To all the XP-10 haters.

[Eric Tomlin 10]

Thanks again Goran.

[Guest HowardHughes]

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.

With all this in mind, and given XP's constant marketing as to the superiority of it's flight model compared to the 'lookup tables' of MSFS, do you consider X-Planes flight model to be any better?

[Geofa 108]

Perhaps I have a unique perspective because I have never been married to one flight sim but have always used the one that helped me to train for rw (and those needs have changed over 23 years many times).I have bought almost every version of xplane, and frankly after trying it in the past (for more than a demo) never bought into the superior flight model. True (and I speak only of GA flying) the inflight cruise was always good-dutch roll which has never been really modelled in fs well. However, I found the models "twitchy", over responsive, lack of stability, and over sensitive roll axis. To me it always felt like some type of unstable experimental aircraft-and a 172 should feel anything but that. My aim has always been to get a good working resemblance of my rw aircraft at the time so I could use it for training regardless-I gave a month trying to do a good Baron in Xplane but finally gave up as what I could do with fsx was just superior.Now the argument has always been that you have to find a well modelled aircraft-but I always asked the question in the past like a tree in the forest if there is no one around to hear it did it fall?-if one can't find a well modelled aircraft what good is it?-and imho I never found an aircraft that at least did it for me. One of the things beside the fm for me is the cockpit needs to look real-real looking and real working instruments-if you are going to spend hours looking at the instruments I want them to look and act real. I had not found that on any xplane up to version 9.With the hype of xp10 and hearing that xp9 aircraft would be compatable about 10 days ago I thought I'd try something interesting. I own the Carenado F33 for Fsx and owned a real one for 11 years so I am very familiar-and the Carenado for fsx is one of my favorites and duplicates the real one amzingly. So I thought-I'll buy it for xplane and then I really can compare apples to apples....I purchased and fired up xplane 9 (the demo was not available yet). My jaw dropped-finally there was some stability. In fact the plane flew beautifully except the roll axis still felt like a rubber band was attached-however with the realistic dutch rolling in flight I thought it was a tossup. However-when landing-that is when I realized xplane gave a superior experience. Xwind landings, everything about them were just superior to the fsx one-takeoff's too. I haven't really felt like I was landing in the fs series for years-the feel just isn't right-suddenly something felt very familiar!Now there are a lot of things about fsx that will keep me coming back-but for me at that point xplane 9 was worth just the landing/takeoff phase.When Xplane 10 came out I put the carenado f33 in-and again was stunned. Now the twitchy roll was gone-and this plane I can say clearly outperforms the fsx one in feel and is completely superior in the takeoff/landing phase. Is the fm better than fsx-I can say it is for the f33a at least if you want to "feel" what a real one feels like to takeoff, cruise, and land.Now-where it doesn't perform so well is the numbers...e.g. 15" of manifold in winter 17" in summer with 23-2400 rpm should give speed right at the top of the flap range-extending the landing gear gives a 500 ft. per minute descent with little trim. Putting the gear up on takeoff the nose should eventually eventually drop and give you cruise climb with little input. Here is where xplane doesn't quite shine-it isn't horribly off but fsx does these things closer.So for practicing ifr procedures I'll probably stick more with fsx (unless Carenado gets this closer) but for wanting to really feel like I'm flying I'll use xplane. However at this point in my flying I don't really need a lot of ifr practice-but practicing landings/takeoffs-the most dangerous phase of flight is very interesting to me.I think the key to understanding the whole situation is xplane is not a sim to replace fsx and fsx is not a sim to replace xplane-they are just different. A lot of things in fsx will still be superior but a lot of things in xplane are too to fsx. For instance, night flying in xplane 10 just blows fsx away-period...and that is default xplane compared to fsx with every add on known to man.Personally, I never quite could get into xplane in the past but xplane 10 does have my attention now and I will be using it at least as much as fsx-possibly more.I personally am glad we have choice, and pine for the days when I could fire up pro pilot, fs, fly, and fuIII and get a great different experience from them all. I would much prefer that there was just one sim that did everything I want-but in 30 years of flight simming that just hasn't happened.At least now imho we have two, and when flight comes out we will have 3. What a wonderful thing to happen again for flight simmers.So "hater" of xplane, or loyalty camps on both sides just doesn't make sense to me-and never really has.re the joysticks: it really just takes a little trouble and yes the hat switch thing should be automatic in my opinion-but it really doesn't take that long to set up...and yes I was cussing the first couple times because it took a little while to figure out how to get the hat switch-virtual cockpit to work. But then again, xplane is radically different from fs..in almost every respect...I think it is well worth the slight learning curve for the things it can do that fsx can't.

[Mountain Man 142]

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.

Your confusion is understandable since that is essentially what Laminar advertises (arguably misleadingly). However, if you think about it, there's more to a plane than just its shape. You have to account for weight, flex of the materials, kinds of materials, and on and on. Basically, all the stuff that isn't represented in a simple geometric model and must be explicitly defined by the designer. Picture a sphere rolling down a sloped surface in a physics program. The properties you give the sphere -- for instance, simulating a material that has a lot of friction -- will cause the ball to behave differently even though the basic geometric shape remains the same.So the idea behind blade element theory is fundamentally sound, but actually designing a plane is not nearly as simple and automatic as Laminar makes it seem.

[FlightLevel180 0]

Huge thanks to both Geoff (whose opinion I've watched and appreciated for years) and to Mountain man. I agree fully with all that was said except I need to download and try the demo for night time since that's when I fly most.

