MSFS Presents FlightFX Cessna Citation X for Microsoft Flight Simulator (2020) and Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, exclusively available to all players via the in-sim Marketplace. To celebrate the release of this renowned business jet, we sat down with Nick Sdoucos, CEO at FlightFX, as well as the wider development team to get an exclusive insight into the group.
Foreword
Behind every FlightFX release is a whole crew of artists, engineers, testers, and community wranglers whose names don’t always make the changelog. For this Marketplace feature a few of them stepped out from behind the screens, carving time from busy build schedules to answer a few questions and give you a clearer picture and a little bit of humor that defines who we are and how we work.
Their insights reflect the same energy we pour into every airport and aircraft, and we hope you’ll feel that enthusiasm the moment you load up one of our creations. Thanks for flying along with us; if you have half as much fun using our add-ons as we do making them, we’re doing something right.
Nick Sdoucos CEO, FlightFX
Q: How did FlightFX get started? Was there a specific moment that sparked the creation of the studio?
TOM (Thomas Livings, Head of 3D): FlightFX’s origin wasn’t a lightning-bolt moment so much as a steady kindling that finally caught fire.
It began one Christmas in Florida when I (Tom) got a call from Nick, a client at the time, who asked, “How hard would it be to model an airport for Microsoft Flight Simulator?” My holiday brain blurted back, “How hard can it be?” Spoiler: it’s really hard, especially if you plan to make a living doing only airports.
That first challenge led us through a handful of airfield releases and a quick realization that we’d need to aim higher. So we doubled down and built the Cirrus Vision Jet, our first full aircraft. In the process, cemented FlightFX as a proper studio. Seeing that inaugural product go live on the MSFS Marketplace was the moment it truly felt like a company rather than a side project.
Since then, every new project has been its own mini-expedition: unique hurdles, fresh lessons, no shortcuts. We’re five years in now, anchored by a tight four-person partnership, staff and a physical workspace, and we still treat each project with the same respect that phone calls demanded on day one. Looking back, we probably should have kept a running journal of the highs and lows, but when the work is this technical and absorbing, you stay buried in the build until it’s time to fly.
JORDAN (Jordan Ryan, CTO): I was told there would be a private jet involved. I just wasn’t informed in which capacity before I signed up.
PETER (Peter Vasilion, COO): When Nick and Tom approached me about getting FlightFX off the ground, I was a bit skeptical. We were all busy with our day jobs, but the guys were passionate about the sim community and the potential for a high-value to cost studio focused on community engagement. With that, I got to work on all the technical and legal to get the business running… and here we are. Our first endeavors in scenery were a bit bumpy, but we settled in quickly with the Vision Jet and have continued to set the stage for high-quality, high-value add-ons since.
NICK: For three decades I made my living designing large-scale concert tours and corporate events. A career that had me practically living in airports. It started as a family affair: I spent my childhood criss-crossing the country with my dad, begging for hotel rooms that overlooked the runway. I can still picture myself at the Renaissance Hotel by Lambert Field, glued to the window while rows of TWA jets inched toward takeoff.
With that vantage point, falling for flight simulators was inevitable; I’ve owned every version of Microsoft Flight Simulator since day one.
Then the pandemic hit, and the live-events industry slammed into a wall. The mandate was simple: adapt or die. That pivot put me in the same virtual room with Tom and Jordan on a series of creative side projects. One late-night call, my lifelong aviation obsession accidentally slipped out just as Microsoft released MSFS 2020.
We ran the numbers, sketched out what we thought we could contribute to the community, and decided to go all-in. A few prototypes later, FlightFX was wheels-up and climbing.
Q: What gap did you see in the flight sim space that made you want to jump in?
NICK: Honestly, I didn’t sit down with a spreadsheet and hunt for some tidy “market gap.” I just wanted to build the same kind of add-ons I’d been happily burning paychecks on for years, only with our own twist. As the projects (and the friendship circle) grew, the mission shifted: it became less about chasing a single missing feature and more about joining a bigger conversation. These days I half-joke that we’re in the happiness business. Yes, we still have to keep the lights on, but the real win is when a hardcore systems nerd and a casual Sunday flyer both walk away grinning at the same product. If there’s any gap we’re filling, it’s that bridge between wildly different simmer expectations, turning “I hope somebody makes this one day” into “Whoa, it’s here and it’s fun.” Making money is really important; making people happy is awesome, and doing both at once feels like we’re on the right flight path. Meeting all of the different levels of expectations has been one of the hardest parts of this journey.
When you build a business that centers around a hobby, you must embrace your role as a steward and a contributor to that hobby. It needs to be respected or you will quickly be pushed off to the side and not respected by those same members.
