X-Plane is a really comprehensive and powerful flight simulator, and has the most realistic flight model available for personal computers.

Welcome to the world of props, jets, single- and multi-engine airplanes, as well as gliders, helicopters and VTOLs such as the V-22 Osprey and AV8-B Harrier.

X-Plane comes with subsonic and supersonic flight dynamics, sporting aircraft from the Bell 206 Jet-Ranger helicopter and Cessna 172 light plane to the supersonic Concorde and Mach-3 XB-70 Valkyrie. X-Plane comes with about 40 aircraft spanning the aviation industry (and history), and several hundred more are freely downloadable from the internet.

X-Plane scenery is world-wide, with scenery for the entire planet Earth AND MARS! (thanks to the Mars Orbiting Laser Altimeter, which mapped that planet's elevation) You can land at any of over 18,000 airports, as well as test your mettle on aircraft carriers, helipads on building tops, frigates that pitch and roll in the waves, and oil rigs.

Weather is variable from clear skies and high visibility to thunderstorms with controllable wind, turbulence, wind shear, and microbursts!

Rain, snow and clouds are available for an instrument flying challenge, and thermals are available for the gliders! Real weather conditions can be downloaded from the internet, allowing you to fly in the actual weather that currently exists!

X-Plane also has detailed failure-modeling, with 35 systems that can be failed manually or randomly, when you least expect it! You can fail instruments, engines, flight controls, and landing gear at any moment.

While X-Plane is the world's most COMPREHENSIVE flight sim, your purchase also comes with Plane-Maker (to create your own airplanes) World-Maker (to create your own scenery), and Weather Briefer (to get a weather briefing before the flight if you use real weather conditions downloaded from the net).

X-Plane is also extremely customizable, allowing you to easily create textures, sounds, and instrument panels for your own airplanes that you design or the planes that come with the sim.

X-Plane's accuracy (in flight model), scope (in aircraft and terrain coverage), add-on programs (in aircraft and scenery editors), user-customizability, versatility (in aircraft type and weather conditions), downloadable aircraft, and downloadable scenery makes it the ULTIMATE flight simulation experience for Macintosh AND Windows platforms.

X-Plane's flight model can handle flying wings and fly-by-wire systems, as needed for a B-2 simulation.

Here are some key features of "X-Plane":

· Done only once during initialization, X-Plane breaks the wing(s), horizontal stabilizer, vertical stabilizer(s), and propeller(s) (if equipped) down into a finite number of elements. The number of elements is decided by the user in Plane-Maker. Ten elements per side per wing or stabilizer is the maximum, and studies have shown that this provides roll rates and accelerations that are very close to the values that would be found with a much larger number of elements.
· This is done twice per cycle. The aircraft linear and angular velocities, along with the longitudinal, lateral, and vertical arms of each element are considered to find the velocity vector of each element. Downwash, propwash, and induced angle of attack from lift-augmentation devices are all considered when finding the velocity vector of each element.
· Propwash is found by looking at the area of each propeller disk, and the thrust of each propeller. Using local air density, X-Plane determines the propwash required for momentum to be conserved.
· Downwash is found by looking at the aspect ratio, taper ratio, and sweep of the wing, and the horizontal and vertical distance of the "washed surface" (normally the horizontal stabilizer) from the "washing surface" (normally the wing), and then going to an empirical look-up table to get the degrees of downwash generated per coefficient of lift.
· The airfoil data entered in Part-Maker is 2-dimensional, so X-Plane applies finite wing lift-slope reduction, finite-wing CLmax reduction, finite-wing induced drag, and finite-wing moment reduction appropriate to the aspect ratio, taper ratio, and sweep of the wing, horizontal stabilizer, vertical stabilizer, or propeller blade in question. Compressible flow effects are considered using Prandtl-Glauert, but transonic effects are not simulated other than an empirical mach-divergent drag increase. In supersonic flight, the airfoil is considered to be a diamond shape with the appropriate thickness ratio... pressures behind the shock waves are found on each of the plates in the diamond-shaped airfoil and summed to give the total pressures on the foil element.
· Using the coefficients just determined in step 3, areas determined during step 1, and dynamic pressures (determined separately for each element based on aircraft speed, altitude, temperature, propwash and wing sweep), the forces are found and summed for the entire aircraft. Forces are then divided by the aircraft mass for linear accelerations, and moments of inertia for angular accelerations.

