X Plane

[JustinWheat]

Ok so I hate to start a thread that's been started hundreds of times. Is there an advantage to using X Plane over FSX? I just feel like I have to much money invested in FSX to convert to X Plane. It's not that I don't have a system that can handle it. I have just noticed reading the threads that a lot of users are using X Plane for PE. Just looking for anyone's thoughts. Thanks!

[Keith Smith]

I'm not the best person to comment on this because I have never really used a well-configured FSX setup before. I have 16 years of X-Plane experience, and not much else.

What seems apparent to me is that X-Plane is moving forward, where FSX is a 2007 codebase that people have been patching for the last few years with addons. At a fundamental level, X-Plane is based on real world physics, and as a result, is likely to be capable of capturing subtle nuances that aren't easily replicated with FSX's approach to replicating the sensations of flight.

FSX has better terminal scenery out of the box, and a wider range of scenery options. X-Plane has better stock land class textures, and better stock terrain mesh. X-Plane has absolutely no terminal scenery out of the box, other than one pretty airport (KSEA,as of XP10).

Ultimately, I think there is more potential in X-Plane than I do FSX. If you compare the sims as they stand today, you're going to get many different answers depending on exactly what you're comparing. There certainly are some amazing aircraft for FSX, which, when flown within the envelopes for which they are designed, do an amazing job.

Watch a bunch of XP10 videos and see if they float your boat.

[Kevin_atc]

Being an avid FS9, FSX, X-Plane 9 and X-plane 10 user, here's my take on it.

It all depends what you want to fly, and what you are looking to get out of it. Personally, I like realism. I fly FSX when I fly jets because I don't like how the jets feel/look/handle in X-Plane. Granted, I know there is the CRJ2 for about $70 for X-plane that I hear is great but I love my PMDG 737 NGX for FSX. However, FS9/FSX lacks in flight characteristics which matter more to me for my general aviation small IFR/VFR flying thus when I want to take a small Cessna, Piper or Beechcraft up, I load up X-Plane 10. As Keith mentioned, X-Plane's default terrain is incredible- as well as its clouds. In addition, the default C172 for X-Plane has a great visual model- both inside and out. Additionally, one thing I've noticed about X-Plane from the start is how smoothly the gauges move. If you're climbing at a steady rate, the altimeter moves very smoothly whereas if you look closely at the altimeter in FS9/X, you'll notice how it doesn't move smoothly like a normal gauge would.

To sum it up, if you're looking for the airline pilot experience in a jet, use FSX. But if you're looking for a great alternative to going out and spending $200 on a real C172 flight, or even if you want to fly something as large as a KingAir, get X-Plane 10 because the flight characteristics and terrain detail is really incredible.

[JustinWheat]

Ok thanks for the responses. I have a slew of saitek products, will they work in xplane? I'm just wanting to make sure my hardware will work with the platform. Now I am an user of opus FSX. It's a nice pay ware weather product for FSX but then again it will be nice to not have to use an add on for x plane if the weather is as good as advertised. Any pay ware recommendations for xplane in terms of aircraft, scenery,weather,etc.?

[Kevin_atc]

Saitek yoke/pedals work fine. Any other hardware from them should work fine, too. I don't have any payware planes for X-Plane. The stock C172 is really nice, as is a freeware BE58 (the one in Keith's videos). You can also find some other good free stuff, however I know Keith buys a lot of payware aircraft. His advice is always buy one at a time and fly it until you're sick of it rather than just going on a shopping spree for aircraft. There's really no scenery to buy, to my knowledge. All of the airports in ZLA (and even ZOA) have been custom built by PE users and are available to download. They're still not FSX quality, but they get the job done and some look better than others.

[djrisc]

Justin,
I just switched from fsx to xplane and have the entire Saitek cessna line of controls. They all work perfectly in xplane, in fact for me the setup was easier.

Keith posted a reply here in the forums with the curve settings for the yoke and I use those and it works great.

