X-Plane - An Obsession For Realism

caseih writes "Popular Science is running an article on Austin Meyer, the creator of the popular X-Plane flight simulator. Although not an open source project, X-Plane has a devoted community of flight enthusiasts and developers who are striving to make it the most realistic flight simulator ever. In fact, flight characteristics are calculated in real time from aircraft design data, not static tables like MS Flight Simulator. PopSci has a neat picture showing X-Plane calculating the lift-drag vectors in real-time across an aircraft. Meyer's quest for realism in his simulations dominates the development and use of X-Plane."

Obsession is simple.

[cyt0plas]

As any animal becomes used to something, it inevitably ecomes less affected by it. By providing people with simulations closer imitating reality, you raise expectation for future simulations.

I'm just waiting for the cybernetic implants which allow simulations indistinguishable from reality. They already have brain cells growing on silicon (not made out of), it will just probably take a while for science to catch up with years and years of evolution.

Re:Obsession is simple.

[marko123]

I'm just waiting for the cybernetic implants which allow simulations indistinguishable from reality

Not sure how to break this to you buddy, but you're already in one. For extra realism, the cybernetic implants' simulations seamlessly texture map flesh colours over their shiny metal.

You want proof? I'll give you proof. Half the shit you read in the newspapers could not possibly be happening. Democratic nations giving up their own freedoms to fight tyranny. It's a joke! You know programmers' quirky senses of humour? There's your proof. If only I can find the "Off" switch....

(quick note to you grammar nazis ha-ha fuck you! find the wrong use of an apostrophe in this!)

Reality is not.

[BiggerIsBetter]

I think the answer is electromagnetics with some chemical helpers to let you ingore the real world. If there's a way of targeting a small electromagnetic pulse at a neuronal level (eg external to the body, and in 3D), that might work and would be far less invasive than implants. It would of course involve different targets for everyone and be a bitch to train for each person.

On a completely unrelated AI topic, if someone successfully modelled the human brain in software, then downloaded a map of an existin

Wrong Section: X-Plane is not a game

[RalphBNumbers]

Alot of other flight sims are games, X-Plane is not. This is a serious piece of software used by alot of professionals to model and simulate prospective aerospace designs. I can't count the times it has been emphasized to me that this is not a game. ...that said, it's damn fun sometimes.

Re:Wrong Section: X-Plane is not a game

[dougmc]

Alot of other flight sims are games, X-Plane is not.

Game vs. Simulator. The line is very vague.

You may not have noticed this, but X-Plane is sold as a game. It's in the game section. When you ask for a list of games, there it is. People may use it as a serious training aid, but for every person who does that, there's probably several who use it as a `game'.

You say potatoe, I say potato ...

Re:Wrong Section: X-Plane is not a game

[BWJones]

Your point is especially clear when you consider some of the features that have gone into this simulator. Take for instance, the ability to feed out a signal via networking to another computer to render other views.

Re:Wrong Section: X-Plane is not a game

[myc_lykaon]

This is a serious piece of software used by alot of professionals to model and simulate prospective aerospace designs

If this is remotely true I am very worried about the next flight I take. I did my PhD in use of CFD (for liquid flows rather than gas flows but the basics apply) and for simple flow over a sphere to simulate one timestep of 0.5 milliseconds required 15 minutes on a 500MHz dual processor machine using software used in the aeronautics industry.

This is of the order of a million times slower t

Re:Wrong Section: X-Plane is not a game

[mumblestheclown]

Hmm, using that "game" MSFS, my instrument students get good at flying approaches. I give them homework in it of flying certain approaches and they show up at the next lesson better prepared.

stop with your "sim vs game" crap. it's childish and narrow.

- singleengine / multiengine / regular flight instructor, airline transport pilot.

Terrorist Flight Simulators? Nope.

[sssmashy]

I can already imagine all the "great, now terrorists won't even have to go to flight school!" comments.

My advice: forget about it. If we want to prevent a repeat of 9/11, the solution is common sense initiatives such as locked cockpit doors and military quick response procedures... NOT by restricting basic technical information.

Re:Terrorist Flight Simulators? Nope.

[zooblethorpe]

Okay, OT, but what about simply not pissing of 1/3 of the planet?

--------
If I can own an idea, does that mean I can legally claim some portion of your soul once I tell you that idea? Or even if you just come up with it on your own? Heck, who needs contracts written in blood...

Re:Terrorist Flight Simulators? Nope.

[afidel]

They won't use a plane next time. They have eliminated hijacking as a viable method of terrorism. In the past people on a hijacked plane would wait passivly because that's what was expected of them "no one move and no one gets hurt", which was generally true, the terrorists got to broadcast their message and then were arrested, people were rarely harmed, and if they were it was generally during an attempt to board the plane by anti-terror police/military units, not in the air. Now people must assume that not only will THEY die, but many others on the ground, potentially including their friends and families will die, so every person on the plane will do what they must to stop the terrorists, even fear of death from guns and knives won't stop them. In a crowded space a couple hundred people who have nothing to lose will beat out just about any realistic number of terrorists.

Re:Terrorist Flight Simulators? Nope.

[Dolly_Llama]

This is true of passenger planes, but an equally fuel-laden cargo plane is just as deadly a weapon, and there is only the small crew to overcome.

Oh my, yes

[Jeremy Erwin]

Every so often, salon publishes an article that can only be described as "slashdot bait." Mildly interesting-- but tarted up to the point where they're practically begging to get a slashdotting, and all the ad revenue that presumably comes with such a distributed denial of service.
The basic theme of that salon article was that a skyjacker of today would have an easier time learnng the ins and outs of a modern jet instrument panel with a computer program then he would four or five years ago. Apparently, earlier flight simulators took certain liberties with instrument layout. Additionally, many of the modern simulators also simulate the flight management sytems fairly well, so if a terrorist wanted to automate portions of his flight plan, he would be more prepared to do so.
It's slightly more sophisticated than the "Doom trains students to kill" articles of a few years ago, but not by much. (And I say this as a loyal subscriber of Salon.) It might well get debunked by salon's "Ask the Pilot" column.

