Side Quest: Mini-Max 1500R Sport
Table Of Contents
A Side Quest Begins
Near the end of August, I announced that I would be taking a hiatus from development for the foreseeable future. This was brought on by the longest burn-out streak I have ever – and honestly still am experiencing. After 14 years of developing scenery across various flight simulators (FSX, P3D v2-5, & both versions of MSFS), the unpaid 9-month push to get my supposedly “backwards compatible” addons upgraded to MSFS 2024 was the straw that finally broke the camels back.
At the time, I fully intended to step away from flightsim and focus my efforts elsewhere, as with the amount of time and effort I put into my projects, scenery was proving to not be sustainable. However, I’m happy to say that I have met some awesome friends in the space over the last 5 years, and because of that I decided to rethink my approach, and accomplishing something that has been on my development bucket list for some time – an aircraft.
Friends Make It Possible
Now, even though it has been on my bucket list since the days of developing for FSX, an aircraft has always seemed overwhelming to me. The thought of building an entire aircraft from scratch – 3D modeling, texturing, flight model, coding, etc etc. Doing that all by yourself, it takes time. A lot of time. Though, with the friends I have made in the space, I realized that I was not alone, and this was something that I didn’t need to accomplish alone.
And this is where I really need to thank Mykrode (Got Friends’ Modeler). Without his passion for 3D modeling and the flightsim community, I probably would have never actually considered following through with an aircraft project. He is the direct reason this aircraft now exists, having done all of the modeling and texturing. Though, my thanks doesn’t end here because it took the insight of a handful of community developers for me to finally pull this off.
Sal1800, Lord Frites, Hans Hartmann, and the entire Got Friends team all made early contributions to the project from helping debug strange and frustrating issues, to contributing directly to the early flight model or allowing the use of some code features. I also need to give another huge shoutout to Smitty from eSTOL, who contributed the final flight model and stuck with the project even through testing, where we are today.
The 1500R Sport
Our project is based on the Mini-Max 1500R Sport, which is a US Experimental – Amateur-built aircraft. And though it looks to be, it does not fall into the Ultralight category, as it’s empty weight exceeds the regulations by just 15 lbs (6.8 kg).
For the power-plant, we went with the Rotax 447, which is a 2-stroke putting out about 40 horses worth of power.
Although the real-life counterparts have since been mostly reengined, the 447 was decided upon due to the availability of resources, from data to sounds – which was a major factor for this project.
With it’s light weight, the 1500R has a takeoff roll under 100 ft (30 m) and a landing roll of around 200 ft (60 m). With our upgraded and larger 17″ tires, this makes for quite the capable aircraft on both soft-field and pavement. Though, it’s lack of suspension might make for more jarring off-airport landings.
Features
The 1500R is not designed to be a “study-level” aircraft, but that doesn’t mean that it’s hollow either. Our goal from the beginning was to create something fun and well rounded. Something that you can pull out of your hangar on a weekend and have a flight with some friends, while also having enough for those who prefer more systems depth.
These more noteworthy features include:
- A breakable prop, resulting in engine damage (Reset with Slew Mode)
- 2-stroke choke simulation, including flooding (Optional + Persistent)
- A togglable prop spinner (Persistent)
- Tinted glass (Optional + Persistent)
- Togglable Chocks
- Togglable Pitot Cover (Will affect airspeed if left on)
- Multiplayer Smoke
- Headphone Simulation
- Dynamic Vibration Simulation for gauges and various parts (Tunable Intensity + Persistent)
- Custom Wwise Sounds
While mostly the same in function, it should be noted that the implementation of chocks and pitot cover is handled differently in 2024, and are a part of the sim’s preflight system. However, along with manually clicking them, these can be toggled on/off with the included Blueprint options. This is a nice quality of life feature made possible in SU4.
Release When?
The 1500R will be released for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 and 2024 as a fully native, modular product.
At the moment, the aircraft is in the late stages of beta testing and we are hoping for a January release – though this is dependent on Microsoft since we are still waiting on the required localization file for Marketplace.
When ready, the 1500R Sport will be available through the Emerald Scenery Design website, ORBX, and Marketplace for PC, Xbox, and hopefully PS5 (when that Marketplace is available for devs) and will be listed at 14.99 USD.
A free 1 day rental will be available on 2024’s in-sim Marketplace either at the time of release or shortly after, if not possible at release.
Post updated: January 3, 2026
