Customer Reviews

X-Plane 8.0 (DVD-ROM)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

(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 is the buffeting altering control response to the extent it should. Even the HUD with reference to clouds and stuff should be showing a little bit of your aircraft's buffeting, but it's not. Actually, I don't think we're seeing the proper amount of slight buffeting during very high or low angles of attack, though you're certainly losing control responsiveness if you attempt to bank under those conditions.

Several of the more unstable aircraft constantly seem to want to tip gradually to one side, usually the right. My joystick's not the problem. I've checked the alignment, deadzones, etc. I've also made sure wind and thermals are turned off. Strange anomaly, though some of it may be attributable to or worsened by specific aircraft designs. It seems frequent enough not to be the former, however, and seems more a larger issue.

(8/9/05): The problem with flapping surfaces seems only to occur with canards and/or thrust vectoring. Appears to be a problem specific to the Artificial Stability System, which is necessary with those types of aircraft components. This crude system just isn't up to the task.

So far I've only found 3 helos that have proper tailrotor compensation: the Sea king (comes with X-Plane), all the UH-60 Black/PaveHawks, and all three of the Comanche. Unfortunately, the Comanche are all incredibly touchy and unstable, which is what you'd expect without a good quality FBW. Of the Seaking and Blackhawks, I found the Blackhawks to be most representative of proper helo flight. For all the other choppers (assuming you can download them off the .org site and open them up in the program after installation) there seems to be a commercial sim slant to the rudder. You're expected to have the pedals pressed all the time, with only minimal tail compensation to start. On some choppers this is realistic, but for home computer use is an even worse situation to be in than not having a sticky cyclic. There is a way to get around this issue (sort of). You go into the joystick config and turn off your rudder. Then in the Centering screen you turn on automatic tailrotor coordination. It's not perfect, but on the helos that aren't totally glitchy (like most of the v.7 Aerospatials) they become flyable, with the limitation that you now have zero rudder control, of course.

If you just noticed, I did in fact say v.7 above. It turns out that most of the incompatibility problems between 7 and 8 are gone with the release of v.8.15. So most of the v.7 aircraft can now be used in v.8.15. The only problems seem to be some glitchy vr cockpits, but there's so much variation in those even amongst v.8 aircraft that it's not that big of a deal. F-117, UH-60, F-86, Mig-15, Prowlers, A-10's, Saturn V rockets...there's a lot of quality stuff that's been languishing in the v.7 archives that you can now use again. There's a P51 in the v.8 archives, though, that is right on target in terms of handling. Definitely check it out.

(8/15/2005): I got emails directly from one of the head programmers, Ben, as well as the creator of X-Plane, Austin Meyer. They will attempt to look into each of these issues for v8.20, which is of course free to those with any v8 DVD. Unprecedented costumer support: cordial, informative, and eager to find solutions. I'm very impressed. This thing can only get better.

(9/24/05): Version 8.17 is out with a new install program. Make sure you do a batch transfer and conversion of all the aircraft you have within Planemaker. They fixed some of the road & building pop up. Taxiway pop up is still an issue, as is roads/bridges over rivers flickering on and off, though just in a quick annoying way rather than disappearing like the taxiways do. Side slip has been slightly improved, increasing stall, spiral, and spin realism. It's not great (Mig-15 still won't flat spin), but at least it seems to be present. Spins and spirals are more generic than they were in earlier versions that had them. You have a difficult time recovering from them. And finally, the artificial stability system's complete uselessness (a detriment, in fact) has been remedied enough as to actually improve handling slightly. Previously, unstable aircraft were more stable with it off. Stable aircraft still obviously shouldn't use it, and you may need to go into Planemaker to check for this. The chase view in X-Plane or the control surfaces MFD page will also tell you if the control surfaces are acting on their own or exactly as you tell them to. It still has a long way to go for a truly stable Art Stab System (e.g. duck paddle flapping is still present on canard aircraft). The F-16 becomes more flyable, though you're still likely to stall out and crash. At least you can do precise snap rolls now. With Art Stab off, you continue to drift. Flankers still fly nicely without it. The Superhornet is still garbage regardless with its control surfaces acting against each other, but the v8.15 Hornet blows Jane's FA-18 flight model away. It's not much, but it shows a trend towards what v8.20 may have in store: hopefully fixing all of this completely.

(10/18/05): 8.20 is out. Massive overhaul of the programming. Pop up is gone when using multisampling AA. Better stalls, spins, spirals. Fully clickable 3D cockpits. Allow the install program to overwrite Austin's aircraft. Art Stab and autopilot work better the higher your frame rates are. Turn off all graphics options that you can live without when you encounter flapping. Wind can also be an added computational burden. Turn on all options that improve performance. Turn off all background software. In heavy/fast jets and FBW choppers, you may even want to go HUD-only view. Add a HUD (and the option to switch it off) if there isn't one. For digital trim management on helos (sticky cyclic): go inside Planemaker, max out the trim ratios, and turn on Auto Trim Pitch Loads. There is also a Controls Panel plug-in available to show you what this is doing.