Requirements:

· Macintosh CPU PowerMac G4 or G5 1ghz or Intel
· RAM 512 meg
· Disk Space 10 gig
· DVD
· 3-D CARD OpenGL
· VRAM 16 meg
· Monitor 1024x768
· Joystick/Yoke USB.

Limitations:

· The demo version will stop the joystick after 10 minutes.

What's New in This Release: [ read full changelog ]

· Systems Modeling New features, mostly added for total system-realism for FAA-Certification: New elec sys modelling improvements. Now you can have up to 4 buses, and each system can draw from any of, or all of, those buses. As well, you can assign any generator and any battery to any bus. As well, each generator can have a different max amperage. This really lets you start to dial in the electrical systems really well! New feature in the IOS: Shut down tailwind ILS. This checkbox in the map screen lets you shut down all ILS's that are not aligned into the wind, as is typically done in reality This is really needed at airports like KLAX, which have ILS's in opposite directions BUT ON THE SAME FREQUENCY! Any shut-down and failed NAVAIDs turn red so you can see that they are not operational. Kind of nice! New setting in Plane-Maker systems screen: Number of degrees of heading error needed for the autopilot to switch turn directions. 180 by default, 20 for the G-1000. New instrument: Radio alt decision-height light... A little light that goes off when you make it down to decision height. Oil pressure modelled a hair differently to show change in response to rpm change a hair more. Emergency gear extension override commands now avail... Can be assigned to any joystick button of course! New Plane-Maker feature: Import AIRCRAFT... This imports everything EXCEPT the panel... nice if you want multiple acf files that are the same except the panel! The ENGINE_VAC gages in the ENGINE ROUND folder show the suction from each engine... You can have two of these. The SUCTION_LO_LITE_GA instruments show the suction from each engine... You can have two of these. The SUCTION gage in the SUPPLEMENT folder shows the total suction of all available vacuum pumps... It shows what the instruments are GETTING, and you only want ONE of these! Inverter failure will fail the trq indicators now if the trq indicators are hooked up to the inverters as per the system screen in Plane-Maker. Click on any airport in the IOS screen... You should get airport info and the weather at the airport as well. New option in Plane-Maker: The altitude tracks the aircraft current altitude when the cws button is down: yes or no. Set your ports for listening and receiving in the net screens now. Oil pump failure a little more realistic... We see more gradual engine failure, with rise in oil temperature. A few (real) G-430 failures, useful if connected to a real Garmin-430. Cool new Plane: New plane: Stinson l-5.,. It is in the general aviation folder, and very nice. Nice little features and UI tweaks: Glideslope plot on the IOS now shows the width of the glideslope region, and shows the marker beacons as well.. kind of nice! Reversed/beta/forward thrust engine-mode saved in replays. Better throttle response from the fadec.. closer to linear. 3-D cockpit will let you look around when paused now. Toll-spoiler logic just a hair smarter with speedbrakes: Spoilers will not extend beyond max speedbrake deployment. Boat-drawing rendering-option is now separated from the forest fires and balloons. NAVAID failure-page shows the type for each NAVAID... makes it easier to see exactly what NAVAID you are failing. All 'situation-movies' are now referred to as 'replays' everywhere in the UI Engine-failure options that do not apply to the type of engine in your plane do not appear in the engine-failure list... A bit easier to spot the failures you want. New instruments and commands: New flight director/autopilot commands and instruments in the BUTTONS folder to turn the flight director and autopilot servos on and off. Commands restored: "sim/instruments/ECAM_mode_down" "sim/instruments/ECAM_mode_up" New command that you can hook up to any key or joystick button: Marker beacon mute. It's in the ANNUNCIATORS group. New annunciator: GPU connected. You can assign any joystick button to the COMMAND to connect the GPU, and when you hit it, you will see the gpu-connected light activate, and also get plenty of power to bus #1 on the airplane. Minor tweaks and Bug-Fixes: Mean time between failure causes random failures when checked in the failures screen, otherwise does not! IOS glideslope map properly labelled as AGL, not MSL, altitudes. EFIS-app tweaked a hair to display both adf's and display a few more things a hair more accurately, and let you enter initial fuel No blackout in external view modes ,and Cinema Verite should not respond to G-load at very low G. Planes with only 1 inverter switch should still drive all inverter-driven systems ok! Flaps deploy at the right speed now, ion all cases... they were sometimes too fast before. Arrow keys to scroll large 2-D panels in side-views, as is used for some older planes, now work!
