X-Plane 8.0 (DVD-ROM)

by Graphsim Entertainment

Product Features

• Try out both subsonic and supersonic flight dynamics, sporting aircraft from the Bell 206 Jet-Ranger helicopter to the supersonic Concorde
• Fly 40 aircraft spanning the aviation industry -- plus hundreds more downloaded from the Internet
• Customize the textures, sounds and instrument panels for your own airplanes -- or redesign the flight panels of pre-existing planes
• Detailed failure-modeling with 35 systems that can fail randomly -- fail instruments, engines, flight controls, and landing gear at any moment
• Variable weather patterns, from clear skies and high visibility to thunderstorms with controllable wind, wind shear, turbulence, and microbursts -- rain, snow and clouds are also available

Product Details

• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S. and to APO/FPO addresses. For APO/FPO shipments, please check with the manufacturer regarding warranty and support issues.
• ASIN: B0002VRPC8
• Media: CD-ROM
• Release Date: November 16, 2004
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #23,352 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

X-Plane 8 is the comprehensive flight sim available today. It offers incredible accuracy in flight models, wider scope in aircraft and a more versatile set of aircraft types and weather conditions. Users can download new aircraft, scenery and more -- for a flight simulation that's amazingly close to the real thing. Land at any of 18,000 airports across the world, with realistic scenery from all of them - you can even land on Mars, thanks to the Mars Orbiting Laser Altimeter

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

96 of 105 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Move over Microsoft, or should I say Microsoft who?, June 18, 2005

By 

Reticuli (Las Vegas) - See all my reviews

= Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: X-Plane 8.0 (DVD-ROM) (CD-ROM)

(6/18/05): Other consumer sims use static flight models that essentially are a series of numerical quantities for each aircraft concerning thrust, turn rates at a give speed, lift, etc. X-plane is a revolutionary consumer flight sim that uses real aerodynamic fluid-like physics to "derive" a flight model in real time, by simplifying the forces into "blades" acting upon the aircraft...almost like having a wind tunnel in your computer. It uses the same concept of software that aerospace companies utilize for testing airframes and roughing-out control software prior to a prototype being built. In fact, I hear some smaller companies are now using it for that purpose rather than buying the previous software only available at high prices to major engineering firms. X-Plane is also approved for some aspects of early pilot training by the FAA. There is also an add-on for the planet Mars available from the X-Plane website, as well as a Space Combat Simulator.

The usual flight procedures and failures are included in X-Plane. There's no lack of them there. The real-time weather is also fairly sophisticated, though they still haven't fixed a bug in some of the clouds that tend to rotate as you do. There is a lack of landmarks on terrain for VFR, but there is software included to make your own. I have no doubt we'll be seeing some payware terrain for certain regions, like Los Angelis or New York. Also, because of the nature of the derived flight models, an aircraft modeler is included. Yes, X-Plane is luring those strange people who make model airplanes in their basement. But the rest of us get to benefit. There are a lot of freeware aircraft out there. All they need are the blueprints for the aircraft and its control surface/engine specs, or they can create an original design. Like Microsoft's, many payware designs have also been flight tested and tweaked to match the published flight envelops. In contrast, though, most X-Plane aircraft will perform much like the "x-plane" (prototype) version of it would if recreated in the real world based on the model built for it with this program, regardless of how accurate the design is. Thus you might need an engineering degree for an approximation of a real design to be adequate -- especially with more complicated ones -- but it is available.

As you can see, this modeling aspect of X-Plane is to some degree also its biggest weakness. Inherently stable aircraft, if correctly "designed" in the modeler, will perform pretty much as they do in real life. Active pilots will be amazed and feel very good about their simulated flight time on X-Plane. But because so many aircraft are inherently unstable, don't expect the fly-by-wire (i.e. the software between your controls and X-Plane's derived fluid/Newtonian flight model) to be as real or forgiving as the real ones. No one, except maybe a software engineer for the actual aircraft, can be expected to get the FBWS perfect. The more unstable the aircraft, the less likely the bedroom programmer's FBWS will be anything near what it should be, let alone a true replica of the real deal. The real F-22 is very unstable, but can perform turns and stalls that would pop a blood vessel. In DID's hard to find Total Air War, the F-22 used a standard non-fluid, non-derived model, but represented more of the filtering and limits placed on the pilot from the FBW system. It never let you turn so quickly or at the wrong angle-of-attack that your aircraft would immediately become uncontrollable or cause you to suddenly red/black out. In X-Plane, while it is certainly a more accurate representation of the real airframe (and quicker on its feet without those FBWS limits), you will be messing with elevator trim and trying your best to be restrained in your control inputs. Some aircraft will just seem uncontrollable unless you're a test pilot...hence the title of the sim: X-plane. It's as if you're flying early, or in some cases, outright pre-FBWS prototypes. Other aircraft are simply unpilotable in their current form. There is an occasional habit by the modeler to simplify some of the freeware airframes to compensate for this, but purists will likely disapprove.