(01/12/06): 7 DVD's of high-res worldwide scenary and the Python-based XFCS true jet fly-by-wire intermediary plug-in now make X-Plane peerless.

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.

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.

WARNING! This is NOT the version with the brand new global scenery you see on the X-Plane website! This is version 8.00, and the new scenery started with version 8.20. You can download the latest version of the flight engine itself (version 8.50 at the time of this writing), but Laminar will not upgrade the scenery for you if you buy this orphan. I bought this, didn't get what I was expecting, and thinking there was something wrong with the way I was installing it I let my 30 days to return it run out.

X-Plane is a great simulator and I would recommend it wholeheartedly. However, Amazon should not be selling this version which is obsolete and not supported by the developers. If you want the nice graphics (who doesn't?), get the 7 DVD version.

If you are like me, the reviews on X-Plane probabally will make you more confused than ever. To help you make an informed choice I have addressed the questions that most complicated to process for me.

Is is the latest version?

This is the same verion you buy in the store (8.0). You will need to download the free update from the x-plane website to bring it up to date to version 8.50.

Is the scenery up to date?

USA scenery only, if you would like the entire world on 7 DVD's you can upgrade latter for a reduced price or buy the 7 DVD version from the x-plane site. The scenery detail is no better in the world-wide version, just more extensive. HINT: It is cheaper to buy this version on Amazon and upgrade to the global version.

Do I need a super computer to run X-Plane?

No. Frame rates are typically much better than Flight Simulator X and display options are great.

In summery this simulator was well worth the money and is full of many advanced options... Not a game but a great tool for a very serious flight simmer or real world pilot. No graphical interface for the menus, but after some tinkering it's easy to get where you need to go (i.e., picking your plane and location). Although I would not suggest this to somone new to simulators or flying, if you own Flight Simulator and want to have another great experience with thousands of different airplanes, give X-Plane a try.

Well, if you are planning on flying in Real Life at some point, this game is a 'Must Play'. However, for the rest of us, it is a bit more technical than an average FS (former FPS) player needs or wants. The cockpits are very detailed, and the planes fly with realisim; but that is a good and bad thing. The graphics in the game are more detailed than MS FS 2004, but the cities are more accurate in MS FS 2004.
Bottom line; if you like updating the game on a frequent basis, are very good with downloading and unzipping game files, have a 'Super' joystick, and a TON of time on your hands. This IS the game to buy. Most mainstream flight sim players will enjoy Microsoft's Flight Simulator 2004 more.

Talk about as real as it gets? This is the real thing. No wonder the FAA is looking at this Flightsim to assist and contribute towards new pilot training! Also, after the purchase don't forget to check (...)g for hundreds of flight models, scenery, panels and a bunch more add-ons as well as forum support. It's a great X-Plane site to hang out at!

I bought version 8.21 and I got the 8.40 directly from the website for free. The popups still coming sometimes, but didn't got time to deal with that. The graphics aren't state of the art but they run very well on my P4 3.0 Dual Core with X1800 card and 4 GB ram. In previous versions I don't know, but on this one we can get real time weather to apply if you have internet connection. The BIG NO in this pack, was to see a lot of airports mainly outside USA, where we only see water ???? surrounding the airport tracks and not even the flight control tower ??? disapointing at least, but anyway I give 4 starts for beeing simple to the user and very complete. I recommend it for any flight sim fan.

great sim.
more than i expected the program to be.

I haven't read enough of the manual to be able to review the flying aspects of this sim, other than that this and every other flight sim on the market can't seem to get helicopter flying characteristics even close to reality. I've flown R22's, R44's, Hughes 300's and 500's, and Sikorsky Sea Kings, and none of them fly like the sim helicopters, so don't feel bad if you keep rolling over in a hover or keep moving backwards. What's that about? The other major problem I'm having is with the graphics of this sim. I have a 1680X1050 monitor and when I set the sim settings to this screen size, the instrument panel stays the same size and scenery becomes visible around it. The instrument panel looks like it's floating in space and isn't connected to the helicopter. Also, sometimes the background doesn't load right and looks pretty surreal. I have a 3.0G P4, 2g RAM, and GeForce 6800 256meg card. Finally, this sim supposedly supports trackIR, but I can't get it to work with mine, even after switching on the setting. Unfortunately, having encountered these problems, I have lost the motivation to trouble shoot this sim, but I will make another attempt, eventually.