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X-Plane 12 Desktop
Manual
Last updated: 14 September 2022

About This Manual

This is version 12.0 of the manual to the home and

professional versions of X‑Plane (X-Plane 12 and X‑Plane 12
for Professional Use, respectively). The latest version will
always be available online on the X‑Plane website.

Manuals for specific aircraft, and the GPS or FMS are also
available in the in the simulator install, or on the X-Plane
website.

To use this manual, you can jump to a section by clicking its

title in the table of contents on the side. To search for a
specific term or set of words, press “ctrl” (“command” on a
Mac) + “f” then start typing to be taken to the term anywhere
in the document. For a PDF version of this manual, use an
HTML to PDF converter such as pdfcrowd.com.

If you would like to receive a free guide to many of the most

important features of X-Plane, you can sign up for our free
email course. By signing up, you’ll be able to learn all the
most important features of X‑Plane at your own pace, without
having to search through the manual for the feature you’re
interested in. This course will show you how to:

1. add new aircraft to X‑Plane for free,

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 2. dogfight against your friends or X-Plane’s artificial
intelligence,
3. shoot approaches to your favorite runways,
4. and more!

Sign up for the free course to get the most out of X-Plane.

About X-Plane
Overview
X-Plane is the world’s most comprehensive and powerful flight
simulator for personal computers, and it offers the most
realistic flight model available.

X-Plane is not a game, but an engineering tool that can be

used to predict the flying qualities of fixed- and rotary-wing
aircraft with incredible accuracy.

Because X‑Plane predicts the performance and handling of

almost any aircraft, it is a great tool for pilots to keep up their
currency in a simulator that flies like the real plane, for
engineers to predict how a new airplane will fly, and for
aviation enthusiasts to explore the world of aircraft flight
dynamics.

Welcome to the world of props, jets, single- and multi-engine

airplanes, as well as gliders, helicopters and VTOLs. X‑Plane
contains subsonic and supersonic flight dynamics, allowing
users to predict the flight characteristics of the slowest aircraft
or the fastest. X‑Plane includes more than 15 aircraft in the
default installation, spanning the aviation industry and its
history. Aircraft included range from the Sikorsky S-76 and
Cessna 172 to the Space Shuttle and the B–52 Bomber.
Additionally, some 2,000 additional aircraft models can be

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 downloaded online (X-Plane.org and Google are good places
to start looking), many of which are completely free. If those
aren’t enough, users can design their own airplanes and test-
fly them!

The full X‑Plane scenery package covers the Earth in stunning

resolution from 74 north to 60 south latitude. Users can land
at any of over 35,000 airports or test their mettle on aircraft
carriers, oil rigs, frigates (which pitch and roll with the
waves), or helipads atop buildings. They can also realistically
model the flight of remote-controlled model aircraft, fly with
friends over the Internet or a LAN, drop water on forest fires,
or shoot approaches to aircraft carriers at night in stormy
weather and rough water conditions in a damaged F–4. The
situations that can be simulated are unbelievably diverse!

Weather in X‑Plane is variable from clear skies and high

visibility to thunderstorms with controllable wind, wind shear,
turbulence, and micro bursts. Rain, snow, and clouds are
available for an instrument flying challenge, and thermals are
available for the gliders. Actual weather conditions can be
downloaded from the Internet, allowing users to fly in the
weather that really exists at their current location!

X-Plane has detailed failure modeling, with multitudes of

systems that can either be failed manually at an instructor’s
command, or randomly when users least expect it! Users can
fail instruments, engines, flight controls, control cables,
antennae, landing gear, or any of dozens of other systems at
any moment. They can also have a friend or flight instructor
(locally or via the Internet, working from an Instructor’s
Operating Station) fail components on the aircraft without the
pilot’s knowledge. The instructor can alter the time of day,
weather conditions, and failure status of hundreds of aircraft

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 systems and components. Additionally, the instructor can
relocate the aircraft to a location of his or her choice at any
time.

Aircraft models are also extremely flexible, allowing users to

easily create paint jobs, sounds, and instrument panels to
modify any airplane you choose. Custom airplane or helicopter
designs can even be created and flown using X‑Plane and the
included Plane Maker software.

X-Plane is used by world-leading defense contractors, air

forces, aircraft manufacturers, and even space agencies for
applications ranging from flight training to concept design and
flight testing.

For example, X‑Plane has been used in crash investigations to

depict the view pilots experienced moments before a mid-air
collision, or to graphically present to juries and judges the
forces that impact an aircraft in flight. Scaled Composites
used X‑Plane to visualize Space Ship One’s flights to the edge
of the atmosphere in their pilot training simulator. Kalitta has
used X‑Plane to train their pilots to fly freight 747s in the
middle of the night. Northwest and Japan Airlines use X‑Plane
for flight review and training. Cessna uses X‑Plane to train
new customers in the intricacies of the Garmin G1000. Dave
Rose has used X‑Plane to optimize airplanes for his many wins
at Reno. NASA has used X‑Plane to test the re-entry of gliders
into the Martian atmosphere, and the list goes on. These
customers serve as perhaps the most significant endorsement
of the incredible capabilities of this simulator.

Furthermore, X‑Plane has received certification from the FAA

for use in logging hours towards flight experience and ratings.
This experience can provide credit towards a private pilot’s

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 license, recurrence training, hours towards instrument
training, and even hours towards an Airline Transport
Certificate—it’s that good.

What X-Plane Includes

Windows, Mac, and Linux installers are included with X‑Plane
12. It includes over 70 GB-worth of scenery (covering
essentially the entire world) and over 15 aircraft, with
thousands of planes available on the web. The DVDs or digital
download contain everything needed to run X-Plane—there is
nothing more that you need to buy. You’ll receive free updates
to X‑Plane 12 until Version 13 is released, as well some of the
best customer service and tech support available.

While on its own X‑Plane represents the world’s most

comprehensive flight simulator, the installation also comes
with Plane Maker, allowing users to create custom aircraft or
modify existing designs, and Airfoil Maker, allowing users to
create airfoil performance profiles.