[N1G 88]

I was really, really disappointed when first downloaded and played with XP-10. The UI sucks, the default aircraft are horrific and I couldn't get joystick hat switch to work correctly. I was about ready to hit delete go back to FSX circa 2006. Well I finally figured out how to program the joystick ! I bought the Carenado Bonanza to test out on XP-10 and I played with the rendering options.Wow am I impressed now ! It looks spectacular with some of the sliders maxed out !And it's only going to get better with time !I think I might be deleting FSX come Dec !So my point is give it another shot with a payware aircraft !

Hi ,Sliders maxed? Well, that's great news, but, what about the AA and shimmering issues that seem to be pretty much the talk right now. I have a nice high-end rig and am having the AA issues like everyone else.Would you mind sharing your secret of AA? If you do not have AA performing well, I am not really sure how you can enjoy it.RegardsBob

[Mountain Man 142]

Are you sure you have HDR AA enabled? It's just below the HDR toggle in the rendering options and not in the upper right corner.

[GoranM 3,764]

With all this in mind, and given XP's constant marketing as to the superiority of it's flight model compared to the 'lookup tables' of MSFS, do you consider X-Planes flight model to be any better?

Whatever answer I will give will be purely subjective. Just enjoy both sims for what they can offer you.

[Ben Cap 89]

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

LMFAO

[flyerkg 62]

Thank you all for the turnaround on this thread. I appreciate the fact that people are willing to Skype to help someone else get started. The terminology in Goran's response reminds me of how much I have forgotten from the small amount of aerodynamics I had to once learn. Thank you, I will get back in the books in case I start using Plane maker. My question/comments to this topic is that historically people have designed and uploaded to the websites, truly unrealistic or futuristic aircraft, i.e. Starship Enterprise and other Star Trek vessels, and in some cases items that could never sustain powered flight such as pizza boxes and witches on broom sticks. Is it even possible to model such items for XP and actually get any sort of flight out of the end product? Even with the interface differences and I am glad to know that it is that much different than FSX. I still enjoy both to a degree. Its just too bad that when I select "Ignore Crash" in FSX for realism settings, it still doesn't keep it from CTD. hmm Oh no, not that sort of crash.

[GoranM 3,764]

Thank you all for the turnaround on this thread. I appreciate the fact that people are willing to Skype to help someone else get started. The terminology in Goran's response reminds me of how much I have forgotten from the small amount of aerodynamics I had to once learn. Thank you, I will get back in the books in case I start using Plane maker. My question/comments to this topic is that historically people have designed and uploaded to the websites, truly unrealistic or futuristic aircraft, i.e. Starship Enterprise and other Star Trek vessels, and in some cases items that could never sustain powered flight such as pizza boxes and witches on broom sticks. Is it even possible to model such items for XP and actually get any sort of flight out of the end product?Even with the interface differences and I am glad to know that it is that much different than FSX. I still enjoy both to a degree. Its just too bad that when I select "Ignore Crash" in FSX for realism settings, it still doesn't keep it from CTD. hmm Oh no, not that sort of crash.

Re: the witches on broomsticks, flying pizza boxes, etc...Yes, it is possible to make those. What the simulator is reading is the underlying flight model (which has been made invisible in planemaker.) The flight model could be an ultralight, small GA, whatever is being used as the base flight model. What you are seeing is a 3D model, built in an external 3D application, that is attached to the flight model.

[flyerkg 62]

Re: the witches on broomsticks, flying pizza boxes, etc...Yes, it is possible to make those. What the simulator is reading is the underlying flight model (which has been made invisible in planemaker.) The flight model could be an ultralight, small GA, whatever is being used as the base flight model. What you are seeing is a 3D model, built in an external 3D application, that is attached to the flight model.

Goran,Thanks again, but I thought the difference between the two was that with planemaker for XP, what you graphically build is what either flies or fails to fly. I also wanted to add some fun vizualizations to the thread.

[mmann 72]

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

Not at the moment; but then Microsoft Flight hasn't been released yet, so who knows.

[GoranM 3,764]

Goran,Thanks again, but I thought the difference between the two was that with planemaker for XP, what you graphically build is what either flies or fails to fly. I also wanted to add some fun vizualizations to the thread.

Yes, correct. What you graphically build and is recognized by x plane as a flight model, is what is represented and calculated on the screen. Every single part of an aircraft that is built in Planemaker (except weapons and gear doors) can be made "invisible". 3rd party developers don't make 3D modelled cockpits and 3D modelled, high detail exteriors in Planemaker. They make them in an external 3D application. X Plane cannot read the dimensions of the more detailed, 3D model. It can only render it on the screen along with it's textures. It can only mathematically read what is made in Planemaker. So for example, I can make a Boeing 747 in Planemaker, set to be invisible in the sim through Planemakers UI, export a 3D modelled (in a 3D application of choice. 3dsmax, maya, blender, etc...) object of a...cow (just an example), attach it to the Boeing flight model, save it, open it in X Plane, and I would be looking at a cow, standing on the runway and it would fly like a Boeing (because of the underlying flight model.)Think of it as a ferrari bodykit put over a toyota celica. Looks like a ferrari, drives like a celica.

[HughesMDflyer4 470]

Not at the moment; but then Microsoft Flight hasn't been released yet, so who knows.

Speculation based on nothing, much?