Strider, why did you post an X-Plane topic here? The MS Flight forum is not an X-Plane forum. That's why Avsim has an X-Plane-specific subforum...

Why didn't you just report this post to the moderators and ask them to move this post to the proper forum?

Wait, so you actually BOUGHT payware for a DEMO?

Wait, so you actually BOUGHT payware for a DEMO?

Doesn't everyone?

I didn't know there was a " Toy Airplane " section ?

You successful posted something that is actually funny. I literally almost LOL'd when I read that.

You successful posted something that is actually funny. I literally almost LOL'd when I read that.

you "literally almost laughed" .. now thats funny, dont care who you are

Doesn't everyone?

No.

I very rarely get involved in any XP vs MSFS debates but what the heck...Your post made me visit the the X-Plane website and I went to the screenshots section for XP10 and that itself was enough to turn me away from X-Plane.I am sorry, but X-Plane looks like a cartoon to me. The smoke coming from an aircraft tires as it lands or the afterburner of the SR-71 or other jets as shown in the screenshot section is just a turn off. But hey that's just me. If you enjoy X-Plane, then keep on enjoying buddy! But for me, I'll stick to my FSX rig.

Well there you go, you are basing your argument on some very limited assumptions, do you really believe MS is aiming to produce something that is not enjoyable by default?? Come on...

I dont believe that they are going to spend enough time with the project to create scenery & aircrafts with quality that I see enjoyable. Probably one sees FSX enjoyable by default, another would not use it at all without addons.

I won't get involved in the like or hate debate however competition is always good, however strong the competition may be. I don't hate X-plane however the complex UI and fairly basic graphics has always kept me away from it even though I've played many hours with XP9. I'm sure the team from Laminar Research have created a great simulation engine with XP 10 however they probably haven't invested enough time in art work which is what let's it down for the moment. So far I much prefer the look and feel of the screenshots published for MS Flight but then again that's just a personal opinion and many will prefer XP10.

No.

Then in 3 weeks he will have his DVDs and use it in the full XP.

See, now this is the PERFECT chance for me to point out why there is absolutely no way to convince me that all the "blade element theory is superior" bull can be anywhere close to true. If the the BET concept is so good, so much better than look up tables, then how is it possible for any aircraft that's modeled even similarly to the real world counter part (like a C172) fly so horrible compared to a 3rd party C172 made for XP? If it's supposed to move through the virtual XP world based on geometry and BET, then it'd have to be a horrible C172 with all kinds of wrong stuff to not fly even remotely like the real one, right? If I am misunderstanding something please show me the light and how I'm wrong (as I have learned, I am often wrong!). In this case though, I have my doubts. Just please explain how a default aircraft could be so bad compared to 3rd party content when BET is in play. If I understand right, you could essentially have 3 different car manufacturers build the same body car (let's say a Corvette built by Chevy, Ford, and Toyota). Even though they may handle differently (due to the way the chassis is built) and have different performance characteristics, the way they behave in a wind tunnel if they had the same body, should be the same, correct? (sitting still in a wind tunnel here in this example). So, likewise, if you build a C172 for Xplane that has the same dimensions as a real C172, should it not "fly" the same as a 3rd party C172 as long as the performance tables for engine thrust is the same? Because remember, the body/shape is what causes the drag- so please show me where I'm wrong here.

See, now this is the PERFECT chance for me to point out why there is absolutely no way to convince me that all the "blade element theory is superior" bull can be anywhere close to true. If the the BET concept is so good, so much better than look up tables, then how is it possible for any aircraft that's modeled even similarly to the real world counter part (like a C172) fly so horrible compared to a 3rd party C172 made for XP? If it's supposed to move through the virtual XP world based on geometry and BET, then it'd have to be a horrible C172 with all kinds of wrong stuff to not fly even remotely like the real one, right? If I am misunderstanding something please show me the light and how I'm wrong (as I have learned, I am often wrong!). In this case though, I have my doubts. Just please explain how a default aircraft could be so bad compared to 3rd party content when BET is in play. If I understand right, you could essentially have 3 different car manufacturers build the same body car (let's say a Corvette built by Chevy, Ford, and Toyota). Even though they may handle differently (due to the way the chassis is built) and have different performance characteristics, the way they behave in a wind tunnel if they had the same body, should be the same, correct? (sitting still in a wind tunnel here in this example). So, likewise, if you build a C172 for Xplane that has the same dimensions as a real C172, should it not "fly" the same as a 3rd party C172 as long as the performance tables for engine thrust is the same? Because remember, the body/shape is what causes the drag- so please show me where I'm wrong here.

