NLX is in another club — the list of the state’s hottest growth companies. Founded in December 1993, NLX has doubled in size nearly every year. Its four-year growth rate was 179 percent — second-highest among the Fantastic 50 and highest among technology companies. It ended 1999 with $22 million in revenues, up from $4 million in 1997. Syme predicts the company, which does work for clients such as General Electric, the Navy and Air Force, will see revenues this year of about $46 million.

NLX got its start in upgrading or modifying existing flight simulators for the military, but has since seen big market shifts. NLX did well with the military, gaining a reputation for being able to set prices precisely and follow contracts closely. "That reputation ... really delivered [the] growth we’ve experienced over the last three years," Syme says.

NLX’s reputation helped it move into making simulators for the civilian market instead of just upgrading existing equipment. In early March, NLX cashed in on its success with the PanAm project by signing a 27-month, three-simulator deal with GE’s Simuflite, which caters to the rapidly growing business aviation market. "That was a pretty significant milestone for us, because it meant that we could sustain our business growth within the commercial marketplace," says Syme. About a quarter of the company’s business comes from commercial contracts; Syme hopes to increase that to one-third.

Although NLX has been cruising for the past two years, it did hit some turbulence a few years ago. Like other Northern Virginia companies, NLX had trouble attracting employees to keep up with its growth, though its success in raising its corporate profile has helped attract workers. Last year, its work force more than doubled from 140 employees to 300, and the company moved its headquarters from Leesburg to a 76,000-square-foot building in Sterling, where it builds the simulators. The company has personnel at 15 locations around the country — such as Air Force bases in Utah, Texas, Mississippi and Nebraska. It still has an office supporting the Navy facility in Solomons, Md., where the company was founded.

The simulators themselves help keep workers interested, Syme says. Each is a replica of a cockpit, complete with a wide visual field so that a pilot-in-training will see exactly what a pilot in a real aircraft would. And thanks to a complicated motion system underneath the simulators, the training pilot will have the sensation of actually flying a plane, Syme says.

"Once you work in the simulation business you have a hard time going anywhere else because there is a tangible product. You can see lights go on and things move," he says. "Programmers tend to follow the cool stuff, and simulators are cool things."