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Scenery converts pretty well, but aircraft need a lot of work from FS to X-Plane. It is not just a case of a few adjustments. If you have all the original construction files, then the basic geometry could be re-saved in X-Plane format, but all the animation would have to be re-done. If the way an aircraft looks is similar in FS and X-Plane, the way they make an aircraft function and fly is very different. For example, with X-Plane, you have to define the aerofoil sections for the wings in order to have the correct amount of lift and drag. This part needs to be researched and developed properly, which is great fun for the developer, but it's certainly not just a copy-and-paste job.Programming also has some similarities, and many differences. Lua is being used by X-Plane programmers, but the interface with X-Plane and all the X-Plane variables will be different, so again, it is not a simple matter of copy-and-paste.So, to answer your question, converting an aircraft from FS to X-Plane is not a trivial job. It would have to be done by the original author, or with their full co-operation, and this would require considerable planning, time and resource. Some FS companies have already begun to convert aircraft to X-Plane. More are thinking about it, but it will take time.Meanwhile, there are some excellent freeware and payware authors for X-Plane, too ...

Thank you very much! The Comet looks old in those YouTube films. Much has changed ...

I must correct a mistake on an earlier page on this topic that scenery, for example buildings or whole airports, can be converted from FS to X-Plane without having to re-map textures. There are tools for Blender that will do this. Of course it must be done with the original developer's permission, but it can be done successfully. Animations have to be re-done.

I am an aircraft developer for X-Plane. I would warmly and wholeheartedly welcome PMDG if it chose to make products for X-Plane — and be first in the queue in their shop.X-Plane is different to Microsoft Flight Simulator in many ways. Laminar Research's founder and owner, Austin Meyer, is a wonderfully enthusiastic inventor, and the strength of his conviction shines through. Even now, if you write to him, you will get an answer, and that creates a unique and loyal bond between Laminar Research and its customers.There can be a problem with this, too, and early versions of X-Plane were inspired, but erratic. As it grew in popularity and complexity, LR expanded into a small but strong team of developers that widened X-Plane's scope, introduced a more organised development path, with better support and documentation. I find a lot of people judge X-Plane on those early versions and fail to appreciate where it's come from, and therefore where it might be going.X-Plane comes with "Plane Maker". It is altogether more accessible than the Flight Simulator SDK. In fact, it is so easy to create your own plane that some people got it down to a fine art, pumping out a plane a week without writing a single line of code. Freeware proliferated, some were beautifully researched and painstakingly produced, others showing, frankly, more enthusiasm than talent. I it unkind of me to say so, because these true petrol-heads are the backbone of X-Plane, but again I think X-Plane was judged — continues to be judged — on the extremely variable quality of these creations.The big change came with X-Plane 9. The company was, by then, better organised, the direction the product was being developed was clearer, and this made developers take it more seriously. Most importantly, there were huge changes in the way aircraft were constructed. In one leap, we moved from Plane Maker geometry, with its very restrictive geometry of a maximum of 20 cross-sections, each with 16 sides, to the virtually limitless possibilities of 3D object models. Suddenly, the only cap on detail was the performance of your graphics card.This proved to be something of a culture shock. X-Plane developers were traditionally one-man week-end or evening warriors, but now the possibilities were so enormous that the length of time required leaped from man weeks to man years. It took more than a year before the first truly XP9-spec aircraft began to appear, and some of the even more complex models are only just reaching maturity now - 4 years after XP9 was introduced.I've just used geometric detail as an example, but that's only the tip of the iceberg. Skilful programmers found (are still finding) that they can develop richly detailed systems, via plugins. Again, these are only really appearing on the market now because it took time for developers to acquire the skills and put them to good use.This is the nub of the argument: X-Plane is like a force that has yet to reach critical mass. Already, since the closure of the ACES studio, sales of X-Plane have soared, membership of forums have doubled, and the demands of FS9/FSX users, used to a more "polished" virtual world, is having a hugely beneficial effect. We need developers like PMDG to show how it can be done, to encourage more developers to form effective teams and finish new projects in good time. We need FSX users to bring a new point of view, or a new sense of priorities, to make XP10, XP11, XP12 even better than they could be without them.