Easy.There are literally thousands of variables involved in making an aircraft for x plane. Countless different airfoils (www.worldofkrauss.com) and airfoil maker (a program inside of x plane) has 3 tabs of different settings and each setting has literally hundreds, if not thousands of options. Phase-outTrim control timeCoGCo-efficient of liftCo-Efficient of momentChord ratio for each airfoilFuel consumptionEngine specsProp airfoil designProp chord ratios (whether they are automatic or manually set)Radii of GyrationFuel CoGThese are just off the top of my head.There are way too many variables to get wrong by a flight model author. The basics are easy. The details are the hard part. Because of this, your car analogy is not a good one.EDIT: Couple more. Fuselage friction co-efficient. Engine Nacelle Friction Co-Efficient. Airfoil for the horizontal tail and vertical tail. Compressor surface area (for jets), specific RPM, Gear ratio's for Turboprops...Yet even more...Wing sweep (for each airfoil), wing dihedral, Reference Datum.Most flight model authors don't know what half the items in that list do, so they leave the values at default. Yet some of those things they leave out have the greatest effect on the flight model.

Ok, thanks for that detailed reply. Im still at a loss though for an explanation that if the idea behind BET is that if the aircraft is shaped like a real aircraft, then it should fly like that aircraft. At least that's what I thought the idea was, and there was little need for going in and tweaking all those items you listed. As I suspected, there IS a lot more to making the XP aircraft fly correctly (which makes plenty sense to me) but again I honestly thought the idea was that IF you could build a model in plane maker that was dimensionally accurate, then it would pretty much have the same flight characteristics. In fact, this is exactly how I interpret the claims made on the product website:"X-Plane works by reading in the geometric shape of any aircraft and then figuring out how that aircraft will fly. It does this by an engineering process called "blade element theory", which involves breaking the aircraft down into many small elements and then finding the forces on each little element many times per second. These forces are then converted into accelerations, which are then integrated to velocities and positions... Of course, all of this technical theory is completely transparent to the end user... you just fly! It's fun!X-Plane goes through the following steps to propagate the flight: 1: Element Break-DownDone 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."Thanks again for your reply.

Ok, thanks for that detailed reply. Im still at a loss though for an explanation that if the idea behind BET is that if the aircraft is shaped like a real aircraft, then it should fly like that aircraft. At least that's what I thought the idea was, and there was little need for going in and tweaking all those items you listed. As I suspected, there IS a lot more to making the XP aircraft fly correctly (which makes plenty sense to me) but again I honestly thought the idea was that IF you could build a model in plane maker that was dimensionally accurate, then it would pretty much have the same flight characteristics. In fact, this is exactly how I interpret the claims made on the product website:"X-Plane works by reading in the geometric shape of any aircraft and then figuring out how that aircraft will fly. It does this by an engineering process called "blade element theory", which involves breaking the aircraft down into many small elements and then finding the forces on each little element many times per second. These forces are then converted into accelerations, which are then integrated to velocities and positions... Of course, all of this technical theory is completely transparent to the end user... you just fly! It's fun!X-Plane goes through the following steps to propagate the flight: 1: Element Break-DownDone 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."Thanks again for your reply.

You're very welcome.The description you quoted is a very basic description of what happens to the flight model in X Plane. It doesn't describe what is done to create the flight model. I've highlighted the important part in bold. "Number of elements decided by the user". (I know its refering to the wings, but it can also be refered to the whole thing.)In other words, garbage in, garbage out.I think a lot of those elements are missed by many people. I could easily make a rudimentary, flyable Cessna 172 flight model in less than a day. Will it be accurate? No way. Will it get you flying? Absolutely. The longest I have spent working on a flight model for X Plane was almost a year. And even now, I have someone who further refines my flight models to be even more accurate.The overwhelming opinion about planemaker is that it's very simple to make a flight model. BET should do all the work. I WISH. This opinion was popularized by many "authors" making their own aircraft in a matter of days, without comparing charts, and having just that same mentality...that Planemaker is responsible for the final product... and posting them as freeware. I've burned many brain cells adjusting the flight models for my projects. Sometimes a change of about 1% in one area of the flaps is enough to determine whether the aircraft pitches up or down when the flaps get deployed.Glad to see you have an open mind after reading my post.

This thread was not needed. I gave XP10 a good try, even woth GoranM on Skype to walk me though it for an hour. The moment they fix that horrid and overly complex UI, Aurstin will get another customer. Maybe in XP11 next year?