Академический Документы
Профессиональный Документы
Культура Документы
1: About X-Plane
About X-Plane
What X-Plane Includes
History
2: Installing X-Plane
System Requirements
Flight Control Requirements
Joystick Configuration and Calibration
Display Requirements and System Architecture
Installing X-Plane
Windows PC
Macintosh
Linux
Installing X-Plane - Considerations for Windows Users
Uninstalling X-Plane
Launching X-Plane
Upgrading to a later version of X-Plane
Structure and descriptions of X-Plane folders
Getting help
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4: First-Flight
Opening Aircraft
Position Aircraft
Airport IDs explained
Set Weather/Real Time Weather
Using the Keyboard / Keyboard Shortcuts
Using the Mouse instead of a Joystick
Controlling Instruments and Avionics with the mouse
Artificial Intelligence (AI) Demo Flight
Flying Yourself, with the mouse or a Joystick / Yoke
5: X-Plane Menus
About
File
Location
Settings
Output
View
Special
7: Expanding X-Plane
Adding Third-Party Airplanes
Adding Third-Party Scenery
Installing Plug-Ins
8: Expert Essays
Tuning the Handling in X-Plane
Tuning the Frame-Rate in X-Plane
How to Tune the Autopilot
How to Design an Artificial Stability System
How to Set Up Advanced Displays (Multi-Monitor, Projectors,
etc)
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Flying Helicopters
Flying the Space Shuttle
Flying on Mars
Supplements
Airfoil-Maker
Plane-Maker
World-Editor
Appendices
A: How X-Plane Works
B: Terminology
C: Trouble shooting
D: Making Objects For X-Plane
E: Custom Aircraft for Hire
F: Log File Explained
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1: About X-Plane
X-Plane offers the most realistic flight model available for personal
computers.
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rigs, or frigates that pitch and roll in the waves. You can also
realistically model the flight of remote controlled model aircraft, air
launch in an X-15 or Space Ship One from the mother ship, fly
reentries into Earth's atmosphere in the Space Shuttle, fly with your
friends over the internet or a LAN, drop water on forest fires, shoot
approaches to aircraft carriers at night in stormy weather and rough
water conditions in a damaged F-4, or do many, many other incredible
things.
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pilots experienced moments before a mid-air collision, or to graphically
present to juries and judges the forces that impact an aircraft in flight.
These customers serve as perhaps the most significant endorsement
of the incredible capabilities of this simulator.
X-Plane has also received certification from the FAA for use in logging
hours towards flight experience and ratings. This experience can
provide credit towards a private pilot's license, recurrence training,
hours towards instrument training, and even hours towards an Airline
Transport Certificate - it's that good. (NOTE: This certification
requires not only that you have the certified X-Plane software, but also
the certified hardware (cockpit and flight controls) available through
Precision Flight Controls (ww.flypfc.com) or Fidelity
(www.flightmotion.com). This is because flight-training systems can
only be certified as complete package: software and hardware
combined. The certified software is available for $500 to $1,000 per
copy from PFC and Fidelity and the hardware runs from about $5,000
to $500,000. The retail version of X-Plane that you get at www.X-
Plane.com is NOT certified for flight training right out of the box, since
certification requires a software and hardware COMBINATION, the
software available for about $50 at X-Plane.com is almost exactly the
same software as you find in the $500,000 full-motion FAA-certified
platforms... about the only difference is that the FAA-certified versions
have custom aircraft files that have larger instrument panels that are
tuned to work with the hardware radios that come with the physical
cockpits, and the FAA-certified version has some of the FUN stuff (like
Mars flight and Space flight) REMOVED... even though those
situations ARE simulated accurately in X-Plane, just like the subsonic
terrestrial flight that is FAA-certified.
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World-Maker (to create your own scenery), and Weather-Briefer (to
give you a weather briefing before the flight if you use real weather
conditions downloaded from the Internet).
History
Many people ask us about the history of X-Plane, how we got started
and where we're going. Here's some background information about
Austin Meyer (the author) and the history of X-Plane:
As you are probably aware, the most popular flight simulator on the
market is Microsoft Flight Simulator. This may be predominately due
to their early start with their flight simulator, which dates back to about
1982 or so. Over the years, there have been many other upstart
companies that have attempted to compete against Microsoft (Flight-
Unlimited, Fly and Fly-2k are a few examples). All have failed...
except X-Plane, which has traditionally enjoyed a relatively small
market of fanatic users. From the very beginning, the largest
advantage of using X-Plane was in the way the flight model is
generated and the high frame-rate at which X-Plane can run. This has
long given us an advantage in being able to accurately calculate and
depict the flight response and feel of an aircraft in flight. In the past,
Microsoft had scenery that was superior to X-Plane's, as well as many
more add-ons. This Microsoft advantage has largely died with the
release of the first set of high-definition, world-wide scenery disks
December 1, 2004, at about the mid-point of the Version 8 X-Plane
run.
Over the years, we've consistently seen increasing sales with a total
of about half a million copies of X-Plane shipped through either
internet orders or retailers as of mid-2006. As well, X-Plane is the
only commercial flight simulator that it available for the Macintosh,
Windows, and Linux platforms. In fact, your set of disks includes
copies of X-Plane for all three platforms, so there is no possibility that
you will pick up the wrong version for your computer if you order from
www.X-Plane.com. (Sometimes retailers have been known to stock
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Windows-only or Macintosh-only copies of X-Plane, or sell X-Plane
without global scenery to keep costs down, so read the box carefully if
buying from a store shelf).
Aside from the improved accuracy and fluidity you'll find in X-Plane,
another big difference between Microsoft's simulator and our own is
that while Microsoft only releases updates about every three years or
so, we release updates for X-Plane about every 10 weeks! Thus,
instead of buying a disk and having it be stagnant for the next 36
months, with X-Plane we encourage you to go to our website every
three months or so and download cool new and free updates to your
software!
In short, we are a few very driven and talented people that have made
the improvement and accuracy of X-Plane pretty much our life's
mission.
Hi! I am a private pilot with about 1,500 hours in a handful of light and
medium-size Cessna and Piper singles (the airplanes I grew up flying)
and a Cirrus SR-22 Centennial Edition 8141Q, which I purchased in
2003. In a month or so, I will be switching to a Lancair Columbia 400
for maximum speed to hop around the country serving customers.
(My customer support guy, Randy Witt, flies a Beech Baron. Why I'm
telling you this is to make the point that the guys that write and support
X-Plane are pilots, aircraft owners, and engineers. Aviation is a huge
part of our lives, and we love what we're doing).
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I must digress here for a moment because this is interesting and also
applicable to one of the aircraft in X-Plane. One of the projects that
DuPont was working on back then was the well-known NASP, or
National Aerospace Plane . . . a single-stage-to-orbit aircraft that
can, in theory, take off from a runway and fly clear to orbit. Tony
DuPont, the president of the company, was the founder of this
ingenious NASP concept. While the Space Shuttle and other
conventional rockets use rocket engines to blast up to their orbital
speed (18,000 mph), the NASP breathes air to run its engines, so it
must do most of its acceleration in the atmosphere. This use of the
oxygen in the atmosphere, rather than carrying liquid oxygen on
board, makes the vehicle much more light and efficient, but it also
means that the aircraft must fly at many, many thousands of miles per
hour in the air, which creates tremendous heat and drag. Circulating
cool fuel through the skin of an aircraft is not a new idea... in fact the
bell shaped nozzles on most rocket engines employ this technology to
keep them from melting! For the NASP, this is one of the few options
that will keep the skin temperatures down and allow hypersonic flight
(that is, flight at five times the speed of sound or greater). You might
think that using an insulated tile system like the Space Shuttle has
would be a good option, but maintaining and replacing thousands of
small tiles would be problematic, bulky, and expensive. Of course,
circulating fuel to keep the skin cool has its drawbacks too! The SR-
71 Blackbird uses its cool fuel to keep its surface temperatures down,
and in fact is limited to much lower speeds than Mach 3 when low on
fuel because there is no fuel left to absorb the heat! Open the SR-71
in X-Plane and rather than seeing a red LINE on the airspeed indicator
(like just about every other aircraft) to indicate maximum allowable
speed, there is a whole red ARC! That big red region is the speed
range that you can only operate in if you have enough fuel in the tanks
to soak up the heat from atmospheric friction! How far into the red
zone you are allowed to fly depends on your remaining fuel load - Now
you know.
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time getting up to speed in the crowded, fast-paced, hectic ATC
system of San Diego after the relative slow and laid-back ATC
operations back home in South Carolina. After FINALLY getting my
IFR skills up to a comfortable level, (requiring about three or four
flights) I decided that I wanted an instrument trainer to keep my IFR
skills up to snuff. Microsoft Flight Simulator was pretty much the only
game in town back then, and I was pretty disappointed in what I found.
Microsoft was running on the little baby Macintoshes back then, which
was great, but there were a few other little things I wanted done
differently as well, and I knew Microsoft would not change their sim
just to suit me. Thus, X-Plane was born, at the time called "Archer-II
IFR.” I used this program for several years to keep up my instrument
currency.
X-Plane today
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Engineers at Velocity, NASA, and Carter-Copter have all used X-
Plane to do design, evaluation, and simulated flight testing.
Additionally, massive, well known companies all over the globe use X-
Plane for one purpose or another from flight training to aircraft design.
The National Test pilot school uses X-Plane to train pilots in non-
conventional aircraft and flight-control systems.
Scaled Composites used X-Plane for the visuals for their Space-Ship
One simulator, the first private manned vehicle to reach space.
Eight-year old kids try their own designs in X-Plane, and countless
youngsters gleefully crash their simulated F-22's into the ground at
Mach-2 as well.
I know of an 8-year old Italian girl who likes to taxi the planes around
to see the Corvettes parked around the airport fence in Version 7.
Most X-Plane customers are pilots, or people who want a sim that has
a level of realism that is appropriate for pilots. Many airline pilots take
X-Plane with them on their (real) overseas flights on their laptop
computers and simulate the next day's flight and possible approaches
while on layover. Many airline and freight pilots keep their currency up
on X-Plane to breeze through their bi-annual and flight-currency-
checks. Countless private pilots use X-Plane to help keep up their
currency when time and money constraints keep them from making it
out to the airport as often as they would like. I have gotten a handful
of orders from the DOD, the CIA, and Microsoft. But the majority of
the X-Plane customers, I think, are simply people who want to
experience the joy of flight, and a copy of X-Plane is a fun, easy, (and
safe!) way to do it.
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Many pilots have regular access to old Cessnas, but what would it be
like to get dropped from the wing of a B-52 in an X-15 and head to the
fringes of space at 4,000 mph? Or to fly a full re-entry in the Space
Shuttle? Or take the SR-71 to 70,000 feet and Mach-3? Or fly a rocket
plane on MARS?
X-Plane will show you, and, even better, let you experience it for
yourself.
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2: Installing X-Plane
System Requirements
So, how do you tell what your computer has? Mac users can easily find
everything in the Apple Menu: About this Mac. For Windows users, it is a
bit more awkward, but still pretty easy. Go to the START menu and select
MY COMPUTER. A window will come up with VIEW SYSTEM
INFORMATION in the left sidebar. Select it, than select the GENERAL tab.
Near the bottom of the screen you will see the CPU speed (like 2.0 GHz,
which is 2 gigahertz). You will also see memory (like 1.0 GB of RAM,
which is 1 gigabyte of RAM)
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So what about joysticks? Well, every USB joystick and yoke on the
market that we have seen recently will work with X-Plane, but, like
most other things in life, quality comes down to a case of “You get
what you pay for.” Therefore, be leery of joysticks advertised for
$29.95 at your local retailer. Our experience has proven that the
cheaper hardware typically does not last as long or work as well as
more moderately priced equipment.
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The CH-Products Multi-Engine Throttle Quadrant offers independent
and variable control of six different functions. Normally, this would be
set up to control the throttle, propeller, and mixture controls for each
engine on a twin-engine airplane. This controller can also be used to
control throttle and condition (fuel cutoff) for jet engines, allowing
independent control of jet powered aircraft with up to three engines. A
multi-engine throttle quadrant is recommended if you're interested in
realistically flying airplanes with more than one engine.
Now, if you do NOT have a set of rudder pedals, then X-Plane DOES
automatically slew the rudder to try and keep the airplane flying true (if
there are no axis assignments made to yaw . . . see the Joystick and
Equipment Set Up section of this manual), but this auto-rudder
function is not smart enough to take off or land properly in a
crosswind, slip, or do various other things you might want done with
the rudders. For that reason, rudder pedals (or at least a twisting
joystick) are highly recommended.
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Note: If you are using a joystick or other hardware, it will need to be
plugged in before you start X-Plane or X-Plane will not see your input
devices. Earlier, we reviewed the various types of input devices that
you may want to consider. The most common type of input device is a
joystick. More elaborate input devices such as flight yokes, multi-
engine throttle quadrants and rudder pedals can also be configured
with X-Plane. Note that X-Plane can only listen to USB-format
devices. This configuration has become the industry standard and is
probably what you already have, assuming your hardware isn't
excessively old. The first thing that you must do to use a joystick (or
other input device) with X-Plane is to properly calibrate it within X-
Plane.
- If you don't have a joystick or other input device, you can still control
X-Plane by using the mouse and keyboard.
Axis Assignment
To setup and calibrate your joystick, move your controls around to see
how the axes are mapped into X-Plane. When you do this, you'll see
one of the green bars move for each input you actuate. Thus, when
you roll your stick or yoke left and right only one green bar will move.
If you push it back and forth another bar will move. Select from the
drop down box to the left of each green bar the desired function in X-
Plane. The normal configuration is as follows:
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1: The axis that moves when you move the stick / yoke left and right
should be assigned to ROLL.
2: The axis that moves when you move the stick fore and aft should
be assigned to PITCH.
3: The axis that moves when you move the throttle should be
assigned to THROTTLE (NOT 'throttle 1' or 'throttle 2' unless you're
flying a multiple engine aircraft and are using a multi-engine throttle
quadrant.
4: The axis that moves when you move the rudder pedals left and right
should be assigned to YAW.
If you have additional input devices, you can program them within X-
Plane in the same way.
Note: Any green bar which is not actively controlled by your hardware
needs to be set to 'none'.
This is a step of vital importance that often gets left out. Keep in mind
that X-Plane is capable of interfacing with most modern joysticks and
pedals and such-forth. Some devices may send a signal from 0 to
1,000 when you move a given control from one limit to the opposite
and another may send a signal (given the same movement of your
hand or foot) from -6,000 to 3,992 or something. How is X-Plane to
know what the limits are that your joystick will create? Easy! You tell
it. You do this by clicking the button labeled "Calibrate Joystick
Hardware" on this window. This tells X-Plane that you are next going
to give it your full range of signals for every possible input you have.
To do this, just move every one of your variable controls (that is, your
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sliders) through their full and complete range of motion. You can do
this quite rapidly as X-Plane can log and remember all the different
inputs at once. So, after you click the button labeled "Calibrate
Joystick Hardware" move your stick or yoke from full right to full left
deflection, from full back to full forwards. Do the same thing for any
engine controls you may have, like throttles or propellers.
Button Assignment
Null zones determine how much you have to move the joystick before
X-Plane actually starts to take action. You may set a null zone for
each joystick axis to finely tune how responsive your control surface
inputs are, but this function is typically used to prevent your hardware
from 'creeping' in flight or to ignore the constant 'jittering' that many
older controllers will send to X-Plane. To do this, click on the
CENTER tab.
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Now operate each axis on your controller and hold them at the point at
which you want the control to begin operating while in flight. Close the
dialog and these axis positions will be saved. Any movement inside
the 'dead range' you just set will not affect the aircraft's controls.
Now go to the CENTER tab at the top of the joystick screen. The top-
left sliders are the sensitivity curves which control the responsiveness
of your input device. If these sliders are set all the way to the LEFT,
then the response will be completely linear meaning that a 50%
deflection of your joystick will deflect the flight controls 50% of their
travel. As you move these sliders to the right the response becomes
non-linear. In this case, the first 50% deflection of your joystick or
yoke may only deflect the aircraft's controls by 10%. This will dampen
any aircraft movements and desensitize your controls but keep in
mind that the remaining 90% of the control surface deflection must
take place in the last 50% of joystick travel, in this case. Thus, your
controls will be very dampened for the first half or so of their travel and
then become hyper-sensitive for the remainder of their throw. This
gives you plenty of fine-tune control near the center of the flight-
control envelope to hold altitude and roll precisely, but still lets you get
full control authority at the extremes. Try flying with the sliders in
various different positions to see what setting works best for you.
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portion of this screen. These control the X-Plane’s stability
augmentation mode by dampening the predicted forces acting on the
aircraft flight control surfaces. If these sliders are all the way to the
LEFT, then there is no stability augmentation of your aircraft. Now
let's say you drag the sliders to the right a bit . . . this means that X-
Plane will automatically add some stability augmentation to your
aircraft, adding some elevator input to level the nose, some aileron
input to minimize the roll rate, and some rudder input to counter any
aircraft yaw rates. In other words, the simulator will try to make the
plane easier to fly by adding control inputs for you. Try dragging the
sliders all the way to the right and flying the airplane . . . now it is a lot
easier to fly, right? Notice that the aircraft also becomes less
responsive and heavier on the controls.
Go ahead and play with the two sets of sliders to custom tailor the feel
of X-Plane to be comfortable to you.
Now, let's say that you THINK you have done everything above, but you
still do not get the desired control response.
NOW what do you do?
Well, you need to find out if the X-Plane, and the computer is reading your
joystick properly.
How?
Pretty easy.
Go to the SETTINGS menu.
Then DATA OUTPUT screen.