The stock installation includes the following aircraft:

Aero-Works Aerolite 103 Airbus A330–300

Beechcraft Baron 58 Beechcraft King Air C90B
Boeing 737–800 Cessna 172 SP
Cessna Citation X Cirrus SR22
Cirrus Vision SF50 Grumman F-14 Tomcat
Lancair Evolution McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II
McDonnell Douglas MD-82 Piper PA-18 Super Cub
Robinson R22 Beta II Schleicher ASK 21
Sikorsky S-76 Stinson L-5 Sentinel
Van’s Aircraft RV-10

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 Of course, the thousands of aircraft available on the Internet
provide even greater variety. The following is a (small) sample
of what’s out there:

Beechcraft Bonanza Boeing 727/737/747/787

Mooney M20J 201 Piper PA-16 Clipper
de Havilland DH-106 Comet Pitts “Mountain Dew” S2C
Sikorsky S76 StratoCloud Ram-Air
P-51D Mustang Piper Twin Comanche PA30
Beechcraft King Air 350 Cessna 195
Cessna C150 Bell 222
Douglas A-4B Skyhawk Ilyushin IL-76
Fiat CR.42 Falco Paris Jet III
Bell 407 Peregrine F222 Firenze
Beechcraft Staggerwing Curtis P-6 Hawk
Ford Tri-motor Cessna 120
Hawker Sea Harrier FRS1 Airbus A320/A340/A380

About the Versions of the X-Plane Simulator

X-Plane can be used in a wide array of situations, ranging
from home use to commercial flight training. The standard
installation is X‑Plane 12 home use version, and it is perfect
for almost all private users. Situations that go beyond the
standard home use (including use in commercial simulators)
require the purchase of a USB “key” (a simple flash drive) or
the specific digital download product key that is used to
unlock the features of X‑Plane Professional.

Note that FAA certification of a simulator requires not only

that the user has X‑Plane 12 Professional but also the
appropriate hardware (cockpit and flight controls) available
through the X-Plane Hardware page and companies such as

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 Precision Flight Controls. This is because flight-training
systems can only be certified as a complete package (a
software and hardware combination). The commercial, FAA-
certifiable software is available for $750 to $1,000 per copy
and the hardware runs from $5,000 to $500,000. The retail
version of X‑Plane purchased at X-Plane.com is not certified
for flight training right out of the box, since certification
requires a software and hardware combination. However, the
software available at X-Plane.com is almost identical to what
is found in the $500,000 full-motion, FAA-certified platforms.
The biggest difference is that the FAA-certified versions have
custom aircraft files with larger instrument panels, which are
set up to work with hardware radios like those found in the
physical cockpits.

X-Plane 11 Global

The standard X‑Plane simulator is the retail copy of X‑Plane. It

requires one X‑Plane 12 Disc 1 DVD or one digital download
product key for each copy of X‑Plane on the network, and
nothing else. For additional information on the digital
download version of X‑Plane 12, see this Knowledge Base
article.

Many copies of X‑Plane on many computers can be networked

to act as external visuals, external cockpits, instructor
stations, and the like. One X‑Plane Disc 1 DVD or one digital
download product key is required for each computer
networked together running the simulator. This system cannot
be certified by the FAA or any other authority for logging flight
training, due to the fact that it does not self-test for the
presence of flight controls or a usable frame rate. However,
since only one X‑Plane Disc 1 DVD or digital download product
key is needed for each computer, this setup is amazingly

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 affordable and easy to assemble, even though a user could
never certify the system.

X-Plane 11 Professional

This version of X‑Plane is for commercial use and FAA-

approved simulators. It requires one X‑Plane Professional USB
key or Pro-Use Digital Download product key in addition to
each copy of X‑Plane on the network. This version is very
similar to the home use version of the X‑Plane 12 simulator
but enables commercial uses, FAA certification checks, and
ability to use a real GPS. This version is designed to replace
Microsoft ESP.

The Pro USB key or digital download product key needs to be

used for commercial purposes and FAA-approved simulators
for flight training. It gives a Commercial Use message as
X‑Plane starts up, causing X‑Plane to check for flight controls
and self-test the frame rate, as required for FAA certification.
Furthermore, the pro key allows you to interface with Garmin
Real Simulator Units.

Finally, this key enables cylindrical and spherical projections

(see “Projector Setup for X‑Plane Professional” for more
information).

The Professional USB Key or Digital Download can be

purchased from X-Plane.com’s Ordering page. USB key drivers
for both Mac OS and Windows can be downloaded from the X-
Plane.com site. Be sure to run those installers to make
X‑Plane recognize the USB keys.

Quick Start Guide

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 This chapter is designed to allow a first-time X‑Plane user to
get the simulator up and running in as short a time as
possible. The goal is to be in the air and flying within ten
minutes of completing the installation while still learning the
essentials of the simulator.

This chapter will gloss over a great deal of background

information, and configuration of many non-essential options
will be skipped entirely. It assumes that the computer X‑Plane
is being installed on is capable of running the simulator with
its default rendering options. For the latest system
requirements, see “X-Plane 12 System Requirements” in the
X‑Plane Knowledge Base.

Where the process differs between installing on Windows and

Mac OS X, the differences have been noted.

After getting off the ground initially, you may want to continue
reading the full manual, or simply keep it for reference. If you
have any issues while following this guide, check the rest of
the manual—the problem is very likely addressed there, and
you’ll save time for both yourself and customer support.

Detailed information on installing and configuring X‑Plane can

be found in the chapters Preparation and Installation and
Configuring and Tuning Your X‑Plane Installation. Detailed
information on joystick configuration can be found in the
chapter Configuring and Tuning Your X‑Plane Installation, and
the chapter Flight in X-Plane contains more on setting up and
flying the aircraft.

Installation of X-Plane
Before installing, we recommend uninstalling any old or demo
versions of X‑Plane. You can do this by simply dragging the

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 old X‑Plane folders to your Recycle Bin (called Trash in Mac OS
X).