TOM: When Microsoft Flight Simulator roared back to life in 2020, it felt less like an empty gap to fill and more like a wide-open runway inviting fresh voices. We’d already collaborated on interactive projects outside aviation, so the moment we saw the new in-sim Marketplace, we recognized a rare alignment of opportunity and skill set: our combined backgrounds in design, engineering, and large-scale experiential tech could translate into truly premium add-ons.
Rather than chasing a single “missing feature,” we focused on elevating the overall standard; meticulous modeling, innovative interaction, and concierge-level support. In a space suddenly buzzing with possibility, we aimed to prove there was room for studios that treat each release like a handcrafted experience. Judging by the loyalty and enthusiasm we’ve felt from the community, that bet is paying off on both sides of the cockpit door.
Q: How has FlightFX evolved since those early days?
NICK: Looking back on our journey, from those first scenery drops at DuPage and Chicago Executive to aircraft releases like the Vision Jet, HJet, P180 and the upcoming Cessna Citation X; it’s clear the projects have grown in scope, but the culture has stayed the same. We still run things like a family, just one with a few more seats at the dinner table. Akil joined to keep our community conversations vibrant and our messaging on point, while AJ’s eye for detail now safeguards every switch, texture, and performance figure before anything reaches the Marketplace. The roster may be bigger and the checklists longer, yet the spirit that launched our very first airport, the excitement of building something pilots will love; continues to guide every takeoff.
AKIL (Akil Gunn, Community Manager/Marketing/QA): I joined FlightFX as a volunteer Discord moderator back in 2021 trying to keep the chat from turning into a flame-fest. Fast-forward a couple of years and that side hobby has become a legitimate seat on the crew: I now look after a 12-thousand-member server, help shape our social media voice, and feed real-time community feedback straight into the dev pipeline. Watching DuPage and Chicago Executive grow into the Vision Jet, HJet, P180 and now the Cessna Citation X;, and now the P180 has been wild, but the coolest part is seeing how the team treats community input as mission-critical. Whether it’s scheduling test builds or crafting launch posts, they trust me to make sure the pilot-side conversation is heard. For someone who started out just keeping the peace online, that level of ownership is equal parts intimidating and awesome. Its cool to be a part of something like this. Something that started as a hobby and now has grown so much. Watching it evolve has been something I will always cherish and being there to help it evolve will be something I will never forget.
Q: Is there a particular project or moment that really represents what FlightFX is all about?
NICK: For me the moment will always be the Vision Jet release. Up to that point we were just a little scenery shop. A hobby business that was blissfully laying out taxiway lines at DuPage and Chicago Executive. Then we decided to bet the house on a high fidelity aircraft. Luk, Boris and Akil came on board. It took months of late night Slack calls, white board math, coding, planning, research etc., but the real snapshot is the final evening before launch: all of us watching the final build compile, Akil live-streaming Discord reactions, the QA team pinging last-second QA notes, and the rest of us flying the release candidate one more time “just to be sure.” I will never forget the moment it went live. I was so nervous. Having your art judged and sold isn’t emotionally easy.
Once the Marketplace team told us it was live it was agonizing. Then within minutes screenshots of the Vision Jet were popping up in forums and socials from simmers all over the planet, pictures and videos of people testing out the avionics, someone else joy riding, another pilot climbing to FL310 just to enjoy the view. That single burst of community energy, each person using the aircraft in their own way yet sharing the same grin. That’s what perfectly sums up what we were after. Obsessive craftsmanship behind the curtain, inclusive fun out front. It proved that if we hold the bar high enough, we can make a product that delights the study-level crowd and the casual flyer, all while learning a ton and laughing at ourselves along the way. That night is still the yardstick we measure every new project against, Cessna Citation X; included.
TOM: For me, nothing captures FlightFX better than our aircraft survey trips. We haul the whole crew out to the real airplane, spend a couple of days running detailed scans, recording cockpit audio at every power setting, shooting hours of video, and snapping more photos of rivets than anyone should admit. We talk with everyone from the line crew to the pilot to learn each quirk, and if we’re lucky, we grab a quick hop in the right seat to feel how it flies. Those trips double as team-building late-night debriefs over diner coffee, everyone comparing notes and they’re exactly why our add-ons feel so authentic. That meticulous “scan, record, fly, repeat” rhythm isn’t just a checklist; it’s the happiest part of the job and the clearest snapshot of what FlightFX is all about.
Q: Has working on the Cessna Citation X changed how you think about future aircraft or projects?
NICK: A bit of transparency here. The Citation X felt less like “another airplane” and more like a stress-test of the entire studio. Between surprise detours, team resources, competing feature requests, and the small matter of developing an unseen avionics package, the project yanked us in every direction at once, and exposed every crack in our process. We had to grow up fast: tighten hand-offs, be better with QA, and split some big goals into smaller, non-negotiable milestones.