Also, the tail rotor compensation on light helicopters is way off and you'll suddenly start going into a main-rotor-induced spin. A little rotation left or right if you're adjusting collective rapidly is completely authentic, as is the liberal amount of side slip and environmental effects (which will become worse the lighter the airframe). But the FBWS and tail rotor compensation is seriously not doing its job in the most basic way here. Also, I have not been able to find a way to switch the cyclic to being "sticky", so to speak. When I push the stick forward and then release, I want the chopper to stay pitched forward. In X-Plane (at least in the default setting) the main rotor pitches back to level, requiring you to have the stick pushed constantly for forward motion. In real life non-digital systems, that's realistic. But few if any of us at home have long pole cyclic sticks we can plug into the computer. The Comanche (may it rest in peace) used a digital stick on the side that was "sticky". Janes Longbow 2 and the Enemy Engaged series are the same way. Why on earth X-Plane has been designed with the helo controls this way is beyond me, but it needs fixing...or at least an option to turn it off.

The graphics are extremely demanding, which is strange considering the lack of accurate landmarks and the somewhat repetitive terrain. You need top of the line stuff for this. If you're using a widescreen (even HD) TV or DLP projector, it has to be at least 1024 X 768 resolution compatible. Otherwise, you'll be unable to read the text, and there's a lot of text to deal with, in the menus, on the gauges, on the HUD's, etc. It would have been nice to see a 640 X 480 mode for those of us who like to run sims through our big screens. The learning curve is likely very high for most, but you can buy some piloting books and they'll be completely translatable here. This isn't a perfect flight simulator. There are few weapons and fewer if any missions (not much to do but fly), and some of the aircraft models & cockpits are either incomplete or visually lacking. But if you want the best in terms of physics, scope, realism, and long term expansion, I think this is now the one to beat.

(8/5/05): X-Plane is still the best sim to fly a Cessna I've found and gets the basic feel of flight better than anything else out there, in spite of its flaws.

Nasty building graphics pop ups in v8.15 for Windows. Terrible. The disappearing/pop up problem is even worse with things like roads and those connecting different runways at an airport. Kind of difficult to find the correct runway when some lanes keep disappearing then reappearing. Taxiing seems futile.

The artificial stabilization system leaves a lot to be desired. I sometimes get duck paddle effects with the control surfaces going up and down frantically and the nose bobbing uncontrollably. At best that's about as good (probably worse) as the flawed first generation Lightning II fly by wire that resulted in one of the first YF-22's belly-slamming on the tarmac. This stabilization system doesn't seem capable of independently controlling surfaces, but rather moves them all in unison back and forth. The NASA F-15 model is ridiculous, in spite of how much work the authors put into it. Same thing with all the F-16's. It doesn't matter how painstaking they make the model and specs, if this X-Plane FBW FCS can't do its job, X-Plane becomes a sim for non-FBW designs, only. How adjustable, expandable, and programmable is X-Plane's FBW system? It needs to allow the modeler to dictate which control surfaces/thrust vectoring are used for which control inputs at given angle of attacks, speeds, and flight levels, with the stabilization system using this as a basis for how it will then compensate in small, then progressively larger amounts. And this must be either a lot of ranges, or continuous, adjustable curves. Besides these "flight laws" and how the aircraft & X-Plane stabilization system is to achieve them, there also needs to be Limiting available, to prevent stalls, over-G -- for both the pilot and the structure, etc. X-Plane's fly-by-wire & stabilization system is its biggest fault right now.

