Skyward Flight Media: 5th Anniversary

Thoughts From Staff About 5 Years of Operation

March 24th was our fifth anniversary! Since being founded in 2020, we have enjoyed five years of operation as a less-than-traditional flight simulation website. Striking out to do something out of pure passion, knowing it may or may not catch on is always a rollercoaster. Wins, losses, good times, bad times, amazing successes and quiet failures, but all of these experiences have tempered our organization into what it is today.

Members of our staff now express their thoughts during this important time.

Caio D. "Hueman" Barreto Writer

To work with something you love is an incredible privilege. Since an early age, I've always known I wanted to work with aircraft; this road led me to university, an engineering career and, in one of its twists and turns, I ended up coming across a group of people who shared this same passion, the one that makes you read up on books about Corsairs and Spitfires, build scale models, and play flight simulation games.

I've been around Skyward since its very start, though at the start it was mostly playing DCS with the lads. My first article, posted in 2022, started out almost by accident, when I mentioned I had really enjoyed playing Novalogic's old simulators as a kid. I've always loved writing, so when I heard "hey, you should write an article about it", that was exactly what I did - and since then, I've been able to experience my hobbies in ways I could never have anticipated.

I’ve always liked sketching and dreaming up my own aircraft designs; but the harsh reality of aviation is that everything takes a lot of money, a lot of time, and a lot of people. And as aircraft have (for good reasons!) grown more complex, and their development cycles grown longer, gone are the days when engineers would’ve worked on dozens of different aircraft of various types by the end of their careers.

However, designing airplanes is much faster (and a lot cheaper!) if your construction work is done in Blender rather than on a factory floor, and your flight testing is done in Unity rather than in ISA +20. And so, in something that started out almost by accident, I’ve found a creative outlet for my designing itch.

We’ve written an entire article about the SW-201 Dragonfly, our first original aircraft design; later came the SW-210 Colibri, and we’re definitely not done yet! It’s hard to express in words how incredible it is to have a team - and a group of friends - who made this possible. To “sit” in the cockpit of an aircraft I had designed in VR, even if it was just a 3D model, and to fly it around, was an experience that is truly priceless.

Skyward is a truly unique place; over the past five years, I've had the opportunity to meet truly amazing people, who share this passion for aviation and flying in the virtual skies. I've been able to write and draw about it, even create my own flying contraptions, and I feel incredibly privileged to have been able to do so. Thank you for being part of this journey with us - and stick around, there's a lot more yet to come!

Santiago "Cubeboy" Cuberos Co-Founder

The fact that 5 years have passed, and I still think of Skyward as a "new" aspect of my life is astonishing to me. Blue and I started this just to see what we could do after the unfortunate downfall of our previous project, but it has turned into something so much bigger than that. Skyward has taught me so much, and I have met so many people thanks to the work I have done here with Blue, Hue, Millie, Kosmos, Sournetic, Vtail and the others. It is amazing to see how this team, my friends, have stuck together through thick and thin and have pushed through many challenges to make this website what it is right now.

I am extremely happy not only to have founded this community with Aaron, but also to have such a wonderful group of friends by my side that have the same creative drive than I do. It certainly makes everything fascinating when it comes down to putting the pen to the paper, be it when we write an article or tackle 3D modeling projects while modeling our original aircraft, just like how when Hue and I modeled both the Dragonfly and the Colibri. Technically, Skyward is the reason why I can call myself a professional 3D modeler now. Both of my current jobs got offered to me because of content that I made for Skyward, in one or another. So yes, I wouldn't have it any other way. I will be here, typing away about aviation games from past and present for the foreseeable future. This is just another anniversary, with many more to come, as there are no plans to stop doing what I love to do.

T.J. "Millie" Archer Writer

I wouldn’t call Skyward my first dogfight. Some people might actually remember my stint as a co-administrator of Electrosphere.info nearly 10 years ago. In fact, I’m the reason the old Electrosphere URL forwards to skywardfm.com.

But Skyward was my first foray into Web 2.0 and all that comes with it. Thank God my overlords let me be as opinionated as I am. When I first started writing for Skyward, I wasn’t really as in tune with the rest of the crowd. DCS, War Thunder, and VRChat weren’t really something I was heavily invested in. But if there’s one thing that this damn website has done, it’s forced me to get feet wet where I never thought I would, and now perhaps I’m just as lost as the rest of this crew.

What amazes me the most is Skyward’s tenacity. I hold up Skyward as more proof in the bucket that hard work and persistence pays off. When this place first started, it was a struggle for every view. Now? People are approaching us regularly. And it’s been so much fun being a part of that growth. As long as Cube and Blue let me keep writing about obsolete Sega Saturn rail shooters, I suspect I’ll be here for the next five years and more.

Aaron “Ribbon-Blue” Mendoza

Co-Founder

5 years… is a long time. Lives change so much in that amount of time. People have children, friendships come and go, college degrees are attained, new skill sets are crafted, and Skyward Flight Media is still here. As of the time of this letter being posted, I am just three releases short of having 200 pieces in my name posted on this website. It is quite a feeling when I sit back and think about that number. Admittedly, I am going through a bit of a tumultuous time in my life right now, but even in the midst of this, Skyward is a shining light.

When I think about Skyward in 2025 I think about bigger things. Things we have not tried before or did as a one-off never to repeat again. More consistently reaching out to fly together with the people that support us, more mission files in various games, more virtual reality experiences, reaching out to creators and manufacturers that we ourselves feel as though we were not “established enough” to try and contact before. This year it may be time for myself and other members of the Skyward staff to also believe that we, as an organization, are capable of a bit more than we expect.

As we move forward into this new year of Skyward operations, I plan on “swinging for the fences”, seeing where the organization will end up. Watch us fly!