News | Flightbeam Studios

Dear Captains,

A long awaited milestone has finally been reached. Though there were some considerable early challenges with the new MSFS SDK, each hurdle was diligently resolved, and I'm proud to announce the native version of KSFO: Captain's Edition for MSFS 2024.

The 2024 iteration of Microsoft Flight Simulator brings some exciting new features for developers. The most notable difference customers will notice are the ground textures. They have been completely revamped and tweaked to take advantage of FS2024's new SDK features which allow more artistic freedom with ground assets. KSFO already had high resolution ground assets, but textures were severely limited in MSFS 2020, and a default detail map was forced on all aprons. Multiple tweaks were also made to make aprons and taxiways more lifelike. There are more oil stains, tire marks and gunk - matching the real world counterpart.

In addition to ground textures, every single asset was re-optimized and re-exported with the latest SDK for the best possible performance.

These new attributes add on to the long list of features KSFO is already known for. Some highlights that our customers talk about: Built-in, native VDGS (A, B, E and G Gates)

Completely custom taxiway lights, with correct runway entry/exit colors

Various Faun and Flora around airport. Some of them, judging your mistakes.

Scanned assets from numerous, extensive survey visits on-site at SFO. We don't "Google Earth" develop our products, unlike some competition.

See our full feature list here: KSFO Product Page (2025)

Finally the best part: This is a FREE update for all customers and is currently available on Contrail. KSFO will eventually hit the MSFS2024 Marketplace, when available.

Don't have KSFO? Visit our store now! Happy Flying!

Dear Captains,

Since 2010, Flightbeam has consistently maintained a high level of professionalism in the scenery development industry, regardless of competition with other developers. Many of these developers can attest to this. Therefore, we address the recent drama involving BMW/AMSIM and the apparent hostility.

A few years ago, BMW/AMSIM emerged on the developer scene with several new releases. This development was generally viewed favorably, as it represented a welcome influx of new developers for both customers and the industry. Notably, a new version of KPHX, a scenery we had previously developed, was released by these developers. We did not perceive this as a threat and publicly congratulated them on their AVSIM forums.

Some months passed and we released KMSP. Strangely we also learned that the same devs were also working on KMSP.. again, we thought nothing of it.

This is when we noticed an odd character on AVSIM, who seemed to be regularly badmouthing our products on AVSIM. A user by the name of Peter113.

It was unusual for us, particularly considering the relatively low number of posts in the account. However, almost every post was related to Flightbeam and contained negative comments.

Around May 2024, the same developers released KSFO, approximately a month before we launched ours. The same user mentioned above made comparison images with BMW/AMSIM KSFO and our pre-release teaser screenshots on June 9, just weeks before our release.

At this point, it became evident that there might be a deliberate attempt to copy our roadmap. The atmosphere was toxic, which was unusual for us as a developers. I have always been a pacifist and open to friendly communications with other developers, regardless of their competition status.

We then discovered a potentially serious cause:

On September 22, 2020, we banned a user for piracy. This user had purchased KPDX from our store and subsequently shared it on a piracy website. We identified this user because we discovered KPDX being widely pirated, and all instances of pirated copies were identical, specifically linked to this user’s account. A “tag” generated and traceable only to their copy of the scenery.

The user’s address was Russian, and their name was Alexey Unishkov, the developer behind “BMW” - also known as Beautiful Models of the World. This revelation finally made sense.

We also discovered the same user had pirated LatinVFR's KMIA, which also resulted in a ban.

When a user is caught committing piracy, they are permanently banned from our entire network, including all Contrail products. Consequently, on September 22, 2020, a ban was imposed, and no further action was taken, as such incidents unfortunately occur more frequently than we would prefer.

The enigma surrounding the occurrence of this issue was gradually unraveling. The enigmatic toxic user of AVSIM, who exhibited increasingly toxic behavior in July and made numerous comparisons between both KSFO versions, was now revealed to be Alexey. Presently, the developers continue to replicate Flightbeam’s portfolio, with the latest addition being KIAD, despite the availability of numerous other airports in high demand that have yet to be implemented. Although I discovered this information in July 2024, we patiently awaited the developers’ decision to move on, hoping that the situation would dissipate. However, the situation has not diminished, and we are now confronted with an egregious display of unprofessionalism and toxicity.

We acknowledge the value of competition among developers, as it strengthens our market. A notable example is X-CODR’s recent release of KDEN, which features exceptional details.- Check it out - This developer has released a direct competing product with professionalism, simply aiming to sustain their business.

On the other hand, we reject toxic developers such as BMW/AMSIM, with their history of criminal behavior. This developer has engaged in an embarrassing display of unprofessionalism, creating fake user accounts to spread misinformation and even fabricating negative reviews on the MSFS Marketplace following the release of KSFO.

At Flightbeam, we have refocused our efforts on our core skill: quietly creating polished scenery for Flight Simulators. Consequently, we have discontinued publishing our roadmap due to the recent circumstances.

A massive thanks to our loyal customers, sticking to our brand. We look forward to some incredible work for MSFS 2024.

Happy Flying.

Mir

Update - It appears more developers have discovered BMW involved in piracy with their own products: https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/653537-new-kiad/?do=findComment&comment=5223545

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