May is celebrated as Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month, and in recognition of the occasion, we are pleased to shine the spotlight on community member JoeyBolo77, a Filipino-American Microsoft Flight Simulator Twitch streamer. We recently caught up with Joey to ask him some questions about his experiences with flight simulation and his involvement in the community.
How long have you been playing the Microsoft Flight Simulator franchise? What was the first version you played?
I’ve loved flight simulators since elementary school. I remember booting up Flight Simulator 95 at the school computer lab whenever the class had the chance to go in. We didn’t have joysticks or controllers but that was time well spent for me. My dad figured I liked airplanes and flying so much that he got Flight Simulator 98 for me to enjoy at home.
What is the most interesting or unique thing you have done in Microsoft Flight Simulator?
The greatest thing about the current Microsoft Flight Simulator title is that the VFR capabilities allow me to connect with my personal history. Recreating past family road trips and vacations, visiting neighborhoods family lives in, seeing landmarks I saw as a child in their 3D glory — all from the comforts of home!
How long have you been streaming on Twitch? Why did you decide to become a Twitch streamer?
I have been streaming on Twitch since December of 2020. During the COVID Pandemic, I took to gaming to ease my mind and keep the cabin fever and work stress at bay. I always had an urge to become a content creator and MSFS actually had come around just as I had the means to start up. My initial goal was to start a community of people from all walks of life who just wanted to talk gaming, maybe do some group flights and do some charitable fundraising.
A few years later, I’ve met many wonderful, supportive friends and channel followers through the flight sim community. Even with my current inconsistent streaming schedule [Editor’s note: Joey is a new parent which understandably is occupying much of his time at the moment], many people check in and ask how I’m doing with life and fatherhood. Very cool.
We recently announced that the Microsoft Flight Simulator team will be at FlightSimExpo 2023 in Houston. You attended the last FSExpo in 2021, hosted in your home city of San Diego. What were some of your personal highlights from this event?
The biggest highlights were meeting my favorite Flight Sim Content Creators and seeing the age diversity amongst the attendees. The days that led up to the Expo were actually the most exciting for me: using Discord to plan meet ups with friends and figuring out what Expo seminars to attend and what technology I wanted to play with the most.
The people I met that weekend were great. It was nice to talk to fellow creators, attendees, and vendors about the passion we all share. I saw flight simmers both young and matured doing landing challenges, discussing their sim cockpit setups, or just having a good laugh with each other by the fire pits. It all made me excited for the future of this hobby and general aviation.
Joey streams Microsoft Flight Simulator on his Twitch channel here. He will also be joining the Microsoft Flight Simulator Community Team on the MSFSOfficial Twitch channel as a special guest co-host for our weekly Community Fly-In Friday event on May 5, 2023.