1. If you have purchased a digital download product key,

download the latest X‑Plane installer from our web site
and launch it.

2. When the installer window appears, click Install an

X‑Plane Product Purchase to begin the installation
process.

Note that you can change the language or pick a different

operating system for the install by clicking on the settings
slider icon in the top right corner.

3. Enter your digital download product key on the following

screen. Be sure you are connected to the Internet at all
times during your installation.

4. By default X‑Plane will install to the user’s home folder (on

Mac) or the C: drive root (on Windows), though it can be
installed elsewhere. For the purposes of this guide, we will
assume it is installed in the default location. Click
Continue.

5. Accept the user agreement and click Continue once

again. It is highly recommended that you leave the box
for sending anonymous usage data checked. This allows
Laminar Research to gather anonymous data to make
updates to the simulator based on how you use it.

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 Figure 2.1: All scenery selected for installation after
clicking “Select All”

6. Select the scenery you would like to install. Parts of the

world that are currently selected will be a bright blue color
(as all continents are in Figure 2.1). Note that for regions
where no scenery is installed, only oceans and airports
will be visible.

If you are unsure what areas are currently selected, just

click Select None to turn everything off (as seen in
Figure 2.2). From there, move your mouse around the
map to highlight sections of the world and click on on the
ones you would like to install.

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 Figure 2.2: No scenery selected for installation after
clicking “Select None”

7. When you’re finished selecting scenery, click Continue to

begin installing.

The installer will begin displaying its progress. Note that

digital download time estimates are based on your initial
network speed and real install times may vary significantly.

We strongly recommend that you install only a small bit of

scenery now and add more later, as the entire scenery
package takes over 60 GB of space and a very long time to
install.

Scenery can be added or removed at any point in the future

by re-running the installer. If you are using a digital download
product key, X‑Plane should remember it. If not, enter your
product key when required. When the X-System installer
comes up saying “You already have X‑Plane 12 installed on
this computer,” click the Add or Remove Scenery button
and proceed just like in step 7 above.

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 Note: Having finished the installation, Mac users will probably
want to exclude their X‑Plane installation directory from their
Time Machine backups (as described in the chapter
Preparation and Installation, in the section “[Special
Considerations for Mac Users][].”)

Launching X-Plane for the First Time

1. Make sure your USB joystick is plugged in. To avoid any
possible problems, it is recommended that the flight
controls be plugged directly into the machine rather than
into a hub.

2. Open the X‑Plane folder (located by default in user’s home

folder on Mac, or the C: drive root on Windows) and
double click on ‘X-Plane.exe’ in Windows, or ‘X-Plane.app’
on a Mac.

3. If you have a digital download key, X‑Plane may prompt

you for your key, or the field may be pre-filled if you have
entered your product key before (i.e., during installation).
Simply click “Authorize” and X‑Plane will proceed. Starting
the simulator without this or a DVD in the drive will force
it to run in demo mode only.

If you have successfully used your digital download

product key, X‑Plane will try to contact the authorization
server in the background without prompting you. Thus if
your net connection is good and your product key is not
locked, you may never notice or need the product key
again to fly.

Since this is the first time you’ve started X-Plane, it will begin
with a tutorial on the basics of flight and using X‑Plane. Follow
the instructions or use the Skip buttons to complete it.

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 Configuring Essential Yoke/Joystick Functions
During this first launch, if you are using flight control
hardware, the program can quickly and automatically
configure them. In the Uncalibrated Joystick or Yoke box that
appears, click the Open Joystick Calibration button then
continue with the steps below.

Note that a mouse may be used to fly if neither a yoke or a

joystick is available, though it will (of course) be unrealistic
and cumbersome. If the mouse will be used, skip to the
section “Setting Up a Flight” below.

1. Click on the Calibrate or Calibrate Now button (if

necessary).

Figure 2.3: The calibration window for a new device

2. Move each axis of the device through its full range of

motion. Make sure to move all levers as well as the stick
or yoke itself.

Note that if you’re unable to move the controls through their

full range of motion you may simply click the Accept Axis or
Skip button for each axis that X‑Plane believes to be

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 uncalibrated, but which you have confirmed has actually gone
through its full range of motion.

1. Press the Next button to continue to the centering

screen. Release the controls, press Next again and wait
until the timer is up.

2. Click Finish to leave the calibration screen to return to

the main joystick screen.

Figure 2.4: The joystick configuration screen, after

completing calibration

3. If any axes weren’t recognized properly during the

automatic calibration, you can set them with the drop
down menus in the column of controls on the right.

Note: If your device does not have a preset configuration

in X-Plane, you will need to set all the axes and buttons
by hand by picking options from all the axes & button
drop down options.

4. Assign functions to joystick buttons, such as brake toggle

(if you’re not using rudder pedals) by clicking the Edit
button. Note that for many of the most popular flight
controls, you will be able to refer to the labeled image on
the left if you are unsure which button is being assigned.

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 5. Find the command you’d like to assign, such as “Toggle
brakes regular effort,” by searching or scrolling through
the list. Then click Apply.

6. If buttons appear to be missing from the list in this

screen, check under the “Views” drop down for additional
images of the device that may have additional buttons
mapped.

7. Once you’ve finished assigning functions to buttons, close

the Joystick screen by pressing the Done button.

If at any time you need to return to the joystick screen, you

can access it by clicking on the settings icon in the top right
corner of the screen and going to the Joystick section.

Setting Up a Flight
The first thing you see when you launch X‑Plane is the main
menu. From here you can choose to quit, resume your last
flight, start a new flight, load a saved flight, or visit Flight
School for tutorials. If you are brand new to X‑Plane or flying,
it’s recommended that you start with this last option, Flight
School. Otherwise, to set up a new, custom flight, click the
New Flight option to go to the Flight Configuration screen.

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 Figure 2.5:The Flight Configuration screen

Select an aircraft from the list on the left. You can narrow
down your options by using the drop down menus at the top
of the screen or the search bar. Click on the star in the corner
of the aircraft box to mark it as a favorite, and quickly find it
next time at the top of the list.

