XPlane 9.4 betas

[Arklight1 140]

Now compare that to what's available for FS! All I'm saying is X-Plane won't get the attention it could get, as long as the main high end developers stay away. The best X-Plane aircraft, is still not as good as even many Freeware FS Models.

The MU-2 for X-Plane is a GREAT add-on, better than quite a few FS payware aircraft, IMO. If you have not had the opportunity, take a hop over to X-Scenery and check it out: http://www.x-scenery.com/

[Peter Clemenko 0]

I actually figure it like this, X-Plane is vastly superior in a number of ways, however people who view it as a moving target don't seem to actually try to develop for it for a while before whining about it changed this and that, usually it works BETTER when it changes, and in the process, you have to remember that the changes are usually very minor and most likely won't affect you, if they do they will most likely benefit you... for certain issues, such as the turbulant air flow, e-mail austin, and ask him to implement it.. but for whining about things in the flight model changing, the flightmodel isn't perfect, no fm will ever be perfect in a long time. The problem is, people are used to microsoft and their set in stone hack at flight modelng, which has been around for decades... now this is around and has a flight model that's calculated on the fly. For some people who complain about too responsive controls, remember the freedom of movement of your stick compared to a real one, combined with the pressure needed to move the stick... it will FEEL more responsive because your GEAR is more responsive...

[LAdamson 240]

I actually figure it like this, X-Plane is vastly superior in a number of ways, however people who view it as a moving target don't seem to actually try to develop for it for a while before whining about it changed this and that, usually it works BETTER when it changes, and in the process, you have to remember that the changes are usually very minor and most likely won't affect you, if they do they will most likely benefit you... for certain issues, such as the turbulant air flow, e-mail austin, and ask him to implement it.. but for whining about things in the flight model changing, the flightmodel isn't perfect, no fm will ever be perfect in a long time. The problem is, people are used to microsoft and their set in stone hack at flight modelng, which has been around for decades... now this is around and has a flight model that's calculated on the fly. For some people who complain about too responsive controls, remember the freedom of movement of your stick compared to a real one, combined with the pressure needed to move the stick... it will FEEL more responsive because your GEAR is more responsive...

The "controls" and length of sticks...........................doesn't have that much to do with it; even though it's used an an excuse. I've flown R/C with 2" sticks, a Pitts 2SB with a stick that only requires thinking about moving it, and a Stearman with an even longer stick. And in between I've flown the Marchetti SF260 with a shorter stick as well as my Vans RV6A. The point is; it's not difficult to get use to the length of the stick; or switching from right to left for that matter. As to "feel", it needs to be part of the flight model. The centering spring actually does it job. We don't require actual air loads on the stick, because the "pilot mind" can fill in the blanks. Even to the point of being excessively out of trim. Not "real" of course, but these mind games can work!And third, I'm glad I can print my views on "controls" here. Whenever I do at X-Plane org, the moderators seldom let it though. As to X-Plane being vastly superior, my pilot mind has still failed to find it's vast treasures. It has it's pros & cons versus MSFS; but vastly superior..........nah..L.Adamson

[Arklight1 140]

FSX looks better in some instances, XP in others.FSX has better airport scenery, XP has better scenery in general, i.e., the looks of the scenery features (IMO)FSX has better more add-on development, XP add-ons are usually (from what I have seen) cheaper.The few areas that FSX really beats up on XP, IMO, are:1. AI2. ATCAs much as I enjoy XP, and I really do enjoy it, the feeling of flying in a somewhat lifeless environment is the one thing that gets to me. If Austin could find a way to get some good AI going along with some solid ATC, I think FSX might be in for some serious competition.Btw, to add-on developers for XP out there......please put pilots in the cockpit of your models (the payware models) when viewed externally. The MU-2 is fantastic looking, sounds great, and flies very nice, but then you go outside and there are no pilots there......it's always been a pet-peeve of mine. lol MU-2 Developer/s PLEASE put some pilots or a pilot in that bird, I beg of you! :(

[MatthewS 761]

If Austin could find a way to get some good AI going along with some solid ATC, I think FSX might be in for some serious competition.

Even if they do add some basic ATC/AI I think they should also add the ablility for a plugin to completely manage ATC/AI via the SDK. So you could get sophisticated ATC/AI plugins via 3rd parties.