Because of that, future aircraft will start differently. Its also forced us to be more internally organized with checklists and SOP’s for everything, even scheduling out our calendars. Scope creep is a real thing when developing aircraft in the sim. Adding one more feature can easily add weeks to the development time. Especially when you are dealing with things like avionics where real world companies have massive teams writing code for thousands of different scenarios.
The Citation X rewrote a lot of the playbook for us for sure. When we sit down and do a post mortem on this we will continue to tweak and refine our process as we always do.
Q: What were some of the biggest technical or creative challenges you faced during development?
NICK: I think it was when Luk met his new girlfriend in the middle of the project. LOL
PETER: Workstation stability quickly became our most disruptive hurdle. Several of our primary rigs on early-release Intel 13th-/14th-gen CPUs began cycling through random reboots and failed builds. Firmware patches and component swaps only solved part of the problem, and we ultimately replaced a few machines outright. The situation was compounded when members of our overseas team had to bring new hardware online mid-project; matching BIOS versions, driver stacks, and security policies across time zones added days of configuration and validation. Restoring a uniform, reliable build environment was essential before we could refocus on the Cessna Citation X; itself.
Q: Are there any features in the Cessna Citation X that were directly inspired by community requests?
AJ (AJ Heredia, QA/Trusted Advisor/Beta Testing): The chorus demanding “winglets, winglets, winglets” got pretty loud. Testers also asked for faster load tweaks, so we pulled the weight-and-balance page inside the cockpit’s Virtual Aircraft Management System. Now you can adjust pax and fuel without ever leaving the seat. Real-world operators have started fitting aftermarket autothrottle kits, and the community wanted the same flexibility, so we modeled the STC as an optional equipment block with full annunciator and disconnect logic. And because Vision Jet pilots loved the headset noise-reduction toggle, we ported that feature over too. Each of those ideas began as a conversation thread, made its way onto our task list and survived QA because the requests were clear and the use cases compelling.
Q: Were there any real-world pilots or operators of the Cessna Citation X you consulted with? How did that shape the final product?
NICK: John Kluenker was instrumental in helping us with this project. His insight and guidance was invaluable throughout the process. He was also gracious enough to host us at their hangar and take us on a cross country flight with him to better understand the plane and capture real audio.
He actually has a Youtube channel where he vlogs about his adventures and travels. Its definitely worth checking out: https://www.youtube.com/@johnkluenker
We also were blessed with a tremendous amount of support from our user base and a few Citation X pilots in our channels. Many of them provided some helpful feedback in our beta channels and they will be instrumental in supporting customers during the launch.
Q: What does collaboration look like on a project of this scale?
Well its a bit like this…
Q: How does your team stay connected to the sim community between product launches?
NICK: Most of our communication, like a lot of other developers, has centered around Discord. It’s sort of become a public facing Slack set up for us. It’s also really nice to get out of the office every year and get to see some faces at FlightSimExpo. It’s become a great hang. But the primary funnel still comes through Discord. That’s where we can interact the most. In some cases we even have gotten on the phone with some customers.
Akil, AJ, and the rest of the Trusted Advisor team shoulder a tough job keeping a 12-thousand-member Discord both informed and civil. That’s no small feat, especially when we can’t pin down a launch date until we’re about a month out. Add the fact that priorities can shift overnight. One project humming along, another suddenly jumping the queue for some reason or another. Clear, consistent messaging becomes a moving target for reasons that are beyond our control. We share as much as we realistically can, as soon as we’re sure it won’t change three days later. It can feel like fighting through quicksand.
In the end we have a team that is good at keeping info and assistance balanced between the hard core enthusiasts and the casual users.
Q: Are there any particular people from your company you’d like to give a special mention to, and why?
TOM: I feel it’s difficult to single out any one person or group, I know that sounds like a stock soundbite, but really, everyone pulls together on the same rope. I know we’d be lost without Lio, I know we’d be rudderless without Nick, broke without Jordan, Peter keeps LEDs blinking and error codes to a minimum, nothing flies without Luk and Marwan, AJ and Akil have their hands full with the community. Everyone brings their competencies to the table. I think one of our most valuable resources is our Trusted Advisor team. Without them we would get inundated with time consuming tasks. These guys volunteer their time to help our customers because they enjoy it. They truly represent what this community is about.
MSFS Presents FlightFX Cessna Citation X! It is available to purchase now via the Microsoft Flight Simulator (2020) and Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 Marketplace for $29.99 USD. To stay connected with the devs at FlightFX, don’t forget to join their Discord.