In contrast, Salon.com's "Air Osama" article

[IvyMike]

I love X-Plane, precisely for the reasons posted: it's very cool that the simulation strives to be as accurate as possible, and gets better with each release. On the other hand, at least one journalist disagrees...

Yesterday, Salon had a ridiculous article [salon.com](might be restricted to subscribers only, sorry) that claims that modern consumer flight simulators are too realistic, and implies that they should be banned or restricted somehow. And of course, as the headline promises, the article does indeed place some of the blame for 9/11 on such flight simlulators!

Bad Salon, bad. What is it with the media hating video games, anyways?

Re:In contrast, Salon.com's "Air Osama" article

[torpor]

The media hate videogames because both videogames and media are competing for your attention.

If you're playing videogames, you're not watching TV.

In related news...

[Phekko]

A motion has been filed to ban "The Sims" because it is "too realistic and offers insight on human life and behavior that can be misused in various different ways"

Re:In contrast, Salon.com's "Air Osama" article

[Julian Morrison]

It's easier on the short-of-brains to refight the last war. Anyone sensible knows the "hijack and crash" trick won't work twice. It was dependent upon a preference for negotiation, which no longer exists.

Oh, and they fail to grasp: flight sim experience might as easily save a plane, as doom it. What if some nutter shoots the flight crew? A flight trained passenger could save everybody's necks.

Re:In contrast, Salon.com's "Air Osama" article

[Vitus Wagner]

A flight trained passenger could save everybody's necks.


This was known for decades. Arthur Hailey (if I properly spell his name) wrote his novel "Runway 0-8" in fifties.

About this exact situation - airplane crew is poisoned with their breakfast got from new (and untruthworthy) supplier, and passenger with some flight experience from WWII saves everyone onboard.

Why don't Americans read their own literature and
need Russian to remind them?

Re:In contrast, Salon.com's "Air Osama" article

[gl4ss]

reading books isn't hip anymore i guess, which is a shame.

anyways.. totally off topic and all, nowadays it's quite common (i suspect that aeroflot doesn't do this though, no offense) that the flight crew eats food thats made in 2 different kitchens so that there is very slim chance that all of them get food poisoned.

Re:In contrast, Salon.com's "Air Osama" article

[nathanh]

Why don't Americans read their own literature and need Russian to remind them?

Well, that one's easy. Most Americans don't read anything except the TV guide.

Re:In contrast, Salon.com's "Air Osama" article

[rtaylor]

Why don't Americans read their own literature and
need Russian to remind them?

Russians have longer attention spans than Amer... That dog has a puffy tail! Hee hee hee hee! Here puff! Here puff!

Re:In contrast, Salon.com's "Air Osama" article

[Laur]

About this exact situation - airplane crew is poisoned with their breakfast got from new (and untruthworthy) supplier, and passenger with some flight experience from WWII saves everyone onboard.

Hey, I saw Aiplane too! That movie's hilarious!

"Surely you can't be serious."

"I am serious, and don't call me Shirley."

Re:In contrast, Salon.com's "Air Osama" article

[dcw3]

>Oh, and they fail to grasp: flight sim experience might as easily save a plane, as doom it. What if some nutter shoots the flight crew? A flight trained passenger could save everybody's necks.

Oh PLEASE!!! You have NO idea. I'm an instrument rated private pilot, and there is simply no way you're going to land that 747 with just some X-Plane experience. It would be a high pucker factor even for someone like me. You just can't get the seat of the pants experience with X-Plane, and yes I have used it..

Agree wholeheartedly

[CrystalFalcon]

I own a motorcycle. A fast motorcycle (a Suzuki Hayabusa).

Anybody telling me that piloting a fast sports bike in whatever simulation comes anywhere near the real thing with wind, rush and G-forces tickling your fear and adrenaline buttons as you push the bike to the tarmac in sharp curves at 300 km/h (175 mph) have probably never been on two wheels, just in their little safe steel cage on four.

Saying that it's even close to the same thing to be on one of those arcade-style simulators, even one where you l

Re:In contrast, Salon.com's "Air Osama" article

[Julian Morrison]

The negotiation I was referring to, was the old hostages-in-a-plane doctrine of "talk calmly and persuade the bad guys to land and give themselves up".

The post-911 equivalent is "hit them with a SAM".

Re:In contrast, Salon.com's "Air Osama" article

[silverhalide]

Well, there IS some truth to all that hoopla. I know a distrubutor of arcade machines, and heard from a salesmen that a middle eastern man was buying up all the available machines of Sega's Airline Pilots, an uber-realistic arcade machine for flying jumbo jets. In some months after, they realized what was up and reported the guy to the FBI, but by then it was too late (not sure if that part happened after 9/11 or not.) Still, goes to show, at least the terrorists think the games are realistic enough now.

Re:In contrast, Salon.com's "Air Osama" article

[richie2000]

So, any "middle eastern man" is a terrorist now? Perhaps he was simply a businessman looking to make a quick buck? (Oh no, capitalism! The horror, the horror!)

Re:In contrast, Salon.com's "Air Osama" article

[rat7307]

an uber-realistic arcade machine for flying jumbo jets

Right....., if they come across an airplane with a dinky little red joysick and 3 red punch/kick buttons beside it, then Look Out Everyone!!!!...........

Hopefully they run out of coins before they can do too much damage....

uber-realistic indeed....sheesh..