[tf51d 284]

FSX looks better in some instances, XP in others.FSX has better airport scenery, XP has better scenery in general, i.e., the looks of the scenery features (IMO)FSX has better more add-on development, XP add-ons are usually (from what I have seen) cheaper.

I'll give you X-Plane has better scenery in some areas when compared to FSX Default, but Add Ultimate Terrain and GEX to FSX, and there is no contest!, and the thing that really kills X-Plane in the scenery department, is the limited visibility!!

[Peter Clemenko 0]

The "controls" and length of sticks...........................doesn't have that much to do with it; even though it's used an an excuse. I've flown R/C with 2" sticks, a Pitts 2SB with a stick that only requires thinking about moving it, and a Stearman with an even longer stick. And in between I've flown the Marchetti SF260 with a shorter stick as well as my Vans RV6A. The point is; it's not difficult to get use to the length of the stick; or switching from right to left for that matter. As to "feel", it needs to be part of the flight model. The centering spring actually does it job. We don't require actual air loads on the stick, because the "pilot mind" can fill in the blanks. Even to the point of being excessively out of trim. Not "real" of course, but these mind games can work!And third, I'm glad I can print my views on "controls" here. Whenever I do at X-Plane org, the moderators seldom let it though. As to X-Plane being vastly superior, my pilot mind has still failed to find it's vast treasures. It has it's pros & cons versus MSFS; but vastly superior..........nah..L.Adamson

Actually Larry, you have to remember this, you don't have the actual feeling of the aircraft in your hands. The FM is very realistic in most cases, and the main reason I see it as superior is that it actually is calculated dynamically, which means you can actually have changes in the flight environment or god forbid the aircraft's structure properly affect the FM, where FSX only goes off of one lookup table, which pretty much makes it very much a limited flight model. Admittedly, if someone screws up the FM in ether one, it won't work properly. One thing you HAVE to remember though is this, I look at things from more of an engineering standpoint and a developers standpoint, because I have a background in engineering and software development, so I prefer something which allows me to create and see the real effects of my actions compared to precalculated crap, remember that there are mach 5 harriers in FSX, something which you will NEVER see in x-plane. ether way, if you screw up in the design of the aircraft in ether sim, it won't handle right, but if you do it properly, both sims have the capability to fly properly. And larry, if you want to make X-Plane better, why don't you e-mail austin making feature suggestions. If you keep a civil tone and keep your facts straight, austin will normally be pretty cool about it, and he may take your advice. (although it should be noted that sometimes he doesn't see the light, and may respond with hostility...) The fact is though that when you even compare payware aircraft, you compare a aircraft done by a team of people to one that is done by one person.As for the controls "excuse", larry, if you know how to set your stick properly, it will feel realistic, however the controls you use still have a lot to do with it. an example is this, my joystick has a bit of an off center stick twist on the gimbal because it's about 11 years old. I don't blame a hardware issue on the software. The fact is that any difference in your controls from the real aircraft is going to affect it. X-Plane could very well feel much more realistic with the actual controls compared to the standard joystick you would buy at wally world. The reason for this is that the controls would handle properly and would have realistic resistance and freedom of movement compared to the cheap joystick. The thing with X-Plane is that it isn't designed to compensate for your hardware being different than the real gear. Your controls have an effect on your flight because the controls are not pre-cooked in control tolerance. Remember that FSX is more designed for off the shelf controls, and as such, will be tweaked more for the consumer product. X-Plane, because of the way it handles the flight model, would logically be more suited to the actual controls of the aircraft for realistic handling compared to the toy joysticks most of us have. This won't fix bad aircraft making, as with any thing done on the computer it's GIGO. If one thing is screwed up, everything will go screwy. I personally prefer X-Plane because I like my own designs... I don't have to precalculate everything. The biggest issue I have with x-plane as a whole though is that it only fully calculates the airfoils up to +20-20 AOA. this is bad for higher AOAs where you have signifigantly less capability to do high resolution airfoil calculations unless pre-cooked in something like javafoil. The biggest issues I have with X-Plane on the software end is more along the lines of a few limited options in planemaker, specifically things like fuel and engine things, I'm gonna compile a list of ideas on improvements to the FM and forward them to austin, which would hopefully fix some issues people have.

