Lefteris Kalamaras

Born 1970 in Athens, Greece, where he is residing once again, after spending ten years in the U.S.A where he studied and worked, receiving his B.A in Computer Science from Vassar College and several certifications in Finance, working in various top Wall Street firms writing trading software.

Apart from running NetGroup, his own software and network consulting business, he spent eight years as Technical Director and Lead Developer of PMDG, a group of developers producing specialized airliner aircraft simulations for MS Flight Simulator.

As Founding Member of VATSIM, the world leading online network of simulator pilots and controllers, he’s served as VP of Development and actively flies online to showcase and test our products.

Over my many years in the flightsim industry Lefteris was also honored by Microsoft by receiving their Most Valuable Professional status first in 2007, and again in 2008 and 2009.

Lefteris is happily married with Margarita and they have three kids – his daughter Athena and son Stefanos from his first marriage and Vassilis, the youngest, his step-son. He holds a Private Pilot’s license since 2001, flying Socata TB9s and Cessna 172s around the Greek islands when the weather is not too hot.
When time permits, he also spends some time playing basketball (always coming home with an injury, or so his wife thinks anyway). Lefteris maintains his Big, Fat, Greek Blog at blogger.com, so do go read it if you like!

Andrew Wilson

Born in 1983, now living in Hampshire, England, Andrew is working for a multinational investment bank, writing trading software. Aside from this, he also runs SSTSIM, which offers a Concorde aircraft expansion product for the Microsoft Flight Simulator series.

When he’s not working he enjoys socialising with friends, cycling, squash and golf. He’s played the drums for over 15 years and plays regularly as a member of a small band. Andrew spends a lot of time listening to music whilst he work; his favourites include Sigur Ros, Pink Floyd and Mark Knopfler. He has also completed 25 hours towards his Private Pilot’s license.

Andrew started out in the days of Flight Simulator 4, and went on to create his own software expansions for Flight Simulator 5.1 and FS98, during which time his passion for Concorde developed, having seen the aircraft at a number of air shows.

Andrew is very excited to be a part of Flight Sim Labs Ltd. and looks forward to creating professional and immersive airline simulation products with the rest of the team.

Margarita Fiotaki

Born in 1976, living in Athens, Greece. She is a freelance art & graphics designer with over 3 years of experience in the graphic design industry.  Originally trained as an office manager, she had worked for over 10 years in the field of auditing & accounting before Margarita realized that her artistic nature was far stronger in calling.

Happily married to Lefteris Kalamaras, she has a son, Vassilis.  When there is time, she enjoys reading, painting, going to the theatre and watching new movies. She also spends some time visiting galleries and museums and she’s very fond of photography, so she’s taken lessons, hoping to get creative with her Canon camera.

Margarita is very happy to be a part of Flight Sim Labs Ltd. and looking forward to provide her help and expertise to the rest of the team.

Andras Kozma

Responsible for Flight Sim Labs Concorde-X 3d model and virtual cockpit, Andras was born in the 20th century in Hungary. He is considered to be a flightsim veteran, having worked on nearly 40 commercial FS related products. He started with FS2 and made his first scenery for FS4. Andras has more than 12 award winning sceneries to his merit, including Budapest, Manhattan, Venice, Tokyo, etc.

His sceneries were initially produced by Lago and since 2001 he is one of the leading developers of Aerosoft – Germany. On two special, flightsim related, products he has also worked for Microsoft and joined the FSLabs team in 2009.

He is an IFR rated pilot and flew hundreds of hours, mainly in Cessnas and other GA planes.

In his ‘civil’ life he is a father of two and has three university degrees, including two M.A.s and a Ph.D. He also holds three honorary doctorates from different universities. As a philosopher and psychologist he is known to have given several lectures in more than a dozen countries around the globe and for over a decade has also been participating as a special adviser to NASA.

David Henry

David has a lifelong passion of aviation, and is trained in music and audio engineering. Before joining Flight Sim Labs, David was given the unique opportunity to combine those interests as Audio Director for Microsoft’s ACES Studio, and spent the past 5 years working to improve the audio experience in Flight Simulator, and to evangelize the value of audio in “Serious Games”.

He’s originally from California, but moved to the Seattle area when he was young. For college he moved to Texas, and has a Bachelors Degree in Jazz Arranging from the University of North Texas. After school he moved back to the Pacific Northwest hoping to get involved in creating music for video games.

He got his start at Sierra On-Line in 1994, working with legendary game designer Al Lowe on Torin’s Passage, Al’s foray into the world of “family oriented adventure games”. Early in his career he worked primarily as a composer and arranger, but as his experience with the medium grew and his interests expanded, he began to work a lot in sound-design, voice production, and creative direction for products. While at Sierra he also worked on leisure Suit Larry 7, King’s Quest 8, and Gabriel Knight: Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned among other titles.

In 1999 he moved to Microsoft where he was audio lead for Crimson Skies and Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge (for Xbox), and a number of sports and casual entertainment products. In 2005 he jumped at the opportunity to move to ACES as Audio Director. His primary goals in moving to ACES were to expand the versatility of our then-ancient audio engine and in doing so improve the user experience in ways that had not been done yet in the simulation world. David feels that FSX was a reasonable start int hat direction, but it still had a long way to go (and were making some really ground-breaking improvements when the studio was closed earlier in 2009).

