

• Multiscreen set-up by Daniel_L and LAOO

Lots of fun to run X-plane in 3 screens!

• VasFMC by Jurgen

Jurgen from the VasFMC team was showing how vasFMC can interface with REAL plane instruments.

• Ads maker.

A software that export models in X-Plane by pca200.com

• Airliner by MacLinux

Showcased the XHSI add-on

• Airport creation by JPP

Using WED and Overlay editor

• New 'Patrouille de France' demonstration squadron by Beber and After

Beber and After (Falcon 7x) was showing their latest project: An interactive flight squadron.
This was extremely impressive. Planes from the squadron come to position as you click on a button. Click on another button and the planes will form another formation!
This is a new and original concept in x-plane. It was done without plugin.
(beber was also demonstrating how to design planes in Blender)

the dream team:(After and Beber)

After has a very good time. Austin (freshly out of the plane) spent a lot of time with him to try to solve a problem affecting his Falcon 7x.

Video
A professional video production team was at the congress. They are working on a DVD of the event and you will be able to purchase it soon.

Overall, the congress was very successful. It was a great opportunity for members to meet each other and to talk directly to the X-Plane developers. Special thanks to the organizers:
Organizers:
Chouminou, Milan, Beber, Clochette, Daniel_l, Rafaleman and Pierre Girboux


Other pictures:

Booth
(Sergio)
(Austin)

(Alpilotx and Ben)
(Propsman)
(Robin)
(50-inch screen)

[Scooter]

Thanks for the info, Nicolas!

[Totty]

Sounds promising re: XP 10, maybe Austin is listening.don't get me wrong XP is amazing and by far the best sim, but it needs great default aircraft and a few cities done right in a default install to appeal to the MSFX masses.

[vonhinx]

Nice summary; nice to know where we're going. Nothing unexpected reported though I expect Austin is playing a few cards close to his chest. Ten will be awesome... will they call it X-Plane X? All that talent... ... I hope some of it goes into improving and rationalizing the user interface.

[philipp]

• VasFMC by Jurgen

Jurgen from the VasFMC team was showing how vasFMC can interface with REAL plane instruments.

The name of our fellow is Joerg, not Jurgen.

Otherwise thanks for this summary!

[chouminou]

I'm very sory, Nicolas, Le Gault Soigny is a town of 530 people.

[ZAV12]

Great summary, thank you!
I also hope we'll see a fully functional GPS in XP 10

[planer]

thank you very much for the information ...
But when I read your summary I was wondering if XP9.30 will be the last update for xp 9.
Is that so?

[madjason12]

@Planer,

When I got to meet Austin, he told me that he would at least get to 9.6, and would be disappointed if he didn't. 9.3 will NOT be the last update.

[wehrlipub]

I think its great the entire X-Plane community gets to see the goings-on of those at the top. The congress info was quite interesting. Thanks, Nicolas, for presenting the congress. I hope you'll do this kind of summary presentation for all X-Plane conferences, congresses, etc.