In a bombshell statement published on Wednesday, Amir Salehi, owner of Flightbeam Studios accused fellow scenery developer Alexey Unishkov, better known as Beautiful Model of the World (BMWorld), of distributing pirated addons from multiple developers, including Flightbeam themselves. This comes on the heels of BMWorld/AmSim's release of Washington Dulles.

As of the time of publication, multiple flight sim product vendors have pulled BMWorld’s products from their stores, including his products developed in collaboration with Pavel of AmSim.

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The Accusations

Salehi details how he became suspicious of Unishkov, initially due to BMWorld/AmSim developing the same airports as Flightbeam, at around the same time. Then, a user on the AVSIM forums, going by the username of “Peter113” caught their attention, having few posts, with most of them being critical of Flightbeam’s products. Peter113 also posted screenshots comparing the BMWorld/AmSim rendition of KSFO to Flightbeam’s teasers of their rendition of the same airport. Threshold asked Salehi for comment on the identity of Peter113, and we were provided with a screenshot of the display name history for that user on AVSIM, which seems to indicate Peter113 was actually Pavel, frequent collaborator with Unishkov.

Salehi continues on to his main point, saying that in September 2020, they identified and banned a user for distributing pirated files, specifically Flightbeam’s KPDX. Flightbeam achieved this by using a “tag” unique to the user’s scenery files, and checking it against the pirated files. That user was, according to Salehi, none other than Unishkov. They confirmed that it really was Unishkov by matching the email he put up on his website in his earlier days of flight sim development. Salehi says that they “discovered this information in July 2024, [and] we patiently awaited the developers’ decision to move on, hoping that the situation would dissipate”, but they are “now confronted with an egregious display of unprofessionalism and toxicity”.

Umberto Colapicchioni, owner of FSDreamTeam, corroborated Salehi’s claims in a post on AVSIM, saying that Unishkov pirated products from them as well.

Lars, founder of Contrail, added in the same forum thread that Unishkov was banned from Contrail for sharing a pirated copy of LatinVFR’s KMIA.

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BMWorld/AmSim Response

Unishkov took to the AVSIM forums on Thursday to respond to these allegations, saying “I GUARANTEE THAT I HAVE NO RELATIONSHIP WITH THE PIRATE COMMUNITY AND HAVE NEVER HAD ANY RELATIONSHIP WITH THE PIRATE COMMUNITY!!!” He continues by decrying the actions of Salehi and others, claiming that they are “illegal accusations”, “defame[d] my honor and dignity”, and they “posted my personal data online without my consent, which is also illegal”. Unishkov ends his statement by defending his work, stating “I put my soul into every airport!!!”, and “I ask the author of the accusations to go to court to prove my guilt or to delete posts that contradict the law, contain slander, insults, and also to delete my personal data”.

Pavel (AmSim) also posted a response on his Facebook page defending Unishkov, claiming “the incident 4 years ago is not evidence of BMW's [Unishkov’s] involvement in the pirate community”. He also attacks the developers making the accusations, saying they “are trying to use dishonest methods of struggle [competition] against us”, and that the situation is “not at all about piracy (which does not really exist), but about the desire of competitors to kill our company”.

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Vendors Pull Out

In response to the claims made by Salehi, Lars, and Colapicchioni, multiple vendors of flight sim products pulled BMWorld and AmSim’s sceneries from their storefronts, including iniBuilds, Orbx, and SIMMARKET.

iniBuilds announced on their forums and Discord server Thursday that they have pulled BMWorld’s products from their store temporarily, until “the situation is fully clarified and a definitive resolution is reached”, and that “these allegations,…touch on issues we take very seriously”.

Orbx CEO Anna Cicognani stated in a forum post that “Orbx has decided to remove all BMW and BMW+AmSim products from its platforms due to a data protection breach”, and they are “actively communicating with the developer”.

SIMMARKET posted on their Instagram announcing they have “temporarily suspended sales of all products from BMWorld”, due to “activities involving alleged intellectual property infringement”.

All three said that existing BMWorld/AmSim customers will retain access to their products.

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This situation is still evolving, and Threshold is committed to keeping you up to date with all the latest developments, so stay tuned!