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X-Plane - An Obsession For Realism
caseih writes "Popular Science is running an article on Austin Meyer, the creator of the popular X-Plane flight simulator. Although not an open source project, X-Plane has a devoted community of flight enthusiasts and developers who are striving to make it the most realistic flight simulator ever. In fact, flight characteristics are calculated in real time from aircraft design data, not static tables like MS Flight Simulator. PopSci has a neat picture showing X-Plane calculating the lift-drag vectors in real-time across an aircraft. Meyer's quest for realism in his simulations dominates the development and use of X-Plane."
I love X-Plane, precisely for the reasons posted: it's very cool that the simulation strives to be as accurate as possible, and gets better with each release. On the other hand, at least one journalist disagrees...
Yesterday, Salon had a ridiculous article(might be restricted to subscribers only, sorry) that claims that modern consumer flight simulators are too realistic, and implies that they should be banned or restricted somehow. And of course, as the headline promises, the article does indeed place some of the blame for 9/11 on such flight simlulators!
Bad Salon, bad. What is it with the media hating video games, anyways?
I'm sure the author would like nothing better than to give away X-Plane for free. The trouble is that there are some applications that require the bulk of one person's time, for years on end, if they are to be amazing. And, like anybody else, the creator of this work needs to eat.
I think we're certain to see a greater variety of open source freeware apps in the years ahead. But there just aren't enough people out there with serious expertise in both aeronautics and coding, who can pitch in and build an open source X-Plane in their free time.
You want 1001 small apps, from hard drive erasers to science calculators, the open source movement has you covered. You're also covered with the handful of huge apps, that everybody needs, since there are sufficient coders out there to recognize the supreme significance of these apps and donate bits of their time (take Mozilla and OpenOffice.org as two examples.)
But if you want something as niche as a world class flight simulator, sorry, you're probably not gonna get it open source. It's gonna take a huge effort from a tiny group of people, and they need to do it to the exclusion of other things. Like anyone else, they've gotta eat. And to call their code "useless" because it's not open source, that's unfair, mean spirited, and ignorant.
I'm generally "Interesting," "Insightful," and even "Funny" here. What the hell happens to me at parties?
you know, one gets really tired of this kind of attitude. Did you read the article? This is his life's work, and I think he deserves compensation for it. X-plane (versions 6 and 7) is the only software I've paid for in the last 2 or 3 years, and I was happy to do it, because I'm supporting a real person, and getting a (albeit quirky) quality piece of software for it. I'm certainly a believer in the open source movement, I use it whenever possible, and I've contributed some of my work to the community. Anyway, why don't you put your money where your mouth is and code your own flight sim. (Or quit making inflammatory statements like code hoarder)
In relation to FS games, This guy here has got da bomb setup 9 PCs, 13 monitors, one plane. Since some idiot mod put me to -1 me down as troll for replying to an AC with the subject line of "eat shit and die", I'll try this again and wish a speedy death to the mod in question.
Eat recycled food - it's good for the environment, and OK for you.
Those of you who have visited the X-Plane site have no doubt found the article, but here's a quick bit for everyone else...
So what sort of planes can fly on Mars? Not anything from Earth, that's for sure. Not enough lift or thrust. A Cessna or Boeing will just sit there on the ground without even moving. Put them in the air and they drop like beveled bricks with no wings. Both of my Mars-plane concepts are much like the U-2 Spyplane (designed to operate at around 100,000 ft, in simlar density air) one with a HUGE high-bypass jet engine built AROUND THE FUSELAGE, and another with a smaller rocket engine in the tail, like the X-15. The rocket plane has a lower-thrust engine, with plenty of fuel, for about 30 minutes of flight or so... the JET plane can fly for hours!
Article link (you'll have to try to ignore the excessive use of ALL CAPS)
I've always thought X-Plane was cool, but after reading this article I was convinced... and that's when I read the article well over a year ago!
I used to support MS Flight Simulator over the telephone, so ive had to play with it quite a bit. Although I never really had to figure out how the game.. excuse me simulator, calculates flight data (ive had people yell at me on the phone for calling MS Flight Simulator a game.. you know, those people that dont play games and its a "simulator").
