How Microsoft Flight Simulator Helped a Groundbreaking Lost Airliner Soar Once Again

“We brought two different groups together [for the Condor in Microsoft Flight Simulator],” Neumann tells me. “First, we have a company called iniBuilds that typically makes our airliners. They worked on the A320neo and they’re making an A330 for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024. They are top notch, the best of best in the industry to make airliners [for flight simulators]. And secondly, we worked with Oliver Moser, who I would call a highly enthusiastic aviation fanatic. He inundates himself and basically gets every book, newspaper, or any piece of information he can get. He’s German, so he has a much easier time with the [Condor] documentation and is probably now one of the most foremost knowledgeable people in the world on the subject. He’s responsible for the flight model and the flight deck and everything, while iniBuilds is providing the artwork, the animation, the sounds, and all that.”

This collaboration paid off in creating a highly detailed representation of the Condor, inside and out. Oftentimes when Microsoft and a partner create a Local Legend, there is not enough information available to create a highly accurate representation of a cockpit. Cockpits are usually not preserved in most museum pieces and there usually are also not sufficiently detailed photographs available to really have high confidence that everything is historically 100% accurate, but in the case of the Condor, the team had sufficient information to get everything correct.