Re:In contrast, Salon.com's "Air Osama" article

[1u3hr]

Well, there IS some truth to all that hoopla.

No there isn't. This is a classic urban legend "I heard from a guy whose cousin..." etc. You ask the guy's cousin, he actually heard it from a barber. You will never find any actual witness or evidence. There's a million stories like this. See Urban Legends Reference Pages [snopes.com] for a few others.

Re:In contrast, Salon.com's "Air Osama" article

[kannibal_klown]

I hear ya an agree on a level, but...

You're wrong lumping terrorists into the "witch, sorcerer, communist, etc" category. While our fear of the latter was purely unsubstantiated, the fear of terrorists is a little different. People were afraid of "witches" because either they hated that particular person anyway, were trying to gain monetray/political ground, or were just bored. We were "afraid" of communists because their ideology threatened ours and the gov needed a scapegoat (better dead than red).

BU

Re:In contrast, Salon.com's "Air Osama" article

[kannibal_klown]

and when I say the communist ideology threatened ours, I mean schmucks and politicians tried to convince the public it threatened ours. I have nothing against communists.

Flightgear Anyone?

[niko9]

I am not familiar with X plane , but I wonder how it compares to the Flightgear [flightgear.org] project. One of the advantages of that project being open source was extensibilty. The project has all sorts of modding potential.

apt-get install flightgear for all you deb heads.
runs on win32 also

x-p does have issues& flightgear isn't there y

[davids-world.com]

Indeed I believe the fact that X-Plane is not open source, and maintained by mainly one person in lose cooperation with a few graphics people is a major disadvantage.

It's absolutly amazing that Austin could achieve this, but the project is getting at it's limits. Why?

Even the 4th release candidate still has quality issues, or, with a less friendly word: bugs. The user interface is really, really bad. Not only does it use custom widgets, but the widgets do not follow the usual expectations. The dialogs behave strangely (exit buttons), and, for example, if you increase the rendering quality, the system drops you down to the nearest airport, which comes handy if you're flying a 747 and you end up on a helipad.

People also develop flight models and (photo)realistic landscapes (e.g. the Global Scenery Project [uklinux.net] or, e.g., Cormac Shaw's high-detail scenery for Ireland and his Aer Lingus Jets at the Irish Hub [mac.com].) Stuff like that generally works much better, and there is a great variety to choose from!

I also tried to evaluate FlightGear. This project is not anywhere near X-Plane. If I'm not mistaken, they only accurately simulate piston engines (other engines are a weak approximation). Besides, FlightGear doesn't compile if you don't have certain libraries installed, which turned out to be a pain on OS X...

That said, I believe that FlightGear may outperform X-Plane in a couple of years. Until then, I'll stick with X-Plane...

Re:x-p does have issues& flightgear isn't ther

[henley]

I'm a 2-year user of X-Plane, although I confess I've not been following the v7 beta stuff (I've stuck with 6.60 for now). I've logged hundreds of hours on the sim, and tinkered with the other tools available (e.g. I've modified aircraft etc).

X-Plane is a fantastic piece of work for a single person to have to his name. Probably the highest praise I can think to give it, is that it's not only the best at what it tries to do - simulate flight of all kinds - but it's also usable.

Having said all that, usable is about as far as it goes. It's not, and has never set out to be, a polished application with a glitzy UI. The interface for the sim and the tools is good enough and no better. If you need to get out and see what'll happen to an NF-104 at 100K feet when the control surfaces fail on you, then X-Plane is for you. But be prepared to adapt to it's interface, rather than have it teach you.

I've been looking at FlightGear recently too. And about all I can say about this right now is that it's clearly got promise, it looks good, but there's a looonnggg way to go. At least X-Plane lets me choose aircraft from a file selector dialog; I have to shut down FlightGear and use a different command line switch to load a new aircraft. It's clearly still very much for the Geeks for now, wheras I know there are professional pilots using X-plane.

Re:x-p does have issues& flightgear isn't ther

[mnemonic_]

FlightGear is designed to simulate more than just piston aircraft "accurately", though accuracy is infinitely arguable. FlightGear supports multiple types of aerodynamics models, including LaRCsim (developed at the NASA Langley Research Center), JSBSim [sourceforge.net], and YASim, the latter of which simulates performance based on aircraft 3d geometry, much like X-Plane's flight model.

A flight model developed by UIUC is also supported which is capable of modeling nonlinear aerodynamics.

Re:Flightgear Anyone?

[pldms]

flightgear runs under linux.

Flightgear runs under Linux, Windows, OS X, IRIX and Solaris [flightgear.org]. BTW, there is a binary of 0.92 for OS X - follow the link [mac.com] to the master location for OS X.

Phew!

[bitfoam]

"Popular Science is running an article on Austin Meyer, the creator of the popular X-Plane flight simulator."

For a moment there, I thought this was a story on Mike Meyers and his next Austin Powers movie, featuring a futuristic X-Plane thingy that spoofs Moonraker.

I'm honestly not sure whether to be disappointed or not...

Best Quote

[pnatural]

At the end of page one:

"I have a moral duty to make it fly as realistically as I can."

Now consider: if every programmer was able and willing to make a similar statement about their code, what would our software "ecosystem" (as MS likes to phrase it) look like?

Re:Best Quote

[madmarcel]

Most programmers already do:

"This is going to be the best damn game EVER!"
"This is going to be the best damn spreadsheat EVER!"

But then management and accounting step in and things get all messy :o

can I make my own plane?

[Jotham]

very cool but can I make my own plane and then play with the wingfoil design (and see how quickly I crash)?

Anyone know the format or what is used to create the 'aircraft design data' that gets processed real-time? I'm assuming it requires a high-res model of the plane and a fancy windtunnel simulator.