[LAdamson 240]

Actually Larry, you have to remember this, you don't have the actual feeling of the aircraft in your hands. The FM is very realistic in most cases, and the main reason I see it as superior is that it actually is calculated dynamically, which means you can actually have changes in the flight environment or god forbid the aircraft's structure properly affect the FM, where FSX only goes off of one lookup table, which pretty much makes it very much a limited flight model. Admittedly, if someone screws up the FM in ether one, it won't work properly. One thing you HAVE to remember though is this, I look at things from more of an engineering standpoint and a developers standpoint, because I have a background in engineering and software development, so I prefer something which allows me to create and see the real effects of my actions compared to precalculated crap, remember that there are mach 5 harriers in FSX, something which you will NEVER see in x-plane. ether way, if you screw up in the design of the aircraft in ether sim, it won't handle right, but if you do it properly, both sims have the capability to fly properly. And larry, if you want to make X-Plane better, why don't you e-mail austin making feature suggestions. If you keep a civil tone and keep your facts straight, austin will normally be pretty cool about it, and he may take your advice. (although it should be noted that sometimes he doesn't see the light, and may respond with hostility...) The fact is though that when you even compare payware aircraft, you compare a aircraft done by a team of people to one that is done by one person.As for the controls "excuse", larry, if you know how to set your stick properly, it will feel realistic, however the controls you use still have a lot to do with it. an example is this, my joystick has a bit of an off center stick twist on the gimbal because it's about 11 years old. I don't blame a hardware issue on the software. The fact is that any difference in your controls from the real aircraft is going to affect it. X-Plane could very well feel much more realistic with the actual controls compared to the standard joystick you would buy at wally world. The reason for this is that the controls would handle properly and would have realistic resistance and freedom of movement compared to the cheap joystick. The thing with X-Plane is that it isn't designed to compensate for your hardware being different than the real gear. Your controls have an effect on your flight because the controls are not pre-cooked in control tolerance. Remember that FSX is more designed for off the shelf controls, and as such, will be tweaked more for the consumer product. X-Plane, because of the way it handles the flight model, would logically be more suited to the actual controls of the aircraft for realistic handling compared to the toy joysticks most of us have. This won't fix bad aircraft making, as with any thing done on the computer it's GIGO. If one thing is screwed up, everything will go screwy. I personally prefer X-Plane because I like my own designs... I don't have to precalculate everything. The biggest issue I have with x-plane as a whole though is that it only fully calculates the airfoils up to +20-20 AOA. this is bad for higher AOAs where you have signifigantly less capability to do high resolution airfoil calculations unless pre-cooked in something like javafoil. The biggest issues I have with X-Plane on the software end is more along the lines of a few limited options in planemaker, specifically things like fuel and engine things, I'm gonna compile a list of ideas on improvements to the FM and forward them to austin, which would hopefully fix some issues people have.