Then select the RIGHT-MOST box next to JOYSTICK AIL/ELV/RUD in the
left-most column.
Close the window.
You will see the ELEV, AILRN, RUDDR (elevator, aileron, rudder)
commands from the joystick.
CENTER your stick and pedals. Do all the axis indicate zero, or near-zero?
It should!
MOVE the stick full LEFT. Does the AILRN indicate -1.000, or near -1.000?
It should!
MOVE the stick full RIGHT. Does the AILRN indicate 1.000, or near 1.000?
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It should!
MOVE the stick full AFT. Does the AILRN indicate 1.000, or near 1.000? It
should!
MOVE the stick full FORWARDS. Does the AILRN indicate -1.000, or near
-1.000? It should!
MOVE the rudder full LEFT. Does the RUDDR indicate -1.000, or near -
1.000? It should!
MOVE the rudder full RIGHT. Does the RUDDR indicate 1.000, or near
1.000? It should!
By moving the stick and pedals, and seeing what values they are turning
into X-Plane, you can see if X-Plane is getting proper stick input.
If you are NOT getting the values you should according to the tests above,
then the issue is with your hardware calibration in WINDOWS, or your
hardware is JUST PLAIN BROKEN! If you ARE getting the value you
should according to the tests above, then your hardware is working fine!
X-Plane can display on any screen ranging from 1,024 X 768 pixels to
9,999 X 9,999 pixels. Many of the monitors and screens available
today are wide-aspect ratio screens, with a 16:9 ratio. While X-Plane
can easily fill a screen with these options, most aircraft have only been
set up with cockpits that can be stretched in a 3:4 ratio. Thus, on
wider screens, you will find that the cockpit image is flanked on each
side of your screen with scenery, immediately adjacent to your cockpit
image. To avoid this, set your X-Plane image. (Settings -> Rendering
Options; Screen Resolution field) to a 3:4 ratio. Note that you will
need to shut X-Plane down and the change will take effect on the next
launch).
With one computer it is possible to draw any view you like and,
assuming that your video card has dual video heads, an Instructor's
Operating Station (IOS). The IOS (also available via a different
computer if you like, either local or via a LAN or internet connection)
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provides the ability to alter the weather, relocate the aircraft, and fail
multitudes of different systems and components. You can pretty much
do anything to the aircraft you can imagine, including probably 98% of
the failures simulated at Flight Safety and the other simulator-based
flight training companies.
Installing X-Plane
Windows PC
1. Insert the X-Plane DVD into your DVD-ROM drive and wait for it to
spin up.
2. Open 'My Computer' and navigate to the DVD drive which contains
the DVD 'XPLANE9' (this is usually drive D: but may be different on
your system).
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4. Click on INSTALL to begin installation. The installer will display its
progress and will normally take about 30 to 45 minutes to install X-
Plane. Note - if you can not see the buttons on the bottom, labeled
DESTINATION and INSTALL and EXIT than you are probably running
at some minimal resolution, like 600 X 800 or something. Running at
this state will not allow your computer to display the bottom of our
screen and you will need to force-quit the installer and change your
Screen Resolution in your operating system to be at least 1,024 X 768
or higher.
6. Insert any of the X-Plane scenery disks you like and run the
Windows installer on that disk, as before. Note that each scenery disk
has an image of the part of Earth that is contained on that disk. Thus,
to install the US scenery, insert the disk with the picture of the United
States on it.
Macintosh
1. Insert the X-Plane DVD into your DVD-ROM drive and wait for it to
spin up.
2. Launch the Macintosh Finder and navigate to the DVD drive which
contains the DVD 'XPLANE8'.
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3. Locate the application named 'Installer Macintosh' and double-click
on it to launch the X-Plane installation. BE SURE to click on
DESTINATION and select where you would like to install X-Plane to
before clicking on INSTALL. We recommend installing on the root
directory (that is on the first level of your hard drive, NOT inside of My
Programs or Applications or Owner's Documents or anything like that).
4. Browse the selected location on your hard disk and choose 'Install'
to begin installation. The installer will display the current progress and
will normally take about 30 to 45 minutes to install X-Plane. Note - if
you can not see the buttons on the bottom, labeled DESTINATION
and INSTALL and EXIT than you are probably running at some
minimal resolution, like 600 X 800 or something. Running at this state
will not allow your computer to display the bottom of our screen and
you will need to force-quit the installer and change your Screen
Resolution in your operating system to be at least 1,024 X 768 or
higher.
6. Insert any of the X-Plane scenery disks you like and run the
Windows installer on that disk, as before. Note that each scenery disk
has an image of the part of Earth that is contained on that disk. Thus,
to install the US scenery, insert the disk with the picture of the United
States on it.
Linux
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1. Insert the X-Plane DVD into your DVD-ROM drive and wait for it to
spin up.
2. Launch the Macintosh Finder and navigate to the DVD drive which
contains the DVD 'XPLANE8'.
4. Browse the selected location on your hard disk and choose 'Install'
to begin installation. The installer will display the current progress and
will normally take about 30 to 45 minutes to install X-Plane. Note - if
you can not see the buttons on the bottom, labeled DESTINATION
and INSTALL and EXIT than you are probably running at some
minimal resolution, like 600 X 800 or something. Running at this state
will not allow your computer to display the bottom of our screen and
you will need to force-quit the installer and change your Screen
Resolution in your operating system to be at least 1,024 X 768 or
higher.
6. Insert any of the X-Plane scenery disks you like and run the
Windows installer on that disk, as before. Note that each scenery disk
has an image of the part of Earth that is contained on that disk. Thus,
to install the US scenery, insert the disk with the picture of the United
States on it.
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8. Click on INSTALL to begin installation. The installer will display its
progress and will normally take about 45 to 60 minutes to install each
scenery disk.
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running Open GL, you need to correctly install the latest drivers.
-Download the executable file (with the '.exe' appendix) and double-
click on it to blow it up into a folder. NOTE -- Remember where you
extract the folder to! We suggest creating a folder called 'Drivers' and
extracting the files to that folder. Often, people extract the files and
have no idea where their machine extracted them to, assuming that
the drivers will be automatically installed. This will not happen and
then these users have no idea where the files are or how to access
them.
If you think you made a mistake and want to install the new drivers
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again, then go back to the device manager like you did to remove the
drivers (open up the video adapter section again) but this time click
"update driver" or similar and then when asked by windows to choose
a location, select the folder that you extracted the drivers into. This
will cause windows to actually use the new drivers that you have
extracted. Getting the latest drivers this way will hopefully get you in
business. Getting the latest driver correctly installed is frequently
needed by X-Plane, and is a common necessity in Microsoft Windows.
If your card does not support open GL, then I highly recommend any
modern, upper end Nvidia GeForce card (www.Nvidia.com) or ATI
card (www.ati.com).
Uninstalling X-Plane
The X-Plane installer does not infest a hard drive or create multiple
subdirectories or shortcuts on your machine. Therefore, it is a simple
matter to uninstall the program, simply delete the primary X-Plane
folder, for example 'X-Plane 900' or 'X-Plane 915', as the case may be
where the 900 or 915 indicates the version that you were using. As
there were no shortcuts or registry entries created, this is all that is
required to remove the software from your system completely
Launching X-Plane
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infest your hard drive, or create shortcuts or subdirectories for you.
We don't do this because, well, we just don't think it's right. We see
countless people with their desktop littered in shortcuts and they
cannot tell where the shortcuts go! I have personally witnessed
hundreds of hours of time wasted in frustration because people will:
1: install software and use only the shortcut to it
2: get an updated version of the software in a NEW location
3: keep using the shortcut to the OLD software, while THINKING they
are using the NEW software... unable to figure out why nothing is
working like they expected.
Before you update X-Plane, make sure that all of the scenery disks
you are expecting to use have been installed. You can ONLY install
the scenery disks onto a copy of X-Plane that has been installed
directly from your master disk. You can NOT install X-Plane from
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disk, than update it and than expect to install any part of scenery as
this will not work. To update X-Plane just launch the copy of X-Plane
that you have been using. Once it opens, go to About > Current and
Latest Version: Update. X-Plane will shut itself down, automatically
download and extract the current installer, launch it, point it at the old
copy of X-Plane that needs to be updated and diagnose the difference
between your copy of X-Plane and our latest, most current version.
Than simply click on INSTALL and accept our licensing agreement by
clicking on I AGREE. Remember that if you were using a shortcut or
alias to launch X-Plane it will no longer be valid after the program is
updated. While the shortcut may have pointed to 'X-Plane 900'
previously, the program's name has now been changed to 'X-
Plane915' or something. Thus, you will need to remember to delete
your shortcut and create a new one.
Plug-ins are small programs that have been written by third parties to
modify X-Plane in some way. With plugins, you can build multiplayer
gaming modifications, re-program the built-in ATC, extend the cockpit,
add scenery, and more. For example, XSquawkBox is a plug-in that
allows players to connect X-Plane to the VATSIM or IVAO global air
traffic control network. With XSquawkBox , you can fly online with
hundreds of other pilots (who may be running X-Plane or Microsoft
Flight Simulator), receive ATC instructions from real live people acting
as air-traffic controllers over the internet via voice-over-IP, see other
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aircraft ahead of you on the approach and hear ATC sequencing you
in. This is really approaching what real pilots experience every day.
Plug-ins should NOT be affected by the update process, but it is
impossible for us to keep track of all the different plug-ins that have
been written for X-Plane. Thus, if you suspect that an update has
created a problem for a plug-in that you're using, please contact the
plug-in administrator or author for assistance.
Getting Help.
Now that you have purchased the X-Plane master DVD, you are
entitled to free updates through that full X-Plane version run. This
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does not mean that you get free updates for the rest of your life, only
for the version you purchased the master disk for. Of course you do
not have to take advantage of these updates, but it is recommended
that you do so. To update just launch X-Plane, than go to your
ABOUT menu and click on UPDATE.
These updates are the full version of X-Plane and will act as time-
limited demonstrations if you do not have an X-Plane master DVD. As
with the X-Plane version supplied on your DVD, you'll need to have
the DVD inserted into your system to use these updated versions - X-
Plane uses this as a 'key' to unlock the software. Be sure to have the
X-Plane master disk spinning in the DVD drive prior to starting up X-
Plane for X-Plane to find it!
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3: Initial Flight Setup
General Access
- Anytime you've opened a window within X-Plane you can close that
window by clicking EITHER of the close 'X's' on the upper right or
upper left of that window.
- You can also hit your Enter / Return key to close any window that is
open.
-You can go to the 'Joystick and Equipment' screen, 'Keys' tab, so see
the key commands, and easily change them to anything you like there
as well. Additionally, note that many of the keyboard shortcuts are
shown in the X-Plane menus. For example, if you go to the VIEW
menu you'll see the list of all available views on the left side of that
drop down menu and the list of keyboard shortcuts on the right.
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much easier to use the '2' key to drop a notch of flaps than it is to let
go of the controls and then reach down with the mouse to adjust the
flaps and then reach back up and grab the controls again. Of course,
while you're attempting to do this the aircraft is merrily flying along at
150 knots or something.
Note: Most instruments and controls inside the cockpit are interactive,
meaning that you can use the mouse to alter switches, set
frequencies, manipulate the throttle(s), and trim, etc. Before you start
to use X-Plane, you may need to configure and calibrate your joystick
(if applicable), and set the rendering (display) options to optimize the
software for use with your system. We explain that now:
- If you don't have a joystick or other input device, you can still control
X-Plane by using the mouse and keyboard.
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Axis Assignment
1: The axis that moves when you move the stick / yoke left and right
should be assigned to ROLL.
2: The axis that moves when you move the stick fore and aft should
be assigned to PITCH.
3: The axis that moves when you move the throttle should be
assigned to THROTTLE (NOT 'throttle 1' or 'throttle 2' unless you're
flying a multiple engine aircraft and are using a multi-engine throttle
quadrant.
4: The axis that moves when you move the rudder pedals left and right
should be assigned to YAW.
If you have additional input devices, you can program them within X-
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Plane in the same way.
Note: Any green bar which is not actively controlled by your hardware
needs to be set to 'none'.
This is a step of vital importance that often gets left out. Keep in mind
that X-Plane is capable of interfacing with most modern joysticks and
pedals and such-forth. Some devices may send a signal from 0 to
1,000 when you move a given control from one limit to the opposite
and another may send a signal (given the same movement of your
hand or foot) from -6,000 to 3,992 or something. How is X-Plane to
know what the limits are that your joystick will create? Easy! You tell
it. You do this by clicking the button labeled "Calibrate Joystick
Hardware" on this window. This tells X-Plane that you are next going
to give it your full range of signals for every possible input you have.
To do this, just move every one of your variable controls (that is, your
sliders) through their full and complete range of motion. You can do
this quite rapidly as X-Plane can log and remember all the different
inputs at once. So, after you click the button labeled "Calibrate
Joystick Hardware" move your stick or yoke from full right to full left
deflection, from full back to full forwards. Do the same thing for any
engine controls you may have, like throttles or propellers.
Button Assignment
Now click on the Buttons tab at the top of the screen. Your screen
should look like this:
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This is an indication that X-Plane has received your input.
Null zones determine how much you have to move the joystick before
X-Plane actually starts to take action. You may set a null zone for
each joystick axis to finely tune how responsive your control surface
inputs are, but this function is typically used to prevent your hardware
from 'creeping' in flight or to ignore the constant 'jittering' that many
older controllers will send to X-Plane. To do this, click on the
CENTER tab and your screen should look like this:
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Equipment: Equipment) that you have connected this to X-Plane.
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Go ahead and play with the two sets of sliders to custom tailor the feel
of X-Plane to be comfortable to you.
X-Plane is a very advanced simulator that has been designed for use
across a broad range of computers of varying specifications. As such,
X-Plane provides the user with the option to make changes to
numerous settings to optimize performance given a particular system
specification or set up. For this reason, this is one of the most critical
portions of this manual. The Rendering Options page (go to Settings
> Rendering Options) allows you to match X-Plane's settings (and
thus computer requirements) to your computer's capabilities.
The Rendering Options screen is where all the settings affecting the
display quality and X-Plane's performance are set. You will probably
want to experiment with the settings in this screen to get the best
results from X-Plane on your computer. Generally speaking, the more
options you choose and the higher the setting of the rendering
options, the lower the performance and frame rate. The Rendering
Options you set will have more overall effect on X-Plane performance
than any other settings you can make.
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out a single thing happening, and then the aircraft would suddenly
leap forward whatever distance had been covered in the last hour.
Then get to look at that image - never changing - for the next 60
minutes while your computer crunches through the next iteration to
see what will happen next. Obviously, this is not desirable. Not only
do you not want to sit there for hours and hours with nothing
happening, but the program would calculate all sorts of infinite
accelerations and massive changes in position and moment. This is
simply not viable as the computer is just too slow to run X-Plane; at
least for the way you've set X-Plane up.
The faster the computer can run X-Plane the more realistic and
rewarding you will find the simulation. Scientific testing has shown
that the human brain can interpret individual frames at frame rates of
less than about 20Hz, causing the simulation to appear “choppy.”
Coincidentally, this is also about the same place that the engineering
begins to fall apart. Thus, we have set the minimum operating speed
at this level. If your machine is not capable of delivering a frame rate
of 20Hz while rendering the levels of detail you have set up in the
Settings > Rendering Options page, X-Plane will automatically
introduce fog to help your machine run more smoothly. The fog
means that X-Plane doesn't have to draw the world to as great a
distance and this allows the computer to run faster.
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We strongly suggest experimenting with these settings in order to get
the best experience from X-Plane.
Texture Resolution
The 'Texture Resolution' setting determines the clarity and detail of the
textures displayed in X-Plane. Textures are the image-maps that are
draped over the terrain and aircraft to make them look realistic. If your
texture resolution is LOW, then the runway and terrain will look pretty
blurry and blocky . . . really not so great. While this will not look too
good, it will use very little VIDEO MEMORY (VRAM), so a high-frame-
rate will be more easily possible. (We'll get into a lengthy discussion
on frame rate and how to optimize it in a few sections.) The more
powerful your video card is, though, the higher you can set your
texture resolution in X-Plane without hurting the frame-rate. The
frame rate will be VERY BADLY REDUCED, though, if you select a
texture resolution that requires more VRAM than your card has!
So, how do you tell what texture resolution you can set? Easy! Look
at the very BOTTOM of the rendering options screen and see how
much "VRAM is used at current settings." If you have a 128-meg
video card, and the VRAM used is only 32 Meg, then you can go up to
a higher texture resolution. The scenery, runway, and airplane will all
look much better and sharper and more crisp. And, as long as you do
not ask for more VRAM than your video card has, your frame-rate will
not be impacted. Note that if you set a texture resolution which
requires substantially more VRAM than your video card has your
frame rate will be MASSIVELY impacted as the computer begins to
use system RAM to store textures - a VERY SLOW process.
NOTE: you must restart X-Plane (but not your computer) for the
changes in texture resolution to take effect! Thus, if you are using 32
MB VRAM according to the rendering options screen, but have a 128
MB video card, then crank the texture resolution up a notch or two and
re-start X-Plane... then go into the rendering options screen and see
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how much VRAM is used at the new setting. In a perfect world, the
VRAM used will be just right about equal to or a bit more than the
VRAM of your video card. This will give maximum texture detail
without overflowing the video card and reducing your fame rate.
Check this box and X-Plane will automatically reset your monitor to
the same resolution as X-Plane every time you start it, making the sim
always run full-screen. If you check this box, you will also get to
choose a color-depth of 16-bit or 32-bit... 32-bit looks a little better. If
you don't have this box checked, then X-Plane will run in whatever
color depth you have your monitor set to, which is probably 32-bit (or
"millions of colors" as described on Macs).