There should be a feature to enlarge the HUD/HMD text in flight and make it different colors, like red and yellow. It's sometimes a little difficult to read. At least we can zoom into the cockpit dials in 3D mode, but the HUD/HMD "projection" onto your vision needs to be expandable physically. Perhaps a zoom option while in 2D mode would suffice.

The virtual cockpits need to be just as clickable as the forward cockpit. Might be asking a lot, but it would sure be nice. Maybe it's possible and aircraft designers just aren't using it.

The set "resolution at start up" check box does not work properly. What it's supposed to do is change your res and color to that set in the sim. It doesn't. If I'm in 800X600 and I go into X-Plane with that box checked, everything is pushed over to the side and I don't see the whole screen. If I uncheck it, go to the desktop and set that exact same resolution (say, 1024X768), X-Plane obviously runs fine at that setting.

The lack of sticky cyclic option makes helicopters near unflyable for the average simmer with an ordinary joystick HOTAS.

There needs to be slightly more transonic buffeting when passing through Mach 1. It's good that there's the proper wavefront-induced reduction in your acceleration and from external views there appears to be buffeting on tanks & weapons loadouts, but I can't see any of it from inside the cockpit. Neither... Read more ›

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Incredibly realistic, February 13, 2006

By 

Danny Goldmier "Danny" - See all my reviews

= Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: X-Plane 8.0 (DVD-ROM) (CD-ROM)

I am no novice to the world of aviation and after thoroughly scrutinizing every feature of X-plane 8, I regretted being a fan of MS Flight Sims. For years I had been fairly impressed with MS Flight Sim's "gaming experience", taking for granted that it's the closest thing to real-life flying that you can get on PC for under $50. After using x-plane I realized just how wrong I was. For the first time, I felt like I was actually sitting in a REAL cockpit looking out the window feeling like "WOW this is amazing!!". The feel of each flight model is uniquely different in each aircraft, unlike in MSFS where you fly one and feel like you've flown them ALL whether it's single/prop/multi-jet/big/small etc. In the beginning the scenery details can be a bit boring during some segments of flight(especially during take offs and landings), but you can enhance that on x-plane yourself, easily downloaded from the net...thus pushing the scenery realism much further beyond MSFS 2004's expectation. MSFS frame rates are always poor and sloppy even on my brand new super customized dell, and I'm not particularly amused by their continued lack of cockpit realism over the years, now that I've embarked upon the x-plane and can compare MSFS to it's more superior competitor. X-plane is much smoother in frame transition. The cockpits are so MUCH more individually detailed. The only tiny problem is that the entire cockpit doesn't fit within the immediate view, you have to shift it a bit every now and then to have access to additional controls, but that's understandable considering it's broad spectrum of instrumentation.

The concept of building your own aircraft and actually being able to test it on your own PC-interfaced wind tunnel is extraordinary!!! The intense physics applied to these software models is brilliant. I've read that the FAA approved of x-plane for initial pilot training. Also, a couple companies that design aircraft incorporated x-plane into their testing. Doesn't surprise me at all.

Like with any other software(including MSFS!), it's not flawless, there's always room for improvement, patches and updates need to be added to bring this sim closer to perfection. With x-plane, there's a broad range of goodies you can download free on the net to enhance it.

I would not recommend x-plane to those who are just gamers looking for novice-friendly spoonfeeding. This is for serious aviation enthusiasts, student pilot practice, or for those interested in the most true-to-life aviation challenges that you'll find in a single software package.

N.B.: Please excuse the ignorant morons who rate x-plane with only 1 star.

17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars WARNING: Not the current version..., March 15, 2006

By 

Budster (Oregon & New Mexico) - See all my reviews

= Fun:3.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: X-Plane 8.0 (DVD-ROM) (CD-ROM)

The most sophisticated simulator for PCs and Macs, but:

1.) Search Google and you'll find that this is NOT the most current version of X-Plane. (That's why it's so cheap!)
2.) Make sure you understand that you need a lot of computer power to take advantage of all its capabilities.
3.) I hate to see Amazon consider this a "game." This is not a toy...it's a product for real flight sim enthusiasts and/or real-world pilots with an instrument rating. Patience will be needed if you want to take advantage of all its features.

That all said: Once they post the current version, GO FOR IT. If you're serious about flying a PC, or a real airplane, this is probably the sim you want.