Over the past 25 years, the Flight Simulator franchise has grown from a simple proof of concept Master’s Thesis to one of the most capable and versatile software programs in the world.

The success of the Flight Simulator franchise is due in large part to the efforts of our third-party development community. Those efforts are made possible by our commitment to "extensibility."

The main idea behind this concept is to provide customers with the power to customize their experiences. Over our 25-year history the names and faces on our team have changed, but our dedication to this concept has remained.

There are two main ways to extend the product experience:

• Data Extensibility
• Code Extensibility

Historically, the former of these has been employed much more frequently than the latter for a couple of reasons:

• Easier development
• Protection of code execution
• Easier to document and to learn

The areas of modeling, scenery, flight models, and even XML gauges are a few examples of things that can be customized through data manipulation.

The latest release of the franchise has taken bold steps to greatly increase the code extensibility side as well. The benefits here include:

• Flexible
• Powerful
• Allows for innovation

The best place to start here is to increase your understanding of writing code in C, C++ or C#, and then thoroughly read all the documentation around the area of SimConnect or Code Gauges.

So please keep these overarching concepts in mind if you are just starting to explore the world of Flight Simulator Development. We should point out that enabling such a complicated and complex product to be extensible takes a daily effort by each and every person on the team – as code is written, features are designed and architecture is defined, care must be taken to include the aspects of what it will take to expose these items in a way that the Development Community can take advantage of. 

Amateur and professional software developers all over the world have created add-on products to enhance the Flight Simulator experience. If you enjoy tinkering, consider joining them! Developing add-ons is a whole new aspect of the hobby for you to explore.

We’re excited about Flight Simulator X, and we’re even more excited about how developers in the community will expand on what we’ve created. Flight Simulator is a rich platform, and we’re always amazed by what creative individuals, organizations, and companies manage to build on it.

Dazzle us!