· Rendering Engine The rendering engine is more heavily threaded for better use of multiple cores. The sim should start faster with very high tree settings, and forests will appear sooner on machines with many cores. Normal maps available for OBJs. File format information coming soon. Prop disc can be customized by plugins - see Custom Prop Discs Better memory efficiency with the apt.dat file. V7 cockpit objects don't slow Plane-Maker to a crawl.
· Just a few tweaks to the plugin system read and adjust glideslope and flaps that were not working QUITE the way some people wanted.
· Lat-lon waypoints from Goodway-generated flight plans import correctly.
· Rare crash bug when parsing liveries fixed. Normal maps are no longer distorted by customized gamma settings.
· X-Plane will generate an Apple crash report instead of a one-line X-Plane crash report in a few cases. This will give us more info when the sim does fail.
· Air driven generator needs to spin a bit more to power the system, as in reality.
· Tail wheel lock applies at any elevator aft of nuetral, as in reality.
· No crash when AI airplanes have panel tooltips. (This should fix a number of crashes during startup.)
· No incorrect log warnings when loading liveries.
· Updated the command list.
· No more erroneous master caution on the Cirrus Jet.
· Indicated airspeed tweaked just a hair to get the Mach-compression effects... this tunes the fast jets jut a bit.
· A tiny modification of the file-reading system to solve a few random data-corruption issues.
· Objects and other text files with no newline at the end of the file load correctly.
· Airplanes whose default livery is not available run without fps hit.
· A few bug-fixes for a few plugins.
· Your path should always plot on the map screen when in 3-D mode.
· Alignment of plugin text is now consisten with the rest of X-Plane.
· A hair more refinement on the various hydraulic, vaccuum, fuel, and oil pumps.
· A few tiny refinements in the prop-pitch model.
· Glideslope indicator should only show up when desired.
· Livery should be auto-loaded in X-Plane ifd pre-selected in Plane-Maker.
· A few more datarefs now available for custom prop discs - sample plugin coming soon.
· No more crash on start on Vista with full screen selected.
· Calair FMS programmer should open without as many spaces.
· Pushback plugins won't get "stuck". x737 FMS should work again.
· Some cases of upside down video capture and hangs should be fixed with ATI video cards on OS X.
· OK the FMS and GPS is now really awesome... better than anything you have seen before with X-Plane. Here is the deal: Enter any plan you like into the FMS... The distance and time enroute will display at the bottom from your CURRENT position to whatever the final destination in the FMS is... So as you scroll through waypoints in the FMS, you will see the distance and time from your current location to the displayed fix. Now, while this is going on, if you have a GPS in addition to the FMS, the GPS will always display the distance and time to THE NEXT FIX YOU ARE FLYING TO... No matter what fix you have selected in the FMS! In other words, you can set your FMS to the last fix in the plan to see when you will really arrive at the final destination, while the GPS is displaying the time and distance simply to the next fix. All of this runs at the same time, no problem. As well, you can enter a full FMS plans into the FMS, or, if you like, enter direct->to routes into the GPS... the FMS will simply display that single-leg plan that you just entered into the GPS! We have had GPS's and FMS's for a long time, but now all the pieces fit together just PERFECTLY. This is lots more important than it sounds: This is what will allow us to easily add even MORE GPS and FMS detail in the future! (Something, obviously, we have planned!) Various 'prop feathers on engine-fail/prop-pull/mixture-pull' and other odd engine-reverse cases should be perfectly operational. Emergency engine power is available only after engine failure, regardless of how many times you have flown since you started X-Plane. Spool time for jet engines is back... I THOUGHT we could get by without it, but it hurts the SHUT-DOWN spool-down times to take it away... so it is back! Radio altimeter decision-height selection should always move in steps of 10, as is probably desired. Idle-speed switches should be operational in all types of craft. A few little engine-sync/prop-sync issues should be sorted out... the systems should be good for jets, turboprops, recips, etc. 172 autopilot now operational.