Anyway, to the point.
With MS Flight Simulator, when you build a new plane for it, you need to build a file that has all the information about how the plane reacts if it were to fly in the air. (it may be a bit different then this I haven't worked there for a couple years). I made a new plane in GMax, but used a different planes files and pretty much changed the model of the aircraft. When you go fly, it uses this file to figure out how winds, altitude, etc are going to react with the plane.
With X-Plane, when I build a model and fly it within the 'simulator', its going to use the actual model itself to calculate how the plane is going to fly. This seems pretty useful to someone who wants to design planes. They called it a 'virtual wind-tunnel' in the article (I only read the first couple pages).
So, the aircraft design data in MS Flight Simulator isn't based off the model of the plane itself, whereas X-Plane uses the model of the plane to figure out how it flies. I would say that for accuracy sakes, your better off testing and simulating stuff with X-Plane vs. Flight Simulator.
As a side note, Flight Simulator is the biggest pain in the ass to support. I would take a few calls a week from some ex-pilot who doesn't think a certain plane is flying correctly (it should be able to go this speed, or the panel doesn't have the gauges like they are in real-life). I really wish those kinds of people could come to my work and find out what kinds of things I can and cannot do.. If everyones plane flies the same way, I cannot really fix that.. Of course ive also talked to a guy who put a bunch of monitors into an old 737 cockpit for MSFS, and another guy who had 9 monitors hooked up, mainly using them for Flight Simulator. That product has some hardcore fans attached to it... (warning im a bit drunk and i tend to ramble, ill stop now..)
I spent perhaps half my life playing flight simulators of all kinds. I loved it. About 2 years ago I started playing X-plane, investing in the CH sim yoke and everything. I flew Cessnas all the time.
Finally, about a year ago, I decided that 15 years of simulators was quite enough, and I started to take flying lessons in real airplanes. The same aircraft - Cessna 172. I was expecting that with my many years of simulator experience, including 2 years with mega-realistic X-plane, I'd be able to waltz right in and fly the plane as if I was an expert.
Guess what? The plane kicked my ass. Flying it felt *nothing* like the simulator. Although x-plane may accurately simulate how the aircraft moves through the air, the air itself is in motion in very complex ways that aren't simulated. The plane moves around in ways the simulator never prepared me for. I couldn't land for shit until I'd done it in the real plane maybe 100 times, and I didn't get really good at it until about 300 times. I've taken some of my other X-plane addict friends up flying with me and let them take the controls, and they always say "It doesn't feel anything like the simulator".
And, completey separately from the actual aircraft control feeling unrealistic, no simulator I've ever played has done a good job of simulating the stress of a real flight. X-Plane does nothing to prepare you for trying to fly the plane while a controller is continuously talking in your ear to you and the other 10 airplanes in his airspace. X-Plane does not put you in a panic that you just intruded on a class B airspace boundary. X-plane does not wait until you're on short final, then tell you to start a climb, do a 360 and then reestablish yourself on final because a jet just got his IFR release. X-plane does not ask you to keep 3 other targets in the pattern in sight while landing. X-plane does not make you try to listen to the ATIS recorded weather information and controller simultaneously while also trying to fly through clouds on instruments. All of these things happen to me regularly in real planes.
(Admittedly, I do fly in the most complex airspace in the world - the LA basin - so maybe this is an extreme example.)
On the positive side, simulators do an excellent job of giving you an understanding about how navigation works (e.g. how to track VORs, when they're reversed, how to form a mental picture of where you are based on navaid information, etc.)
It's important to note though that building a 3d model for X-Plane is not the same as building one for MSFS. In X-Plane, the 3d model's shape is defined by the specifications set using the Plane Maker tool. For example, you type in a value for wingspan, and the wingspan of the model changes. In this way is the 3d shape each aircraft defined.
This is much more difficult (in my opinion) than modeling an aircraft in a 3d graphics package such as Maya or 3ds max, though it is necessary for the way X-Plane calculates flight models.