Pick an airport to start at by searching by Name,

ICAO/FAA/IATA code, or feature (such as “grass strip”) in the
Location box at the top right side of the screen. You can
specify which runway or ramp to start on by clicking the
Customize button.

Drag the slider in the Weather box to change the cloud and
precipitation settings between 8 different presets. Adjust the
time of day the same way.

Once you’re ready, click the Start Flight button and get
flying!

See the section Setting Up Your Flight for detailed

explanations of the Customize screen options for each aspect
of the flight.

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 Updating Your Copy of X-Plane
Updating X‑Plane will ensure that the copy of X‑Plane you are
using is the most stable, most feature-rich version available.
Updates within a given version of X‑Plane (e.g., from Version
12.0 to 12.1 to 12.2) are free, and recommended for virtually
all users.

Simply start X-Plane, and if an update is available you will see

an “Update Available” box with the options to “Ignore” or
“Update.” Click Update to have X‑Plane automatically
download and launch the latest installer/updater. Proceed
through the installer to update X‑Plane to the latest version.

If you would like to check what version of the simulator you’re

using:

1. Go to Settings > General.

2. Click the About X-Plane button in the bottom left corner.

3. Your version number will be listed in the “About This Copy

of X-Plane” section. There will be an Update X-Plane
button if an update is available. Clicking this will cause
X‑Plane to download the latest updater and run the
updater for you.

Preparation and Installation

System Requirements
Given X-Plane’s incredible capabilities and accuracy, it is not
possible to run a current release of X‑Plane on an
exceptionally old computer. A good rule of thumb is that any
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 machine built in the last 18 to 24 months will probably be
able to run the simulator acceptably. Computers up to about
36 months old may be fine if they were top-of-the-line
machines when manufactured. Even if they weren’t, X‑Plane
may still be able to run, albeit with its rendering options
turned down.

For the latest system requirements, see the “X-Plane 12

System Requirements” Knowledge Base article.

X-Plane 12 requires a computer with at least the following

specifications:

1. CPU: Intel Core i3, i5, i7, or i9 CPU with 4 or more cores,
or AMD Ryzen 3, 5, 7 or 9. (Those with other CPUs should
try the demo before purchasing.)
2. Memory: 8 GB RAM
3. Video Card: a DirectX 11-capable video card from NVIDIA
or AMD with at least 2 GB VRAM

However, for the best experience, we recommend the

following:

1. CPU: Intel Core i5 8600k or Ryzen 5 3500 or better

2. Memory: 16–24 GB RAM or more
3. Video Card: a DirectX 12-capable video card from NVIDIA
or AMD with at least 4 GB VRAM (GeForce GTX 1070 or
better, or similar from AMD)
4. At least 10 GB of hard drive space

To find your computer’s CPU speed and amount of RAM, Mac

users can simply open the Apple Menu and click “About This
Mac.”

For Windows users, you can open the Start menu and type My
Computer. Desktop app “This PC” will show up in the list.
Right click on it and choose “Properties.” System Panel will
open and display your system specs.

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 While X‑Plane 12 will run on Linux, X‑Plane doesn’t provide
support for specific distributions; if you want to run on Linux,
you will need to try X‑Plane on your distribution to see if it is
compatible. With that in mind, developers have used Ubuntu
18.04 and 20.04 LTS successfully.

For Linux, X‑Plane requires the proprietary driver from NVIDIA

to run X‑Plane. We require the Mesa drivers for AMD to run X-
Plane.

Display Hardware

X-Plane can display on any screen, with resolutions ranging

from 1,024 × 768 pixels to 9,999 × 9,999 pixels. It makes no
difference to X‑Plane what aspect ratio your screen has; if
your aspect ratio doesn’t match that of the instrument panel
you are using, X‑Plane will simply zoom or stretch the panel
as appropriate to fill your screen.

X-Plane allows the use of any number of screens to depict

anything you like. Multiple computers with multiple copies of
X‑Plane can be used to drive multiple monitors, thereby
networking up to about 20 screens to show any combination
of views imaginable. Many modern graphics cards or
technology such as a video splitter like the Matrox
TripleHead2Go) can be used to drive multiple forward visuals
with one machine. In that case, a second machine could be
used to drive the cockpit display or exterior view, as described
in the section “Configuring a Multi-Monitor Simulator.”

Graphics Drivers

X-Plane, of course, needs a decent graphics card in the

computer you wish to run it on. Essentially any modern,
discrete (i.e., non-integrated) video card will do just fine,

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 though a more powerful, more expensive graphics card will
allow for higher detail in the simulator’s graphics. Just as
important as the graphics card itself, though, are the
computer’s graphics drivers (essentially, the instructions that
let X‑Plane know how to use your graphics card).

On many systems the required graphics drivers will already be

installed. However, it may be necessary to periodically update
the computer’s video drivers, either to fix a problem or to get
the very best performance the system can deliver. Many
graphics card companies provide software that can
automatically detect when a new driver is available and help
keep you up to date. Users of ATI/AMD video cards can find
out more and download drivers from the AMD web site, while
NVIDIA users can download drivers and software from
NVIDIA’s web site.

Before updating the graphics driver, we recommend installing

and launching X‑Plane (per the section “Installing X-Plane” of
this chapter) and seeing how it runs. If any of the following
problems are experienced, the system’s graphics drivers
probably need to be updated:

1. a screen consisting only of splashes of color

2. a screen with horizontal or vertical bars running through it
3. random images of various pieces of the airplane or
instrument panel

Additionally, if an error appears referring to a corrupt or

missing ‘.dll’ file, the drivers most likely need to be replaced.

Updating Graphics Drivers in Windows

If you conclude that your graphics drivers need to be updated

on Windows, the following (general) steps should guide you
through the process.

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 Automatic updating

Many of the latest video cards come with manufacturer’s

software that can automatically download and install the
latest drivers, easily keeping you up to date.

