I'm thinking of trying Xplane 10 but notice it doesn't have "plane maker" included on the dvd's. My interests are not solely in flying but also in modelling aircraft. There is a program on the dvd called "airfoil design" or very similar but exactly what the purpose of supplying the program for is not made clear on the website. I notice that a couple of posts regarding the conversion of aircraft from xplane-9 (made with plane maker I presume) to xplane-10 have so far gone un-answered. Does this signal the end of freeware third party aircraft for Xplane10?If not could someone please let a complete newbie to Xplane know what modelling program and processes are required to produce a freeware aircraft and get it functioning in Xplane10.A big ask I know but any help really appreciated.

Plane Maker should be included in your X-Plane folder after installation. I think a lot of third party developer are using Blender (it’s a free 3d package) for modelling. There is a very good serie of tutorial available on YouTube about using Plane-Maker and Blender (later in the serie) for X-Plane. Here is the first part. As you will see, it’s a long path...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Os7O-uPhIHk&feature=channelGood luck

Plane Maker should be included in your X-Plane folder after installation. I think a lot of third party developer are using Blender (it’s a free 3d package) for modelling. There is a very good serie of tutorial available on YouTube about using Plane-Maker and Blender (later in the serie) for X-Plane. Here is the first part. As you will see, it’s a long path...Good luck

Thanks Al for taking the time to reply to my post.Whatever was I thinking? I must have had a "senior moment" last night when I made the post. :( I had done a bit of research over at X-plane .org but didn't notice any reference to plane maker. After your reply I went back to double check my thinking on the subject and lo and behold sure enough they state it is on the installation dics. Thanks for the links to the videos. I will have to study them carefully to see how it's done. It can't be that hard :-) :(

Thanks Al for taking the time to reply to my post.Whatever was I thinking? I must have had a "senior moment" last night when I made the post. :( I had done a bit of research over at X-plane .org but didn't notice any reference to plane maker. After your reply I went back to double check my thinking on the subject and lo and behold sure enough they state it is on the installation dics.Thanks for the links to the videos. I will have to study them carefully to see how it's done. It can't be that hard :-) :(

Au contrair! I am currently developing a CRJ-1000 for XPX and following the tutorials it has taken me a week to build the fuselage so far. It doesn't help that there are no high quality 3-D views of the CRJ-1000...

Au contrair! I am currently developing a CRJ-1000 for XPX and following the tutorials it has taken me a week to build the fuselage so far. It doesn't help that there are no high quality 3-D views of the CRJ-1000...

Hi 0rcair, When you say 3D views do you mean plan-side elevation-front orthographic views to add as a background in your modeling program?? You have chosen a relatively late model aircraft and yes it is hard to find good scale drawings. Even aircraft manufacturers manuals are not always spot on regarding accuracy of scale. They are for instructional purposes and strict scale is not essential.Most modeling programs allow for the final scale relationships of lenght/span/height to be "tweaked" once the model is finished. This is necessary because sometimes funny things happen to scale when a model is imported into a flight sim.What detail that may be missing from drawings you might be able to pick up from photographs.Good luck with your model. (that's a long 100 seat fuselage :( )