Anti-Alias Level
This option sets the full screen resolution of X-Plane. The default and
recommended setting is 1024x768 pixels. Other screen resolutions
can be used but you may find that frame-rate deteriorates just a little
as the screen area gets larger. If the X-Plane window does not fill
your screen, determine what screen resolution your computer is
running at and enter this same resolution here. Or, do it the other way
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around: Set the res on your computer to match the res on X-Plane.
Changes to this setting will take effect after X-Plane is restarted.
Well, the first step is to buy standard-aspect ratio monitors if you want
X-Plane to fill the whole screen. This means they must physically be
3/4 as tall as they are wide. This is the 4:3 aspect ratio. Their max
res should be 1024x768 if you want the X-Plane cockpit to fill their
screen. If you buy a monitor of some OTHER aspect ratio (like a
wide-screen) then if you set the monitor res to a wide-screen res (like
1280x768) then you will have un-used pixels on either side of the
monitor. If you set the monitor to 1024x768, then you will be
stretching 1024 pixels across the space occupied by 1280 pixels . . .
a clear case of distortion!
Forest Density
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This control is pretty self-explanatory, allowing you to control how
dense the forest and shrubbery are in X-Plane. Keep in mind that
drawing more and more dense forestry will have a moderate effect on
the simulator's ability to maintain frame rate.
This will set the level of detail of objects in the world scenery, and from
how far away this detail will be visible. Changes to this setting will
take effect after X-Plane is restarted and have a large effect on frame
rate. Be careful with this one.
Number of Objects
Number of Roads
This will set the number and complexity of roads and rivers, which will
be displayed in X-Plane. Changes to this setting will take effect after
X-Plane is restarted and have a moderate to large effect on frame
rate.
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option of loading different aircraft, relocating the aircraft, failing
systems, and altering the weather for the 'student' pilot. Note that this
IOS functionality is available not only on a second screen on the same
computer, but also from a second computer networked to the student
via a LAN or through the internet. This option has no effect on frame
rate.
This will do exactly what it says, to load new scenery when you are
about to fly out of one sector of scenery and into another. There is not
a computer that has been built yet that has the memory required to
load the entire Earth scenery into active memory. Thus, the scenery
must be broken down into smaller pieces and loaded in sectors. In X-
Plane each sector is three degrees of longitude by two degrees of
latitude. If you uncheck this option your computer will not load
scenery as you approach the end of the sector that was loaded in
flight. This will prevent your machine from going into the annoying
pause (typically 15 to 30 seconds or so) but you will quickly find
yourself out over the ocean if you fly beyond the location of scenery
that was originally loaded. Why ocean? Because this is what X-
Plane draws if you fly over an area that does not have any scenery
installed. This option does not affect frame rate as you fly along but it
does prevent your simulation from pausing periodically since it never
loads new scenery.
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Anisotropic Filter Textures
OK, this one is a bit difficult to explain. Imagine if you take a picture
and look at it from about two feet, with your eye directly above the
image and perpendicular to it. Things are clear and sharp, right?
Now take the same picture and rotate it 90 degrees away from you so
you're looking at the edge. How does the image look now?
Obviously, you can't see it any longer. Now rotate it back towards you
but only about 5 to 10 degrees. You can just start to make out the
image but, since you're looking at it from such a low angle the picture
is all fuzzy and poorly defined. This is analogous to looking at the X-
Plane scenery from a low altitude on a clear day. The images directly
in front of the aircraft will be relatively clear, but the farther the scenery
gets towards the horizon the fuzzier the image becomes. The
anisotropic filter helps to filter this fuzziness out, helping the image to
be more clear. This option has a minimal effect on most machines
and a moderate impact on some machines. Try it out and see if you
like it and if you can live with the performance penalty.
X-Plane can simulate orbital and sub-orbital flight using the Space
Shuttle and other spacecraft. If selected, this option will display high-
resolution images of the Earth when simulating space flights. These
high-resolution images will typically be displayed at altitudes of
100,000 ft or higher. This has no effect on frame rate unless you are
above that altitude.
When checked, this option will artificially populate areas of ocean with
Oil Rigs, Aircraft Carriers, and Frigate Vessels, which can be used to
perform maritime flight operations. You can land and take off from
these vessels, which realistically pitch and roll in the waves according
to the weather conditions you have programmed. These additional
items have a very negligible effect on frame rate.
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Draw Cars on the Roads
It would have been cool to just draw a flock of birds that moves around
but that wouldn't be very accurate. He went much further than this
and actually designed flocks of birds that fly around, flapping their
wings. Each bird is modeled independently and has its own little
mission. Thus, when you see a flock of birds it looks VERY realistic
and colliding with the birds will cause damage to your aircraft as well
as engine failures and other things, just like in real life. This option
has a negligible effect on frame rate.
When checked, this option will draw randomly generated forest fires
for you to practice water bombing. X-Plane can realistically simulate
such operations, requiring you to fly a water bomber such as the CL-
415 (found in 'Seaplanes') and scoop up water from the ocean or a
nearby lake. This option has a negligible effect on frame rate.
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This is a handy feature that will draw a little orange triangle in the top
center of your screen when looking any direction other than forwards.
It rotates about a little depiction of your aircraft and points in the
direction that your screen is pointing. This is helpful in maintaining
situational awareness. This option has a negligible effect on frame
rate.
When checked, this option will use a light texture in place of a light
point wherever there is such an object used in the scenery. Although
it looks more realistic, if there are a large number of lights in a scenery
area, having this option enabled will negatively impact performance to
a moderate degree.
This option will simulate cloud shadows on the terrain and sun
reflection effects on the ocean. If your OpenGL graphics card and
driver support multi-texturing, this option will not cause a noticeable
drop in performance.
Setting up Clouds
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X-Plane's 3D clouds are generated from many smaller cloud sprites,
or 'puffs'. They give the appearance of a true, volumetric cloud, which
you can fly through, or around. They also develop over time, just as in
real life, depending on the weather conditions. You can experiment
with these settings to obtain a balance between performance and
visual appeal.
This option sets the number of cloud puffs, as a ratio to the default
value of 1.00. Increasing the number of puffs will have a massive
impact on frame rate. Be careful with this one.
This option sets the size of each cloud puff, as a ratio to the default
value of 1.00. The larger the size of cloud puffs, the lower the
performance of X-Plane will become, although this may not be too
noticeable on modern video cards.
Field of View
The Field of View setting will change the way X-Plane renders
(displays) the view of the outside world. Higher settings will allow
more of the terrain to be viewed at any one time, but will reduce
performance. Higher settings will also increase the 'fish eye' effect of
the simulator. The default value is 45 degrees, which generally gives
the most natural view and good all round performance.
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separate picture taken by a movie camera. As far as X-Plane is
concerned, the higher the frame rate, the greater the flight model
accuracy and the better the visual appeal will be. This function will set
a minimum frame rate that X-Plane will attempt to maintain. If your
system has too many rendering options set, or those options are set
too high, X-Plane will automatically reduce the visibility in an attempt
to maintain the specified minimum frame rate specified here.
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This causes X-Plane to try to load as much scenery as possible
without pausing. This is where a dual-core or multi-processor
machine comes in useful! A single hyper-threaded CPU? Not so good
- you really want a dual-core chip or dual CPU's.
Field of View
The field of view (FOV) is exactly what it says: how many degrees of
width are displayed on the screen. While you may set the width of
your field of view, X-Plane will automatically set the vertical field of
view to maintain a non-distorted image based on the aspect ratio of
your screen's resolution.
Let's say that you have three networked computers for additional
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visuals to form a wrap-around cockpit. Each computer might have a
40 degree FOV. You should enter a lateral offset of -40 degrees for
the left visual, 0 for the front visual, and +40 degrees for the right
visual. If each visual has a field of view of 40 degree, these images
will blend together seamlessly if you don't consider the width of the
frame around the monitor. If you cannot set up the monitors to run
their effective image all the way to the edge (as you can with some,
even though you can't see the part theoretically under the border) then
you might try a field of view of maybe 38 degrees, based on whatever
fraction of the monitor is visible.
Vertical and roll offset are what you would expect based on the text
above.
NOTE: While the view offsets do indicate how much to the left or right
or up or down each view is looking, people still make the same
mistake over and over: they run a center view with a cockpit in the
center screen, and external visuals on the left and right (this is fine)
but they notice that the horizon in the center (cockpit) screen does not
line up with the horizons on either side. The reason for this is that the
center-point of the screen where the horizon rests in a level flight
attitude is up near the =>top<= of the screen in the cockpit view (to
make room for the instrument panel) and the =>center<= of the screen
for the external visuals (which do not need room at the bottom for the
instrument panel). Often, people will incorrectly lower the vertical
offset of the center (with cockpit) view.
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views not lining up and is like taking the wheels off the left side of your
car and then thinking you have the problem solved by holding the
steering wheel to the right to drive straight. It is =>not<= the correct
response to the problem. What you need to do in this case is go to
the viewpoint screen in Plane-Maker and set the cockpit viewpoint
center to 384 pixels (half of the 768-pixel height of the screen) so that
the viewpoint center in the cockpit window is the same as the
viewpoint center in the side-view screens. Only then will the horizon
always line up across all the visuals! In other words, the only time you
should enter a vertical offset is if you have one monitor on top of
another. If you have to enter a vertical offset for one of two monitors
that sit beside each other, you are doing something wrong! You need
to solve the problem by making sure that the viewpoint =>center<= is
the same pixel-height on all the computer monitors that are side-by-
side, and that height is always 384 pixels (halfway up a 768-pixel
screen) for the external visuals.
First the basics: You have to be able to tell how fast X-Plane is
running on your computer. To do this, launch X-Plane and go to the
Settings > Data In / Out, and check the right-hand box in front of
"FRAME-RATE, TIME RATIO," which sends the frame-rate to the
screen in flight. Now you can see how fast you are running, in the
"freq /sec" output on the far left. This is called "frames per second" or
"fps".
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- 15 fps is terrible and barely adequate to run the simulator.
- 30 to 50 fps is the range you should target - faster frame rates mean
your computer has reserve capacity. Studies have shown that starting
at about 50 frames per second, your sub-conscious mind forgets that
you are looking at a simulator, and thinks you are actually flying.
- 100 fps is insanely high and indicates you have plenty of capacity to
draw more buildings, clouds and other objects.
What are you seeing on YOUR computer? Not high enough? OK,
here's how to make it faster: Go to the Settings > Weather screen.
Set the cloud types to CLEAR or OVERCAST for max speed, or HIGH
CIRRUS or LOW STRATUS for good speed. SCATTERED or
BROKEN take a ton of computing power to run.
Set the visibility to about five miles or so. Higher visibility takes more
computing power to run, because the computer has to calculate what
the world looks like for a much larger area.
Nothing else in the weather screen will affect frame-rate, but clouds
and visibility affect it a LOT.
OK, close that screen and check your frame-rate now. Better? Good,
but we're not done yet.
NOTE: You can in some cases allocate MORE VRAM than you
physically have, and X-Plane will still run fast, because a lot of the
RAM can be "cached away" in the system with no speed penalty if it is
not often accessed by the computer... like if it is the texture of desert
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sand, for example, but no desert sand is visible to you because you
are not flying over the desert. But, if you have only 128 meg of VRAM
on your video card, but the texture resolution is set such that you need
256 meg of VRM, then the computer will constantly be moving RAM
on and off the video card (between the video card RAM and the
system RAM) to draw each frame of scenery. This is VERY, VERY
SLOW. Thus, you must set the texture resolution low enough to avoid
this.
NOTE: After you change the texture resolution, you must re-start X-
Plane for the change to take effect! We recommend that you put the
texture resolution on its lowest setting, exit the sim, re-start it, and
note the frame-rate. Then raise the texture detail up one level and
repeat, keep doing this until the frame-rate decreases . . . this is the
point where you are using up all your VRAM! Back the texture
resolution off to one level lower than where you noted the decrease
and restart X-Plane again.
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Now we get to the really critical things: the all-important "number of
objects" and "number of roads" settings. These have a HUGE impact
on frame-rate. Set these to NONE for speed, then reset X-Plane for
the changes to take effect. Than you slowly bring them up, one level
at a time and restart the sim to see what the change in performance
is. Setting these options to higher levels will look much nicer but will
massively impact your frame rate.
The other settings in this window don't really affect speed too much.
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4: First-Flight
Opening Aircraft
Note: if you locate your aircraft to an area that does not have any
scenery installed you will then find yourself sitting on the airport which
is hovering above the ocean down bellow. We refer to this as Water
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World and it is covered in detail in Appendix C: Water Everywhere.
In this screen you will find two areas. On the left is a listing of all the
airport names, arranged by city. This format (and these names) are
the official standard for that local area - the FAA for US airports. You
can enter either the city name in the data entry block on the left or the
airport ID in the data entry block on the right. Also, you can use the
up and down arrows to move through the full list. When you find the
airport you like click on it once to highlight it with the grey box around
it and than click the button that says "Go to this Airport."
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Set Weather/Real Time Weather
X-Plane has excellent weather simulation compared to other flight
simulators. Go to Settings > Set Weather. Choose the left-most tab
(Atmosphere) and take a look at the various things you can set. You
can set cloud types and top and base levels for three different layers.
So that's all obvious, but now look down a bit: There are buttons
labeled "Cat-III", etc. What do they mean?
Well, these are "Quick-Set" buttons, and pressing them will quickly set
some general weather for you.
Cat-III sets the weather up for a Category-III ILS approach. These are
extremely low instrument conditions, basically zero ceiling and
visibility.
Cat-II sets the weather up for a Category-II ILS approach with terribly
poor ceiling and visibility.
Cat-I sets the weather up for a Category-I ILS approach with poor
ceiling and visibility.
MVFR sets the weather marginal VFR flying conditions... about four
miles visibility and a 1,500 foot ceiling.
VFR sets the weather to good visual flight rules conditions. That is;
clear, sunny skies.
CAVOK sets the weather to clear and visibility OK. Typically pilots
refer to this as "CAVU - Clear and Visibility Unlimited"
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Now let’s look at the sliders.
The precipitation slider sets the type of condition: Rain, hail, or snow
depending on the temperature around the airplane, and the
temperature in the clouds where the precip was formed.
The icing slider is pretty clear with one exception: it sets a probability
that you will encounter icing conditions. Ice can form on the craft
when the aircraft surface temperature is between about -15 and 0
degrees Celsius. For this to happen, you have to be in visible
moisture (clouds, fog, rain). Once you are in visible moisture in
freezing conditions, ice MAY form on the plane and you can control
the probability of that happening here. When ice forms on the aircraft
in X-Plane, a number of things happen: The weight of the plane
increases as you start carrying all that water, the drag on the airplane
increases as the ice ruins the airfoil-shape of your wing, thus adding
lots of drag, and the lift from your wings decreases as the airfoil-shape
of your wing is ruined by the ice building up on it.
As well, if you have a propeller, the ice buildup on the propeller blades
will decrease the thrust from the prop because it will mess up the
shape of the airfoil of your propeller. Also, the ice will get into the air
inlet for the engine and begin to starve the engine of air, reducing
engine power and also engine cooling.
Additionally, the ice will form a coating on the aircraft including the
windshield, limiting the forward visibility. Before long your visibility
thorough the front windscreen will resemble the view you would see if
you were inside an ice cube, which you are. All of these things
happen to real aircraft when they are carrying a load of ice and so all
of this is of course simulated in X-Plane.
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forming. Flying into them results in heavy precip and extreme
turbulence. The turbulence is great enough that in reality, airplanes
can fly into thunderstorms in one piece and come out in many smaller
pieces.
Wind and Turbulence slider: This slider auto-sets all the sliders in
the center of the screen that control the wind and turbulence. Drag
this slider down to the left and HOLD IT THERE FOR A FEW
MOMENTS to set all of the wind and turbulence to zero if you'd like a
smooth flight. You do have to DRAG AND HOLD the "Wind and
Turbulence" slider to the left to do this though.
Of course, when the aircraft is flying the lift vectors will be very
prominent but even with the airplane just sitting stationary at the end
of the runway, the wing can indeed be producing some measurable
lift. The air may be blowing UP on part of the left wing and DOWN on
part of the right wing, causing the craft to roll to the right. Or maybe
up on the wings and down on the tail, causing a pitch-up. Or, as
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actually happens in real life all the time, multiples of these situations
all at once.
Only after you think about the fact that the flow field is continuous and
variable, covers the entire aircraft for any scenario that can be
simulated, and that all different parts of each airfoil surface see
different relative directions and speeds does it become apparent how
much math is going on in the background within X-Plane. Use the
arrows keys and +/- keys to move around and zoom out. See how the
wind vectors are changing kind of slowly? That’s because you are not
moving through new air velocity regions at all, but are instead sitting
there motionless, waiting for new regions of air to come blowing over
you.
Start your plane moving with throttle, and you will notice that the
changes in air vector become more and more rapid as you race
though the different regions of air velocity more and more quickly.
This effect results in large, slow, wallowing displacements of the
aircraft due to turbulence when flying at only 50 knots in a Cessna, but
sudden, sharp, JOLTS of turbulence when going 400 knots in an
airliner. This, of course, is what happens in the real world.
If you are taking off or landing, then you will see your indicated
airspeed suddenly come UP as you fly into this sudden headwind.
Many pilots, at this point, will pull back the power to try to slow down >
Bad move. This sudden headwind will end momentarily, or worse yet
turn into a tailwind as you fly to the other side of the microburst. Then
what happens? Well, you are out of airspeed because you have
slowed your plane, and then the wind suddenly alters to come from
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behind, traveling in the same direction you are. Now your airspeed is
greatly reduced which reduces your lift and you will likely have to work
pretty hard to avoid crashing. So, if you turn on microbursts in X-
Plane, or encounter one in reality, be prepared to go to FULL POWER
if your speed suddenly comes up, so that you can build enough
speed, and momentum, to carry you through the drop in indicated
airspeed you are about to encounter.