Ah ............ where do we start?Mach 5 harriers in FSX; but what about the Cessna 172 dragging a 747 tail down through the sky's in X-Plane? Haven't seen that in FSX!!!! :( I'll challenge the X-Plane FM too. I kind of got the "boot" at X-Plane org., because I wrote about the virtues of the Real Air Spitfire versus a highlypromoted X-Plane P-51 Mustang. For starters, I've flown in a P-51 before, and am quite acquainted with high power aircraft, and the need for a good push on the rudder for the takeoff roll & climb due to the slip stream of the prop, torque, and P-factor. While my personal aircraft is no P-51, it does share slip stream of the prop, torque, and P-factor. on a lesser scale. It needs a lot of right rudder on takeoff, and will want to torque roll to the left on the last third of the throttle. The climb requires additional right rudder because of the props P-factor. In fact, if I make a left turn in a full powered climb, I'll have to use right rudder to center the ball, instead of a bit of left.The above characteristics are a few of many...........that us pilots notice. As it turns out, the Real Air Spit just does them far more authentically. When I sim fly the Spit, I get that smile of satisfaction; when I flew the X-Plane P-51, I didn't! Same goes for the default RV's that come with X-Plane 9. I was told that these are just basics to build upon. But having come out of X-Plane's Plane Maker........I'd expect some basic realism. But once again, I find them very disappointing in flight characteristics as compared to the Real Air Marchetti SF260 which I've also flown in real life. The RV pitches down with flap extension, but the X-Plane models balloon up just like a high wing Cessna does. I get the feeling that flaps & pitch is just some pre-programmed stuff, just like X-Plane's ground effect is. But beyond that, so many X-Plane models suffer in the "feel" department. It's like a puppet on a string....... in a vacuum. Pull the stick back or push forward, and the model does the exact same thing. No sense of inertia or dampening. These are items that can be built into a flight model! I don't care how big a desktop joystick is, because you're still missing "air loads" across the flight surfaces! There is no way that X-Plane is somehow going to blow air across some movable surface that's connected with push rods or cables to the joystick! If you want the "feel", then you have to fake it in the flight model. And it's certainly possible.......as I've been flying flight simulations for many years to know. It was Pro-Pilot, that first got my attention. I was circling around San Francisco around a point............and thought WOW; that seems REAL! At that point, I jumped from FS98 to Pro-Pilot, just for the perceived realism factor. It just turns out that some programmer had a sense for dampening, so that it doesn't feel like a lifeless vacuum. And that does bring up another point. We pilot/simmers have an advantage over engineer/software writers. Our brains can fill in some of the "feel" blanks, if the software writer has done a decent job. This is why a 2" joystick will work as well as something much larger. We can sense the weight, required pull, etc. We don't need force feed back sticks, and realize their limitations. So no, the controls are not an excuse! We just need flight models that are capable of using them!As to Austin, he's had plenty of flight experience along with the numerous aircraft that he's owned. He has to know that X-Plane is not all what he promotes it to be. He has to know that the program isn't as powerful as some are led to believe! Otherwise, why has he continually updated X-Plane for all these years? Since I have no interest in programming, it would do me little good to E-mail Austin. He already knows what X-Plane lacks... Anyway, I have had a bit of X-Plane fun, with the RV6A look alike, that the MU-2 creator has re-programmed from the existing default RV6A. It needs some farther adjustments, but is fun to cruise the virtual sky in. That's all for now.L.Adamson

[Arklight1 140]

I'll give you X-Plane has better scenery in some areas when compared to FSX Default, but Add Ultimate Terrain and GEX to FSX, and there is no contest!, and the thing that really kills X-Plane in the scenery department, is the limited visibility!!

What I mean is how the scenery just seems to blend together. Overall, it just looks "better" in some ways than FSX (IMO), even with UTX, GEX, etc..FSX has the edge in graphics overall, but XP has something special with regards to some of the terrain.

[Peter Clemenko 0]