1. AMD & ATI Driver Autodetect tool

2. NVIDIA Update

Manual updating

Windows 10

1. Go to your video card manufacturer’s driver download

page (ATI’s site or NVIDIA’s) and download the latest
drivers, being sure to save it to a place that you’ll be able
to find it (for example, the Desktop).
2. Click the Windows icon at the bottom of the screen and
type Device Manager in the search box.
3. Select the device, right click it, and choose “Update Driver
Software.”
4. Select “Browse my computer for driver software” then
navigate to the file you saved in step 1.
5. Click Next then wait until the installation finishes.
6. Reboot your PC and you’re ready to fly!

Windows 8

1. Swipe in from the right edge of the screen, and then tap
Search. (If you’re using a mouse, point to the lower-right
corner of the screen, move the mouse pointer up, and
then click Search.)
2. Enter Device Manager in the search box, and tap or click
Device Manager.
3. In the list of hardware categories, double-tap or double-
click the category your device is in and then double-tap or
double-click the device you want. For example, to see
your video card, tap or click Display adapters, and then
double-tap or double-click the video card name.
4. Tap or click the Driver tab, tap or click Update Driver, and
then follow the instructions. You might be asked for an

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 admin password or to confirm your choice.
5. Reboot your PC and you’re ready to fly!

Graphics Driver Requirements in Linux

When running X‑Plane on Linux, please note that you must

install the proprietary Nvidia drivers. X‑Plane requires the
Mesa drivers for AMD to run X-Plane.

Selecting Flight Control Hardware

While it is physically possible to fly X‑Plane with only the
mouse and keyboard, this can be cumbersome and unrealistic
(for obvious reasons). While instructions for flying this way
are included in the section “How to Fly” of the chapter Flight
in X-Plane, it is strongly recommended that users fly with at
least a joystick for a realistic experience.

So which joystick should a user purchase? Most USB joysticks

and yokes made in the last 10 years or so will work with X-
Plane, but, as with most things in life, you get what you pay
for. Be leery of joysticks advertised for $29.95 at a local
retailer. In our experience the cheaper hardware typically
does not last as long or work as well as more moderately
priced equipment.

Note: X‑Plane can only interface with USB devices. This

covers nearly all the controllers manufactured in the last ten
years, but if you have a non-USB device, an adapter will be
needed to change it to a USB input.

Joysticks

Joysticks typically provide pitch, roll, and throttle control, as

well as a few buttons that can be programmed to do different
things. For example, you may program one button to raise
and lower the landing gear, and two additional buttons to
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 raise the flaps and lower them. Also, some joysticks can have
their handle twisted left and right to control yaw movement. If
the joystick being used does not offer yaw control, you will
probably want a set of rudder pedals to provide realistic yaw
control in the airplane. A joystick will be best for flying fighter
or sport airplanes, or planes made by companies like Airbus,
Cirrus, or Lancair, for the simple reason that those planes, in
reality, are controlled with joysticks!

Yokes

A yoke consists of a steering wheel-like control that rotates

left and right and also slides back and forth. These are the
best option for users primarily interested in flying older-style
general aviation planes, business jets, and non-Airbus
airliners, since these planes are flown with yokes in reality.

Yokes are typically clamped to a desk for stability. They may

have a built-in throttle quadrant, which will allows for
independent control of the propeller, throttle, and mixture for
a single propeller engine. Also, note that yokes do not control
yaw movement (they do not twist left and right for yaw
control like some joysticks), so rudder pedals are required for
realistic yaw control.

Rudder Pedals

Rudder pedals allow users to realistically control the airplane’s

yaw by pushing the left or right pedal to turn. While in flight,
the pedals control the rudder, whereas on the ground they’re
used to steer. The pedals also control the brakes to help the
airplane stop or turn sharply while on the ground. (Push the
top of the left or right pedal to activate the brakes on that
side of the plane.)

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 If neither a set of rudder pedals nor the joystick is set to
control yaw, X‑Plane will automatically slew the rudder to try
and keep the airplane flying true. This auto-rudder function,
however, is not smart enough to take off or land properly in a
crosswind, slip, or do various other things that rudders might
be used for. For this reason, rudder pedals (or at least a
twisting joystick) are highly recommended.

Please note that, when flying a helicopter, pedals must be

used for the anti-torque controls—this can not be assigned to
keyboard commands, simply because it is not practical to try
to use the keyboard to fly.

Other Considerations

For added realism in certain situations, you may want an

independent throttle quadrant. CH Products' Multi-Engine
Throttle Quadrant is popular and offers independent and
variable control of six different functions. Normally, this would
be set up to control the throttle, propeller, and mixture
controls for each engine on a twin-engine airplane. This
controller can also be used to control throttle and condition
(fuel cutoff) for jet engines, allowing independent control of
jet aircraft with up to three engines. A multi-engine throttle
quadrant is recommended for users interested in realistically
flying airplanes with more than one engine.

To purchase joysticks or other equipment, check out the CH

Products, Logitech, or Saitek websites. Each of the sites
allows users to browse the available products and find where
to buy them.

Note that instructions on configuring flight control hardware

are found in the chapter Configuring and Tuning Your X‑Plane
Installation, in the section “Configuring Flight Controls”.

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 Installing X-Plane
In order to avoid confusion, be sure to delete any installations
of the X‑Plane demo, or older versions of X-Plane, before
installing the full version. (Uninstalling the demo is as
straightforward as locating the “X-Plane 12 Demo” folder and
moving it to the Recycle Bin or Trash.)

Note: If you are using a digital download product key, you

will need to download the latest X‑Plane installer from X-
Plane.com.

Digital Download Installation

To install X‑Plane using a digital download product key, do the

following:

1. Ensure your computer is connected to the Internet.

Download the latest X‑Plane installer from our web site.

2. Double click the “X-Plane 12 Installer” icon to launch the

installer.

3. Click the Install an X‑Plane Product Purchase button if

necessary. Enter your digital download product key in the
boxes on the following screen then click the Continue
button.