The bottom slider is the rate of change, which you can set at will, of
course.
On the very bottom left you can set your temperature and barometric
pressure (air pressure) within X-Plane, both conditions that will take
effect at the closest airport. Keep in mind that the 'standard
atmosphere' is 59 F (19 C) and 29.92" mercury (1013 millibars).
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the plane is encountering icy and clear areas of pavement at random
intervals, often with some wheels being on icy sections, some on dry,
causing the plane to pull left and right as each wheel encounters
different runway conditions, just as happens in real life.
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turbulence. X-Plane will not change the weather as you fly along
unless you have already checked the "scan real weather" checkbox.
Any time that Roll and Pitch axis have not been selected by you in the
Settings >Joystick and Equipment screen, X-Plane assumes that you
intend to fly with the mouse. In this case, a small white plus sign will
show up on your screen, typically located at the approximate center of
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your screen. Note that it may be difficult to see at times as parts of
the aircraft may blend in with it while using one of the external views.
If you see only the cross and there is no white box around it that
indicates that your hand is not on the stick. By this I mean you are
free to move the mouse anywhere you like and there will be no impact
on the fight control surfaces. To grab the stick - and provide the ability
to control the aircraft - click the mouse button in the vicinity of the little
white cross and a white box will be visible. Don't hold the mouse
button down, just click once to turn the box on (i.e., to grab the stick)
and again to turn the box off (to release the stick). When the box is
visible, this indicates that your hand is on the stick and any
movements you make with the mouse within the box will position the
flight controls accordingly. Again, it is not necessary to hold down the
mouse button down, only to move it within the confines of the white
box. The little cross signifies the center of the control range over
which you can deflect the control surfaces. Thus, if you locate the
mouse directly below the cross you will be commanding some up
elevator (causing the plane to climb) and not imposing any roll
commands (which should keep the aircraft from changing its bank).
Likewise, if you keep the mouse lined up exactly with the cross but
deflect it to the right a bit, the plane should bank to the right without
altering its pitch, there by maintaining a level flight attitude.
- Move the mouse right and left, up and down within the confines of
the box to move the flight controls. Moving the mouse to the right
edge of the box means that you are moving the aircraft control stick all
the way to the right and the ailerons will be fully deflected at that point,
causing the aircraft to bank right at its maximum rate.
- Let go of the stick before you take the mouse down to the panel to
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change a radio frequency, for example, or the flight controls will be
deflected fully and cause the plane to gyrate out of control.
When you are sitting inside the cockpit the mouse can be used to
control the aircraft, as your hand would be used to manipulate the
instruments, switches, and other controls. To do this, just grab the
knob as you would in real life and actuate it. For the landing gear, for
example, reach up with the mouse, and drag the gear lever to the
other position from which it is resting. Of course, you can only do this
if the airplane you happen to be flying is equipped with retractable
landing gear. Keep in mind you could also hit the 'g' key (see
Keyboard Short Cuts, two sections above) or you could assign the
gear function to a button on your joystick (See Button Assignment,
Chapter 3, page ___________). As you can see, there are many
different ways to actuate controls.
Similarly, you can control radio frequencies, turn the ignition key
through its various positions and actuate switches and levers with the
mouse. Many of these controls can also be done with a keyboard
shortcut as discussed above. To see the areas on which you can click
in the cockpit, enable the “Show Clickable Regions” option in the
Special > Show Clickable Regions menu. This will draw little yellow
boxes around the areas of the instrument panel that can be
manipulated with the mouse.
Avionics in most airplanes utilize twin concentric knobs that allow the
pilot to tune the radio. For example there will typically be a larger
knob on the surface of the radio and a smaller knob that sticks out
from the large one. The first knob controls the integer portion of the
frequency and the smaller knob will control the decimal portion. For
example, let’s say you wanted to tune your COM1 radio (the
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Communications number 1 radio) to 128.00 MHz. To do this in the
real aircraft, you'd turn the big, lower knob until 128 was visible in the
window and you'd turn the small, upper knob until 00 was visible. X-
Plane is set up the same way. When you hover the mouse in the
vicinity of one of the radio tuning knobs, you will find that you have two
counter-clockwise arrows on the left of the knob and two clockwise
arrows on the right. The arrows closest to the knob are physically
smaller than the others and these adjust the decimal. The outside set
of arrows is larger and adjusts the integer.
Let’s start with an example flight. X-Plane offers the capability to allow
the aircraft to be flown by artificial intelligence (AI). You can set the AI
system up to take the aircraft off and fly around. These functions are
available in the Special > AI flies aircraft menu. Go ahead and select
AI flies your Aircraft and let the computer fly for you. You should
experiment with the different views to become familiar with them and
also practice raising and lowering the aircraft's landing gear and flaps
and such. This would also be a fine time to practice tuning radios and
to spend time becoming familiar with the various cockpits.
When you are ready to try for your own turn of the AI flies your Aircraft
function and open the airplane again as this is the easiest way to get it
back on the ground. Note that the aircraft will open sitting at the
airport that was closest to the location at which the previous aircraft
was flying.
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throttle and then release the brakes when you get to about the half-
throttle point. Continue to advance the throttle and be ready to feed in
some right yaw (right rudder or twist on your joystick, if applicable) as
you began accelerate. This is normal in single engine aircraft and X-
Plane demonstrates this behavior as well.
Don't worry if it takes a few tries to learn how to keep the aircraft on
the runway, the Cessna can take off in the grass just fine. If your
airplane turns off into the grass as it’s accelerating, just keep on going.
Normally the pilot will rotate (that is, apply some back elevator, but
pulling back on the yoke or stick) at about 60 to 65 knots in the
Cessna 172. Once the aircraft leaves the ground feed in a bit of
forward stick to momentarily level off to allow the airplane to build
speed. Once you get to 80 knots or so than again pull back gently on
the stick and resume your climb.
Note that if you have a mishap and crash the airplane hard enough X-
Plane will automatically open a new airplane for you and put you on
the end of the closest runway, which may be a grass strip! If you
crash but the impact is only hard enough to bend the airplane up but
not necessarily to kill the occupants than your aircraft will just sit there
and smoke. If this happens than you will need to go to File > Open
Aircraft and open a new airplane to get things fixed. If only it was so
easy in the real world!
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5: X-Plane Menus
X-Plane has the most flexible and powerful interface I have ever seen
in any flight sim. You just have to learn to poke around the various
menus and windows to see all the various stuff you can change. So,
let me give you a guided tour of all of them!
About Menu
Three notes:
With these points in mind, you will understand the "Current and Latest
Versions" window, which tells you what your version of X-Plane is,
what that LATEST version is (it checks the internet to figure that out!)
and even has a single button you can press to upgrade your copy of
X-Plane to the latest version!
So, if you want to always have the latest version of X-Plane, just go
here from time to time to see what the latest version is and upgrade as
desired.
File Menu
Open Aircraft
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See Select Aircraft in the Using X-Plane section of this manual
(page).
Save/Load Situation
This function will allow you to create a movie of your flight that you can
play back in X-Plane later.
Because the .smo file records a ton of info on the flight, you can
change views, look at instruments, stop and rewind, etc, while viewing
the recorded movie. The raw data for the flight is what is recorded, so
the viewing options are unlimited.
3. Select the location to which you would like to save your movie.
4. Hit the 'Enter' key on your keyboard to complete the process.
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2. Browse for, and open the folder that contains the movies you have
previously saved by using the drop down menu at the top of the
window. (By default, X-Plane will have saved your situation files to the
following folder: X-System/Output/Movies.)
3. To open your movie, simply click on the movie file that you would
like to load.
So, to summarize:
The SMO file is for Situation Movies, which anyone may use INSIDE
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X-PLANE to view your flight from any view or angle.
The MOV file is a QuickTime Movie, which anyone may view outside
of X-Plane.
Location Menu
Ramp
1. Choose 'Ramp' from the 'Location' menu. The Ramp menu will
provide you with a list of airports in the local area (about 100 mile
radius) where ramps are available.
2. Click on the airport that you would like to fly from and a list of
ramps at that airport will appear. Note: Due to the large number of
airports provided with X-Plane, you will find that a many will have a
standard 'default' ramp for you to fly from.
3. You will find yourself parked at the ramp you have chosen, ready to
begin your taxi to the runway.
Take Off
The 'Take Off' option in the 'Location' menu is a quick way of choosing
an airport in the local area to fly from (again about a 100 mile radius).
This option also lets you select which runway you would like to fly
from. To choose an airport from the 'Take Off' menu:
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1. Select 'Take Off' from the 'Location' option on the menu bar.
2. The 'Take Off' menu will present you with a list of all the airports in
the local area (about 100 mile radius), which are included in X-Plane.
3. Click on the airport that you would like to fly from and a list of
runways (with respective numbers or headings) at that airport will
appear. Select the runway you would like to fly from.
4. You will find yourself parked at the end of the runway at the airport
that you have chosen, ready to begin your flight.
1. Select 'VFR Final' or 'ILS Final' from the 'Location' option on the
menu bar.
2. The respective menu will appear to present you with a list of all the
airports in the local area (about 100 mile radius).
3. Click on the airport that you would like to fly from and a list of
runways (with respective numbers orheadings) at that airport will
appear. Select the runway you would like to set up your approach
into.
4. You will find yourself aligned perfectly for your approach into the
airport that you have chosen.
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Place Aircraft By Airport
The menus above are designed to get you going at any airport in the
local area, but this option lets you go to any airport in our database
world-wide. Just select this option and then click in the LOWER-LEFT
FIELD to enter the airport NAME, or the LOWER-RIGHT FIELD to
enter the airport ID that you wish to go to.
The various 'Special' menus are provided to allow you to jump straight
to fun situations that have been created for you. You can buzz forest
fires in the CL-415 water bomber and jettison the flame-retardant load
right over the fires to put them out. Or try putting an F-4 Phantom on
an aircraft carrier. Or try using the catapult to launch your F-4
Phantom off an aircraft carrier. Or get towed aloft in your Cirrus glider
by a tow-plane. Or fly a helicopter (or the V-22 Osprey) to a building
top, oil rig, or even a frigate pitching and rolling in the waves. You can
even fly the space shuttle through a complete and realistic re-entry
sequence to land at Edwards Air Force Base, and we haven't even got
to what you can do on Mars yet. That's just here on Earth!
Get Me Lost
Selecting this option will mean that X-Plane will start your flight in a
random location anywhere in the area, allowing you to test your
navigation skills
At the bottom of the location menu you can select which planet you
would like to fly on. The laws of physics are the same on Mars as on
Earth, but the atmosphere is thinner and there is considerably less
gravity. These variances are known to X-Plane, so the flight model
when you fly on Mars is just as accurate as the flight on Earth. The
"Expert Essays" chapter explains how to fly on Mars (and WHAT to fly
on Mars!) in more detail.
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Settings Menu
This is where you output what the simulator is doing, and tell various
different copies of X-Plane to talk to each other.
You can use this window to output frame-rate (a very common choice)
or any of hundreds of other parameters as well.
By far, one of the most powerful tools in X-Plane is the data input and
output screen. This can be used to diagnose a variety of problems
because it allows you to see what X-Plane is 'thinking' and determine
why it may be doing something unexpected. This screen can also
output a host of engineering conditions, controlled by this screen as
well. Let’s take a look. Go to the 'Settings' menu, 'Data Input &
Output' screen.
In here you will see 100+ different data sets that can be output as well
as four data sets, called Detail. These detail screens can only be
output to the screen, in flight, and provide a host of engineering data
for the flying surfaces of the aircraft you’re operating. Next to each of
the lines you will find a series of four boxes that you can check. The
last line, number 124, shows what each of the boxes do. The first box
(moving from the left to the right) outputs the selected data to the
internet, the second to a disk file (be careful with this one - you can
quickly fill up your entire hard drive), the third to a graphing function
with in X-Plane and the fourth to the cockpit during flight.
Why is this so powerful? Because it lets you peer into the inner
workings of X-Plane to see what the software is thinking and why it
may be acting unexpectedly. For example, let’s assume for a moment
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that your “BRAKE” light is illuminated on the instrument panel, but you
don't know why. You've tried to turn it off by clicking on it with the
mouse and you've also tried to use the 'b' key (for 2/3 braking force)
and the 'v' key (for maximum braking effort) but it is still illuminated.
You have previously set up a set of rudder pedals to control the rudder
and brakes but can not find anything wrong with the way you've set
them up and you are not pressing the brake pedals. What could be
causing X-Plane to engage the brakes? A hint can be found by
checking the right-most box on line 12 in the Settings > Data In/Out
screen. Then close that screen down and go back to your previous
view and note that a line of green text appears in the upper left corner
of the screen. There are four data fields in it, showing a value from 0
to 1 for the landing gear status (1 is gear down, 0 is gear up if your
aircraft is equipped with retractable landing gear), wheel brakes (on
both main gear evenly) and left and right brakes (if you're using a set
of pedals or have programmed the brakes to be activated by some
other control.
For this example these suppose that the right brake was showing a
value of 1.0. This indicates that that brake is locked, but why. You
remember that you had mapped individual brake controls to your
rudder pedals. Perhaps the problem is there. Apparently, X-Plane
thinks that you are commanding the right brake to be on. Perhaps
theirs a problem with the calibration of your equipment so you go to
the 'Settings' menu, 'Joystick and Equipment' page, then click on the
'Calibrate Joystick Hardware' button. Then, as directed, you move all
of your control inputs through their full range of motion. This teaches
X-Plane what your rudder pedals are sending out for the full range of
brake applications. Presto, problem solved.
This is a good example of the importance of the Data Input & Output
screen in diagnosing problems that you may run into. In other
sections of this chapter I'll list the areas that may be applicable to this
screen and what to look for.
Now that you the value of the data output window, let's look at each bit
of it in detail. The window is split into four sections:
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1: Data Set
This is where you can tell X-Plane what data you want to output. As
you can see, you can output all manner of flight data, and many other
things as well. For example, if your joystick is not working, you should
output the joystick deflections to see if X-Plane is getting your joystick
input. Now, you will see four checkboxes next to each data output
option. What does each of those four checkboxes mean? Well, there
is a label for them in the lower-right of the screen, but here they are:
Internet (1st check box): The selected data is sent via the UDP
network protocol to the address assigned in the Inet2 tab. This is
useful if another copy of X-Plane is running on a computer with that IP
address, and you want to send data from one copy of X-Plane to
another, if, for example, one copy of X-Plane is a pilot's machine, and
one is a copilot's. You may also write your own program to read X-
Plane UDP data. The format is very easy, and explained in the UDP
reference.html file in the instructions folder of X-Plane.
Disk file 'Data.out' (2nd check box): The selected data goes to a file
on your hard disk called 'Data.out' for observation with a spreadsheet
or any word processor. It is just columns of text.
2: Data See
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selected in the 'Data Set' tab. You can look at graphical depictions of
the flight here to see trends and stuff.
3: Inet1
4: Inet2
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Weather
Set the date and tie as you like, and check the box to track the real
time if you like as well. You can enter an offset in hours if your time-
zone is not QUITE what X-Plane thinks it is based on your longitude.
Are they trying to chase you down, or are they flying around minding
their own business?
One important option that you can control here is the number of
aircraft. The value set in this option will determine the number of
aircraft that X-Plane will simulate at once. A value of 1 will only
simulate your own airplane. Higher values will simulate your aircraft
and a number of other aircraft in the region. As in reality, these
airplanes will wander hither and yon, maneuvering in some way that
makes sense to them. You might have fun intercepting them and
flying formation with them, and stuff like that.
Hold your mouse motionless for a few moments over the four TEAM
checkboxes to get a pretty decent description of how the teams work
in X-Plane to keep things interesting if you want to have some mock-
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combat fun.
Go here to set the weights on board your airplane. You will find that
airplane can typically stay in the air at very high weights, but have a
hard time getting OFF the ground to start with, though. You will also
find that moving the center of gravity FORWARD (LEFT) makes the
plane behave like a dart, and moving the center of gravity AFT
(RIGHT) makes the plane un-flyable because the plane becomes
unstable. Flying a plane with the center of gravity far aft is like
shooting an arrow backwards: with the fins in the front and the heavy
end in the back... it will NOT want to go straight, but instead flip
around with the heavy end in the front and the fins in the back.
You can set the fuel and payload, and since fuel is burned in real time
in X-Plane, and the engines need fuel to run, and the weight and
mass-distribution of the fuel is considered by the simulation, the fuel
you put on board does indeed matter!
Equipment Failures
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for hundreds of different aircraft systems.
Note that in the first tab of this window, you can set a Mean Time
Between Failures. If you set a MTBF of 1000 hours, then X-Plane will
decide that each piece of hardware in your plane has about a one-in-
a-thousand chance of breaking each hour. Since your airplane has a
few hundred pieces of hardware, that means you might get a failure
maybe every 5 or 20 hours or so. Can you lower the MTBF to maybe
10 hours and still get from one place to another in a complex plane
like the 747? I, the Great Austin Meyer, can do it easily.
Once you've created your quick flight, you might like to use the Save
Situation menu item to make it available for future use!
Sound
Rendering Options
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See Chapter 4: First-Flight.
This window simply lets you specify a few little tidbits about where
your plane starts, whether the sim breaks the airplane if you over-
stress it, what warnings the simulator gives you if things are going
wrong, and various little things like that. OK, let's look at each of
them:
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Reset on hard crash
If you check this option then X-Plane will reposition you at the nearest
airport if you crash hard.
