X-Plane
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X-Plane
Ok, after doing a bit of searching it seems as if my only option for a flight sim on a Mac is X-Plane.
I downloaded the demo and it seems pretty good but I was just wondering if anyone could provide a little more detail from a user-experience perspective before I go and send off for the DVD. The 6 minute preview is just not enough to get a good feel of the thing!
I really want it to practice all my emergency drills and manouvers so that I don't go too rusty if the weather goes bad here in the UK (Which it already is!). I'm not too fussed about it being photo-realistic, having mega high frame-reates etc. Just a working, realistic simulator. Also I have read that there is a real-time, live ATC plug-in that you can use, any more on that would be good too.
I did a quick search on the forums here to see if there was any related discussions but they all seem to be geared towards Microsoft Flight Sim...
Cheers in advance folks!
I downloaded the demo and it seems pretty good but I was just wondering if anyone could provide a little more detail from a user-experience perspective before I go and send off for the DVD. The 6 minute preview is just not enough to get a good feel of the thing!
I really want it to practice all my emergency drills and manouvers so that I don't go too rusty if the weather goes bad here in the UK (Which it already is!). I'm not too fussed about it being photo-realistic, having mega high frame-reates etc. Just a working, realistic simulator. Also I have read that there is a real-time, live ATC plug-in that you can use, any more on that would be good too.
I did a quick search on the forums here to see if there was any related discussions but they all seem to be geared towards Microsoft Flight Sim...
Cheers in advance folks!
Ramasseur des pommes
X-Plane is a very capable flight simulator on the Mac. It has a superior flight model to MS Flight Sim, which is based on generic aircraft. In X-Plane, it uses "blade element theory" to model the flow of the air over the wings. Thus, every aircraft has different flying characteristics (as you would hope). It is best explained on the website. It will even show the lift vectors on the wings.
Scenery-wise, X-Plane was always the poor relation to the "eye candy" of MS Flight Sim. However, no more! If you purchase (all 60Gb!) of the Global Scenerypack, you get a stunning array of scenery.
"Real" ATC can be provided to X-Plane over the Vatsim network via a the XSquawkbox plugin. You can communicate with virtual ATC using text or using a microphone. Some of the "controllers" can get quite baity if you don't adhere to the route.
There is an increasingly active XPlane community, most visible at x-plane.org.
X-Plane is perhaps more for the purist. It more accurately models the flight dynamics of aircraft, from some crazy "original concept" designs to the usual Boeing and Airbus ranges. Being able to design your own aircraft means that you could, for example, put a glass cockpit into a Concorde, for example (heresy to some, I know)!
X-Plane is so flexible, that it can also model the atmosphere on Mars, and there are aircraft supplied with it (and available for download online) which are optimised for Martian flight. Landing with 400kts+ groundspeed is pretty thrilling. At a more terrestial scale, it is also possible to fly the shuttle re-entry in X-Plane.
The main differences between X-Plane and MS Flight Sim are those of the aerodynamic modelling and the concept of the application. MS Flight Sim is more aimed at "game players", whereby it offers "missions" and concentrates heavily on the visuals. X-Plane doesn't offer "missions", but leaves the field wide open to create your own.
Austin Meyer, who writes X-Plane is constantly upgrading the software, and barely a week passes before there is another beta available to test. Austin is also a pilot himself, and there is great attention to detail.
I've been using X-Plane for several years now, and often download the betas. It's a very good tool for instrument practice, and I'm convinced it helped during my IR training.
For those with PCs, it works on those, too!
Scenery-wise, X-Plane was always the poor relation to the "eye candy" of MS Flight Sim. However, no more! If you purchase (all 60Gb!) of the Global Scenerypack, you get a stunning array of scenery.
"Real" ATC can be provided to X-Plane over the Vatsim network via a the XSquawkbox plugin. You can communicate with virtual ATC using text or using a microphone. Some of the "controllers" can get quite baity if you don't adhere to the route.
There is an increasingly active XPlane community, most visible at x-plane.org.
X-Plane is perhaps more for the purist. It more accurately models the flight dynamics of aircraft, from some crazy "original concept" designs to the usual Boeing and Airbus ranges. Being able to design your own aircraft means that you could, for example, put a glass cockpit into a Concorde, for example (heresy to some, I know)!
X-Plane is so flexible, that it can also model the atmosphere on Mars, and there are aircraft supplied with it (and available for download online) which are optimised for Martian flight. Landing with 400kts+ groundspeed is pretty thrilling. At a more terrestial scale, it is also possible to fly the shuttle re-entry in X-Plane.
The main differences between X-Plane and MS Flight Sim are those of the aerodynamic modelling and the concept of the application. MS Flight Sim is more aimed at "game players", whereby it offers "missions" and concentrates heavily on the visuals. X-Plane doesn't offer "missions", but leaves the field wide open to create your own.
Austin Meyer, who writes X-Plane is constantly upgrading the software, and barely a week passes before there is another beta available to test. Austin is also a pilot himself, and there is great attention to detail.
