The Hardware Review: MFG Crosswind Flight Pedals

The Creator Interview

I get in touch with Milan Simundza, the chap behind the MFG Crosswind (Milan Flight Gear) and sort a pair out. I’ve asked him some questions too about how he got into this business and the answers are telling:

WCCFtech: Hey Milan, what gave you the idea to start the Crosswinds? Are you a big PC flight sim gamer yourself?

MS: Well the thing is, I’d actually consider myself an actual real life pilot first and a flight sim guy second. I fly in a club, mostly tugging gliders and fly for fun as a hobby. Where I live (the Dalmatian region of Croatia) has pretty bad weather in the winter months and sport flying drops massively at this time. Flying is in my blood though, so I have to get my fix somehow, that’s where flight sims come in. It’s a beautiful hobby with a small but excellent community around it and of course has the added bonus that the cost per hour of flying time is next to nothing compared to actually flying in real life.

The story of the MFG Crosswind themselves started around the “Rise of Flight” release. I absolutely loved flying the Fokker DR1 but as many flight buffs will know, it’s a plane that is fairly dependant on good rudder control. Nothing on the market at the time seemed to offer a good enough mix of precision, quality or force to me, the stuff available was either a cheap toy which didn’t have the best build quality or professional gear which was ridiculously priced for a hobby.

So I took the plunge and decided to try building my own device. The first unit wasn’t bad, but I’m a bit of a perfectionist. Lots of prototypes followed until I was really happy with what I’d built, then the potentiometer wore out, so I started studying hall effect sensors. My best mate being an electronic engineer helped so we started perfecting that side of things until we got to where we wanted them to be. I was happy just using them but then another friend who is also a pilot tried my home setup and said the pedals are too good not to make and sell to other people. Initially I was only selling them to other pilots and flight sim people in Croatia by word of mouth. We further refined the design based on their feedback and that’s what got us to where we are today.

WCCFtech: Engineering something like this must be pretty time consuming. How long did it take to get initially setup and do the design?

Milan Simundza: The Crosswinds weren’t started as a business project to make money, so it wasn’t like a traditional startup where we’re aiming to get to market as quickly as possible. The MFG Crosswind people can buy today were born from two years of countless hours of passionate design, prototyping, testing, redesigning (aka enjoying!) loops. The idea to actually make it a product people could buy came after and then took another year to figure out modifications, ease of use, packaging, assembly, trying to ensure it’s a high quality, high endurance and maintenance free product which will last for a long time. It helped that I’ve been working with CNC machining technology for about 15 years in making furniture. I still program CNC equipment today, optimising and automating toolpaths, fixture designs etc.

People may think that my background being in furniture, the Crosswinds have a lot of crossover with woodworking but the truth is pretty far from that as CNC machining for furniture is pretty different from mechanical machining. The Crosswinds are a labour of love and I view them as a work of art. It’s only really possible to produce them at this low a price point because I’ve combined some of the practices I learnt from CNC furniture side of the business and applied a lot of this to the mechanical engineering side. I think it’s pretty fair to say that if you were familiar with CNC machining, a lot of what we’re doing with the Crosswinds is pretty innovative and I’m proud of where we’ve come to.

W: What is your main job now then? Any plans for other peripherals in the future?

MS: My main job these days is leading the MFG team. I recently hired an assistant so that I have more time to work on the development of new products and we have some exciting plans here but nothing I can publish right now. We’re also working on some combat style footrests for the MFG Crosswind which existing owners can purchase as a separate kit if they wish. Customers keep asking us to develop new devices all the time, throttle quadrants, joysticks, yokes, force feedback stuff and even full cockpits! People of course want to purchase stuff as soon as possible but developing new products takes time, particularly to our quality levels.

Flight simulation as an industry is pretty small and those who have been around it a while have seen a lot of good companies come and go. That’s the reason that I push things forward at a slower pace than people would probably expect so that I can be sure that we keep quality high and make smart decisions as a company and ensure that we’re around for the long haul. So we’re definitely working on new products, but products which we feel we can produce better and cheaper than other companies. In addition to this, we still make internal prototypes for fun.

Milan Flight Gear started as a side project out of passion, but it’s grown into a full blown department in the company. We produce most of the parts in house and we’re now 8 people for production, sales and support. I don’t classify it as a primary or secondary source of income, MFG is a small department in the furniture business and growing to become an equal sized department with an innovative and hopefully bright future.

W: What’s would you say is the one thing you are particularly proud of in the MFG Crosswind?

MS: Someone who got a pair told me: “These are transformers among rudder pedals”. We set the bar high and I think we’ve engineered a great design which allows for amazing adjustability options with a single allen key (which we supply in the box!). Same with the software, we try to keep things simple but elegant and useful. So many customers have told me about this or that critical feature that they love for their particular flying style.

To cap it all off, I think they look pretty nice too!

I think it’s a pretty telling, the humble beginnings, the years of design and the end product. Milan is a guy that is clearly passionate, pays attention to detail and knows his craft. Being an actual pilot rather than a video game accessory maker is probably also a big help in making a product that “feels” right, but let’s take a look at the pedals themselves and see how they hold up.

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9.3

WCCFTECH RATING

An excellent set of pedals easy to configure and use.

Pros

• Easy assembly.
• Easily adjustable.
• Simple and effective configuration software.
• Excellent in game performance.
• Highly sensitive sensors.
• Toe brake options configurable as analogue or virtual button.
• Attractive to look at.
• Cheaper than alternative high end pedals.
• Editors' Choice Award.

Cons

• Although providing significantly better value than alternative high end pedals, they're still not "cheap".
• Could do with some alternate size wall spacers but this is really nitpicking.

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