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Output Menu
X-Plane has a number of maps and stuff. They are all accessible from
the 'Output' menu.
Local Maps
High-Speed
This map gives maximum speed. It is useful if you want to be able to
scroll around the map really fast, or change NAVAIDS really fast, or if
you have the 'Draw Cockpit on Second Monitor' option checked in the
'Rendering Options' screen, in which case the map is drawn on one
monitor, and the cockpit on the other. In this case, you probably want
the fastest map you can get so the simulation is not slowed down
much, so you select that here.
Low Enroute
The 'Low Enroute' map view displays your general area along with
airports, airport and beacon frequencies, ILS indicators, and low level
airways.
High Enroute
The 'High Enroute' map view is essentially the same as the 'Low
Enroute' map view, but it displays the medium and high level airways
instead of low level ones.
Sectional
The 'Sectional' map view is designed to be a VFR sectional chart. It
shows airports, airport/beacon frequencies, ILS indicators, roads,
rivers and railway lines. It also uses a terrain shader to depict the
ground types and elevations.
Textured
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The textured map view displays airports, roads, rivers and railway
lines. In addition, the terrain shader used on this map gives an
overview of the landscape as would be seen from the cockpit in X-
Plane. This view uses the actual scenery installed in X-Plane as its
basis.
Look on the top of the window and you will see a number of
checkboxes to put the map in various modes.
IOS: This puts the map in Instructor Operator’s Station mode, letting
you run this copy of X-Plane as an Instructor's Console. Once you
have checked this, look on the left side of the Map window. You will
see a space on the upper left where you may enter any airport ID.
Enter the ID there to place the aircraft at that airport, or give you the
options to place the craft at or near that airport. The other buttons on
the left side are obvious. The Instructor's Console can be used in a
multi-computer X-Plane setup. This is a great feature for flight training
because the instructor can fail systems, set date and time, change the
aircraft location, etc., for maximum training benefit. The buttons along
the bottom left of this dialog allow the instructor to perform all these
tasks from one location, while maintaining a watch on the X-Plane
pilot on the map view above.
EDIT: This starts an EDITOR mode in which you may EDIT the
various NAVAIDS! Just click on a NAVAID to modify it, or add a new
one.
SLOPE: This shows a vertical profile of your flight if you are flying an
ILS.
INST: This shows a few flight instruments to see what the plane is
doing. REMEMBER, YOU MAY BRING THIS SCREEN UP ANY
TIME AND PAUSE THE SIMULATOR, OR GET A CONTINUOUS
UPDATE IN REAL-TIME! HOW DO YOU DO THIS? Two ways:
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1: check the 'draw cockpit on second monitor' option in the 'Rendering
Options' screen if you have two monitors.
2: check the 'address of master, this is IOS' box in the 'Data Output
'screen, 'Inet 2' tab if you have a second copy of X-Plane running on a
different computer, and it is the master machine, and this is the IOS
machine.
3D: You can toggle between 2D and 3D views here. When in 3D view
mode, you can use the arrow keys to rotate the view, or the + and -
keys to zoom in and out.
At the top right are controls to adjust the heading, altitude, speed and
power setting of your plane. If you have X-Plane configured to draw
multiple planes, then you can drag the other panes around and set
their speed, heading, and altitude as well.
At the bottom right of each view there are controls to let you pan and
zoom as you like.
Planet Map
The Planet Map depicts the Earth (or Mars if you are flying on Mars) in
3D. You can rotate and zoom at will with the arrow keys to rotate and
the + and - keys to zoom in and out. You can also place your aircraft
anywhere on the planet by using the mouse and clicking to select a
location.
Logbook
Each time you fly in X-Plane, X-Plane logs your flight time in an
electronic 'Logbook'. By default, X-Plane creates a plain text file
called 'X-Plane Pilot.txt' in the 'X-System:Output:logbooks' folder.
Inside this text file are details of your flights, including:
- Date of flights
- Aircraft types and tail numbers
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- Departure and Arrival Airports
- Duration of flights including cross-country, IFR, night, and total
flight time.
The 'Choose Pilot Logbook' and 'New Pilot Logbook' buttons allow you
to select a previously created logbook file, or create a new one.
View Menu
Special Menu
The 'Special' menu lets you do various odd-ball things in the sim.
Instructions
This displays a summary of the basic keystrokes and functions
available. It is useful for quick reference during a flight.
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key and use the arrow keys to get a nice external view of the plane to
see all those forces. Turn on some wind and turbulence in the
weather screen and you will even be able to see the pseudo-random
velocity-vector flow-field around the airplane. The velocity vectors you
see are the actual vectors interacting with the plane, and the force-
vectors you see are the actual forces on the plane, so nothing is just
for show here: you are seeing the actual work that X-Plane is doing.
Turn OFF the wind and turbulence and fly up close behind another
airplane (use the 'Other Aircraft and Situations' window and the 'Map'
window as needed to help here) and watch the flow-field around your
airplane become chaotic as you enter the wake of the plane in front of
you!
OK, are you ready to take this to an extreme? Select about 10 other
planes in the 'Aircraft and Situations' window of all equal performance
(all airliners or all light planes) and set them all to be on the RED
team, and put your plane on the BLUE team, for example. Then, put
your plane on autopilot in flight and walk away from X-Plane for 30
minutes or so. Come back in half an hour and all the other planes
should be on your tail, each one in the wake turbulence of all the
planes in front it! This is the type of flight-model math that X-Plane
does.
Take Screenshot
This creates an image of the entire screen when selected. You can
also press control-. to do this without the menu getting in the way!
Each screenshot is saved in the X-Plane folder as a PNG file named
'screenshot_x.png' where x is a sequential number starting at 0. You
can take as many screenshots as you like.
Toggle Movie
This toggles the QUICKTIME movie recording on and off. Those
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QuickTime movies get really big, really fast, so don't record for too
long!
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Set Environment Properties
This setting allows you to change the virtual world's environmental,
atmospheric, and gravitational properties. You can use this to
experiment with some of the environmental factors that affect an
aircraft in flight, including temperature, pressure, density, viscosity and
gravity. You can simulate flight on other planets this way.
Plug-in Admin
The X-Plane Plug-In Software Developers Kit is a combination of
code, DLLs, and documentation that allow programmers to write
additions that work inside X-Plane, without modifying X-Plane or
having a copy of X-Plane's source code. 'Plug-in Admin' provides a
set of features to administer any plug-in software, which is installed.
By default, there are no plug-ins installed, but there are a number of
them available via the Internet. You can enable or disable plug-ins,
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view information about any installed plug-ins, and assign 'hotkeys' so
that the enable/disable actions can be easily performed from within
the simulator.
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Chapter 6: Navigation, Autopilots, and Flying on
Instruments
People often call in, asking about some of the more advanced things
that pilots do all the time: how to navigate, how to use the autopilot,
and how to fly on instruments. This chapter covers these areas in
pretty good detail but we recommend that if you're really serious about
learning these facets of aviation that you go down to your local GA
(general aviation) airport and hire a CFI (Certified Flight Instructor) to
spend an hour or two with you. If you’re using a laptop, by all means
take it with you and your instructor will be able to show you many of
these things in practice. Also, there is much more to review here than
we could ever possibly go into here so a quick search for information
on the internet will be of assistance as well.
History
For the first 30 years or so the best pilots could do was to fly around
using Dead Reckoning. That is - to confirm your position on a map
as you fly and than look ahead on the map to see when you should be
crossing some known landmark, like a road, railroad, town, lake, etc.
Than, the pilot periodically compares her progress over the real
ground with the anticipated progress over the map to see how things
were going. This really is as simple as it sounds, the primary trick
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being to always know where you are and what to be looking for next.
Before too long you'll be flying around using Dead Reckoning just fine.
In fact, shortly after college, Austin Meyer (the author of X-Plane) and
I once piloted a Cessna 172 from Kansas City to Chicago after our
second (of two) navigation radios gave up and died in mid-flight. No,
this is not a typical experience in the aviation world but it
demonstrates that a pilot always needs to be thinking ahead and be
prepared for contingencies. That particular aircraft was a well-used
rental and Nav1 was dead from the time we signed it out. When Nav2
died, we had no operable navigation radios at all and used Dead
Reckoning to fly the last 300 or so miles of our trip, which was most of
it. We would never have allowed ourselves to get into that position
had the weather been poor or had we been flying on instruments - as
we would have refused to take off into such conditions given the
failure in the first radio. But since the weather was nice we took off
with only one navigation radio and were soon flying along on none. X-
Plane allows you to practice this all you like.
During the heyday of Dead Reckoning, the US Mail pilots that were
flying on overnight mail routes actually flew from bon-fire to bon-fire
that had been set up along their route, using the light to guide their
progress. Just imagine what this must have been like - flying in the
mid 1920's in an open cockpit bi-plane (a Curtis Jenny, perhaps)
trying to keep your goggles clean (the engines of the day routinely
sprayed oil) and to stay out of the cloud on a cold winter night, flying
along a chain of bon-fires to your next destination. Keep in mind
these were not closed-cockpit aircraft and the pilot continually had the
outside air blowing all around the cockpit. Wow! I hope you dressed
warm and that you are good at folding maps in 80 MPH slipstream of
air that was below freezing.
In the mid 1930's or so a system was devised where pilots would fly
using aural navigation - that is they would tune into a new radio
system such that if they were to the left of course they would hear a
series of dashes (long radio tones, as in Morse code) and if they were
to the right of course they would hear a series of dots. If on course
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they would hear nothing as the signals containing the dashes and dots
canceled each other out. The closer the pilot was to the transmitter
the smaller the "Cone of Silence," as it was known, was and the more
defined the boundaries between the dashes, dots and silence. As the
aircraft's range from the station increased, the central target (where
you heard no signals at all) was much wider and weaker. Imagine
sitting in a dark and cold cockpit listening intently to try and hear over
the drone of the engine and whistle of the wind on your wires to see
which side of the cone you were on. Airline pilots used this system for
years to successfully carry passengers all around the world. This type
of navigation is not modeled within X-Plane.
We now get into the area of 'modern' navigation that was based on
ground based transmitters. You'll need a good set of charts if you'd
like to actually fly in X-Plane using any of these methods but the
software does contain a full set of (mostly) current charts as well. To
see them go to Output > Local Maps and select one of the five map
types that are available in the tabs on top of the window. They are:
High Enroute - Very similar to Low Enroute but only showing the
information of interest to pilots flying above 18,000 and making use of
Vector Airways that are much longer, based on larger VORs with
longer ranges.
Sectional - The standard chart that VFR pilots are familiar with. This
map has ground elevation data superimposed via a shaded
background and information about the airports that are local to that
area.
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Textured - a nice map that is not used in pilot circles. This overlays
the X-Plane terrain images on top of the navigation charts to give you
a good bird's eye view of the area that you're flying over.
NDB Navigation
Non-Directional Beacons were first invented about the late 1940's and
consisted of a ground based transmitter that broadcast a homing
signal. A receiver in the aircraft could be tuned to about 300 discrete
frequencies to tune in a particular transmitter and an instrument in the
panel, called the 'NDB' would point to the station. This system was a
large leap forward in technology over the older aurally based system
and was actually quite easy to use provided that the wind was
perfectly calm or blowing in a direction that was exactly parallel to your
direction of flight. Of course, that pretty much never happened
resulting in the aircraft always being blown off course. As a result, the
pilots had to watch the trend of movement in the needle over a
relatively long period of time (5 to 8 minutes or so) to see if the angle
depicted to the station was constant or changing. If changing than
that indicated that the aircraft was being blown off of course and the
pilot had to turn in the opposite direction by half of the deviation. After
holding that heading for another five minutes or so the pilot would
again observe at the relative trend of the needle and correct again.
VOR Navigation
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navigation accuracy. Instead of a NDB that a pilot could home in on,
the VOR sends a series of 360 discrete little carrier tones on a main
frequency. Each of these carriers is oriented each along a different
radial from the station, one of 360 just like a compass rose. Thus,
when you are flying along and tune in the main VOR frequency you
than fine tune your navigation display to tell you which of the 360
radials you are flying and also if the transmitter station is in front of or
behind you. Impressive! Pilots finally had a means to tell exactly
where they were in relation to a fixed spot on earth and this system
'automatically' adjusted for any winds aloft as the system would
quickly display any error in track that the plane was making. This
error could only be due to two factors - the pilot was not flying along
the radial or he was and the wind blew the airplane slightly off of
course. VORs are modeled in X-Plane.
So, how do you use the VOR? Look on the sectional or low-enroute
map to find a VOR station that is fairly close the location of the aircraft.
Tune this into your VOR radio and the little red 'nav1' or 'nav2' flags on
your CDI (Course Deviation Indicator) should disappear. (Keep in
mind that you may have to hit the flip-flop switch to bring the
frequency you just tuned into the active window.) Now rotate the OBS
(Omni Bearing Selector) knob so that the vertical white indicator is
perfectly centered in the little white circle in the middle of the
instrument. At this point the vertical white line should be truly vertical
and your aircraft is either on the radial from the station indicated by
the yellow arrow at the top or at the bottom of the instrument. Now fly
that exact heading and you will be flying directly towards or away from
the station, as shown by the little white up or down (to or from,
respectively) arrow that will be on the right side of the CDI, either
above or below the white horizontal glide slope indicator.
Note that the vertical reference line indicates how far you are from
your desired radial. To the left and right of the center target (the little
white circle) the instrument displays five dots on each side. Each of
these dots indicates that you are two degrees off of course. Thus, a
full scale left deflection of the vertical reference indicates that the
aircraft is 10 degrees right of the desired radial if the station is in front
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of you. Of course, if the station is behind you then the instrument is
reverse sensing and that means that a left deflection indicates that the
plane is to the left of your desired radial. Got it? Yes, it can be a bit
confusing. Just remember that as long as you are flying towards the
VOR then the line on the CDI indicates the location of the desired
course. If the reference line is on your left that means that your target
radial is on your left.
With only one VOR you really don't know where you are along a given
radial. Only that you are in front of or behind a station and what radial
you're on. But you have no way of telling if you are 15 miles from the
station or 45 miles away. The solution is to use two VOR radios so
that you can plot your location from two different VORs. If you can
determine that you're on the 67th radial from the OJC VOR and on the
117th radial from the MKC VOR than you can pinpoint your location
on a sectional chart. Don't forget that you'll have to work fast as your
position will be continually changing, unless you are hovering in a
helicopter.
GPS Navigation
Global Positioning Systems were first invented for the US military and
introduced to the public in the early 1990's. This system consists of a
series of fixed-position satellites that 'hover' above set locations on
Earth. A GPS receiver can tune into the signals they send out and
note the time it took for the signal to travel from the satellite to the
receiver for several different satellites at once. Since the speed at
which the signals travel is known, it is a simple matter of arithmetic to
determine how far from each satellite the receiver is. Triangulation is
than used to determine exactly where the receiver is with respect to
the surface of the Earth and this information is compared with the
onboard data base to determine how far it is to your next airport,
navaid, waypoint, or whatever. Pretty simple, huh? Actually the
concept is but the math is not. GPS systems have completely flipped
the world of aviation on its ear, allowing everyday pilots to navigate
around with levels of accuracy that was not even possible to imagine
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20 years ago.
The databases in these radios are not limited simply to the identifiers
of the airports you may wish to fly to. You can enter the IDs for any
VOR or NDB station you'd like, or the name of any waypoint or fix
you'd like to go to.
AUTOPILOTS
Well, for X-Plane, here are the autopilot functions available: (all of these
can be chosen for your panel in the Panel-Editor in Plane-Maker... they are
all in the "autopilot" instrument folder). Each of these is a mode you can put
your plane in simply by hitting that button on the panel with the mouse.
WLV: WING-LEVELER: This will simply hold the wings level while you
figure out what to do next.
HDG: HEADING HOLD. This will simply follow the heading bug on the HSI
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or Direction Gyro.
LOC: Localizer. This will fly a VOR or ILS radial, or to a GPS destination...
AND THE GPS MAY BE PROGRAMMED BY THE FMS (explained soon).
HOLD: This will hold the current or pre-selected ALTITUDE by pitching the
nose up or down.
V/S: This will hold a constant VERTICAL SPEED by pitching the aircraft
nose up or down.
SPD: This will hold the pre-selected AIRSPEED by pitching the nose up or
down. (leaving throttle alone)
FLCH: (Flight-Level Change)This will hold the pre-selected AIRSPEED by
pitching the nose up or down. (adding or taking away power automatically)
This is commonly used to change altitude in Airliners by simply letting the
pilot add or take away power, while the airplane pitches the nose to hold
the most efficient AIRspeed. If the pilot adds power, the plane climbs. If he
takes it away, the plane descends. SPD and FLCH are currently ALMOST
identical functions in X-Plane: They both pitch the nose up or down to
maintain a desired aircraft speed, so adding or taking away power results in
climbs or descents. The difference is, if you HAVE auto-throttle on the
airplane, FLCH will automatically add or take away power for you to start
the climb or descent. SPD will NOT.
PTCH: Pitch-Sync: Use this to hold the plane's nose at a constant pitch
attitude. Commonly used to just hold the nose somewhere until the pilot
decides what to do next.
G/S: Glideslope: This will fly the glideslope portion of the ILS.
VNAV: Vertical Navigation: This will fly automatically load altitudes from the
FMS (Flight Management System) into the autopilot for you, to follow route
altitudes. (explained soon).