I've been using X-Plane for several years now, and often download the betas. It's a very good tool for instrument practice, and I'm convinced it helped during my IR training.
For those with PCs, it works on those, too!
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Macster, thank you for your amazing insight into X-Plane!
I was a little frustrated at the demo version (a meer 6 minutes to see if you like it or not!) but after reading a lot of the online materials I could find and then your detailed comments I went an ordered myself a copy!
I love the fact you can install the 3rd party ATC function.... Even if they are a little baity, I guess making it as real as possible will help me out in the long run.
Look forward to getting it in the post shortly!
I was a little frustrated at the demo version (a meer 6 minutes to see if you like it or not!) but after reading a lot of the online materials I could find and then your detailed comments I went an ordered myself a copy!
I love the fact you can install the 3rd party ATC function.... Even if they are a little baity, I guess making it as real as possible will help me out in the long run.
Look forward to getting it in the post shortly!
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One world,
Yes, there is dynamic scenery, you can set how much in the the menus. The weird thing is, if you set it really low you tend to get a lot of hot air balloons.
the_daddy
But it is excellent, there are some really good downloadable aircraft and they behave much better than the MS equivalent. I used to use MSFS9, but always had a problem with the extreme ends of the flight envelope, slow and high speed flight. Don't have as much of an issue with X-Plane. When I first loaded up X-Plane I used it for a couple of days (the speed sensation is great) and then thought I'll give MS a go and it seemed so gameish. So I've not loaded up MS since.
A couple of things with X-Plane, I've needed to tweak alot of settings to get it to feel right, the graphics and acceleration etc. and it is missing the (dare I say polished) feel of the MS series. Some aircraft are missing various interior views, bits of the aircraft are visible others are not when you turn your head and so on.
With regards to the scenery, buy the world database and scenery with it and you'll be amazed, it's about 60 Gb in size but it is excellent. It brings the scenery upto the MS series.
In all I prefer X-Plane, it is more flexible and feels so much better and if you fly a fast jet, it actually feels fast, the first time I tried to land the Phantom I'd used up the entire runway just as I got the wheels down! Talk about go around, bit better the second time but the runway just disappeared! went skidding through the fence on the boundary having burst two of my tyres (yep it told me they had popped)
Yes, there is dynamic scenery, you can set how much in the the menus. The weird thing is, if you set it really low you tend to get a lot of hot air balloons.
the_daddy
But it is excellent, there are some really good downloadable aircraft and they behave much better than the MS equivalent. I used to use MSFS9, but always had a problem with the extreme ends of the flight envelope, slow and high speed flight. Don't have as much of an issue with X-Plane. When I first loaded up X-Plane I used it for a couple of days (the speed sensation is great) and then thought I'll give MS a go and it seemed so gameish. So I've not loaded up MS since.
A couple of things with X-Plane, I've needed to tweak alot of settings to get it to feel right, the graphics and acceleration etc. and it is missing the (dare I say polished) feel of the MS series. Some aircraft are missing various interior views, bits of the aircraft are visible others are not when you turn your head and so on.
With regards to the scenery, buy the world database and scenery with it and you'll be amazed, it's about 60 Gb in size but it is excellent. It brings the scenery upto the MS series.
In all I prefer X-Plane, it is more flexible and feels so much better and if you fly a fast jet, it actually feels fast, the first time I tried to land the Phantom I'd used up the entire runway just as I got the wheels down! Talk about go around, bit better the second time but the runway just disappeared! went skidding through the fence on the boundary having burst two of my tyres (yep it told me they had popped)
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OW22
Yep, see all sorts, taking off, landing, you can even do air to air refueling. Since they brought out the global scenery, I've stopped looking at MSFS, I'm keeping a look out for the next beta version of X-Plane (If you buy the beta version you get it at a discount, but you can still get the upgrades as they're released) and eventually have the latest production version.
If you don't use the global scenery it's not as pretty to look out of the window, but still flies very well.
I've never set the dynamic aircraft above minimum, so don't know if the airports get crowded out or not but on minimum I still see 7 or 8 aircraft on a 30 min - 1 hour flight. Once I had to wait to land.
Hope that helps.
Jimmy.
Yep, see all sorts, taking off, landing, you can even do air to air refueling. Since they brought out the global scenery, I've stopped looking at MSFS, I'm keeping a look out for the next beta version of X-Plane (If you buy the beta version you get it at a discount, but you can still get the upgrades as they're released) and eventually have the latest production version.
If you don't use the global scenery it's not as pretty to look out of the window, but still flies very well.
I've never set the dynamic aircraft above minimum, so don't know if the airports get crowded out or not but on minimum I still see 7 or 8 aircraft on a 30 min - 1 hour flight. Once I had to wait to land.
Hope that helps.
Jimmy.
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Excellent Jimmy. I like doing the old flight sims every now and then and this sounds great, I like to have a bit of realism, busy airports etc etc. I'm very impressed with the screenshopts on the website.