· Planet-map zoom does not affect map zoom, as is probably desired. A hair more internal code re-organization to avoid bugs in the future involving many different planes all flying at once. A nice new interface on the serial-port selections on the joystick and equipment screen, for things likeGarmin 430 and PFC hardware... The text indicating what serial device you are listening for flashes in the lower-right of the screen if data is coming in to that device. This is all about getting certifiable sims quickly developed, tested, installed, and running... And being able to quickly hook up and test serial devices is needed for this in many cases, with a nice UI showing which serial devices are talking and which ones aren't.
· More refinements to the GPS-FMS-Garmin-430 model to make plugins work as they always have, even in the new improved internal organization of the code. Goodway Plugin can program GPS CAX FMS plugin can program FMS Yet a few more tony enhancements in the "autopilot/autopilot select/ott_seldisp_ALT_VVI.png" instrument, as we make it EXACTLY like the old KAS-297. 3-D Panel will animate for complex aircraft like the EC120. Fixed crash on quit on some machines.
· More tuning on DEFAULTING the number of batteries, generators, and inverters to decent values, no matter what version, format, and method of controlling these things you used in the old ACF files. Prop "feather on fail" a hair better... If you have various 'feather on engine failure, prop control at min, mixture pulled' options in Plane-Maker Systems screen checked, the props will fail to feathered pitch at no oil pressure, whether on a single or twin, as you probably intend. As well, refinement of things like propeller-rendering and reverse and beta and reverse pitch on unusual planes that have a different number of engines than props.
· RC6 Small refinement to auto-set the number of batteries and generators FOR you, if you have not specified them in Plane-Maker.
· Small refinements in carb-heat model. Failures-page re-organized a hair... It is really nicely-organized now, with no redundant failures, but plenty of nice failures to have! Specify the number of batteries, generators, and inverters in the system window in Plane-Maker... No more guessing based on the number of switches on the panel! specify if the starter is electric or air-driven in the systems window in Plane-Maker... No more guessing based on the starter amperage!
· Ever-so-slight tuning of a few bits and pieces of the low enroute map. Subtle difference in Plane-Maker, Engines screen, second tab over: The top number is the number of ENGINES, the bottom number is the number of PROPS... This is not QUITE what we had before, where the bottom number WAS the number of 'thrust points'... but this is a bit more intuitive, and clear, I think. A few really really ODD designs MAY require updates in Plane-Maker. Improvements in the flight-replay: The flight should be properly saved and re-playable no matter how many times you enter and exit replay mode at various different points in the replay. As well, the flight-replays should include ALL the planes that were in flight at the time, so replay of entire 20-plane formations should be possible! As well, replay for your flight now lasts about 85 minutes (up from about 35 minutes in earlier versions). BUT, that is assuming you are flying by yourself! The more planes you have flying with you, the shorter the replay duration! New autopilot buttons: Altitude ARM and TOGA... kind of nice! A few more failures in the g-1000 failure-list... lo and hi generator and battery voltage... They live in the g-1000 page for now, but do in fact work for everyone. A few more failures in the failure types tab in the failures screen for various engine indications Now your challenge: can you find any failures that DON'T WORK? Try failing every indication in that page, and check every engine instrument in the sim... Do all the indications fail, as they should? And do all SYSTEMS continue to FUNCTION normally, as they should? Gear indicator failure is a bit better... it just fails ONE bulb, as is typical in the real plane. Distances and times enroute on the FMS should update just fine. As well, the plugin APIs for the GPS and FMS have been fixed. If your GPS, FMS or flight planning plugin does not work in RC4, but worked in 931, please file a bug immediately! As well, a number of other datarefs have been fixed. Annunciator on the screen if FROZEN (different than paused!)
· Minor enhancements: Plane-Maker: It is now possible to enter negative generator and battery current redlines and the like. This could be useful for some planes. Plane-Maker: You now enter the BETA pitch of prop. This is the prop pitch that you see when the prop is in beta mode, which turboprops often have, and this will happen when you hit the . key to go into reverse, but have not yet advanced the throttle to really hit the reverse. A number around -10 or so should work pretty well for most planes, if you do not know the exact prop pitch of the real plane. If you have an electric hydraulic system but no electric hydraulic pump switch, then the system will default to 'on', as is probably desired. When you show ALL ILS's or just the ILS you are trying to fly in the IOS window, the markers associated with the ILS are also show, or not, to further refine the ILS display. In the profile view on the IOS, where we see the plot of our approach down the glideslope, we now have better AI to tell what approach you are trying to fly, and you can see that approach description in the lower-right of the screen, and that information is stored for recall during replay!
