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  • Review: X-Plane 11

    I recently came across the opportunity to make my first decision toward my sport aviation journey. I had about $100 to spend, so I had a choice: I could book a discovery flight at my local airport, or I could get a flight simulator and a joystick. One experience would be real and over in an hour, the other would simulate reality, but I could play forever!

    Why Not FSX?

    If I were making this choice in late 2006, I’d probably go with Microsoft Flight Simulator X, just because they have dominated the flight simulator market for so long. Microsoft hasn’t updated their flight sim in several years, and I chose between FSX (released in 2006) and X-Plane 11 (released in 2017).

    First Impressions

    “Woah, that’s a massive download.” was my earliest impression. The core game and the included free DLC is pushing 60GB! Once I downloaded and launched, X-Plane 11 greeted with a basic, no-nonsense menu with a handful of options. I started my first flight, and promptly crashed. My joystick wasn’t working properly.

    X-Plane Flight Configuration Screen

    Joystick Configuration

    It was unfortunate that my joystick didn’t load into a default configuration for X-plane, considering its popularity. Overall, not a huge deal. I would have been configuring my joystick anyway, but it’s more likely I would have done it later if I wasn’t satisfied with the default. As a total non-pilot civilian, I was (and still am) struggling with what specifically all the hundreds of commands are, and which ones I should map where. Despite being unclear on the commands, mapping the buttons is very straightforward.

    Graphics

    Woah. These are some of the cleanest graphics I’ve seen in a game. Runs well enough on my old GTX 970. It hangs up every now and again, but it’s barely worth mentioning. Only a 1 second hang every 30 minutes or so. X-Plane 11 is extremely stable running on Windows 10. I’ve not had a single crash (knock on wood).

    This screengrab doesn’t even do it justice.

    Simulation (Gameplay?)

    Like I mentioned earlier, I’m not yet a pilot, so I can’t yet speak to the realism of the flight dynamics. However, the fact that X-Plane 11 comes with an airfoil maker leads me to believe the dynamics are pretty darn accurate. The airfoil maker allows users to design and test their own custom wing shapes, which is perfect for those interested in designing and building their own planes from scratch, plans, or kits!

    X-Plane 11 also comes with a plane maker application that allows users to create and test their own full aircraft from scratch. You can create your design in plane maker, or even import your own .obj 3D files.

    My only minor complaint is the radio communication within the sim. The speech isn’t the most realistic and comes off feeling very robotic, but it is great to help me get a better idea of how aviation radio communication is supposed to work.

    Weather System

    Okay, this thing is awesome. You can program every possible weather scenario at virtually any airport in the world. There are options to set custom cloud cover and wind conditions ever 10,000 feet. Perfect for practicing the most difficult crosswind landings.

    Custom Weather Options Page

    My personal favorite option is downloading live weather conditions at the location where you’ll be taking off. That way it keeps things interesting while also providing the most realistic flying conditions.

    Time of day and live weather conditions matched to the real world

    Community

    Despite this game being nearly 2 years old, it doesn’t feel old at all. I think the biggest reason being the community behind this software. I feel bad calling it a game! And after buying the simulator, X-Plane even offers users the opportunity to upgrade their license for professional use.

    The base game comes with 11 default aircraft, which is plenty in my opinion, to learn the basic mechanics of flight. However, there is a massive community on xplane.org who generously provide a vast library of new content. There you can download new planes, airports, and even plugins. (Hopefully there will soon be a plugin that will improve radio communication!) All-in-all, X-Plane 11 has proven to be an excellent simulator and doesn’t seem to be going anywhere anytime soon.

    Full disclosure: at the time of this writing, I’ve logged 19 hours on X-Plane 11. I have every intention to keep flying and customizing for the many years that it will take me to make a fortune, get my pilot’s license, and rent a plane on a regular basis. But until then… X-Plane 11 is awesome.

    matt

    January 15, 2019
    Aviation, General Computing, Lifestyle
    aviation, flight simulator, flying, games, gaming, simulator, sport aviation, x-plane, x-plane 11

  • Sport Aviation: New Year, New Goal

    Something I’ve always had an interest in, but always have never hand anything close to the amount of cash required to pursue, is sport aviation. But you’ve only got one life, right? Might as well start toward those bucket list items sooner rather than later!

    Is This Random?

    Well, not really. My parents’ first date was in a little single-engine Cessna flying over Six Flags theme park near Atlanta, GA. My dad held his private pilot’s license for a few years until I came along. Eventually, it became too expensive to keep paying the hangar fees, annuals, operating expenses, maintenance, etc. However, despite expenses and life events, you could say sport aviation is in my blood.

    So What’s The Plan?

    As much as I’d love to have a small mountain of fun money just chilling in a mattress someplace, I have a very small budget to pursue this dream. I enjoy attending the Sun N Fun airshow. I’ve been two out of the past three years. Every time I’ve been, there has been a strong showing of home-built aircraft. Some of them are more affordable than I was imagining. There are several models that are around the same price as a new Nissan Maxima!

    Baby Steps

    So I’ll definitely need an action plan to get this sport aviation dream off the ground (pun intended). First, I’ll need a pilot’s licence. I’m still debating on whether or not owning an aircraft is everything it’s cracked up to be. There’s just something daunting about being locked into a single make/model of aircraft, and being completely responsible for insurance, maintenance, and operating expenses. I’ll be sharing my thoughts as this idea evolves.

    I worked some extra side jobs this past Christmas and got about $100 USD to start this little journey (I wasn’t kidding when I said I had a very small budget to pursue this dream). I could do what I could to find a local airport that was selling discovery flights for that cheap (most discovery flights are in the $130-$150 range) and get about an hour of hands-on experience.

    Or, I could take that money and get a joystick and flight simulator set up on my home computer. I went with the latter. While it doesn’t provide the sensation of real flight, it gives me a heck of a lot more time to learn when compared to a one hour discovery flight. At least when I start looking for that first discovery flight, I’ll have logged several hours in the simulator and won’t be completely lost in the cockpit of a Cessna 172.

    Anyway, that’s it! This is definitely a long term goal an I’m not expecting to be anywhere close to achieving this one for another 5-10 years or so. Regardless, I’ll be posting more about this journey as the months roll on, and sharing all my discoveries along the way. Happy new year, and learn something new!

    matt

    January 1, 2019
    Aviation
    aircraft, discovery flight, flight school, goals, homebuilt, kit plane, sport aviation

Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. 1 Thess 5:21