BC: Every ILS on the planet has a LITTLE-KNOWN SECOND LOCALIZER
THAT GOES IN THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION AS THE INBOUND
LOCALIZER. THIS IS USED FOR THE MISSED APPROACH, ALLOWING
YOU TO CONTINUE FLYING ALONG THE EXTENDED CENTERLINE OF
THE RUNWAY, EVEN AFTER PASSING OVER AND BEYOND THE
RUNWAY. To save money, some airports will NOT bother to install a new
ILS at the airport to land on the same runway going the other direction, but
instead let you fly this second localizer BACKWARDS to come into the
runway from the opposite direction of the regular ILS! This is called a BACK
COURSE ILS. Using the SAME ILS in BOTH directions has it's advantage
(it's cheaper) but a drawback: The needle deflection on your instruments is
BACKWARDS when going the WRONG WAY ON THE ILS! Hit the BC
(back course) autopilot button if you are doing this. It causes the autopilot
OK, now you know what the various options are... how do you use
them?
In other words, turning the Flight Director ON turns on the BRAINS of the
autopilot, displaying the commands from the modes above on the horizon
as some little magenta wings you can follow. Turning the Flight Director to
AUTO turns on the SERVOS of the autopilot, so the plane follows the little
magenta wings FOR you, without you touching the stick.
In other words, if you have a flight director switch, then make sure it is in
the right mode for the type of autopilot guidance you want! (None, flight-
director only, or actual servos driving the controls).
Now, when you first turn the Flight Director to ON or AUTO, the thing will
automatically engage in PITCH HOLD and WING-LEVELER ROLL MODE,
which will simply hold your current pitch and roll until some other mode is
Now that you have set the flight director to the right mode, let's look at the
various modes you can use to command that flight director and possibly
autopilot servos!
So, as you see, the speed and vertical speed modes will be held just fine...
UNTIL THEY GET TO THE ALTITUDE YOU HAVE DIALED IN, A
WHICH POIT THEY WILL ABANDON THAT MODE AND GRAB
ALTITUDE HOLD MODE. The same thing will happen with GLIDESLOPE!
If the glideslope is armed (lit up because you pushed the button!) then the
autopilot will abandon your vertical mode when the glideslope engages.
The same thing will happen with the LOCALIZER! If the Localizer is armed
(lit up because you pushed the button!) then the autopilot will abandon your
HEADING mode when the LOCALIZER engages!
This is called 'CAPTURING' the localizer or glideslope.
So, the thing to realize is that vertical speed, flight-level change, and
heading mode are all modes that command the plane the moment they are
engaged.
Altitude and glideslope and Localizer are ALL ARMED, and sit there in
standby (armed) until one of the modes above intercepts the altitude,
glideslope, localizer, or GPS course.
An exception is ALTITUDE.. .IF you hit the ALTITUDE button, you will grab
your current altitude that you are at right NOW. This is NOT the way a
smart pilot flies, though. A smart pilot with a good airplane and autopilot
and planning will dial in the ASSIGNED ALTITUDE long BEFORE he gets
there (including the INITIAL altitude BEFORE HE TAKES OFF!) and then
use vertical speed or flight-level-change or even pitch sync to GET to that
altitude!
So, here is how you use the system in the real plane:
-You are on the ground, short of the runway, told to maintain 3,000 feet,
runway heading, cleared for take-off.
-You enter 3,000 feet into the ALTITUDE window, runway heading (say
290) into the HEADING window.
If you put this button to Nav-1, then the the HSI will show deflections from
the Nav-1 radio, and the autopilot
will fly VOR or ILS signals from the Nav-1 radio if you hit the LOC or G/S
buttons.
If you put this button to Nav-2, then the the HSI will show deflections from
the Nav-2 radio, and the autopilot
will fly VOR or ILS signals from the Nav-2 radio if you hit the LOC or G/S
buttons.
So now that you know how to send the right signal (Nav-1, Nav-2, or GPS)
to the autopilot for LOC and G/S
(lateral and vertical navigation), how do you USE those modes?
G/S: Just like the lateral nav, the vertical nav WILL NOT DO ANYTHING
UNTIL THE GLIDELSOP NEEDLE starts to move... though unlike with the
While still far away from the ILS, and BELOW glideslope:
The autopilot will then track you right down to the runway, and even flare at
the end, cutting power if autothrottle is engaged.
Just as in a real airplane, these things only work well if you intercept the
loclalizer far away (OUTSIDE the Outer Marker) and BELOW the
glideslope, intercepting the localizer at less than a 30-degree angle, and
holding altitude when you intercept the glideslope. If you are above the
glideslope, or crossing the localizer at a wide angle, or intercept the
localizer too close in to the airport, the autopilot will not be able to
manuever the airplane for landing, as I have found out many times in X-
Plane, and several times in my Cirrus.
Do all these things, and the plane will follow any FMS plan, assuming, of
course, the plane you are flying HAS all this equipment, which of course
some do not.
Now, the next question a lot of people ask is: HOW DO I USE THE
FMS????????
Well, it's pretty darn easy!
Here's how:
Open of the Boeing 777 for this one... hit the INIT button on the FMS: this
gets the FMS inited to receive a flight plan.
Now hit the AIRP button: this tells the FMS that you are about to go to an
AIRPORT.
Now enter the ID of whatever airport you want to by hitting the keypad keys
with the mouse.
Now, if you like, hit the line-select button on the left side of the FMS next to
the text "FLY AT ______ FT"... and enter the altitude you want to fly at with
the keypad again.
Now, if you want to do more than just fly to an airport, hit the NEXT button
on the FMS and repeat the steps above for the next waypoint.
There is a back-arrow to erase mistakes, VOR, NDB, FIX, and LAT/LON
buttons to enter those types of destinations, and PREV/NEXT buttons to
cycle thru the various waypoints in your plan, as well as a LD and SA
button load and save flight plans if you want to use them again.
Now, once you have entered the plan into the FMS, take off and set the
"SOURCE" button for the HSI to "GPS" so the HSI is getting data from the
GPS (not the nav-1 or nav-2 radios) and move the "FLIGHT DIR" button to
"AUTO" so the autopilot servos are actually running, and hit the "LOC"
Now, using the autopilot is only one basic step... the next level is to use the
FMS! (flight management system). To do this, a few things must happen:
You must enter all your flight plan into the FMS, AND you have to have the
HSI set to GPS, NOT nav 1 or nav 2 (because remember, the autopilot will
fly whatever it sees on the HSI, so you must get the HSI to show you what
is being generated by the GPS, so you have to set the HSI to GPS) AND
you must have the LOC and VNAV buttons selected ON, AND the FLIGHT
DIR button must be set to AUTO, so the flight director is NOT OFF, NOT
just ON, but actualy DRIVIGN THER AUTOPILOT. Do all these things, and
the plane will follow any FMS plan, assuming, of course, the plane you are
flying HAS all this equipment, which of course most do not.
Now, the next question a lot of people ask is: HOW DO I USE THE
FMS????????
Well, it's pretty darn easy!
Here's how:
Open of the Boeing 777 for this one... hit the INIT button on the FMS: this
gets the FMS inited to receive a flight plan.
Now hit the AIRP button: this tells the FMS that you are about to go to an
AIRPORT.
Now enter the ID of whatever airport you want to by hitting the keypad keys
with the mouse.
Now, if you like, hit the line-select button on the left side of the FMS next to
the text "FLY AT ______ FT"... and enter the altitude you want to fly at with
the keypad again.
Now, if you want to do more than just fly to an airport, hit the NEXT button
on the FMS and repeat the steps above for the next waypoint.
There is a back-arrow to erase mistakes, VOR, NDB, FIX, and LAT/LON
buttons to enter those types of destinations, and PREV/NEXT buttons to
cycle thru the various waypoints in your plan, as well as a LD and SA
button load and save flight plans if you want to use them again.
Now, once you have entered the plan into the FMS, take off and set the
"SOURCE" button for the HSI to "GPS" so the HSI is getting data from the
GPS (not the nav-1 or nav-2 radios) and move the "FLIGHT DIR" button to
"AUTO" so the autopilot servos are actually running, and hit the "LOC"
Flying on Instruments
History
This exact same thing can happen in a cockpit pretty quickly. Imagine
for a moment that there is a large bank of cloud in front of you on a
calm day. This is fun, I used to do this many times in college. With a
few passengers on board you can enter the cloud in a left bank of,
say, 20 degrees or so. Than, after entering the cloud very slowly and
very smoothly start to bank the aircraft to the right. The trick is to do
this slowly and smoothly enough that no one on board notices.
Hopefully you can get to a substantially different attitude, perhaps
banked 30 degrees right) before you come out of the cloud. The
unsuspecting passengers may feel the very beginning of the change
in bank but they will probably suspect you're banked to the left.
Suddenly you fly through the other end of the cloud and BAM they're
in a right hand turn. This was fun and harmless to do to unsuspecting
friends in college but it underlines the difficulty an unsuspecting pilot
can find himself in, if he is not careful.
Installing Plug-Ins
Plug-ins are little programs that let you modify X-Plane. People write
plug-ins to do all sorts of interesting things like hang weights on the
dashboard that move around accurately, run little tugs around to push
your airplane on the ground, draw interesting terrain-visualization
systems, and other stuff like that. www.X-Plane.org is a good place to
go to find various plug-ins and stuff you can use to tweak your copy of
X-Plane.
Do you want to make your own plug-in? Great! (if you said yes) Go to
www.X-Plane.com and look for the plug-ins link near the top of the
page.
OK first let's get the obvious out of the way: You should have your
joystick calibration done. See the setup chapters of this manual for
instructions on this. Want to see if you really are properly calibrated or
not? OK. Go to the 'Settings' menu, 'Data Input and Output' window,
and select the 'Joystick ail-elv-rud', right-most check-box. This will
send the aileron, elevator, and rudder input from your joystick to the
cockpit text display. Once you do this, you will be able to see the
various stick deflections at the top-left of the screen. When you center
the stick and pedals, do the aileron, elevator, and rudder joystick
inputs read around 0.0? When you go full left and forward, do they
read around -1.0? When you go full aft and right, do they read around
1.0? If so, then your joystick is calibrated. If not, then your joystick is
NOT calibrated! No wonder the plane is not flying right!!!! So, the
FIRST thing to do is be sure your stick is calibrated properly. If it is,
and the plane is still not flying like you want, then read on!
OK, once you have the stick calibrated and can prove it with the data
output as indicate above, then see if the plane flies the way you like it.
No? OK, then let's look at the first level of control-response tuning. Go
to the 'Settings' menu, 'Joystick and Equipment' window. There, you
should look at the CENTER of that window. Move the stick around.
Moving the stick and pedals around should move little rectangles
around, and if you center the stick, then the rectangles should go to
zero size, if your hardware is perfect. Since no hardware on earth
really IS perfect, though, simply CENTER your hardware and hit the
'Center the Yoke and Pedals and Hit This Button' button. This will
mark the hardware as centered. If you have PFC hardware, you will
have little buttons across the bottom of the window that you can hit to
set the center position of each axis. So, now you have the ability to set
the center position of each axis. Did you do it right? Quit guessing and
OK, if you are still not happy with flight-handling, then look at the
'Settings' menu, 'Joystick and Equipment' window, 'Center' tab, and go
to the 'Control Response' sliders on the left. If the left-most 3 sliders
are fully left, then the control response is linear. 50% stick deflection in
your hand will give 50% control-deflection in the sim. Perfectly linear.
100% stick deflection in your hand will give 100% control-deflection in
the sim. Now, perhaps you think the plane feels too responsive in the
simulator. If so, then drag the sliders all the way to the right. This will
be a non-linear response. 0% stick deflection will still give 0% control
deflection, 100% stick deflection will still give 100% control deflection
in the sim, but now with a difference: 50% stick deflection in your hand
might only give 15% control deflection in the sim. In other words, while
the HARD-OVER ROLL RATE in the sim will remain UN-CHANGED
no matter what these sliders are set to, you will be able to get fine
control for smaller, partial deflections, since the flight controls will
move LESS for the small-to-moderate stick deflections in your hand.
This will give you nice fine pitch control, and nice slow, detailed, rolled
control. So, set those sliders and see how it feels. Is it OK now? No?
OK, then read on:
OK, the next level is Stability Augmentation. If you still think the plane
is too squirrely or over-sensitive, then drag those sliders all the way to
the right. What will happen? Now, X-Plane will automatically counter-
act any stick input you give to some degree, resisting rapid or large
deflections in pitch, heading, and roll. Basically, it is like always having
an autopilot on that smooths things out for you. It's fake and stupid, so
I don't like it, but in the absence of a perfect flight-control system and
g-load and peripheral-vision feedback, this can help smooth the
So, does it fly just right now? Still pulling to one side or the other? OK,
we have done everything we can in the sim, now it's time to tweak the
airplane. If the REAL plane is pulling to one side or the other, you
bend the little trim tab on the aileron one way or another. This bending
of the aileron trim tab counter-acts any imperfections in the shape of
the airplane or dynamics of the propwash or mass-distribution inside
the plane. Well, you can do exactly the same thing in X-Plane: Bend a
trim tab a bit one way or the other to make the plane fly true. How do
you do it? Still pretty easy. Exit X-Plane. Open Plane-Maker. Go to the
'File' menu and open the plane that is pulling left or right. Go to the
'Standard' menu and then to the 'Control Geometry' screen. Go to the
'Trim and Speed' tab. Go to the very RIGHT-HAND column of
numbers in the top box of the screen: 'Trim Tab Adjust'. This is simply
how much the trim tabs are bent on each axis. Top is elevator. Middle
is aileron. Bottom is Rudder. (look on the left side of the screen). A
value of 0.00 means the trim tab is not bent at all. A value of 1.00
means the tab is bent so far that the control is FULLY-DEFLECTED
by the trim tab (!) way too much I am sure. So, you want to bend the
trim tab A LITTLE BIT. Maybe 0.05 or at most 0.10. This would
correspond to being enough to deflect the controls 5% or 10% due to
the trim tab. Now, which WAY do you bend it? Positive or negative?
Well, positive is up and right. So, if you want the plane to roll RIGHT a
bit more (or STOP rolling left!), then enter a POSITIVE number for the
aileron. Ditto that with rudder if you want the plane to pull RIGHT a bit
more, and ditto that with elevator if you want the plane to pull UP a bit
more. Tweak the trim tabs, save the plane, exit Plane-Maker, run X-
Plane, go flying, and you should notice the plane pulls one way or
another based on how you bent the trim tabs. Tune as needed to get
the plane to fly as straight as you want.
Now, here is what so many people seem to NOT know, even though it
is fundamental to understanding computer performance:
Conversely, if you have all the RAM in the world and are running at a
low-texture-res and low-screen-res then you will not have any RAM
problems, but if your computer CPU is slow or your video card speed
is low, then you will of course get low performance.
So, given whatever machine YOU have, how can you get the most
from X-Plane?
What are you seeing on YOUR computer? Not high enough? OK, lets
see how to make it faster!
Set the visibility to about 5 miles or so. Higher visibility takes MORE
CPU to run, because you see more stuff!
Nothing else in the weather screen will affect frame-rate, but clouds
and vis affect it a LOT.
OK, close that screen and check your frame-rate now. Better?
NOTE! You can in some cases use MORE VRAM than you have, and
X-Plane will still run fast, because a lot of the RAM can be "cached
away" in the system with no speed penalty if it is not often accessed
by the computer... like if it is the texture of desert sand, for example,
but no desert sand is visible to you because you are not flying over the
desert. But, if you have only 64 meg of VRAM on your vide card, but
the texture res is set such that you need 128 meg of VRM, then the
computer will constantly be moving RAM on and off the video card
(between the video card RAM and the system RAM) to draw each
frame of scenery... THIS IS VERY VERY SLOW. Thus, you must set
the texture res LOW ENOUGH TO AVOID THIS.
NOTE: After you change the texture res, you must re-start X-Plane for
the change to take effect!
NOTE: Just put the tex res on it's lowest setting, exit the sim, re-start
it, and note the frame-rate.. then raise the texture detail up one level
and repeat... keep doing this until the frame-rate decreases... this is
the point where you are using up all your VRAM! Back the texture res
off to one level lower than that and restart to fly.
Now look at the screen res in the rendering options screen... it uses
up some VRAM, but not much. it uses up some video card CPU, but
not too much. Set the res as you see fit... probably 1024x768 on a
marginally-powerful computer.
The other settings in this window don't really effect speed too much.
So there you have it. Follow all the instructions above and you can get
good frame-rate with X-Plane even on a slower, older computer.. as
long as you have proper OpenGL drivers installed on it! See the web
page of your vide card manufacturer for instructions on that.
OK let's say that the autopilot in X-Plane is just not really doing exactly
what you want. Maybe it is sort of wandering down the localizer, or
wandering around in pitch when you want it to hold altitude. Maybe it
is wandering around in heading, or perhaps flickering it's wings left
and right madly as it tries TOO HARD to hold heading. Whatever the
problem, you should be able to adjust the autopilot constants to get
the plane to hold it's desired path more tightly.
First, let's talk about HEADING. Look at the SECOND screen down.
ROLL PREDICTION:
When YOU fly, you look INTO THE FUTURE to decide when to add,
and back off, of the flight controls. This is simply anticipation. How far
into the future should the autopilot anticipate? If the plane is
wandering left and right slowly, always behind the game, overshooting
and then wandering slowly off in the wrong direction like a tired drunk
driver, then clearly it is NOT anticipating enough. In that case, you
need to INCREASE the the roll prediction, so the autopilot
ANTICIPATES more. If, however, the airplane starts flopping back and
forth hysterically every frame, then you have clearly told it to anticipate
TOO much! You need to enter a SMALLER roll prediction! 1 second is
a decent roll prediction... after all, when I fly a plane, I would say I
really enter my controls based on WHERE THE PLANE WILL BE IN
ONE SECOND, not where it is right now.
OK Now let's talk about PITCH. This discussion will be exactly the
same as roll, really.