Re:can I make my own plane?

[Baumi]

There's a bunch of user-built aircrafts [x-plane.org] available. X-Plane comes with an aircraft modelling program.

I'm not an X-Plane user myself, so I don't know how difficult it is to build a model that actually flies. If the physics are really realistic, that'd be quite a challenge. The plane building program will probably lend you a hand, though...

Baumi

Re:can I make my own plane?

[BiggerIsBetter]

Plane building program, you say...

How about a genetic-algorithm aircraft designer? Take the X-Plane sim with some pre-defined flightpaths, and let a "plane building program" iterate over a few thousand generations until it optimises the airframe design? Eg, feed designs into X-Plane and see which design flies the course the fastest, carries the heaviest loads, etc, etc. Whoa. That would take some cunning coding, but the results could be, um, useful.

/drunk

Re:can I make my own plane?

[Jotham]

ooh, very nice - thanks for the heads up

"If the physics are really realistic, that'd be quite a challenge.'

*nods* well I may need to remove a few design constraints to start with... 'Your design has a 100foot wingspan and can go mach4?!?' *nods confidently* 'and only weights 1 kg!' -- I'd call that a 90% finished product as it only has 1 outstanding bug - now if I can just get some venture capital.

Re:can I make my own plane?

[1u3hr]

I don't know how difficult it is to build a model that actually flies. If the physics are really realistic

Aside from many based on real aircraft (including dirigibles, space shuttles, etc) ther are some wacky ones at X-plane.org. Such as a TARDIS [x-plane.org] the teleports, and a Steinway Model D Concert Grand Piano [x-plane.org] that "glides" (down, very quickly).

Re:can I make my own plane?

[burns210]

"very cool but can I make my own plane and then play with the wingfoil design (and see how quickly I crash)?"

Yes, yes you can. The tools included let you create your own plane, then test it in the airport of your choice... and if you don't like the airports given, you can design(or redsign) your own.

The x-plane site has a fairly large collection of user made designs including ships, boats cars and some crazy looking planes:)

Re:can I make my own plane?

[BitZtream]

Actaully, all aircraft for x-plane are made with 'Plane-Maker' which is included with it, as well as World Maker, Airfoil Maker.

These do require a LOT of work to make them fly properly, you have to design the shape of the aircraft in just about every aspect, assign weights, engines and power, everything is modeled, not based on a precomputed statstics table, right down to how the fuel in the tanks will effect weight, balance, and inertia.

This is why several companies such as Carter Copter (http://www.cartercopters.com), Piper Aircraft (http://www.piperaircraft.com/) and others use x-plane for development and testing of aircraft.

Carter Copter trained pilots for its new aircraft in X-Plane before the aircraft ever went airborn. Piper now makes its aircraft available as x-plane models for demoing to potiential customers. Bell uses it to keep its helicopter pilots certified on its experimental aircraft when they can't actually use the real thing. There is also an fragment of an email from Dave Rose (Biplane racing pilot) on the x-plane home page. He modeled his plane in x-plane as close as he could, and the race area, then after lots of practice, went out in the real aircraft and set a new record. Of course, the pilot had the skill to do it, but the simulator obviously had to be pretty realistic.

Mind you, to experience the simulation like these guys do, you need hardware to go with it, but the software is there. They use the same thing you get when you buy X-Plane as a normal home user.

And just a slight MSFS rant... compare x-plane 7 to MSFS2k4. Flight model wise: the wright brothers flier in MSFS2k4 flies almost exactly like the Lear45... just a lot slower. Graphics: MSFS excels here in populated areas where there are photo scenery packages available, and x-plane has none to speak of (with the exception of SoCal which is on www.x-plane.org) Outside those areas, its nothing special. Aircraft panels... well, MSFS doesn't have squat on X-Plane there, I've yet to see one in MSFS that looked 'good'. They both have ATC, both do alright, although neither is that great at simulating large ammounts of other traffic such as you would find at a large airport, however, both do have the ability to connect to VATSIM in order to fly with hundreds of other virtual pilots around the world. There is also somewhere a 'MMORPG' based on x-plane in development, haven't seen it in a long while, but it looked promising, last I saw it you could fly with several aircraft around you, and the ATC was automatic if no one was doing live ATC for that airport, neat stuff... but seems to have disappeared (this is all much like VATSIM of course). Give x-plane some photo realistic scenery and I think its just a superior product all around, definatly from the simulator standpoint, and from the game side as well.

I'm only disappointed I paid for msfs2k4, now I have to go buy x-plane7 (Yes, I shelled out the money for x-plane6). Okay, so now I sound like a x-plane salesman, so I'm just gonna shut up :)

Multi monitor flightsim goodness

[Snake_Plisken]

In relation to FS games, This guy here [chello.nl] has got da bomb setup 9 PCs, 13 monitors, one plane. Since some idiot mod put me to -1 me down as troll for replying to an AC with the subject line of "eat shit and die", I'll try this again and wish a speedy death to the mod in question.

Real time calculations

[martingunnarsson]

I agree that real time calculations of forces and stuff is really cool, but can you really tell a difference from that and pre-calculated data?

Re:Real time calculations

[lokedhs]

Yes you can.

The difference is in the edge-cases and extreme flight regimes. Once you are outside of what the MSFS table data is prepared to handle, MSFS starts to behave just strange. Especially the stall model of table-based sims are pure crap. Add to this the fact that most people that fly flight sims fly on the edge of the flight envelope all the time (because that's where the fun is) you can see the advantage of real-time calulated FM's and the static tables.

X-plane is no doubt the most extreme of

Re:Real time calculations

[burns210]

the untrained user, probably not... to pilots, professionals, and those in the know... yes, you can tell, and that is why it is so highly regarded and FAA approved.

