Been rather reserved lately, but it doesn't mean I haven't been active flying X-Plane10, mostly.

My latest inccursion into the FSX world revealed to be yet another short diversion, nevertheless, I still admire the overall quality and detail that a simulator with 8 years is giving even after having long been abandoned by MS (as it appears to be usual lately...). Most of it's success results from the huge amount of add-ons, some of very high quality, both in terms of scenery and aircraft. I miss the LevelD767 in X-Plane10, but, from what I have been reading lately, add-ons like the CRJ-200 and now the 777 are on pair with the level of detail and quality achieved by LevelD. I will most probably buy the 777 sooner or later :-)

 

Meanwhile I started exploring OpenScenery, through the great tool - OSM2XP, but, the closer I get to a more plausible representation of some scenery areas, the more I end up acknowledging that my PC is not up for such amounts of objects. Maybe whith 10.20 I will be able to get better performance, because the objects, specially around crowded towns, are really heavy on my sim... From the standpoint of someone accostumed to use ELITE, a simple grey polygon, appearing like a myriad of light dots at night, would do as far as I am up to flying IFR and trainning a few approach scenarios, which brings yet another subject - proper representation o airport data (aka AFCAD in MSFS), proper navigation data with frequencies for the various ATC services properly implemented, and the possibility to fly real IFR approaches, including holds, something I also missed in MSFS unless I used some ATC add-on or went flying online with VATSIM or IVAO... This is as area where I really would like to see a bit of improvement. Right now I can't enter and holing without the controller starting his usual - you're out of course... :-/

 

Weather looks better in 10.10RC3, specially wind and turbulence wise, but I miss the mist / fog in X-Plane. There is no such thing as a fog / mist layer in X-Plane10. This was also complicated to achieve in MSFS, and it was great in MS FLIGHT - the MS team had really found the way to properly implement fog / mist, and I had a great time flying some tricky approaches in MS FLIGHT :-/ I miss it a lot :-(

 

Still in the weather theme, X-Plane10 does a very good job at simulating ridge lift and also turbulence (maybe even some sort of rotors), and sink on the lee side of mountains. It feels great and has given me a great time flying the AS-K21 around places I know very well from RL. In this particular aspect I'd say that X-Plane10 provides a lot more than just plausibility, and brings extraordinary realism when flying gliders. Thermals are also plausible, although I don't think they move with the wind :-( Clouds are still too, but being 3d, and looking so nice, and since I fear making them move would have quite a bit of an impact in performance, I'd rather keep it that way, or at least add the chance to have moving clouds as a rendering option in order not to hurt slower machines.

 

Some sort of structured missions / adventures would be a great addition to X-Plane10 IMHO. I did not think so in the past, but the MS FLIGHT experience, and also a few missions I recently flew when I re-installed FSX Gold, made me think that it would be nice to have, and would probably capture a few more adepts to the cause...

AI traffic I really do not like. I don't like the impact it has on my fps, I really don't like the way the various aircraft types are sent to fly their routes, landing jumbos at small grass strips, etc... Above all I believe that the interesting idea Austin had of making the AI use the same FM that we use, should be dropped in favour of the possibility to have a lot more of aircraft flying around, and interacting with a better ATC.

 

An ATC robbot add-on like some we have for FSX would also be great to have in X-Plane10!!!

 

Yesterday I spent around an hour flying the recently released final version of DCS P-51 at a friends home cockpit. Whow! Talk about detail, quality, scenery, flight and systems moddeling - it is simply astounding!!!! The P-51, supposedly developed with the assistance of RL p-51 drivers behaves just as I believe it would if I was able to fly one. It's nice not to have that huge / unrealistic torque that plagues all X-plane prop aircraft not built as counter-rotating. Speaking of which I would suggest that you start using Plane-maker to tweak your default Baron58, or any prop aircraft not to exhibit such unrealistic behaviour. I did it recently with the Carenado Baron58, and I really like what I was able to achieve. The aircraft operates as a charm during all phases of flight, and you do not have to fight the roll tendency everytime you make throttle / prop / mixture adjustments. Great to have PMaker and an open architecture that allows for us simple users to open a sophisticated add-on and play around with it's FM, provided it is not using some fancy plugin o do the magic!!!

 

Overall, really enjoying X-plane10.

 

Ah! Aerofly FS - so nice!!! Pitty it is freezed in "time of day", and there are so few aspects to control such as mixtures, atc and radios, AI, not being available right away (maybe on a future version?). Anyway, this is the other sim I tried yesterday, and really liked !!!! Next weekend, I will go soaring, if the weather allows... It's been 4 months since I last got my &@($* seated on the Twin Astir ( CS-PBP ) or, maybe the Club ( CS-PBU ) :-)

Enjoy your weekend!

Good write up! A few things you mentioned I would hope/like to see introduced in time to X-Plane but overall I have been enjoying my time so far in X-Plane. I am a sucker for the highways and the lighting in X-Plane. Also I enjoy the overall feelings of the aircraft and landing in X-Plane and the cockpits and lighting is amazing.

In an hour did you manage to get any perfect landings with the p51? Thats a hard bird to land nicely when you first get in to it. Bouncy bouncy

Try the DCS P-51 with a little cross wind on landing It can get.........Interesting :Big Grin:

Oh, I did try a crosswind landing and a takeoff. The owner chose full realism settings. He has a warthog control system ( very expensive :-/ ) Well, it was very interestig but easy to master the "beast", and on it's way up after a touch&go I was able to understand how good the physics model in that sim is... Pity it's military :-( I'd love to have an aircraft feel that way in x-plane too :-/

Just ignore the weapons button, I dont though

 

The warthog is a nice stick and with an extension on it's even better for the p51.

Well I am glad you have become less reserved then! I was thinking of sending out a search party.

 

Great write-up by the way, and on the parts I feel competent to opine on, I agree with all you said. I just add that there is a way to change time of day in the other sim you mentioned. I will post it in the appropriate forum.

Thank you guys for the thumbs up on my morning writing :-)

 

P-51 is almost unavoidable now... Aerofly FS too :-/ Ouch!