In his private lifeDavid has a wonderful wife and two children (boy and girl, 13 and 10). He is an instrument rated private pilot, and enjoys every opportunity possible to launch skyward – the Pacific Northwest is a fantastic place to fly. His favorite airplane is whatever he’s in at the moment, but he has a special affinity for the sound of the de Havilland Beaver. His favorite plane that he’s ever flown is a 1947 Stinson 108-2, although he usually flies Archers. He’s also quite fond of (in no particular order) baseball, beer, cycling, Canadian whiskey, Mahler, cats, and gardening.

Lucio Robalinho

Born in 1984, Lucio lives between the world-famous Rio de Janeiro and Petrópolis, where he was born. While Lucio is on his final study stages for a baccaleaureate in Meteorology, he is working as trainee on a company that develops geographical information systems aimed at public service providers.

Aviation enthusiast since he was a child, Lucio is a fan of trijets made at Long Beach. Flew FS4 and FS5 occasionally, but went serious into flight simulation with FS95 at the beginning of 1998. He fell in love with the Concorde when FS2000 was released and made extensive modifications to it in an effort to improve its performance and create a truer representation inside for Flight Sim. This led him to be offered a beta-tester spot for the Koch Altitude Concorde and eventually a flight dynamics developer spot on the SSTSIM Concorde team.

Lucio is a music enthusiast, with a broad taste ranging from Beethoven’s symphonies to Iron Maiden, listening wherever he is, travelling, working, studying, flying in FS or walking on Rio’s beaches. Acid Jazz, Rock, Jazz and Funk are some of his favourite genres.

He has plans to become a pilot in the near future and also professionally involved with aviation in the years to come.

Lúcio is very proud and thankful of being part of the Flight Sim Labs team, which gives him the opportunity to work with so many talented and nice people.

Paul ‘Smiffy’ Smith

Paul ‘Smiffy’ Smith is one of the newest additions to the FS Labs team, joining as a part of the second set of ConcordeX Beta Testers in February ‘10. Here at The Labs Smiffy is in charge of Aircraft Support and acts as the Forums Moderator.

Born at an early age, Paul began simming in the mid 1990’s with FS95 (FS 5.1) and has been crashing virtual aircraft into, or at least in the general proximity of, virtual runways ever since. Aside from his activities with FSLabs, Smiffy is also the CEO over at British Airways Virtual.

In real life, Paul works in the Entertainment Industry, and his work takes him across the Globe, dealing with people from all walks of life and backgrounds. Favorite work pastimes include counting out Brown M&M’s, and upsetting Health and Safety officers.

Away from work and Flight Simming, Smiffy is an avid reader with a collection of over a couple of hundred books and plays covering every subject imaginable, including a prize collection of first edition classics and rarities. As with most other members of the team, Paul is a big fan of music, and the iPod contains everything from Rock and Metal, through to Trance, Opera, Show Tunes, and just about anything else you can think of with the notable exception of Mongolian Throat Singing.

Honorable Mention

François A. ‘Navman’ Dumas

European. Born 1952 in Hoorn, The Netherlands, and married to Nina (Elena) after visiting Romania on an adventurous holiday, driving a rambling old minivan! They have one daughter, Vivian, who left the nest already and travels as much as her father used to do (actually, she’s in Yalta, Krim, while this is typed).

He speaks 5 languages more or less fluently, with English being his primary language for the past 20 years, Dutch, German, French and Romanian added to it. He gets along in Italy, Spain and Scandinavia.
Nina and Francois currently have their main residence in The Netherlands, a small apartment in the French Alps, plans of emigrating to (probably) France, most relatives in Romania and friends all over the world!

Francois worked in Information Technology for over 30 years, the last 16 or so in international executive positions, until he was forced to make a decision; find another job, or start his own company. That was how Silver Cloud Publishing was born back in 2005 and he went back to his roots; flight simulation!

Francois has been active with flight simulation since early 1976 (yes, really), way before the Microsoft Flight Simulator even existed. In fact, it was this hobby that got him into Information Technology in 1978, while working at Holland’s biggest newspaper! He holds a BA in Management in the Printing Industry (still called a ‘Patron’s Diploma’ in the old typography guild) and with Silver Cloud Publishing he is back into printing (among a variety of other things).

His’on-line’ presence started when he was asked to join Avsim back in 1998 as a reviewer, later Editor and forum administrator, spending most of his internet time supporting its readers. In 2003 he was asked to join simFlight in a paid position as Managing Editor, and that’s what he still does. Running the simFlight Forums is a hobby on the side.

In 2004 he also started FSAddon.com, now a renowned FS add-on publishing company responsible for such products as Misty Fjords, Tongas Fjords, Vancouver, FSCargo and FSX Mission Editor, to name but a few.

Silver Cloud Publishing now covers all of his very different activities, including IT Consultancy with ETMA, running FSAddon.com, running his motor tour company EuropeRides, and his web design and hosting activities at Silver Cloud. Did we mention he writes and publishes books too?

While Francois is no longer holding the marketing director position at Flight Sim Labs, we certainly feel he deserves a mention in our credits as he was one of the initial driving forces behind the effort, intending to help make it yet another success story in his long FS history!