· The autopilot/autopilot select/ott_seldisp_ALT_VVI and autopilot/console_filled_GA are very true to the real instruments, right down to every light-flash and operation, even including the test-modes. Be sure to assign a joystick button to 'autopilot test' if you want to fully use autopilot/console_filled_GA, which has the trim indicator stay lit up until that test is run, as in the real plane! Smoother action on the linear tapes in the cockpit, like you find in the SR-71 primary displays. More named lights for strobes and beacons. Example plane coming soon to the wiki.
· Bug-Fixes: AudioPanelHM instrument is now fully controllable... You could not set com-1 before this. We have functioning glideslopes to the carriers and frigates now... so use 'em! Little glitch in sky color that left a barely-visible seam in the sky is now fixed. Plane follows GPS paths entered in FMS properly The livery you select should be visible to multiplayers flying with you! LINUX: taxiways and runway lines and lights are fixed. ATTR_light_level works correctly even when shaders are off. Adaptive engine gauges will show arcs again. Generic rolling instruments don't have an extra mask o them. Panel texture will work properly for planes with very large cockpit objects. Engines will work for AI planes contorolled by plugins.
· Oil and fuel pressure modeling improved: Now we simulate both the pump and the over-pressure regulator. This should lead to more accurate simulation of these systems. Be sure to set the low and high oil and fuel pressure green-arc limits in Plane-Maker to really get the best use out of these systems, since the simulation I wrote does tune the pumps to try to keep the pressures in the green-arc range! New instrument: Select/engage vvi/alt, in the autopilot sel/engage folder... This is used on the Bendix-King autopilots that used to be popular.
· Making the aircraft out of 1 obj in Plane-Maker will auto-position the landing gear for you (rather than making you find the right dataref to place the gear), which makes things a bit easier to generate aircraft objects for airport scenery and the like, with the landing gear already in the right place. The 'x-mapped file ran out of memory' error that a few of you got sometimes should be solved... give it a try now! Memory use while flying is reduced as well. Airplane named lights can be used for static aircraft - they will stay "on" when used for a static plane rather than copying what the user's plane does. As well, there are new datarefs for airplane lights. Panel drawing optimized slightly for a hair more speed.
· NEW FEATURES: New plane-maker autopilot option: Adjust alt hold when pitch buttons on autopilot pushed. If you have this option, then the nose up and nose down commands will adjust the held altitude if you are in altitude-hold mode when you send them. New Plane-Maker option: Auto-feather the prop on mixture-pull, as used in some prop planes. New plane-maker autopilot option: Go to pitch mode on altitude arm. Some old autopilots do this. Cool new command: Reset last flight... Available in the advanced buttons settings. This resets the last flight you did.
· REFINEMENTS: Vacuum system gives annunciator lite and lo-vac flag if the vacuum system falls below the lo-end vacuum REDLINE, not the green arc! Set the lo-end vacuum redline accordingly in Plane-Maker. Better weather reports for airports that you click on in the Low Enroute map! We now scan the METAR file, if you have it, for weather at that airport, and give the clouds, visibility, wind, and baro pressure! If you do not have carriers or frigates selected, then the IOS will show the autopilot entries in that space instead... better for pro training! Sim-time and ground-speed multiplier both give on-screen text warnings now. Back course and APPROACH annunciators and modes tuned a hair. If you have 2 Garmin 430s in the panel, each can have it's own GPS destination. HSI, etc, will follow GPS #1.
· BUG-FIXES: Airplanes should not appear backwards on the glideslope view in the map screen when heading back along on downwind to the ils-intercept. Simulated Garmin-430 commands should all work now. No water tiles shown in orbital view, and less pause when coming out of orbit, while we are on the that topic.
