Threshold Exclusive: Interview with Austin Meyer at FSExpo '19

Threshold reporter Scott Havener had a chance to sit down with Laminar Research founder Austin Meyer to discuss the past, present and future of X-Plane at the recently completed FlightSimExpo in Orlando, over the weekend of June 7-9th.

In one of Austin's rare tell-all interviews, he discusses his vision for the future of X-Plane - a pet project of his from its inception in 1995 all the way up to the present day, in 2019.

Scott asks about Meyer's role at X-Plane's parent company, Laminar Research and how he's left his mark on the most recent X-Plane iterations. Short- and long-term goals are also a big talking point, with discussion centering around the port to Vulkan and Metal, as well as touching on whats next for default aircraft.

Meyer thinks big with his long term goal. He describes a whole new interactive world where users get "the actual experience of flying", versus the "everything is controlled" virtual worlds of today.

One of the last topics covered in the 16 minute interview is how X-Plane and its related applications are being integrated into the sim - Xavion, PlaneMaker and AirfoilMaker join the main simulator in being used for development of Beta's latest eVTOL aircraft, dubbed "Ava".

Check out the full interview on YouTube here.

If you'd like to see our summary of Laminar Research's keynote at FSExpo, including some new information on the aforementioned Vulkan port, check it out here.

Alternatively, if you're interested in more FSExpo coverage, check out our official hub page - containing all the X-Plane news from the event.