Ah ............ where do we start?Mach 5 harriers in FSX; but what about the Cessna 172 dragging a 747 tail down through the sky's in X-Plane? Haven't seen that in FSX!!!! :( I'll challenge the X-Plane FM too. I kind of got the "boot" at X-Plane org., because I wrote about the virtues of the Real Air Spitfire versus a highlypromoted X-Plane P-51 Mustang. For starters, I've flown in a P-51 before, and am quite acquainted with high power aircraft, and the need for a good push on the rudder for the takeoff roll & climb due to the slip stream of the prop, torque, and P-factor. While my personal aircraft is no P-51, it does share slip stream of the prop, torque, and P-factor. on a lesser scale. It needs a lot of right rudder on takeoff, and will want to torque roll to the left on the last third of the throttle. The climb requires additional right rudder because of the props P-factor. In fact, if I make a left turn in a full powered climb, I'll have to use right rudder to center the ball, instead of a bit of left.The above characteristics are a few of many...........that us pilots notice. As it turns out, the Real Air Spit just does them far more authentically. When I sim fly the Spit, I get that smile of satisfaction; when I flew the X-Plane P-51, I didn't! Same goes for the default RV's that come with X-Plane 9. I was told that these are just basics to build upon. But having come out of X-Plane's Plane Maker........I'd expect some basic realism. But once again, I find them very disappointing in flight characteristics as compared to the Real Air Marchetti SF260 which I've also flown in real life. The RV pitches down with flap extension, but the X-Plane models balloon up just like a high wing Cessna does. I get the feeling that flaps & pitch is just some pre-programmed stuff, just like X-Plane's ground effect is. But beyond that, so many X-Plane models suffer in the "feel" department. It's like a puppet on a string....... in a vacuum. Pull the stick back or push forward, and the model does the exact same thing. No sense of inertia or dampening. These are items that can be built into a flight model! I don't care how big a desktop joystick is, because you're still missing "air loads" across the flight surfaces! There is no way that X-Plane is somehow going to blow air across some movable surface that's connected with push rods or cables to the joystick! If you want the "feel", then you have to fake it in the flight model. And it's certainly possible.......as I've been flying flight simulations for many years to know. It was Pro-Pilot, that first got my attention. I was circling around San Francisco around a point............and thought WOW; that seems REAL! At that point, I jumped from FS98 to Pro-Pilot, just for the perceived realism factor. It just turns out that some programmer had a sense for dampening, so that it doesn't feel like a lifeless vacuum. And that does bring up another point. We pilot/simmers have an advantage over engineer/software writers. Our brains can fill in some of the "feel" blanks, if the software writer has done a decent job. This is why a 2" joystick will work as well as something much larger. We can sense the weight, required pull, etc. We don't need force feed back sticks, and realize their limitations. So no, the controls are not an excuse! We just need flight models that are capable of using them!As to Austin, he's had plenty of flight experience along with the numerous aircraft that he's owned. He has to know that X-Plane is not all what he promotes it to be. He has to know that the program isn't as powerful as some are led to believe! Otherwise, why has he continually updated X-Plane for all these years? Since I have no interest in programming, it would do me little good to E-mail Austin. He already knows what X-Plane lacks... Anyway, I have had a bit of X-Plane fun, with the RV6A look alike, that the MU-2 creator has re-programmed from the existing default RV6A. It needs some farther adjustments, but is fun to cruise the virtual sky in. That's all for now.L.Adamson

actually, regarding a 172 pulling a 747 down the runway, I have a strong feeling that is all scripted and doesn't apply the physics in a way which would be considered "realistic" during the tow. Furthermore I have a gut feeling that the rope isn't modeled to snap under too much stress, because the rope would snap before the 74 would move irl. Also, larry, the reason why this feels like a vacuum to you is probably because there are KNOWN issues with the flight model that people are currently trying to get austin to fix. IMHO, the X-Plane FM is better because it is NOT precalculated, rather than being just rehashing the same numbers over and over. I take a look at things from more of a creative point of view, and I prefer to try my own designs and see if they fly, rather than fly existing ones... as such, X-Plane is the only simulator currently available that has that capability... admittedly, there are issues, we all know that, however X-Plane is improving with every patch, you know it, I know it, we all know it. Face it, X-Plane is a WIP at all times, and as such, will never be "perfect". Larry, if you want something fixed, you have to go the source to get it fixed, otherwise you will never get it fixed...

[MatthewS 761]

actually, regarding a 172 pulling a 747 down the runway

Is this a XPlane video or something? Would like to see that.

[MatthewS 761]

Oh btw... beta 6 and now beta 7 have been released.

[Guest LCSims]

... Also, larry, the reason why this feels like a vacuum to you is probably because there are KNOWN issues with the flight model that people are currently trying to get austin to fix. ...Face it, X-Plane is a WIP at all times, and as such, will never be "perfect". Larry, if you want something fixed, you have to go the source to get it fixed, otherwise you will never get it fixed...

Well Peter, or is it peter? I ask because I see you frequently failing to capitalize Larry's name.While you want to tinker with the flight models and readily concede their limitations, there's 90% of the marketplace that doesn't want to tinker with something to correct it's out of box problems. The vast majority of simmers (just my opinions here) don't want to have to go in and spend an hour or two tweaking their controllers to get a realistic response from XP. Over 90% have no desire to load up Planemaker to get some old characteristic back, that's now been changed in one of the incremental updates.For those so inclined, having the ability to change the minutea of the sim's properties must be tinkering heaven. But the rest of the buyers, who have no inclination to tweak their lives away, have probably put the DVDs into a desk drawer where they'll collect dust bunnies.If X-Plane is to become a viable player in the flight sim marketplace, they will have to change their product's appeal for the average simmer. Otherwise, the buy once and done sales model will eventually run out of victims. Or so I believe, Peter.

