Until you charge for the training. Then the ‘men in suits’ don’t care what disclaimer you watermark your business card with.
True enough.
The OP needs to make an approach to MS to enquire as to the formalities of a Commercial Licence to operate the sim on a commercial basis I guess.
Use of a “not for commercial use” program for commercial gain for someone who isn’t a pilot to offer flight training with.
What could go wrong?
Now, if you had a recreational sim idea and got the correct license from MS in order to charge for providing that service using their software, that would likely fly (pun intended). But you better have a ton of money at the ready for your cockpit, a solid business plan fully hashed out, and a sack of money for both the lawyers required on both sides and for MS licensing fees.
I did some back of an envelope calculations a while ago to do this and hit £250K fairly quickly.
Yeah, that doesn’t sound unreasonable at all. You need a ton of capital to start something like this.
MS won’t even give you the time of day unless you have everything planned out, the funding to make it happen, and of course, the money to cover legal fees to get the licensing agreement in place. And MS’ share won’t be peanuts. You’d likely be looking a per seat license fees of many thousands of dollar per year, plus potentially a percentage, much like they take 30% from the marketplace sellers.
Yep, it’s complicated the minute you sit down and start writing up some notes;
A320/ B738 cockpit build will steal £75K - at least - of that. Premises, Premises Insurance, Public Indemnity Insurance, Public Liability Insurance. Office Staff - manning the booking phone, meeting and greeting, etc.
Maybe a retired Airline Pilot or two to host the sim sessions from the right seat when you’re tired and are bogged down with paperwork.
Advertising, Web/ Social Media fees. Outreach to local/ National press to get the coverage and thus the bookings. . .the list goes on. Ask me how I know?
I built 3 on the P3D Commercial Licence Platform for flying schools.
It’s something you’ve got to be in to long term for you to make some cash - or you’re going to go bust really quite astonishingly quickly.
On the plus side - it’s a lovely way to make your passion your living. I’m kind of getting there but it’s taken me six years so far and there’s still a lot to do.
I guess I better go tell all the instructors at the flying school to stop using flight simulators with immediate effect then. Just kidding. But there is a bit of a grey area here. Interesting.
No. Not at all.
But the bottom line is that MSFS is neither an FAA, EASA or (more recently for us in the U.K. a CAA Certificated Training device - so cannot be used to Log Hours towards either PPL/ CPL or otherwise.
That’s not to say that it’s not a bloody good one and in terms of visuals trumps a $30M dollar sim in to a cocked hat.
I’ve flown Thales B777 at Gatwick and the view out of the cockpit window was disgusting - worse than FSX - without the DX10 Scenery Fixer by Steve.
But in the twice yearly mandatory checks for Airline Pilots it’s not necessarily all about the view out the window - it’s more about Memory Items in the event of EFATO, etc.
Don’t see any grey…
If you have a commercial license you can charge for usage. If you don’t have a commercial license, you can’t charge.
That is about as black and white as it gets.
Your license is a SINGLE user agreement. By the letter of the agreement you can’t offer it for public use, even free. If you want to let multiple users fly your sim, in a public setting, I suggest getting permission first.
I would hazard that any flight school using a desktop sim software for training purposes has received the appropriate licensing.
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Should be cheaper for a steam gauge C172 or not too much more for multi or complex. That should suffice to get someone some cheaper hrs up through Commercial Pilot, Instrument - Airplane, Multi.
There is very little grey area. Currently, in US:
There is an FAA approved version of X-Plane for commercial use. This is often sold with the hardware and cockpit setup. Usually includes an instructor station for system integrity check and monitoring. This setup gets an FAA certification/designation as a Basic Aviation Training Device (BATD) or Advanced Aviation Training Device (AATD).
Logs on the sim must be maintained and a CFI or CFII present to sign the logs of the student pilot.
The logs should able to be cross-referenced, if necessary. This is needed in case someone is suspected of adding extra ink to his or her personal logbook or if someone claims sim credit as part of the application for an airman certificate or rating.
Ha, why just college kids? Your post is interesting on so many levels…
Name a couple will ya?
We’re chatting about setting up MSFS as a commercial sim operation to build commercial revenue to the general public.
What are you talking about?
Can you bring something to this? - if not - General Discussion is back this way;
No offence but why pay for it when you can get it all for free on YouTube.
Real A320 Sim Pilot for example has great content the same goes for EasyJetSimPilot
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We’re talking building an A320 Full Scale Cockpit Experience - or a B738/ B777, etc.
We’re talking about Commercial Operations as Sim Experiences for paid revenue streams.
Such as this;
This was a question that was bound to come up as the Sim is finessed in to something that can work commercially.
Don’t get me wrong - it’s not there yet - but it’s going to be.
Hi Everyone,
A big thanks to you all, what great ideas you have given me!!
Some clarifications from my side:
- I am not a pilot, but an aviation engineer having worked in the Air Force
- I have been very passionate about the aviation field, since my childhood, which still continues, and it is this craze that drives me to have a simulator.
- Currently my goal is not to make a simulator that will directly facilitate getting a pilot’s license, but instead evoke curiosity about not only how a plane flies but be able to actually see and feel what it takes to fly a plane. This could even let the young guys help to decide if this is the career that they would like to pursue. This could happen by having a simpler or crude flight simulator, but with the advent of so many games and gaming consoles, there is a need to let them get as close as possible to actual flying
- I am now planning to try other simulators that have commercial licenses, and even trying to approach Microsoft to see if they could offer a commercial license.
Hope this helps clarify some points. Please keep more ideas/discussions coming, it will help me immensely.
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