SUMMARY:
OK so now that you see what each number DOES, let's show you how
to set these things up quickly. First, launch X-Plane. Now open your
plane. Now go to the SPECIAL menu. Now go to the SET
AUTOPILOT CONSTANTS menu item. You will notice that a window
comes up with (you guessed it) all the numbers we just talked about!
Now here is where it gets really fun: You can change these numbers
AS YOU FLY to get the autopilot constants just right for each
individual plane. Just be ware: These numbers will be LOST the
second you exit X-Plane or open some different plane! These
numbers are for experimentation only! Once you have the numbers
you want, you better write them down on a piece of paper and enter
them into Plane-Maker where you can actually SAVE them!
Let's say you are doing a VTOL or fighter that needs an artificial
stability system. You can design a simple such system in Plane-Maker
pretty easily. How? Read on!
Let’s say that you want to have 2 computers running X-Plane, one
with the instrument panel on the pilot's side, and one with a panel on
the copilot’s side. (we call this a master machine and a copilot's
machine setup)
Or maybe 2 panels.. you have a center radio-panel as well.
Or maybe an Instructor Operator's Station to control weather and time
and failures. (we call this an IOS)
Or maybe a separate computer for an out-the-window view. (we call
this an external visual)
Or maybe a multiplayer session to fly formation with your friends.
Or maybe all of the above, all at once!
Of course, get your LAN set up so that the computers can talk to each
other and you have a network that is ready for an X-Plane multi-
computer setup. Install X-Plane on each computer. (Scenery and
everything!)
Now you have 2 copies of the same plane, each with its own
instrument panel, and the names "coolplane.acf" and
"coolplane_copilot.acf".
The .acf files are in the same folder, right beside each other.
Now simply copy that whole aircraft folder from one of your computers
over to the other, putting the aircraft folder in the same place in the
second (copilots) copy of X-Plane.
Now simply fire up X-Plane on each computer, go to the SETTINGS
menu, and then to the DATA INPUT OUTPUT window on each
computer, and select INET 2 tab.
Check the IP ADDRESS OF EXTRA VISUAL/COCKPIT #1 (THIS IS
MASTER) button on that computer, and enter the IP address of the
copilot's machine.
Now, on the lower left, click on the 'aircraft name reading suffix' and
enter (can you guess it? if you are smart, you should) "_copilot".
That means that NO MATTER WHAT PLANE YOU OPEN ON THE
PILOTS MACHINE, this computer will add "_copilot" to the name of
the plane that it tries to open!
Obviously, having one monitor per computer will give the highest
frame-rate, because you have the most power behind each bit of
display, but if you have a strong enough video card with a really high
fill-rate, then letting one video card or computer drive many monitors
should be possible.
Lets start off with the better of the two options: One computer per
monitor, with the computers networked as explained above:
Now, you may also decide that you do NOT want the monitors to wrap
AROUND you, but instead simply all be one beside the other IN A
FLAT PLANE (like stacking a bunch of monitors against a flat wall). In
that case, you do NOT want to use the offset in DEGREES, but
instead, the offset RATIO. In the case of using offset RATIO, if you
enter 1.0 then the lateral offset for that copy of X-Plane (in linear
distance) will be an amount equal to the distance between you and the
monitor. So, if you are 6 feet from the monitor, and you enter an offset
ratio of 1.0, then the center of that monitor should be 6 feet off to the
right to line up.
Now, sometimes people sit on the ground and see the horizon does
not line up AND THEN THEY ENTER VERTICAL OFFSETS ON
SOME MACHINES ONLY TO GET THE HORIZONS TO LINE UP..
and then become confused when everything breaks down when they
pitch and especially roll. Well, you should not have vertical offsets on
some machines but not others. As soon as you start doing that, you
know you are messing everything up. If this is happening then it is
probably because you are flying with a cockpit in the center screen
(center of screen for scenery is probably about 3/4 of the way up the
monitor to leave room for the instruments) and external visuals on the
lateral displays (center of screen for scenery is right in the center of
the monitor). In that event, you need to set the viewpoint center in
Plane-Maker for whatever airplane you are flying to the center of the
monitor: 384 pixels as of this writing... halfway up the 768 pixel height.
Now, let's say that you want ONE computer to drive multiple monitors.
Flying Helicopters
OK, so now we are in the air, and your first crash is beginning.. how
can you delay this inevitability for a few moments? Well, the answer is:
ANTI-TORQUE PEDALS. The main rotor is of course putting a lot of
torque on the heilo, causing it to spin in the opposite direction (for
every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.. twist the
OK, so you are in the air and adjusting the COLLECTIVE PITCH of
the main rotor (with your joystick throttle) to hold 10 feet in the air and
adjusting the tail-rotor pitch with anti-torque pedals (with your rudder
pedals or twisty stick) to keep the nose pointed right down the runway.
Now what? Well, you now need to wiggle the joystick left, right, fore,
and aft to steer the heilo around. How does this work? Well, if you
move the stick to the RIGHT, then the rotor blade will INCREASE its
pitch when it is in the FRONT of the heilo, and DECREASE its pitch
when it is BEHIND the heilo. In other words, the rotor blade will
change it's pitch trough a full cycle every time it runs around the heilo
once... in other words, it changes it's pitch from one extreme to the
other 400 times per minute (7 times per second) if the rotor is turning
at 400 rpm. No, I don't know how it does this without flying to pieces
either. Now, while it SEEMS that the right name for this might be the
"helicopter-destroyer", the fact that moving the stick sends the blade
pitch through one CYCLE every rotation of the rotor blades means we
call the control stick the CYCLIC stick. So you have your collective,
cyclic, and anti-torque controls. Now, let's talk about the cyclic a bit
more.. when you move the stick to the right, the rotor increases pitch
when it is in the part of its travel that is in FRONT of the heilo. Why?
Well, because that will increase the lift on the FRONT of the rotor disc.
This will cause the rotor disc to TILT to the RIGHT. (remember:
gyroscopic forces are applied 90 degrees along the direction of
So, now that you are using this information to hover perfectly, push
the nose down to tilt the rotor forwards. The lift from the rotor acting
above the center of gravity of the heilo will lower the nose of the heilo,
and the forwards component of lift from the rotor will drag the heilo
forwards as you fly along.
So that's how you fly heilos. Pray that nothing breaks if you want to
live.
Flying on Mars
NASA has very exact data on the atmospheric pressure, density, and
temperature on Mars. NASA has very exact data on the gravity of
Mars. NASA has rough topographic maps for the entire planet of
Mars, and very detailed data for some areas. The laws of physics,
which are programmed into X-Plane, are the exactly the same on
Earth as on Mars. X-Plane needs atmospheric pressure, density,
temperature, gravity, and topographic maps to deliver an engineering-
accurate flight simulation. Enter a new level of flight simulation. X-
Plane can simulate Mars.
The following is an email sent by Austin Meyer, author of X-Plane, to
the X-Plane community, at 4:35 AM, February 24, 2000:
I DID POSSIBLY THE MOST EXCITING THING I HAVE EVER DONE
TONIGHT. (OK, technically I finished it THIS MORNING). As some of
you may know, I have been gathering data on Martian atmosphere,
gravity, surface "texture", and topography for X-Plane from various
NASA sites (http://ltpwww.gsfc.nasa.gov/tharsis/mola.html, for
example)
I do NOT yet have the TOPOGRAPHY for Mars, but I DO have
everything else, and I have gotten it all entered into X-Plane and
designed two planes to fly on Mars as well, and have been
experimenting with deign and flight on Mars for the last 6 hours or so.
(Could I be the first human to fly a real-time flight simulation of Mars? I
Now let's talk about Airfoil-Maker. The menus of Airfoil-Maker are very
simple:
File Menu
The file menu works just like the file menu of any word processor or
spreadsheet you have used. You create, load, and save your files just
like you do with a word processor. The only difference is that you are
opening and saving files that represent airfoils rather than word
processing documents.
New
Use this to generate a new airfoil
Open
Use this to open an existing airfoil for viewing or modification.
Save
Use this to save an airfoil that you have created or modified.
Save As
Use this to save an airfoil that you have created or modified, but under
a different name.
Exit
Exit Airfoil-Maker.
So, how do you design airfoils in Airfoil-Maker? Well, every airfoil ever
designed has its own characteristics, which are its coefficients of:
lift, (how much the airfoil wants to lift up)
drag, (how much the airfoil wants to pull back), and
moment (how much the airfoil wants to pitch up).
You'll see a big black box dominating the screen with green, red, and
The green line is the coefficient of lift. The red line is the coefficient of
drag. The yellow line is the coefficient of moment. We'll look at the
behavior of each of these lines.
You will see a number labeled "Reynolds number" on the upper left.
The "Reynolds number" is simply the air density times the speed of
the airplane times the chord of the wing divided by the viscosity of air
(Wow!). Experiments have shown that the coefficients of lift, drag and
moment of wings vary somewhat with Reynolds number. For
recreational purposes, you can probably neglect any change in
performance with Reynolds number, so you can just ignore this setting
altogether. The number entered in the Reynolds number box may
have some impact however on the simulation. For highest realism you
can generate 2 DIFFERENT airfoil files for the SAME airfoil in Airfoil-
Maker, each file at a different Reynolds number, and assign them both
to your wing in Plane-Maker! X-Plane will figure out the Reynolds
number on each piece of the plane at least 10 times per second and
interpolate between the two airfoil files to give the most realistic
coefficients for that flight Reynolds number.
Coefficient of lift
Look at the green line. It is the coefficient of lift.
Notice that at zero degrees angle of attack (center of screen) the
coefficient of lift is fairly low. (It is close to the thin white line, which
represents zero). As the angle of attack increases, the coefficient of lift
increases right along with it, until you get to around 16 degrees angle
of attack, at which point the coefficient of lift falls abruptly... That is the
stall! If you go to negative angles of attack, you see that the coefficient
of lift actually gets negative. If you go to a large enough negative
angle of attack, the airfoil stalls then, too. It is possible to stall upside
down! A good wing will have a decent coefficient of lift (maybe 0.4) at
angles of attack close to zero, and a nice high coefficient of lift (maybe
1.6) at the maximum angle of attack. A safe airfoil will also have a stall
that is not too abrupt. In other words, the coefficient of lift will fall off
gradually at the stall, rather than sharply.
Coefficient of drag
Look at the red line. It is the coefficient of drag.
Notice that the coefficient of drag is lowest close to zero degrees
angle of attack. The drag gets higher and higher as the wing goes to
larger and larger angles of attack. That is not surprising, is it? The
higher the angle you offset the wing from the airflow, the greater the
drag!
It doesn't matter much whether you are going to positive or negative
angles of attack (aiming the wing up or down)... moving the wing away
from it's most streamlined position increases its drag. A good airfoil
will obviously have the lowest drag possible. (Notice that this drag
coefficient does NOT include the drag due to the production of lift. X-
Plane will figure this drag out automatically).
Coefficient of moment
Look at the yellow line. It is the coefficient of moment.
The coefficient of moment is the tendency of the wing to pitch up
about its axis, or rotate upwards about the spar. Most wings actually
want to pitch down, so the coefficient of moment is usually negative.
General Info
One question you might be asking yourself is: How do I find what the
coefficients are for the airfoils on my airplane?
First, you need to find what airfoil your aircraft uses, probably from the
manufacturer. Then you need to see if that airfoil is included with our
program. If you are flying a Cessna 182, for example, that aircraft
uses the NACA 2412 airfoil, which is included, so you do NOT need to
generate your own airfoil for that wing. If you do not know what foil to
use, then just leave them as the defaults of Plane-Maker.
To get you started. The book is intended for radio control designs, but
is very straightforward, easy to understand, and all of the principles
apply to full-scale aircraft.
General Info
...an oldie but goodie! This books has the lift, drag, and moment plots
of many airfoils in it, so you can choose your favorite airfoil for your
design and then enter it into the computer using the technique that is
about to be explained.
Thin symmetrical airfoils are thin and have the same shape on both
the top and bottom surfaces. They do not produce very much lift or
drag. They typically are used for vertical stabilizers and often
horizontal stabilizers as well because they are not called upon to
produce a lot of lift, and are not expected to produce much drag,
either.
So-called "normal general aviation airfoils", like the NACA 2412, are
compromises between the two, and are good candidates for the wing
of a general aviation aircraft.
Now let's actually generate an airfoil. The first button to click on is the
coefficient of lift intercept button, the green one labeled "intercept" in
the upper left hand corner. To increase this number, just click right
above the numbers that you want to increase, and below the ones that
you want to decrease. For example, if the lift intercept on the screen is
0.25, and you want to change it to 0.33 to model your airfoil, just click
right above the "2" in "0.25" and twice below the "5" in "0.25". You
change all of your data that way for the entire design and simulation
system. Easy! Now what exactly is a coefficient of lift intercept,
anyway? Read on to find out!
The NACA-2412 has a value of about 0.4 . (The coefficient of lift goes
from around 1.6 to 1.2 as the angle of attack goes from around 16 to
20 degrees).
Finishing Up
Change all of the parameters we just discussed around a bit, and
select "Save As" from the "File" menu. Now type in an airfoil name
and hit return. Congratulations! You have just generated your own
airfoil! Drop it in the "Resources:Airfoils" folder in your X-System folder
(to be usable by ALL planes) or a folder that you make called "Airfoils"
in the same folder as your airplane designs to be used only by that
airplane.
A program called Plane-Maker comes with X-Plane that lets you enter
your own aircraft design... any design you can imagine! Then, once
you have entered all the physical specs of the airplane (weight, wing
span, control deflections, engine power, airfoil sections, the works) X-
Plane will predict how that plane will fly! Simply save the airplane in
Plane-Maker like you would save a word-processing file and then
open it in X-Plane to fly it! You can compress the airplane package
and distribute it on the net for others to fly, or download planes that
others have made as well. www.X-Plane.org is currently a good place
to upload and download these planes.
Anyway, this chapter will give you the basics of entering an airplane in
Plane-Maker, customizing it, and then releasing it on the net (either
www.X-Plane.org or your own web site), for others to enjoy, possibly
for the purpose of marketing your companies' design.
Once you have changed a few parameters, it is time to save the plane
and fly it. To do this, go to the FILE menu and select SAVE
AIRCRAFT.
Well, like everything in X-Plane, this is pretty easy once you get the
basics, and here they are:
Now, let's say that you have just create TWO foils in Airfoil-Maker, one
for a NACA-2412 at Re=3 million, and one at Re=9 million. You might
save the foils with names like "NACA 2412-Re3.afl" and "NACA
2412-Re9.afl". The Airfoil-Maker manual explains how to do this.
Now once you have done this, launch Plane-Maker and open your
airplane. Then go to the "Expert" menu and then to the "Airfoils" item.
Once in that window, tab over to the area containing the various
different wings that your particular airplane has. Let's take the "Wings"
tab, for example. You will notice that there are 4 airfoils listed for the
"Wing 1" box. How could ONE wing have FOUR airfoils? Easy! You
could have one type of wing at the tip, another at the root, with linear
interpolation in between! You could also have one airfoil file for LO
Reynolds numbers, and another for HIGH Reynolds numbers, with X-
Plane interpolating in between! So that is FOUR airfoil files: Two
Reynolds numbers at the ROOT (on the left) and two Reynolds
numbers at the TIP (at the right). The lower Reynolds numbers go at
the TOP of the box, the higher Reynolds numbers go at the BOTTOM.
Just hold the mouse over the gray box to the left of each airfoil name
to get a reminder of this if needed.
Now, for an example of your hypothetical plane, you would select (by
clicking on the little gray box to the left of the airfoil names)
"NACA 2412-Re3.afl" for the upper left, and
"NACA 2412-Re9.afl" for the lower left, if your wing uses a NACA
2412 at it's root, and you want X-Plane to give you accurate
Ditto that, of course, for the wing TIP, and all the other foils on the
plane.
OK, you now know that you can create, modify, upload, and download
airplanes for X-Plane, but once you make an airplane in Plane-Maker,
you will notice that the instruments are all X-Plane standard, the
sounds are all X-Plane standard, and the airplane is simply grey.
Exit X-Plane.
Open the 'Example plane 3-D' folder. We will look in there to see what
sorts of things you can customize on your custom plane.
First you see the EXAMPLE.ACF... that is the actual aircraft file that
contains all the data that defines the airplane. You can email this file
to friends or whatever for them to try flying your design. This is what
you save in Plane-Maker.
You can do the same for slung loads (a Jeep carried by a Black-Hawk,
for example). Look at Example_slung_load.obj. This is an object that
can be selected as a slung payload in the SETTINGS:WEIGHT AND
BALANCE window in X-Plane. These objects can be saved in the 3-D
editor AC3D. Now look at the EXAMPLE_SLUNG_LOAD.PNG... that
is the custom texture for any slung load you might carry, which is
specified in the OBJ file.
So, how do you do this? Well, check out scenery.x-plane.com for full
documentation, but here it is in brief:
Now, let's say that you want to use LightWave rather than AC3D.
This is a little bit of a problem, because LightWave can use MORE
than one texture per object (for speed, X-Plane uses only ONE texture
per object!) and LightWave can NOT save in the OBJ format.
But never fear! You can do all your work on the OBJ in LightWave,
then save the file in 3ds format.
Then, open the 3ds file in AC3D and apply the (SINGLE!) texture to
the object... once you do that, simply save the file as an OBJ and that
file is ready to be read as a custom cockpit object, miscellaneous
object, object for scenery, or the like.
Distribution:
OK, now that you have your airplane done, it's time to get it out there!
Go to www.X-Plane.org and create a free account... it takes 5
seconds.
