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April 6, 2005
X-Plane: a great flight simulator needs quality assurance
It's not a game, it's a simulation: the X-Plane flight simulator. It lets you take the pilot's seat on a 747 flightdeck or get behind the controls of a (much more fun) Cessna 172. Other than Microsoft's Flight Simulator, the veteran of flight simulation, X-Plane is meant to be highly realistic and allows aviation companies to test new or futuristic aircraft designs.
I've been training the basics - taking off, flying the traffic pattern (which is a rectangle in the air over airports) and making my landings with small planes. Navigation sort of works, too. That's fun and reasonably challenging if you're flying in weather - as long as the software does what you expect it to do. X-Plane is fun - its bugs are funny. Read on...
(Santa Monica municipal airport, final approach, runway 21 in a Piper Malibu. The real downtown Santa Monica has quite a few towers - but probably none right at the end of a runway, as these real-life pictures show.)
Version 8 is out - with more realistic scenery. X-Plane lets you fly everywhere, with the best scenery available for the United States. Unfortunately, good graphics demand much more than my two-year old old G4 Apple Powerbook, so for now, I'm flying in thick fog with reduced-quality scenery.
But that's not all that you should beware of. X-Plane is developed mainly by one guy in
South Carolina, Austin Meyer. In between coding sessions, he likes to get in his Corvette, drive to the airport to take his Cirrus (one of the more expensive General Aviation aircraft) for a spin. He's quite the geek, when it comes to development: more instruments, more realism. And just like in most nerd's software projects, quality assurance comes last. X-Plane works in general - but when you try to work the radio, it fails miserably.
Let's get a little technical to give you an example: Flying on an ILS (instrument) flight plan from KSFO (that's San Francisco Int'l) to KLAX (Los Angeles Int'l), Air Traffic Control just doesn't do it's job. I'm getting up to some 80nm before KLAX, and the virtual ATC guys seem to think I'm happy there up on 33.000 feet. No way to check in with approach - but when I'm getting really close, I can request vectors to the ILS (for non-aviators: that's the approach to a place from which I can use the automated 'instrument landing system' that'll guide me down to the runway). Funny thing is, I'm told to drop down to 4.000 ft within in seconds. I can hear those 500 passengers scream. The best is yet to come: "77 Alpha Uniform, cleared for the 07 left approach", and hey, what's next? They hand me off to a little Helipad tower. Did I mention I was flying a 747?
Someone with more experience with X-Plane tellsme on an X-Plane.org forum: "ATC sucks, always has - if you want reality, use the real-world charts, plan your flight & fly the approach you want." Darn it - if I wanted reality, I would get to the next airport. I just want to learn a bit about radio comm's!
I had another problem - this time it's my fault. X-Plane 8.10 has added realism in the 747's autopilot. I didn't know how to use it right and couldn't land the jumbo any more. Again, the helpful folks at X-Plane.org tell me that this is a technical problem with the default 747 that comes with X-Plane, yes, you heard it, the aircraft that pops up right after you start the program for the first time. The guy at the form doesn't lose his irony: "Exactly - the default planes are usually the ones that are the most outdated... don't be surprised if those planes are missing some vital systems as well (like anti-ice for a 747 )" Well, this time they weren't quite right with my problem - it's just a button that I missed.
Take a close look at the somewhat funny screenshots. Thank God the engineers at Boeing and Airbus take quality assurance seriously, maybe unlike Laminar Research, maker of X-Plane...
(And the million dollar question is... what's wrong in this picture?)
Posted by dr at April 6, 2005 3:48 PM
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» X-Plane from The Red Pill
A weblog article appeared today, David's World: X-Plane: a great flight simulator needs quality assurance, and I agree with most of what the author had to say. X-Plane is an enjoyable and realistic simulator, and the only real alternative if... [Read More]
Tracked on April 7, 2005 5:06 AM
Comments
You are very right. X-Plane is the best flitesim for PC (or Mac) ever seen.
But!
To make real flights, you need THE aircraft. You will find it here :
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/xp-flyingjaydee
Friendly.
Posted by: JayDee at July 27, 2005 12:39 PM
I have been a fan of x-plane since version 4. I am a Mac advocate and have always had a love of being up there rather than down here, so when I found x-plane and found it worked on a Mac, and MS flight sim was always breaking and quite honestly not Mac friendly at all, using MS Windows windows, dialogs etc, I was hooked to x-plane.
It may not be the most user friendly interface, but it is certainly better than other offering on the Mac platform, for instance "Fly", it often didn't, it crashed (ie: the program that is), when I saw there was an update, I sent of my master disk as requested, three years ago, I am still waiting for the updated disk to arrive.!
These "Other" flight offerings that are available are very anonymous, you can't get help! you can't get an update! you often can't get a response to bug reports.
At least with x-plane you have a community of wonderful people who all try to help one another, and Austin, will answer his email, he will even take time out to explain things and always keeps you up to date with developments. To Austin, you are a customer and a friend, Microsoft on the other hand.... Fly on the other hand ....
Need I say more, Enjoy, trawl the forums, and explore. If things don't work as you expect, don't worry they will one day, in the mean time get up and fly around. Try "Xco-pilot" and Goodways "Flight planning" at http://www.xpgoodway.com/, what a load of fun. ;-)
I can now land most types of aircraft, in most conditions, and without having to rely on Autopilots! and without bursting tyres! 5 years ago I would have said that was impossible.
Dave
Posted by: David Perry at August 12, 2005 12:12 PM