Hi guys,

 

Having read some good feedback about X-Plane, i am ready to try this... (from P3D)...

 

just some general questions needing to have answered to see if this switch is going to be what i expected...

 

Firstly, what are the very basic downloads (apart form the actual sim) i should be investing in?

 

I fly the Airbus Extended mostly... i have seen the JARDesign A320 on YouTube and it looks very nice... i understand the actual flight fidelity of X-Plane is unmatched so my question here is does the Airbus fly realistically? Are the systems modeled properly? Does the MCDU work or is it a real basic model? This would be a deal maker or breaker for me...

 

Thanks fellows for your time and looking forward to the gems from the experts!

 

Cheers

DOug

HI Doug

 

I can't advise on the Airbus, as I don't have it, but scenery and plugins wise, and since you are in New Zealand, I would recommend alpilotx's New Zealand Pro which will greatly enhance the mesh in this area (I'd recommend it even if you weren't in New Zealand). In fact, I recommend you also grab the HD Mesh v2 for the areas you wish to fly in for more accurate coast lines, you can read more about the mesh in an interview I did with the developer here

 

Also, if you are interested in flying in Europe above realistic scenery (maybe more suitable for VFR), then have a look at all the photoscenery and OSM downloads on http://www.simheaven.com. I'd of course recommend my own scenery hosted on simheaven (World2XPlane), however if you are in an Airbus at 30,000 feet, you won't get too much benefit from it, but the Zoom-Level 16 photo sceneries in combination with the HD Mesh are worthwhile getting.

 

Regarding plugins, the only ones I use are

 

- Skymaxx Pro (Payware and I can't recommend this great addon enough, it makes skies and clouds so much more realistic)

- The flywithlua sky tweaks, more info here http://forum.avsim.net/topic/433908-experimenting-with-art-controls-raleigh-scattering, this really changes the skies in the sim, and looks very good

 

If I think of anymore, I'll add them here.

 

Oh, and welcome to X-Plane :smile:

The closest match, in terms of Airbus FBW goes, IMO, for the QPAC A320.

 

Peter's airbuses are also good ( flight dynamics wise ), but not as good in other areas, although Peter also keeps updating them, and recently the A320/21 got nice 3d cockpits.

 

The author of the QPAC A320 is working hard to include new features and iron problems with systems modelling and the FBW logic, and two versions will be released in the future, one including a 3D cabin - Versions Comparison here.

 

I no longer use X-Plane 10, but the QPAC Airbus was the best airbus experience of the three available. Systems-wise you can't compare any of them with the offers for FSX, but the JarDesign has, at present, more depth in some aspects, including the FMGC programming 

Tony and JComm already gave you some very valuable information.

I am not a "guru" at all, just an enthusiast who thinks that XPX is the most immersive desktop flight sim available, and here are my "must have" essential addons:

OSM Europe (North America) + autogen (simheaven)

HD Mesh v2 (alpilotx)

Treelines and Farms v2 (alpilotx)

UrbanMAXX 3D (payware for 7,95$)

MaxxFX (payware for 19,95$)

and some other tools (dataref editor) and freeware scenery that can be added step by step.

If you want to see, how that looks in action, I invite you to have a look at my YouTube channel:

www.youtube.de/schmeichel75

 

And welcome to the power of 64 bit and the beauty of X-Plane! ;-)

Jeepers!

 

Thanks so much for all the info! Looking at the YouTube vids, the correct settings seem to be just gorgeous!

 

Will report back once i have set this all up!

 

Thanks again!

Do let us know how you get on with the airbus and which one (JARdesign or QPAC or Peter) you decide to purchase.

I recommend:

 

- Enhanced Runways HD by FlyjSim (free)

- Thunder HD Enhancement Pack (free)

- Moon HD Enhancement Pack (free)

- Skymaxx (clouds/sky) - (payware)

- HDR Environment 1.1 (I do not particularly use more) - (free)

- Python Interface (must have) - Many addons need it (free)

-HeadShake (free)

 

Airports and aircraft will each .... 

 

Recommend the scenario CZST Beti-X, perfect!

 

 

The A320 got the JarDesign, in my opinion the best so far!

 

Good luck with it all, and welcome to X-plane!