4. By default X‑Plane will install to the user’s home folder (on

Mac) or the C: drive root (on Windows), though it can be
installed elsewhere. For the purposes of this guide, we will
assume it is installed in the default location. Click
Continue.

5. Accept the user agreement on this screen. It is highly

recommended that you leave the box for sending

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 anonymous usage data checked. This allows Laminar
Research to gather anonymous data to make updates to
the simulator based on how you use it. Click Continue
once again.

Figure 3.3: All scenery selected for installation after

clicking “Select All”

6. Select the scenery you would like to install. Parts of the

world that are currently selected will be a bright blue color
(as all tiles are in Figure 3.3).

If you are unsure what areas are currently selected, just

click Select None to turn everything off (as seen in
Figure 3.4). From there, move your mouse around the
map to highlight sections of the world and click on on the
ones you would like to install. Note that for regions where
no scenery is installed, only oceans and airports will be
visible. When you’re finished selecting scenery, click
Continue to begin installing.

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 Figure 3.4: No scenery selected after clicking the Select
None button during the installation

We strongly recommend that you install only a small bit of

scenery now and add more later, as the entire scenery
package takes over 60 GB of space and a very long time
to install.

7. The installer will begin displaying its progress. Note that

digital download time estimates are based on your initial
network speed and real install times may vary
significantly.

8. When the installation completes, start the simulator and

go fly!

Scenery can be added or removed at any point in the future

by re-running the installer. When the X-System installer
comes up with the message “You already have X‑Plane 12
installed on this computer,” click the Add or Remove
Scenery button. Enter your digital download product key if
necessary and proceed just like in step 6 above.

Special Considerations for Digital Download Users

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 In order for the simulator to work (outside of demo mode),
the computer running X‑Plane Digital Download Edition must
have an Internet connection to contact our servers. X‑Plane
does not require an Internet connection to re-validate on
every single application launch, but it does require
authentication frequently. If your primary use of X‑Plane is on
a computer that does not have net access or where net access
is unreliable or rare, you should purchase a DVD set.

Note that when you authorize X‑Plane using a product key,

Laminar Research collects your computer’s IP address. We use
this information only to verify your product key has not been
stolen. We do not sell or share this information with anyone
else.

X-Plane digital download product keys are like credit card

numbers: the key itself authorizes you to get X-Plane, and
each user has a different key. If someone else has your key,
that user has access to your copy of X‑Plane. Just like credit
cards, you should not share your product key with anyone
else.

If you need to contact Laminar Research customer support,

we will only require the last eight digits of your product key;
you do not need to send your full product key to anyone,
including Laminar Research.

If someone manages to steal your product key, piracy is

prevented by fraud detection; our servers will see your key
being used in a pattern that looks like multiple people (e.g.
your key used from two continents at the same time) and it
will be locked. Downloading the product repeatedly may
appear to be piracy and may also cause your key to be

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 locked. You can contact X-Plane customer support if you
experience problems with your digital download product key.

A digital copy of X‑Plane is not a backup. The digital version of

X‑Plane is available online at any time for download, but it is
not a replacement for a good backup of your computer(s);
only a true backup can save your preferences, third party
aircraft you’ve downloaded, your log book, etc.

Additionally, only the latest, non-beta version of X‑Plane 12 is

available digitally. If you do not want to update to the latest
version, you need to make your own backup of X-Plane; re-
installing the product will get the latest version.

Launching X-Plane
Unlike many of the programs you may be familiar with,
X‑Plane does not create shortcuts to itself across your hard
drive. We recommend launching X‑Plane by opening the
X‑Plane 12 installation directory (located default on the user’s
home folder on Mac or the C: drive root on Windows) and
double-clicking the X‑Plane icon. However, if you would like,
you can create a shortcut (called an “alias” in OS X) by doing
the following:

1. Open the X‑Plane installation directory (located by default

on the Desktop).

2. In Windows, right-click on the X-Plane.exe icon and select

Create Shortcut. In Mac OS, right-click on the X-Plane.app
icon and select Make Alias.

3. Drag the shortcut wherever you wish to launch X‑Plane

from.

To launch X‑Plane for the first time:

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 1. Make sure your USB joystick is plugged in. To avoid any
possible problems, it is recommended that the flight
controls be plugged directly into the machine rather than
into a hub.

2. Open the X‑Plane folder and double click on ‘X-Plane.exe’

in Windows, or ‘X-Plane.app’ on a Mac.

3. If you have a digital download key, X‑Plane may prompt

you for your key, or the field may be pre-filled if you have
entered your product key before (i.e., during installation).
Simply click “Authorize” and X‑Plane will proceed. Starting
the simulator without this or a DVD in the drive will force
it to run in demo mode only.

If you have successfully used your digital download

product key, X‑Plane will try to contact the authorization
server in the background without prompting you. Thus if
your net connection is good and your product key is not
locked, you may never notice or need the product key
again to fly.

Configuring and Tuning Your

X-Plane Installation
Having installed X‑Plane as described in the previous chapter,
you can configure the simulator in a number of ways. These
include downloading the latest free update (giving you the
latest set of features available), setting up flight controls, and
tuning the performance of the simulator both in terms of
graphics quality and frame rate.

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 General Use of the X-Plane Interface
X-Plane has been written to operate on Windows, Macintosh,
and Linux systems. For consistency’s sake, the layout and
appearance of X‑Plane is the same across all three operating
systems.

Here are a few pointers to aid in the learning process:

X-Plane’s menu is hidden. To access the menu bar, move the

mouse pointer to the top of the screen. When the mouse is
within a centimeter or so of the top edge of the screen, the
menu bar will appear. By default the Esc key will also display
the menu. You’ll find the majority of X‑Plane 12’s options in
the drop down menus in the left of this menu bar.

Some of the key functions of the simulator are accessed

through small icons on the right side of the menu bar
however. From left to right, clicking the icons will: pause the
simulator, open Flight Configuration, show the ATC window,
show the map, open Settings, and open a help webpage. Keep
in mind you can use keyboard shortcuts to access many of
these features as well.