[tf51d 284]

actually, regarding a 172 pulling a 747 down the runway, I have a strong feeling that is all scripted and doesn't apply the physics in a way which would be considered "realistic" during the tow. Furthermore I have a gut feeling that the rope isn't modeled to snap under too much stress, because the rope would snap before the 74 would move irl. Also, larry, the reason why this feels like a vacuum to you is probably because there are KNOWN issues with the flight model that people are currently trying to get austin to fix. IMHO, the X-Plane FM is better because it is NOT precalculated, rather than being just rehashing the same numbers over and over. I take a look at things from more of a creative point of view, and I prefer to try my own designs and see if they fly, rather than fly existing ones... as such, X-Plane is the only simulator currently available that has that capability... admittedly, there are issues, we all know that, however X-Plane is improving with every patch, you know it, I know it, we all know it. Face it, X-Plane is a WIP at all times, and as such, will never be "perfect". Larry, if you want something fixed, you have to go the source to get it fixed, otherwise you will never get it fixed...

How could X-Plane's Flight model be better, when I can take a fully loaded 747 and do cartwheels with it, then recover. The most Tex Johnson ever did with the 707 is a slow barrel roll, or climg at 25000ft at a VSI of 5100fpm and maintain 300kts.. In theory it may be better in practice it's not!!! I have yet to see a X-Plane P-51D Mustang that fly's like the real thing, and yes like Larry I have flown one. The A2A Mustang for FSX comes the closest I have seen in a sim so far.

[LAdamson 240]

actually, regarding a 172 pulling a 747 down the runway, I have a strong feeling that is all scripted and doesn't apply the physics in a way which would be considered "realistic" during the tow. Furthermore I have a gut feeling that the rope isn't modeled to snap under too much stress, because the rope would snap before the 74 would move irl. Also, larry, the reason why this feels like a vacuum to you is probably because there are KNOWN issues with the flight model that people are currently trying to get austin to fix. IMHO, the X-Plane FM is better because it is NOT precalculated, rather than being just rehashing the same numbers over and over. I take a look at things from more of a creative point of view, and I prefer to try my own designs and see if they fly, rather than fly existing ones... as such, X-Plane is the only simulator currently available that has that capability... admittedly, there are issues, we all know that, however X-Plane is improving with every patch, you know it, I know it, we all know it. Face it, X-Plane is a WIP at all times, and as such, will never be "perfect". Larry, if you want something fixed, you have to go the source to get it fixed, otherwise you will never get it fixed...

Getting technical now......Let's say we're a "real" aircraft designer. The plane is now built, inspected, and flown. But we're not happy with spin or stall characteristics. We explore ideas such as wing cuffs, root cuffs, stall strips, vortex generators, flat strips between the cowl halves, triangular shapes at the root leading edge, dorsal fins, etc. At the end of the day, we find solutions from the list above. Is the X-Plane model powerful enough to program in these "fixes". NO. Would X-Plane have solved Cessna's tail/ spin problems with it's new LSA? I seriously doubt it. X-Plane will require some tweaking, faking, magic, and programmer skill.....just like MSFS. Yet the look up table method can portray the result of the modifications. We'll get our desired numbers, and handling. We'll be able to adjust our settings for landing, and get reasonably accurate airspeeds with flap extension, throttle, and landing gear. The nose will probably even pitch the correct way with flaps... :( The lookup method will be believable, and that's what counts. I don't program these sims, and I have no interest in doing so. But I've been on numerous beta's over the years; and am well aware that look up tables are far from being just a precalculated check box. The best of the best programmers for MSFS third party models have many years of experience, and have brought us some quite authentic replicas. When X-Plane is capable of snap rolls, tail slides, hammer heads, accelerated spins, and secondary spins, then let me know....But all that aside, I do appreciate the fact, that X-Plane is capable of producing designs that may be in the ball park, numbers wise. Obviously, many users of X-Plane enjoy designing with the program. I'll just repeat.... that I do not believe that X-Plane is somehow superior in re-creating accurate and believable flight models over MSFS. If it was, I'd immediately see it, and throw MSFS away forever!L.Adamson