· Beta 6 Autopilot: Alt will not arm when you do the arm-alt command if the glideslope is already engaged. This is as most real airplanes behave. New engine-failure mode: Thrust-reverser accidental-deploy... can be a tricky one to deal with. If you do NOT have the 'altitude tracks aircraft when CWS is held' checked in Plane-Maker, then X-Plane will NOT track your altitude when CWS is held... but it WILL track your vertical speed! This as the way some real autopilots behave. Improved EGT, TIT, and engine-braking modeling based on flight-test in the real plane. No more NAV signal wandering around near the edge of reception range. It seems that most modern systems can filter this out, in reality. Fuel burn should go with ground coverage speed now.
· Refinements in EGT-modeling. We get closer to redline in redline power and mixture conditions. Refinements in CHT-modeling. CHT should not go to huge negative values when you enter unrealistic values in Plane-Maker. Better ability to hold position on the runway under high power settings, if the real plane would have the braking ability to do so. Flight path should plot in the proper place in the weather-map in the set-weather window. If the localizer fails on a localizer or ILS with DME, the DME will continue to broadcast, as in reality. If you are in approach mode and hit the APR button, it will drop you out of all approach modes, as in reality. New button in Plane-Maker to enter the number of degrees off that the autopilot will auto-select back-course on. Enter 0 to not auto-select back-course. X-Squawkbox works again!
· A number of odd graphical artifacts fixed. You can now select buses for all systems in the amperage-selection screen in Plane-Maker... You could not select the amperage for a few systems before. Autopilot can be set to auto-load the current altitude into the altitude pre-select window, or not, in the Systems page of Plane-Maker. Spoiler deflection limits should now be perfectly respected. UI should always be visible... it was sometime a hair dark, or very dark, or red at night. We now just keep it the same no matter the lighting conditions to be a bit more consistent. Can anyone find any case where any bit of the user-interface is improperly-colored at night? A few more electrical-system details ironed out.
· King-Air and a number of other planes should function normally that had an electrical-system glitch in beta-2. Mouse-wheel throttle should not conflict with joystick throttles any more Brakes should hold the plane back a bit better during runups, etc. The trim-deflection time is entered in Plane-Maker in seconds, rather than ratio, so we all understand exactly what it means. This lets you do a better job of acf-design: Measure the time it takes the trim to move full-distance from one extreme to the other and enter that in Plane-Maker to get the perfect trim speed. New feature in Plane-Maker Equipment Options screen: all engines: Shut off fuel when prop control at minimum! Check this to have the fuel to the engine shut off when the prop control is pulled back to minimum. This is used on some turboprop aircraft. New autopilot altitude-warning options. Check out the Systems window in Plane-Maker to see them all. Basically, you can have the X-Plane autopilot beep at various altitude warnings or excursions. Airports with old runways won't appear incorrectly oriented or mis-sized. New datarefs for additional failures and glide-slope detection.
· NEW STUFF: The filled autopilot annunciator now displays pitch-mistrim 'TRM' alert if the autopilot is unable to trim out the pitch-loads, as it is in the real plane. Improved FDR (Flight Data Recorder) replay: We always read every line of the replay, and the propellers and rotors spin during playback of FDR files, as desired. New button in the weight and balance screen to set to max gross weight... Kind of convenient to flight-test at gross weight every time. Improvement in FADEC mode on recip engines to limit power more accurately for turbocharged engines. Plane-Maker:Panel Editor: You can now specify the buses that each instrument depend on, regardless of the number of buses on the plane. Remember that you can have up to 4 buses, and each instrument can depend on any bus! The generic needle can rotate around an arbitrary location. Useful for making various types of "wiper" instruments and fuel gauges. Key frames can optionally wrap around. Use the generic pointer with wrapping and clipping to make a "tape" or "ladder"-style instrument. Instruments can be tied to more than one electrical bus. Non-generic instruments can be tied to an electrical bus too!
· FIXES: Piper Malibu throttle handles should not turn gray in clouds. No stars in the water at very low reflection settings - before the reflections were pixelated and ugly. Real weather and version-checks should work. Glass instruments on bus 2 won't turn off when bus 1 loses power. Electrical system settings for panel should import better from 930 planes.