Greetings gentlemen and ladies,

 

After spending a few months perusing the forums and the internet off and on I went ahead today and purchased X-plane.  I have mostly flow FSX, but I've read the pros and cons of the three big sims out there and figured there's no reason that I shouldn't try them all at some point.

 

I mostly fly GA aircraft and am still learning quite a bit about navigation in general and the proper way to do things.  One of the things that I really enjoy doing is setting up a flight plan to a place i want to go, hitting the ap and enjoying the ride.  I had read that the latest x-plane patches had added quite a lot of functionality to the default gps system.  I was wondering if those of you that have it could elaborate a bit more on what sorts of features you can do now?  For instance, can the autopilot manage an ils approach, things of that nature?

 

Secondly, would you recommend running x-plane vanilla or is there some scenery, meshes, textures, etc that are simply must haves?

 

I'm really looking forward to getting the sim(paid for 2 day shipping), and trying it out!  

 

Well the autopilot could fly instrument approaches prior to the new GNS - but now you can create and edit FP's on the go, select RNAV (GPS) approaches etc with it.

 

For XP in General get OSM scenery and Andreas' HD mesh for your part of the world.

 

Skymaxx has some nice cloud stuff

 

I'm pretty new myself so I'm not sure what the best addons are...

 

I like the new Carenado C206, the Aerobask Eclipse 550 (freeware), the LES SAAB340, lots like the FlightFactor B757... Lots of addons to choose from

 

Have fun!

Welcome to the X-Plane world. I fly both - XP and P3D - and it's a tossup as to which I like best in that each has its draw.

Check out X-plane.org,

Important thing, especially if you are an old FSX nut, is to hang in there and really dig and explore the x-plane world.

I think you'll find it a good one.

A couple of other things: WED and Sketchup and Sketchup2Xplane. With these you can easily create and add scenery, which you'll need to do since many XP airports have nothing.

 

Oh, and just have fun and remember ... it's only a simulator.

Welcome

 

I'd recommend that you, as a minimum grab HD Mesh v2 from www.alpilotx.net for the regions you want to fly in, this will give a higher definition mesh, better roads and rivers.

 

If you have the disk space and bandwidth, have a look at the scenery on simheaven.com, using photoscenery in combination with World2XPlane based scenery is, IMO, about as a real as you can get scenery to look in any simulator at present (of course, I'm biased since I wrote World2XPlane, but hey it's all for free :-)).

 

Most of all, have fun and let us know how you get on and if you have any questions.

Thanks for all the advice.  I downloaded the OSM Scenery. After reading the info on AIpilotx.net would I be correct in believing that OSM and V2 mesh are two different texture packs that replace the default textures?  If so, then I'm assuming I can use one or the other, but obviously not both at the same time?

 

I'm honestly flabbergasted at all the free stuff the community has made.  That's a nice little feature.  I was perusing some of the airplanes last night and there's a lot of GA stuff to try.

 

 

After reading the info on AIpilotx.net would I be correct in believing that OSM and V2 mesh are two different texture packs that replace the default textures?

 

No, OSM (OpenStreetMap) is scenery generated from the free OpenStreetMap project, which adds roads, buildings, forests and VFR landmarks (depending on how good the data is, you can read about that here http://world2xplane.com/2014/03/11/what-is-openstreetmap/). HD Mesh v2 improves the definition of the land the OSM scenery is placed over, i.e. better more accurate coastlines, mountains, rivers, etc.. Both can be used together. However, both of them don't change the textures of the default scenery, which is why many use them in combination with photoscenery for a truly accurate representation of the real area.

 

I recommend you have a read through this FAQ which should help explain the somewhat complicated array of scenery available: http://forum.avsim.net/topic/430976-scenery-and-openstreetmap-osm-faq/

Thanks much Tony for answering what are probably questions asked by new members time and time again.  I will download w2xplane when I get home.  I like to fly low, though not necessarily slow, so I'll give vanilla xplane a try then try the same flight with the mods.  Appreciate all the help!