Free as in too much BEER

[elrond1999]

It's hard to imagine Microsoft coming home drunk one night from a party and accidentally uploading its entire source code, as Meyer did a few years back.

It was almost open source :)

Almost as closed source as Miscrosoft

[Johan Veenstra]

"But there are disadvantages to being a one-man show. It's hard to imagine Microsoft coming home drunk one night from a party and accidentally uploading its entire source code, as Meyer did a few years back. "I woke up the next morning and found an e-mail from a friend alerting me to what I'd done. My heart stopped. I had basically given away 12 years of work. I thought my life was over." He was able to remove the files before anyone could spread them around, but to this day he feels like he dodged a bullet. "I don't drink anymore," he says."

First Mars-plane simulation

[doorbot.com]

Those of you who have visited the X-Plane site have no doubt found the article, but here's a quick bit for everyone else...

So what sort of planes can fly on Mars? Not anything from Earth, that's for sure. Not enough lift or thrust. A Cessna or Boeing will just sit there on the ground without even moving. Put them in the air and they drop like beveled bricks with no wings. Both of my Mars-plane concepts are much like the U-2 Spyplane (designed to operate at around 100,000 ft, in simlar density air) one with a HUGE high-bypass jet engine built AROUND THE FUSELAGE, and another with a smaller rocket engine in the tail, like the X-15. The rocket plane has a lower-thrust engine, with plenty of fuel, for about 30 minutes of flight or so... the JET plane can fly for hours!

Article link [x-plane.com] (you'll have to try to ignore the excessive use of ALL CAPS)

I've always thought X-Plane was cool, but after reading this article I was convinced... and that's when I read the article well over a year ago!

Re:First Mars-plane simulation

[dcw3]

>Both of my Mars-plane concepts are much like the U-2 Spyplane (designed to operate at around 100,000 ft, in simlar density air)...

I like the simulator, but since we're into realism here, we should mention that the U-2 does NOT fly within even 4 miles of 100,000 ft...and yes, I do know this for a fact. The NASA version only goes to ~70k.

Oh. My. God.

[marko123]

The screenshots are unbelievable! [x-plane.com] Look at the little people!

This guy's passion is infectious!

[marko123]

The first rants full of CAPS I have read that I didn't notice the CAPS. It just reeks of excitement.

MARS! FRIGGIN MARS! [x-plane.com]

The SPACE SHUTTLE! It's a FRIGGIN GLIDER! [x-plane.com]

To Answer Some Questions:

[peatbakke]

Yes, dynamic modelling is better than static tables. Not only is the performance more in line with reality, but it allows people to design airfoils and aircraft with the included software, and test their performance before any parts are fabricated. No guess work. Real engineering.

It's a hackers dream, because ALL of the flight controls and flight data can be imported/exported over a network. It also has a very sensible plugin system, and the author encourages people to come up with new and cool tools without any licensing restrictions. It might not be open source, but the architecture is very open.

X-Plane is the flight simulator of choice for many companies, including Scaled Composites [scaled.com], the builders of Spaceship One. It's also FAA approved for training towards commercial, transport, and instrument certificates.

Not only is the flight model incredibly accurate, but you also have to deal with differences in traction between tires on a wet runway, damaged windscreens from hail, and more equipment failures than you can shake a stick at.

It's amazingly beautiful with a reasonable graphics card and the latest scenery plugins, and it can use real-time weather information from NOAA.

It's not a toy or a game, even though it may be fun. It's as close to flying as you can get on your PC. I could go on and on, but it's probably better that you head to the web site. :)

http://www.x-plane.com/ [x-plane.com]

Re:To Answer Some Questions:

[Vess V.]

Small note: Scaled only uses the graphics engine from X-Plane... they have their own realtime CFD engine for the flight dynamics.

Even X-plane comes up short... sorry

[Anonymous Coward]

I spent perhaps half my life playing flight simulators of all kinds. I loved it. About 2 years ago I started playing X-plane, investing in the CH sim yoke and everything. I flew Cessnas all the time.

Finally, about a year ago, I decided that 15 years of simulators was quite enough, and I started to take flying lessons in real airplanes. The same aircraft - Cessna 172. I was expecting that with my many years of simulator experience, including 2 years with mega-realistic X-plane, I'd be able to waltz right in and fly the plane as if I was an expert.

Guess what? The plane kicked my ass. Flying it felt *nothing* like the simulator. Although x-plane may accurately simulate how the aircraft moves through the air, the air itself is in motion in very complex ways that aren't simulated. The plane moves around in ways the simulator never prepared me for. I couldn't land for shit until I'd done it in the real plane maybe 100 times, and I didn't get really good at it until about 300 times. I've taken some of my other X-plane addict friends up flying with me and let them take the controls, and they always say "It doesn't feel anything like the simulator".

And, completey separately from the actual aircraft control feeling unrealistic, no simulator I've ever played has done a good job of simulating the stress of a real flight. X-Plane does nothing to prepare you for trying to fly the plane while a controller is continuously talking in your ear to you and the other 10 airplanes in his airspace. X-Plane does not put you in a panic that you just intruded on a class B airspace boundary. X-plane does not wait until you're on short final, then tell you to start a climb, do a 360 and then reestablish yourself on final because a jet just got his IFR release. X-plane does not ask you to keep 3 other targets in the pattern in sight while landing. X-plane does not make you try to listen to the ATIS recorded weather information and controller simultaneously while also trying to fly through clouds on instruments. All of these things happen to me regularly in real planes.
(Admittedly, I do fly in the most complex airspace in the world - the LA basin - so maybe this is an extreme example.)

On the positive side, simulators do an excellent job of giving you an understanding about how navigation works (e.g. how to track VORs, when they're reversed, how to form a mental picture of where you are based on navaid information, etc.)

Re:Even X-plane comes up short... sorry

[blunte]

I couldn't land for shit until I'd done it in the real plane maybe 100 times, and I didn't get really good at it until about 300 times.

That's scary... I was making respectable landings slipping in with 10kt crosswinds by my 6th hour of airtime. That probably amounted to 15 touch and goes.

I wish you weren't AC, I'd like to make sure you're never my pilot :)

Re:Even X-plane comes up short... sorry

[BitZtream]

I'd have to say, please don't fly for anyone :) I was landing a Cessna 152 in my second flight hour, with cross winds. While true, x-plane does NOT simulate the way the air moves the plane around, it does simulate wind gusts, microbursts, thermals and many other aspects of the weather to a reasonable degree. If you use the real weather updates and an app to keep the datafile x-plane uses in sync with the world, I find it pretty accurate. But, thats just my opinion of course :)

Re:Even X-plane comes up short... sorry

[mnemonic_]

This is why the FAA only approves X-Plane for training when used with a motion platform.

WARNING WARNING WARNING!

[swordgeek]

I had a run-in with the X-plane people (Basically Austin and his buddy Mike Brown on sales) over their "guaranteed upgrades for life." In a word, they lied. Furthermore, they continue to lie, and are absolute ASSHOLES about it.

To be specific here, they will always make the latest patch available for the current version. That is, if they're developing X-P 6.x, then the latest 6.x patch is available. However...

1) You cannot get any older patches. This is a problem because several times the current versions has been buggy, unstable, or broken.

2) Once the initial 7.x release is out, you are absolutely SOL on downloading the final 6.x patch. He will NOT provide it under any circumstances, once he's decided to get rid of 'free support for life' on a previous version.

I'm sorry to have to post this. I think that X-P is a really cool program. I'm utterly amazed at how far he's gotten with it. However, his code review (poor), attitude ("fuck you!"), and flat out lying on support all lead to something that I'll never drop money on again.

Pity, really. If he lost his ego, he'd write better software.

You can read more about it here. [google.ca]

One of the Meyer brothers?

[rhiorg]

If we could somehow get Austin Meyer and Sid Meyer to work on it together, we'd have the world's finest airport management simulator ever.

Then if we also enlisted the help of Oscar Meyer, we'd have winged weenies waging war.

Re:Too bad it's proprietary (aka: useless)

[Schlemphfer]

I think it's needlessly confrontational to use phrases like "code hoarder."

I'm sure the author would like nothing better than to give away X-Plane for free. The trouble is that there are some applications that require the bulk of one person's time, for years on end, if they are to be amazing. And, like anybody else, the creator of this work needs to eat.

I think we're certain to see a greater variety of open source freeware apps in the years ahead. But there just aren't enough people out there with serious expertise in both aeronautics and coding, who can pitch in and build an open source X-Plane in their free time.

You want 1001 small apps, from hard drive erasers to science calculators, the open source movement has you covered. You're also covered with the handful of huge apps, that everybody needs, since there are sufficient coders out there to recognize the supreme significance of these apps and donate bits of their time (take Mozilla and OpenOffice.org as two examples.)

But if you want something as niche as a world class flight simulator, sorry, you're probably not gonna get it open source. It's gonna take a huge effort from a tiny group of people, and they need to do it to the exclusion of other things. Like anyone else, they've gotta eat. And to call their code "useless" because it's not open source, that's unfair, mean spirited, and ignorant.

Re:Too bad it's proprietary (aka: useless)

[nelsonal]

The only reason that OpenOffice and Mozilla exist as open source is that big companies bought the source, and released it but continued to pay developers to make it better in an effort to kill Microsoft's power bases. I don't think those sorts of efforts could be duplicated by a team of coders who never get paid.

Re:Too bad it's proprietary (aka: useless)

[nathanh]

The only reason that OpenOffice and Mozilla exist as open source is that big companies bought the source, and released it but continued to pay developers to make it better in an effort to kill Microsoft's power bases. I don't think those sorts of efforts could be duplicated by a team of coders who never get paid.

Konqueror. In many ways, as good as Mozilla, and open source from the start.

Re:Too bad it's proprietary (aka: useless)

[afidel]

Actually Mozilla is from scratch, no bought source here =) While the Mozilla project did start as an overhaul of the Communicator codebase it became apparant in the first year that the code was crap and that a from the ground rewrite was needed (for lords sake Communicator was based on nearly a decade of hacking at the NCSA code to try to keep up with the evolution of HTML from pre-standards to HTML 4). From that point on it has been a fresh start and has involved nearly as much code generated outside of Ne

Re:Too bad it's proprietary (aka: useless)

[follower-fillet]

> But if you want something as niche as a world class flight simulator, sorry, you're probably not gonna get it open source.

"The FlightGear flight simulator project is an open-source, multi-platform, cooperative flight simulator development project. Source code for the entire project is available and licensed under the GNU General Public License.

The goal of the FlightGear project is to create a sophisticated flight simulator framework for use in research or academic environments, for the development an

Re:Too bad it's proprietary (aka: useless)

[fr0dicus]

Unfortunately, flightgear seems to be years behind X-Plane and falling away.

Re:Too bad it's proprietary (aka: useless)

[nagora]

And to call their code "useless" because it's not open source, that's unfair, mean spirited, and ignorant.

But accurate: I can't use it and, given his attitude, I never will be able to. So "useless" pretty well covers it for me.

The odd thing is that this is a very good candidate for open-sourcing without cutting the programmer's throat. Flight simulations (particularly this one from the looks of it) are complex and users really need and want a good manual.

Give away the code; sell the manual! In this case

Re:Too bad it's proprietary (aka: useless)

[Politburo]

Is the reason you can't use it truly because it's not Open Source? If so, you are the one ideologically cutting yourself off from a good piece of software.

If the reason you can't use it is because it's written for Windows, that has nothing to do with Open Source. Don't confuse the two. Open source software exists for Windows, and closed source exists for *nix, but if it's not written for your platform, chances are* you're SOL.

*Yes, programs can be ported.

OT: food. clothing. shelter.

[Saeger]

You said this twice:

1. And, like anybody else, the creator of this work needs to eat.
2. Like anyone else, they've gotta eat.

Every time I hear someone say that I just stop to wonder how much the world will change in only a couple short decades once no one has to worry about slaving away at a dayjob just for the basics of life. When the necessities - and many of the luxuries - are no longer scarce, there will be a LOT less selfishness out there, and open source, in its many forms, will be the norm.

Mol

Re:OT: food. clothing. shelter.

[Saeger]

Heh, man are you in a dream world.

Yeah, pondering the implications of nanotech [foresight.org] for years can do that to you. Of course, it's easier for people like you to be pessimistic and overly cynical about the future because you didn't get the impractical flying car that was promised you for The Year 2000.

--

Re:Too bad it's proprietary (aka: useless)

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep. Here is an example: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/xplane-linux/message /136

On Thursday, November 28, 2002, at 02:16 AM, Petru Paler wrote:
>I have another question -- I'm unclear about your position regarding
>the
>Linux port. First you make it sound like you're doing me a favor by
>letting me do it, then you promise to send an update, then silence.
>It's
>ok with me if you don't want to do it any more, but please say it
>clearly.
i just have lost interest... and i know it will slow me down in the
long run... it does not mak sense for me to put my effort into these
tiny minutiea that offer little market share... if you thik microsoft
is so eveil then buy a mac.. i see no need for linux, and negligeable
market share, and therefore an expenditure of my time that is not
justified, and the riskk in my hadning out source code is too high for
the small gain as well.

Re:Too bad it's proprietary (aka: useless)

[Deusy]

Why do that when there is a perfectly good open source flight simulator available in the guise of FlightGear [flightgear.org]?

If these people contributed that passionately to FlightGear then it would be awesome.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Too bad it's proprietary (aka: useless)

[acrollet]

you know, one gets really tired of this kind of attitude. Did you read the article? This is his life's work, and I think he deserves compensation for it. X-plane (versions 6 and 7) is the only software I've paid for in the last 2 or 3 years, and I was happy to do it, because I'm supporting a real person, and getting a (albeit quirky) quality piece of software for it. I'm certainly a believer in the open source movement, I use it whenever possible, and I've contributed some of my work to the community. Anyway, why don't you put your money where your mouth is and code your own flight sim. (Or quit making inflammatory statements like code hoarder)

Furthermore, and this is important

[BlightThePower]

I'm quite annoyed by the parent argument. I know of more than one aviation lab that has approached Meyer and said "we would like this change or alteration made. how much?" and they have recieved by return of email, absolutely for free, modified versions of the software. He could of made thousands each time. Meyer is thought of very highly in these circles. Its an almost unique attitude towards customers that I find incredibly impressive. Puts a different spin on it huh. You can't argue the guy is some sort

Re:First post with something meaningful to say!

[dougmc]

I would imagine that static tables are much less realistic

Perhaps, if you're doing something `wierd'. But 99% of the time, you're not likely to notice anything `wrong' with MSFS's flight model. And the other 1%, either the difference will be very small, or it's some 3D (stalled wing, but massive amounts of power that make it work anyways) maneuver.

Re:First post with something meaningful to say!

[Anonymous Coward]

A friend of mine who flies ultralights put the details of his recently bought machine into xplane. While it flew sort of well in xplane, it had a few problems in some situations that just seemed to defy logic, and needed a bizarre set of movements (relative to the logic he'd been taught) to get him out of a dangerous situation.

Sure enough, after time flying the real ultralight, he got into very similar situations. The xplane practice paid off and he's still alive today, where if he hadn't he'd at least be

Re:First post with something meaningful to say!

[rcs1000]

That's simply not true: I'm currently studying for my PPL in England, and one of the things you are taught is how to deal with spiral dives and stalls.

Now, no matter what I do in MS Flight Simulator, in whatever plane, have I ever been able to enduce a spiral dive or spin. (Trust me, it's real easy in a plane. That's why they teach you how to recover.)

And the low speed stall, particularly in the Cessna model, is a lot more benign than the real thing.

That said, MSFS is great for learning instrument work.

I do

[blunte]

I played it alongside FS2002, if I remember correctly, about 18 months ago.

It was not too bad, but it had some serious physics problems. There was a lot of incorrect behavior at extremes. It may have been technically more realistic in terms of calculation, but it was also incorrect in enough cases to make it not fun for me.

FS behaved more consistently, and close enough to correct to make it superior, in my opinion.

I'd love to give some detail about the problems I encountered, but I really don't remembe

Flight Unlimited

[danielpavel]

Now thinking back, the best flight sim I recall playing was the one by the guys who made System Shock. It was an aerobatics focused sim, and the physics seemed very accurate.

I believe you are talking about Flight Unlimited... The company was named Looking Glass Studios.

Re:Flight Unlimited

[LinuxGeek]

Yup, I remember that and the sequel, Flight Unlimited II. They actually called it FU2, which I found hilarious.

RIP Looking Glass, System Shock2 was one of the best.

I do too.

[LinuxGeek]

I have been using X-Plane for a few years and I and my pilot friends use it. My only real dissappointment was when Austin canceled the Linux port, but 6.x will run under wine now, haven't tried 7.x betas.