Figure 4.1: The menu icons

Keyboard shortcuts can be found by opening the settings

screen and going to the Keyboard tab. These keyboard
assignments can also be changed using this screen (per the
section “Configuring Keyboard Shortcuts”) to anything you
like. Also note that many of the keyboard shortcuts are shown
in the X‑Plane menus. For example, opening the View menu
will display the list of available views on the left side of the
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 drop down menu, with the list of corresponding keyboard
shortcuts on the right.

You can adjust almost all aspects of how the simulator runs
by going to the Settings screen. Here you’ll find tabs to adjust
the settings associated with the sound, graphics, networking
configurations, data input and output, joysticks and flight
hardware, and the keyboard shortcut assignments. Many
other helpful options, such as the language and warnings, can
be found in the General section. The Notification Settings
button in this screen allows you to turn off or on various
warnings as well.

Like most programs, the simplest way to navigate around

X‑Plane is using the mouse, though there are many keyboard
shortcuts to help you navigate quickly through the options
after you become familiar with the program. These shortcuts
are particularly important when using the mouse to fly. In that
case, it is much easier to use the ‘2’ key to drop a notch of
flaps than it is to let go of the controls, reach down with the
mouse to adjust the flaps, and then reach back up and grab
the controls again.

Also note that most instruments and controls inside the

cockpit are interactive, meaning that the mouse can be used
to alter switches, set frequencies, manipulate the throttle(s),
change the trim, etc.

Configuring Flight Controls

With your flight controls plugged in and X‑Plane running, you
can configure how the simulator responds to input from each
axis and button. Throughout this section we will refer to any
input device as a joystick; the instructions apply to yokes,
throttle quadrants, and rudders also. Configuring should be
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 done upon initial set up of X‑Plane and any time new
equipment is plugged in, but it is not necessary to configure
hardware upon every use.

The first time a joystick or yoke is plugged in, the program

can automatically take you to the joystick settings screen to
configure the device. If you selected No in the Joystick Quick-
Config box, move the mouse to the top of the screen and click
the settings icon, then Joystick, and continue with the steps
below.
Video 4.1: Configuring joysticks tutorial

Setting Up the Control Axes

Click on the Calibrate or Calibrate Now button. This will

open the dialog box allowing you to configure and calibrate
the flight controls.

Figure 4.2: The calibration window of the Joystick settings

screen, with the device partially calibrated

To begin, move the joystick’s controls around to see how the

axes are mapped in X‑Plane. As this is done, one of the red
bars will move vigorously for each input that is actuated.
(Note that if you are using a trim wheel, you may have to roll
the wheel continuously to see which axis it is mapped to.)

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 Thus, when the stick is rolled left and right only one bar will
move a substantial amount; when it is pushed back and forth
it will be a different bar.

Move your joystick through the full range of motion for each
axes, and each slider through its entire range as well. Move
your joystick or yoke forward and back for pitch. Move your
joystick/yoke left and right for roll, and twist your joystick (if
applicable) for yaw. (If you do not have or assign a yaw axis,
X‑Plane will attempt to stabilize it for you.) Once all the red
bars have changed to blue, click on the Next button.

Note that if you’re unable to move the controls through their

full range of motion you may simply click the Accept Axis or
Ignore Axis button for each axis that X‑Plane believes to be
uncalibrated, but which you have confirmed has actually gone
through its full range of motion.

Let go of the controls and press the Next button to begin

centering the controls and setting the nullzone. When the
timer’s up, press the Finish button to go back to the joystick
screen and complete joystick set up.

Figure 4.3: The Joystick settings screen, after calibration is

completed

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 If any axes were not recognized automatically, or were
incorrectly categorized, in the first calibration screen, you can
set them in the right column of the joystick settings screen.
Simply use the drop down menu to select the appropriate axis
type. In addition, you will need to do this for any device that
does not have a default configuration file, as all the buttons
and axes will be assigned to “none” (see Figure 4.4 below).

joystick_config

Figure 4.4: When an unknown device is used, all axes and

buttons are set to “none” until manually changed

To manually configure flight control axes:

1. Move your joystick or yoke forward and back, or spin your

trim wheel continuously. One of the bars should move as
you do so. Click the drop-down menu next to it and set it
to pitch.

2. Move your joystick/yoke left and right. The bar that

moves should be set to roll.

3. Twist your joystick (if applicable). The bar that moves

should be set to yaw. If you do not assign a yaw axis,
X‑Plane will attempt to stabilize yaw movement for you.

If you are using rudder pedals, slide them forward and

backward and set the bar that moves then to yaw.
Additionally, only when using rudder pedals, press the left
pedal down with your toes. The bar that moves should be
set to left toe brake. Do the same for the right pedal, and
set that bar to right toe brake.

4. Move your throttle forward and back (on a yoke, this is

typically the leftmost lever). Set this bar to throttle.

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 Note: Any remaining bar (if applicable) which is not actively
controlled by your hardware needs to be set to none. When
this is set, X‑Plane is not using the axis.

Assigning Functions to Buttons

Each of the buttons and switches on the joystick can be

assigned a function within X‑Plane (for example, toggling the
brakes or landing gear) in the right column of the Joystick
settings screen.

Figure 4.5: Clicking button 5 in the image highlights the

button in the list on the right

You can tell which button you’re assigning by the mapping in

the image on the left. Click on a number to highlight the line
in the list on the right side of the screen. You can also press
the button on the joystick and seeing which number in the list
lights up.

Assign a function to a hat switch by picking from the drop

down menu. Assign a function to a button or a two-direction
switch by clicking the Edit button and scrolling through the
list of commands, or by typing a key term in the search bar,
as in Figure 4.6 below.

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 Figure 4.6: Searching commands for the term “brakes”

Repeat this process for as many buttons and switches as need

functions assigned. If buttons appear to be missing from the
list in this screen, check under the “Views” drop down for
additional images of the device that may have additional
buttons mapped. Close the Joystick window and the settings
will be saved to preferences.