Now, make a single folder that holds your airplane, and a folder within
that folder that holds any custom airfoils you may have made, if you
have not already. People often upload airplanes BUT FORGET TO
UPLOAD THEIR AIRFOILS. DON'T DO THAT. IT DOESN'T WORK.
So, be sure to configure the acf file inside a folder with a recognizable
name, put any custom airfoils you made inside a folder called 'airfoils',
which lives inside the main folder for the airplane, and zip the whole
Summary:
OK, you now see how to make, modify, upload, and download custom
airplanes to fly in X-Plane.
You know how to customize the paint, instruments, sounds, weapons,
slung-loads, and even 3-D cockpits in X-Plane.
NOW GET TO WORK!!!!!!
5: Get Back to Work Go back to step 2 and do the whole thing over
again at least 15 times per second. Aren't computers great?
Here is some basic terminology that I see people misuse every day.
Get this basic stuff right first and then we can use this knowledge as
building-blocks to download, install, update, and fly X-Plane to
increase your knowledge of aviation! Also, if you ever have to call us
or anyone else on the phone asking for tech support, you will sound a
lot smarter and save a ton of time if you know the right terminology!
RUDDER PEDALS: The pedals are used to steer the plane down the
runway and wag its tail left and right in flight, which comes in useful
when starting turns and counter-acting crosswinds. They are NOT
spelled "PETALS," as many people keep spelling them, since they are
not named after the fragile leaves of a flower!
ASI: Air Speed Indicator. The ASI is driven by the pressure of the air
impacting a little tube on the nose or wing of the plane. More pressure
means.. umm.. FASTER.
BC: Back Course. This is the part of the ILS that goes BEYOND the
touch-down zone. Read all about it in the navigation and autopilot
description in this manual.
Density Altitude: Let's say that it is really HOT. This means the air is
LESS dense. Let's say we have a low barometric pressure one day.
That also makes the air thinner. Now let's say you are at sea level on
this hot, low-pressure day. And let's say it's so hot and low-pressure
than the density of the air is the same as standard air density at
10,000 feet up in the air! (Can happen if it is hot enough). This is a
10,000 foot density altitude. Less air for the engines. Less air for the
prop. Less air for the wings. In other words, it will take you longer to
get off the ground.
GPS: Global Positioning System. You already know what this is.
HDG: Heading. This is typically a mode in the autopilot that lets you
hold a pre-defined heading, typically MAGNETIC. Remember
magnetic heading is heading to the magnetic north pole, something a
hair different than true north, which is a geographic heading that will
take you to the true geographic North Pole. Remember, since the
magnetic north pole is separated from the geographic north pole by a
bit, true and magnetic heading are NOT typically the same! They may
be off by 5 or 10 degrees in the medium latitudes. The difference
between the true and magnetic north poles is called the magnetic
variation.
NDB: Non Directional Beacon. See the ADF note above, please.
VFR: Visual Flight Rules. You can manage your flight according to
visual rules if you are always able to see out the window well enough
to avoid collisions with terrain and other aircraft visually. You need
about 3 miles visibility and to stay about 1000 feet from the clouds,
typically.
Vector Airways: Vector Airways are the pre-charted airways that are
defined by a series of VORs. You fly from VOR to VOR until you get
where you are going, thereby staying on a vector airway. Each
segment of the Vector Airway thoughtfully lists the minimum altitude
you can fly that airway segment to avoid, umm, CRASHING.
Vfe: Velocity Flap Extension. This is the maximum speed at which you
can deploy your flaps without damaging or breaking them.
Vne: Velocity Never Exceed. This is the maximum speed you can ever
take a given airplane. Going faster than Vne can result in 'structural
damage'. Please be very aware that 'structural damage' is an insanely
conservative language for 'ripping your wings off so you plunge to a
horrible death'.
VSI: Vertical Speed Indicator. By looking at how fast the air pressure
is changing, the VSI deduces how quickly you must be climbing or
descending.
In just about every case I have I have ever seen, it has been someone
else's fault.
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X-PLANE DOES NOT WORK ON A WINDOWS MACHINE, OR
CRASHES ON EXIT FROM THE SIM.
So, for Windows, assuming you have Windows XP or better and a 3-D
accelerator card capable of running OpenGL, and you get some sort
of crash when you try to run X-Plane (or EXIT X-Plane!) then you
need to correctly install the latest drivers for your video card.
How?
Well, FIRST, go to the web page of your video card manufacturer and
download the latest drivers, being sure that they include OPENGL
drivers... they will come in an executable that you will double-click on
to activate. Download the exe file and double-click on it to blow it up
into a folder... REMEMBER WHERE YOU EXTRACT THE FOLDER
TO! CREATE A FOLDER CALLED 'DRIVERS' OR SOMETHING LIKE
THAT AND EXTRACT THE FILES TO THAT FOLDER! PEOPLE
EXTRACT FILES ALL THE TIME AND EXPECT EVERYTHING TO
MAGICALLY WORK OUT LATER DESPITE THE FACT THAT THEY
NEVER NOTICE WHERE THEY ARE EXTRACTING THE FILES,
THUS RUINING ANY CHANCE OF FINDING THEM LATER!
If you think you messed up and want to install the new drivers again,
then go back to the device manager like you did to remove the drivers
(open up the video adapter section again), but this time click "update
driver" or similar, and then when asked by windows to choose a
location, select the folder that you extracted all the drivers into... this
will cause windows to actually use the new drivers that you have
extracted. Getting the latest drivers this way will hopefully get you in
business... getting the latest driver correctly installed is frequently
needed by X-Plane, and is a common necessity in Microsoft Windows.
PS: If your card does not support OpenGL, then I HIGHLY
recommend any Nvidia GeForce card (www.Nvidia.com).
Now, if your video card manufacturer gives you instructions that are
different than mine, then just follow their instructions.
Now, if you get a bit confused as to exactly what drivers are installed,
and are not sure if you have multiple partial installations, then go here:
http://www.btinternet.com/~bobruck/download.html This program
seems to help you sort those types of issues out pretty well.
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This is almost always HEAT related. I have seen this many times in
the past. When the system is running X-Plane, the video card and
processor get very hot because they are running at 100% utilization.
This causes the temperature to rise inside the case. To eliminate
HEAT as an issue, remove the cover and aim a fan into the case. Run
X-Plane for a while and see if the problem goes away. If it does, then
you need to add some additional cooling. (NOTE: THIS IS
ASSUMING YOU HAVE ENOUGH RAM! RUNNING OUT OF RAM
WILL CAUSE CRASHES AS WELL! YOU SHOULD HAVE 1 GIG OR
BETTER FOR CURRENT VERSIONS OF X-PLANE! THIS ALSO
ASSUMES YOU ARE NOT OVER-CLOCKING YOUR CPU!)
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I GET AN ERROR: "MISSING DSOUD.DLL"
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AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL SPEECH DOES NOT WORK ON
WINDOWS!
If you do that and you still get no audio ATC in X-Plane, then I think
this may be a compatibility problem between multiple technologies.
We have been working extensively with Microsoft on this. We have
determined that X-Plane is NOT the culprit. The problem is that the
sound card cannot play a WAV file (sound effect) at the SAME TIME
that it is playing SPEECH. We tested this by compiling X-Plane with
the sound effects disabled and the speech started working. Also, this
problem seems to be isolated to people running some SoundBlaster
and Turtle Beach sound cards AND Windows 98. Mostly the
SoundBlaster PCI128, 64 and Turtle Beach Montego. These same
sound cards SHOULD work fine if the system is upgraded to Windows
ME. After upgrading to ME, you will HAVE to "tell" the OS to use the
ME driver. Otherwise, it will "carry-over" the old driver when you
upgrade from 98 to ME. We are still working with Microsoft. Hopefully
with our help they can fix the problem with the speech with Windows
98 and some sound cards and get an updated version of the Speech 5
out there to download.
If you still don't believe me, start a WAV file playing and have it loop
over and over. Now, WHILE THIS IS PLAYING, try to play some
speech using the Dictation Pad that comes with SDK5. I bet you get
no speech! As soon as you STOP the WAV file, I bet speech starts
working.
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This can happen on Macs that support high sample rates (higher than
48000 Hz):
• iMac G5
• Mac mini (all models)
• Power Mac G5 models that support sample rates higher
than 48000 Hz
• PowerBook G4 support sample rates higher than 48000 Hz
• MacBook
• MacBook Pro
• iMac (Early 2006) and later
• Mac Pro
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Well, of course many people today run 500 MHz Pentiums with 128
meg of RAM and 8 meg of VRAM, while others run dual-processor
3,000 MHz machines with 256 meg of VRAM and a GIG of RAM... and
there is MORE than a 6x difference between them in speed, since the
RAM speed, motherboard speed, video card speed, and many other
things cause performance differences in the computer.
Now, here is what so many people seem to NOT know, even though it
is fundamental to understanding computer performance:
One limit is how much RAM you have. The other limit is how much
CPU-speed you have.
Conversely, if you have all the RAM in the world and are running at a
low-texture-res and low-screen-res then you will not have any RAM
problems. But, if your computer CPU is slow, or your video card speed
is low, then you will of course get low performance.
So, given whatever machine YOU have, how can you get the most
from X-Plane?
What are you seeing on YOUR computer? Not high enough? OK, let’s
see how to make it faster!
Set the visibility to about 5 miles or so. Higher visibility takes MORE
CPU to run, because you see more stuff!
OK, close that screen and check your frame-rate now. Better?
NOTE! You can in some cases use MORE VRAM than you have, and
X-Plane will still run fast, because a lot of the RAM can be "cached
away" in the system with no speed penalty if it is not often accessed
by the computer... like if it is the texture of desert sand, for example,
but no desert sand is visible to you because you are not flying over the
desert. But, if you have only 64 meg of VRAM on your vide card, but
the texture res is set such that you need 128 meg of VRM, then the
computer will constantly be moving RAM on and off the video card
(between the video card RAM and the system RAM) to draw each
frame of scenery... THIS IS VERY, VERY SLOW. Thus, you must set
the texture res LOW ENOUGH TO AVOID THIS.
NOTE: Just put the texture res on its lowest setting, exit the sim, re-
start it, and note the frame-rate … then raise the texture detail up one
level and repeat ... keep doing this until the frame-rate decreases ...
this is the point where you are using up all your VRAM! Back the
texture res off to one level lower than that and restart to fly.
Now look at the screen res in the rendering options screen... it uses
up some VRAM, but not much. It uses up some video card CPU, but
not too much. Set the res as you see fit... probably 1024x768 on a
marginally-powerful computer.
The other settings in this window don't really affect speed too much.
So there you have it. Follow all the instructions above and you can get
good frame-rate with X-Plane, even on a slower, older computer.. as
long as you have proper OpenGL drivers installed on it! See the web
page of your video card manufacturer for instructions on that.
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The "memory bus width" of a graphics card (a number that will be 64,
128 or 256) indicates how many bits of data it reads at once each time
it reads data. Basically the wider this is, the faster the graphics card
can draw things. Today's most powerful high end cards have 256;
most medium cards are 128, and a few cheap-o cards are 64. In
particular, the x300 is 64 bit, but the x300 SE is 32 bit! "SE" on ATI
hardware means "special edition" but really it means "something else .
. . this is the cheapest of the low-end.
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Optimally, you would have 256 Meg of VRAM or more, 1 gig of RAM
or more, 3 GHz or more, and at least one dual-core Intel.. the second
core is useful because X-Plane will use that second core to load
scenery as you fly, thus reducing (somewhat) the pause to load more
scenery as you fly into new areas.
You do NOT want hyper-threaded chips. Why? Because they are only
ONE chip PRETENDING to be TWO... It simply does not work nearly
as well as actually having two chips, or having a dual-core chip. Do
NOT get a hyper-threaded chip just because the name SOUNDS fast:
It is marketing BS. Get the real thing: Dual chips or a Dual-Core chip.
This lets one chip run X-Plane full-speed, while the other loads
scenery in the background and messes with miscellaneous system
tasks.
Now about video card RAM: Cheap video cards don't have enough
video RAM, so they grab RAM from system memory instead. This is
called "TurboCache" by nVidia and "HyperMemory" by ATI (or do I
have that backward? doesn't matter). Those are the BS "gamers’"
names the company came up with to fool people into buying a cheap
card with a stupid name that SOUNDS fancy. The bottom line is the
scam works like this:
Here is why:
This works fine if the frame rate is reasonably high, and the
accelerations are reasonably low.
In fact, for any reasonably normal aircraft that has reasonably normal
accelerations, a typical frame rate of 20 fps or more is just fine.
The problem happens when you have very light aircraft with very large
wings going very fast, or sitting on the ground with landing gear
spread very far out from the center of gravity.
Big wings give HIGH ACCELERATIONS because they put out lots of
force.
SURE!
Why?
Because, for the flight model to work, there can only be a certain
amount of velocity changes per frame of the simulation.
And if the accelerations are high, then the frame-rate better also be
high to have a reasonable velocity change (i.e., acceleration) per
frame!
HECK NO!
Well, we have found that a simple 20 frames per second works just
fine for most any plane flying.
So, in your case, if you are getting this "computational flutter," you will
need to turn down the rendering options and visibility, or get a faster
machine.
Close that window and you will see the frame rate in the upper-left of
the screen.
First of all, for the aircraft itself, there is only ONE answer: The X-
Plane .acf file, as saved by Plane-Maker, which comes with X-Plane.
X-Plane actually looks at this file to determine flight physics, mass
properties, engine power and limits.. the WORKS.
As such, it is highly customized to X-Plane and could NEVER be any
sort of "general-case" format.
As such, you can only use Plane-Maker, and NOTHING BUT Plane-
Maker, to make the aircraft.
See the "Example Aircraft" in the "Instructions" folder for a very simple
example.
Well, you need to save an object in the X-Plane OBJ format (NOT
THE SAME AS THE ALIAS OBJ FORMAT!)
Read on!
Or, you can use these editors, converting via AC3D (since ac3d
imports/exports a lot, it can be used as a converter, as well as an
editor) using our export plugin
PLEASE NOTE: all of these exports are limited by file format issues...
- 3DS doesn't feature lines, just meshes.
- DXF/autocad has no texturing info.
- Lightwave's texturing model doesn't correspond to ours well.
- VRML conversion between programs doesn't usually work well.
- I haven't tried any of the ac3d exports except for the first 3 .... that's
just from the list of export formats in the program.
Bottom line is: there are a LOT of ways to get into x-plane OBJs from
just about any 3d editor you can imagine...if it isn't on this list, and the
3-d editor is decent, it can probably export one of these formats like
3ds, (alias waverfront) obj, or something.
For pure "meshes" made with one texture, no tricks, 3DS seems to be
the most reliable conversion format for simple work.
This preamble is written by all the apps. Among other things, it gives you the
exact app name and the date it was built, so you can be SURE the user is using
the same build you are.
Mac OS X 10.4.8
CPU type: 1765095478 (Pentium) CPU speed (mhz): 2160Bus speed (mhz): 664RAM
(MB): 2048
CPU count = 2
AGL_RGBA :1
AGL_DOUBLEBUFFER :1
AGL_RED_SIZE :8
AGL_GREEN_SIZE :8
AGL_BLUE_SIZE :8
AGL_ALPHA_SIZE :8
AGL_DEPTH_SIZE :32
Mac specific - this tells us their screen resolution - 32-bit color. This is usually
not important.
OpenGL Situation :
OpenGL Vendor :ATI Technologies Inc.
OpenGL Render :ATI Radeon X1600 OpenGL Engine
OpenGL Version :2.0 ATI-1.4.40
This is the most important stuff: the OpenGL vendor, renderer, and version. The
renderer will give you a hint about what card they have, but doesn't tell you
The OpenGL version is not quite the same as the driver version, but old drivers
have old OpenGL versions, so from this we can tell if they have old drivers.
This huge list is all the "opengl tricks" the card supports - Austin and I print this
so that we can see what the card does for debugging - you guys won't need this.
Also, if we detect a card with a bug, you may see some warning messages like
"not using XXX for Intel graphics card" or something.
Austin noting to himself the next "slot" for internationalized strings - ignore it!
Warning from the keyboard shortcuts file -- on this machine, I have a key bound
to an unknown command and two mappings for shift-ctrl-T. Ooops!
Mac and Linux: sound info...usually this can be ignored! We don't seem to have a
lot of sound bugs on Mac, and on Linux if sound drivers are bad, the sim won't
launch.
This means that old OS 9 plugin can't load. This happens on any Intel Mac, which
can't support Mac OS-9 style plugins.
Plugin discovery - each plugin is loaded...if it fails, the error message is here. If it
does load, plugins may insert their own message and warnings . From this
section you can figure out (1) what plugins the user has and (2) are they working?
For example in this case, PluginAdminLin.xpl didn't launch - it's not a real Mac
plugin. (That's because it's for Linux)
If a user has problems and a lot of plugins, ask them to try again without the
plugins...perhaps it's not our bug!
Scenery package list! This is all of the scenery we found, first ones listed are
highest priority. if a user has a crash and custom scenery, ask them to remove it.
BUT if the custom scenery causes the crash AND the custom scenery USED to
work, please make sure to get a bug report to ME!!!!!!!!!!
WARNING: Runway must have a 3-letter name, but we have Zx at College Park
WARNING: Runway has a bad number string Zx at College Park
We found a duplicate runway 36/18 vs. 18/36 at airport 30F
We found a duplicate runway 36/18 vs. 18/36 at airport 30F
WARNING: Runway has a bad suffix 05u at Lelystad
Warnings about apt.dat file...with 20,000 entries there are still some screwed up
ones. :-( Robin tries to fix these things.
Whenever we load scenery, some logging info goes out. In this way we can see
what scenery they were last viewing and where they were flying.
If they exit the sim, this message is printed at the log. If you don't see this, it
means one of two things: