Review - X-Plane Flight Simulator by Michael Flaminio 4.26.01 X-Plane is the labor of love from author Austin Meyers. It's a general aviation flight simulator with strong roots on the Macintosh platform. X-Plane gained widespread popularity when version 5.0 was released featuring OpenGL 3D technology. The 5.0 version era also saw development for Windows, making it a more mainstream flight simulator. X-Plane's namesake is a reference to the early experimental high-speed aircraft (x-planes) tested at Edwards Air Force Base in the 1960's. A few weeks ago I happened to catch a documentary on these x-planes. It discussed the first series of x-planes tested at Edwards AFB, detailing the development of the X-1 through X-15 designs. Of particular interest was the X-15 planes, which were built into three varying designs, each modified for different types of tests. On October 3, 1967, the second of the three designs made the current (known) speed record of 4,535 miles per hour. This X-15 flew so fast that parts of the plane actually melted clear through. Could such a piece of software live up to the 1960's x-plane tradition? Many fans of the game think so. After watching the documentary, the next time I fired up X-Plane I looked through the built-in planes, and sure enough, the X-15 was sitting there ready to fly. What really got my attention was that not only could I fly the X-15, but I could fly it the way it was intended -- dropped at 45,000 feet from the wing of a B-52. General Aviation X-Plane is not a fighter or bomber simulator game. It is a real-world general aviation flight simulator, obeying all the rules of aviation. You can land or take off from your local airport in a 747, just as you would if you went down and bought a ticket. You can taxi to the same runway, file the same flight plan, tune to the same radios, navigate the same flight path and fly through the same weather. In fact it's so realistic pilots use it to prepare for flights and training. Often the only people who enjoy general aviation games are actual pilots, or at least aviation enthusiasts. This is primarily because a general aviation simulator requires a steep learning curve to really appreciate it. It's not to say combat simulators don't require as much skill, instead general aviation games require specific knowledge to really appreciate their details. While also heavy on details, X-Plane is also fairly easy to use. For the most part all the plane's controls are in front of you. Also, the plane's instrument panel doesn't take up too much monitor space, actually allowing you to look out the window, while still observing all the controls. Realism Graphically speaking, ground textures and scenery is pretty much just adequate. Textures and generic scenery is nothing spectacular, and the city scenery is hardly impressive. For the most part, cockpits are fairly generic, however, this can benefit less experienced users by keeping things simple. The good news with X-Plane is that gamers can fix all of these shortcomings before the developer gets around to it. X-Plane includes tools and utilities for creating and modifying textures, scenery and the planes themselves. Also, there are numerous private libraries out there with add-ons available to download for free. By simply plugging in a few file, you can really change the look of the game. One other lacking area involves damage modeling. The tolerances in X-Plane are pretty liberal. You can make some bone crushing, skidding, crash landings and all is still well. It's only unless you really hit the ground do you "crash," causing X-Plane to restart on the ground. Even hitting object such as towers and smoke stacks do nothing to your plane. It would be nice to see realistic damage to planes, such damage to landing gear if you hit the runway too hard. While X-Plane doesn't model inflicted damage well, it does offer general damage. There are many parts to an airplane and many things can go wrong. In X-Plane this is no exception. Aircraft failures can be controlled in X-Plane to either hardly ever happen, to the more realistic, occasionally happen, to the virtual flying junk heap. Just when you think you have X-Plane down, a jammed front nose gear or malfunctioning elevator can really ruin your day. X-Plane's strengths, however, are in the details. Things like Airports, navigation stations, weather modeling, and flight dynamics are pretty much dead on. Pilots can perfectly navigate around in X-Plane using radios or GPS to make approaches and landings just as they would in the real world. Even actual aviation maps match exactly what is in X-Plane. The weather modeling is X-Plane is one of my favorite features. You can find big puffy clouds, lightening in thunder storms and hear spattering of rain hitting the plane. X-Plane also supports real weather. By downloading a current weather file, pilots can experience the real thing outside. A utility is available to automatically download weather data, helping to keep you current while you fly. If things get a little boring outside, you can also create custom weather, making the atmosphere change from a pleasant sunny day to the storm of the century. Connecting Flights Another developing feature in X-Plane is the use of the Internet, adding some new multiplayer abilities to the game. Not only can you fly with others, but you can also connect multiple computers together to act as different views in the game. As an example, you can connect three computers together to act as left, forward and right windows, with each view supported by its own CPU and graphics card. Of particular interest is a developing feature allowing real-time flight controllers. Multiple X-Plane gamers can connect to a single computer that will act as a live air traffic controller terminal. The ATC computer runs special software, which reads flight data from the individual X-Plane users. A person working on the ATC computer can hand landing and take off requests around an airport using a communication device like Rodger Wilco. Doing this, multiple people can practically simulate real-world airport activity, weather and all. Conclusion X-Plane is great program and development is continuing at full speed. If you have the hardware to play and patient to learn, it's a great game to pick up. X-Plane features some very interesting special options, such as landing the Space Shuttle from orbit, flying the X-15 from the wing of a B-52 (as noted above) and actually trying to fly on Mars. You'll certainly put in many flying hours before you exhaust all that X-Plane has to offer. X-Plane is now available for $40 directly from Laminar Research. Mac users can also use the retail PC version found in stores with the addition of Joliet Volume Access support. A limited demo is also available for downloading. Pros: Fairly simple controls backed by complex flight modeling. Large selection of built-in aircraft. Unlimited expansion via strong developer community. Cons: Has rough edges such as occasional performance hits, muddied, generic textures/scenes and non-detailed city scenes. Biggest gripe is the lack of time compression to speed up long flights. Visit our Mac Flight Sim Channel for more information on flight sim resources