Brett

[Mark Hargrove]

I can second Brett's comments about the Saitek controls -- I have all of them as well and they work great with X-Plane. You'll need a plug-in to manage the panels, which you can get for free at http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?app ... file=14646.

-M.

[Mark Hargrove]

I'll add one comment from flying X-Plane for only short while now: while X-Plane does seem to model flight (and usually, systems) quite a bit more accurately than does FSX, I haven't yet found a "performance" aircraft (either piston, turbine, or VLJ) with a decent glass cockpit and FMS. In particular, I've been looking for an airplane with a Garmin G1000 cockpit for X-Plane that doesn't suck -- but haven't found one yet. The series from FTS ("FlyThisSim" that promises good G1000 simulation is just impossible -- it doesn't seem to work at all and costs > $100). Flight1 Software (which has several great airplanes for FSX, including an excellent C-182T G1000 and the superb Citation Mustang), doesn't seem interested in X-Plane. The Cessna Corvalis from X-Aviation seemed like a good choice, but it turns out their G1000 simulation isn't very good either (no procedures at all, for example).

XP seems great for folks who like to fly "/A" aircraft, but I have a lot more fun in /G planes.

And what the heck is with the autopilot in XP? While flying the "stock" Baron I've had the plane twice almost go out of control after engaging the AP during climb-out. With wings level and a maybe 8-10 nose-up attitude I engaged HDG hold -- the plane instantly pitched up to about 25 degrees nose-up and rolled hard to the right. If I'd know that "AP" meant "attitude peril" I think I would have been more prepared.

-M.

[Keith Smith]

Mark,

I haven't had that experience with the AP in the Baron. If you get a repeatable case, let me know.

I can't give you a great answer about good G-1000 implementations because I don't fly with that equipment and have never really sought it out. Ppl who use FTS seem to be happy with it, though, once they get used to it. I know of some solid Garmin 430/530 implementations but couldn't tell you about G-1000 other than FTS.

To be honest, even though my airplane has a Garmin 430/530, and I use every shred of its capabilities in the real airplane, I haven't made it a point to replicate it in the sim. I'm generally more interested in interpreting the procedures, configuring the airplane correctly and flying the approaches (regardless of what avionics are used). Now, you could argue that I do that out of necessity because for the longest time, there simply wasn't a solid Garmin 430/530 solution...but even now that there is one, I have no interest in implementing it, because I've found that I can fly /A in the sim and still feel sharp in the real /G airplane. In other words, the skills I'm practicing don't require the /G avionics.

[Ryan B]

I like the honest and diplomatic responses in this thread hehe.

One thing I'm wondering about is if the XP10 demo C172 is the same as the full version? People keep saying it looks good... I thought it looked like poop personally. It looked like XP8 model work (I tried that one too at the time). The interior cockpit looks like a cartoon compared to other XP addons I've seen. For instance, Carenado in FSX and XP make some seriously good-looking models. (In fsx some of their earlier ones flew like crap though).

I really think either sim can be superb given the proper care (read addons). I definitely enjoy GA in FSX... especially with models like Carenado's latest (King air, P46T, C337), RealAir (Duke and Legacy), Flight1 G1000 equipped planes T182 and Mustang), Baytower (RV7), Milviz (Baron and 310R)

What I'm almost tempted to do is get the Carenado C337 in XP10 (it looks incredible better than FSX on their home page) and buy the full XP10 version and hopefully it would be awesome. I've heard some rumors about difficulty configuring RXP's GNS430W in XP10? Has anyone got it working? The default XP GPS is horrible and I require (as a minimum) recently updated navdata for my flying.

XP seems great for folks who like to fly "/A" aircraft, but I have a lot more fun in /G planes.

Yes! This is precisely my opinion too. Which is why I'm weary of the RXP config at the least. I've got a Navigraph account and there's only a few XP planes I see like the nice CRJ2 and freeware FMS.

Sort of a thread derailment sorry hehe...