X-Plane is the only FAA training approved [x-plane.com] consumer package available. Read the front page on the web site, people have been using this flight program for a couple of years now to model aircraft behaviour during development.

I think you may be confusing ease of flight or level of fun with realistic physic

problems

[blunte]

Like I said, I forget specific details, but it was something like erratic behavior at certain limits. Perhaps it was rounding problems, or perhaps something else.

For example, and I think this is one of the specific problems I encountered, if you pulled into a vertical, cut power, stalled, and played with the controls, you could cause the plane to spin wildly (pitch) at the center of gravity. The rate at which the aircraft was doing endover spins was impossible, assuming even such a flipping motion would

Re:problems

[LinuxGeek]

I've practiced spins with X-Plane before and what you are describing sounds like a downloaded airplane with really messed up lift and force vectors. If it was a supplied airplane, then a quick email to Austin should have produced a fix in a week or so.

The current versions are accurate enough that Piper has modeled the Arrow [newpiper.com] and made it available for download from their own website. Pretty good endorsment, give it a try again. The 7.x betas are looking very good on windows.

Re:I do too.

[mnemonic_]

X-Plane is only approved by the FAA when combined with a full motion platform. Flying X-Plane on your computer while sitting at your desk is not certifiable as training.

Huh?

[autopr0n]

According to the article, the physics engine is good enough to test new aircraft design, and use for traning. What exactly was so bad about the physics engine?

Re:First post with something meaningful to say!

[IvyMike]

I guess I can't really comment on the accuracy, having not actually flown a plane. Also, on the scale of "Flight sim hardcore rankings", I'm really just a dilettante. (OK, that rarely stops people on the forums, but it's just not my style.) But I can comment on the processing power needed to run the dynamic model, and so can you.

The demo is free [x-plane.com], runs on Windows and OSX, which is Austin's preferred development platform [x-plane.com]. Since it is a demo, it only lets you control the plane for a few minutes, but it wi

x-plane is a lot of fun

[davids-world.com]

i have spend many hours with this simulator. It's hard for me to comment on it's realism, since I have never flown a 737 or an A320 myself. But I trust the flight model is more complex than the one of MS Flightsim, and, after all, you can create "crazy things that fly". That's why companies that actually build aircraft rely on X-Plane before prototyping.

Also X-Plane can be used to log hours towards your Airline Transport Cert -- nice! Of course, you need the 150.000$ motion platform... Still cheaper than a

CFD

[tqft]

"Aren't all the data known in advance?"

Short answer - no.

Medium answer - a lot of pre-computing

Long answer is a course in fluid dynamics.

Re:First post with something meaningful to say!

[zeno_2]

I used to support MS Flight Simulator over the telephone, so ive had to play with it quite a bit. Although I never really had to figure out how the game.. excuse me simulator, calculates flight data (ive had people yell at me on the phone for calling MS Flight Simulator a game.. you know, those people that dont play games and its a "simulator").

Anyway, to the point.

With MS Flight Simulator, when you build a new plane for it, you need to build a file that has all the information about how the plane reacts if it were to fly in the air. (it may be a bit different then this I haven't worked there for a couple years). I made a new plane in GMax, but used a different planes files and pretty much changed the model of the aircraft. When you go fly, it uses this file to figure out how winds, altitude, etc are going to react with the plane.

With X-Plane, when I build a model and fly it within the 'simulator', its going to use the actual model itself to calculate how the plane is going to fly. This seems pretty useful to someone who wants to design planes. They called it a 'virtual wind-tunnel' in the article (I only read the first couple pages).

So, the aircraft design data in MS Flight Simulator isn't based off the model of the plane itself, whereas X-Plane uses the model of the plane to figure out how it flies. I would say that for accuracy sakes, your better off testing and simulating stuff with X-Plane vs. Flight Simulator.

As a side note, Flight Simulator is the biggest pain in the ass to support. I would take a few calls a week from some ex-pilot who doesn't think a certain plane is flying correctly (it should be able to go this speed, or the panel doesn't have the gauges like they are in real-life). I really wish those kinds of people could come to my work and find out what kinds of things I can and cannot do.. If everyones plane flies the same way, I cannot really fix that.. Of course ive also talked to a guy who put a bunch of monitors into an old 737 cockpit for MSFS, and another guy who had 9 monitors hooked up, mainly using them for Flight Simulator. That product has some hardcore fans attached to it... (warning im a bit drunk and i tend to ramble, ill stop now..)

Re:First post with something meaningful to say!

[mnemonic_]

It's important to note though that building a 3d model for X-Plane is not the same as building one for MSFS. In X-Plane, the 3d model's shape is defined by the specifications set using the Plane Maker tool. For example, you type in a value for wingspan, and the wingspan of the model changes. In this way is the 3d shape each aircraft defined.

This is much more difficult (in my opinion) than modeling an aircraft in a 3d graphics package such as Maya or 3ds max, though it is necessary for the way X-Plane calculates flight models.

Re:x-plane closed source

[usotsuki]

Apparently not, if M$ bet the farm on it before creating DirectX...

YFI

-uso.

Re:x-plane closed source

[afidel]

Nope, OpenGL is not covered by the GPL, it is covered by an X style license now and was covered by several commercial licenses from SGI in the past. See This [sgi.com]

Re:Space simulator

[deniable]

You could always try Orbiter. http://www.orbitersim.com [orbitersim.com]

Re:Space simulator

[Erik K. Veland]

X-plane already simulates both Space Shuttles [x-plane.org] and flying experimental planes [x-plane.org] on Mars, as well as other space-going crafts [x-plane.org]. Heck you can even take off into space with a Rocket! [x-plane.org]!

Re:Space simulator

[mnemonic_]

X-Plane, unlike Orbiter, does not simulate any type of orbital flight though.