Controlling Joystick Sensitivity and Aircraft Stability

To modify the joystick’s sensitivity, press the Control

Sensitivity button at the bottom of the Joystick settings

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 screen. The sliders in this window control the response curves
for the pitch, roll, and yaw axes of the joystick. Note that the
pilot and copilot sensitivity settings are set separately.

Figure 4.7: The “Control Sensitivity” screen

If these sliders are set all the way to the left, the aircraft’s
response to that axis' input will be completely linear. This
means that a 50% deflection of the joystick will deflect the
airplane’s flight controls 50% of their travel. As these sliders
are moved to the right the response becomes curved. In this
case, a deflection of the joystick from center to its halfway
point may only deflect the aircraft’s controls by 10%. This will
dampen any aircraft movements and desensitize the user’s
controls. Keep in mind, however, that in this case, the
remaining 90% of the control surface deflection must take
place in the last 50% of joystick movement. Thus, the
controls will be dampened for the first half or so of their travel
and then become hyper-sensitive for the remainder of their
throw. This gives the user plenty of fine-tune control near the
center of the flight control envelope to hold altitude and roll

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 precisely, but still allows for full control authority at the
extremes.

Try flying with the sliders in various different positions to see

what setting works best.

Axis Response Curves

Each axis can also have a custom response curve which will
override the global control response curve. This allows you to
do things like manually configure a null zone, or create
complex curves with many control points and your choice of
interpolation. Depending on the type of axis, there will be
additional options to configure ranges for certain axis-specific
behaviors such as beta & reverse ranges for throttles, feather
range for prop controls, or cutoff range for mixture controls.

Click the “Add Response Curve” under the axis you want to
customize. You can change the mode in the drop down, add or
delete additional stops, and drag the stops to create the
curves you want. Click the “apply” button to save your
changes.

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 Figure 4.7: Example of custom response curves for a throttle
axis

Configuring Keyboard Shortcuts

X-Plane has been designed to be both extremely flexible and
easily usable. For this reason, most of the keys on the
keyboard do something.

To see which keys are tied to which functions, open the

settings by moving the mouse to the top of the screen,
clicking the settings icon, and clicking on Keyboard. Here you
can look at the functions assigned to the keys of the
keyboard.

You can use the buttons on the left side to narrow down the
list, or use the plus and minus symbols to change how many
items are shown from the list of functions. Functions are
classified into a number of categories (operation, engines,
ignition, etc.), but if you aren’t sure what category a functions
falls under, you can use the search bar to find it.

The description of the function is on the left while the button

assigned to it is on the right. To change the key a command is
bound to, type in the box on the right or use the +. Use the -
to delete a key assignment.

Note that it is not necessary to try and remember all of the

keyboard shortcuts. Instead, many of them are shown in the
menus when flying. For example, while in flight, move the
mouse to the top of the screen and click the View menu and a
subcategory. The keyboard shortcut it’s assigned to is found
on the right. For instance, in the view menu, the “Forward
with 2-D Panel” view has a “w” symbol next to it, so it can be
selected with the ‘w’ key.

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 Joystick and Keyboard Profiles
You can save profiles for different combinations of keyboard
and joystick settings. This means you can now specify
different button or axis assignments for the same joystick and
switch between them from within X-Plane.

Figure 4.8: The Active Profile window of the Joystick settings

screen selected in orange

To get started creating a joystick or keyboard profile, click on

the Active Profile drop down in the lower left corner of the
joystick or keyboard screen and select “save as new profile.”
Enter a new name that will help you identify this profile later
on. Now you can change key, button or joystick axis
assignments as desired and X‑Plane will associate them with
this specific profile. Any time you create another profile, all
current assignments will be copied to the new profile for you
to then adjust as desired.

To delete profiles and assign them to individual or groups of

aircraft, click the Manage Profiles button next to the Active
Profile dropdown.

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 Figure 4.9: The Manage Profiles window

You can manage all your profiles in the left side of this
window. Click on the minus sign (-) icon next to a profile
name to delete it. Double click on a profile name to edit it.
You can also add a new profile here and then return to the
joystick or keyboard settings screens to change its
assignments.

Assign profiles to aircraft in the Associated Aircraft column on

the right side of this window. You can use the search bar or
the expand/reduce buttons next to aircraft types to narrow
down your aircraft list. By clicking on the drop down next to
an aircraft type, such as “Airliner,” you can assign a profile to
all aircraft of that type. Or you can click the drop down next
to individual aircraft to change profile assignments one by
one.

Profiles will also be assigned automatically when you change

from one profile to another while a flight is in progress. Thus,
you never have to manually assign aircraft associations if you
don’t want to—you’ll just get whatever you were using last.

Configuring the Rendering Options

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 X-Plane is a very advanced simulator that has been designed
for use across a broad range of computers with varying
specifications. As such, X‑Plane offers the ability to change
graphics settings to optimize performance on your computer.
The Graphics tab of the settings window allows you to match
X-Plane’s settings (and thus the demands the simulator puts
on the computer) to your computer’s capabilities.

The simulator’s performance is measured in frames per

second (FPS, or frame rate). This is how many times per
second the X‑Plane physics and rendering code (currently
more than 700,000 lines of code!) can be run. Each time the
computer runs through the program it advances the aircraft
and recalculates the images that are seen (cloud formations,
scenery, aircraft instruments, other aircraft, etc.).

Obviously, X‑Plane has to be tremendously flexible to be able

to run on a three year old computer and also take full
advantage of the latest and greatest hardware available.
There are two things that affect X-Plane’s frame rate: the
computer’s capabilities and how much it is being asked to
simulate (e.g., how much visibility is set, how many buildings,
clouds, and other aircraft are being drawn, etc.). It will be
much harder for the computer to compute images when flying
an airplane in 30-mile visibility with 8,000 3-dimensional
buildings and cloud puffs than it would be if X‑Plane were set
up with only two or three miles of visibility and no clouds.
Thus, generally speaking, the higher the rendering options are
set, the lower the performance and frame rate achieved.

The faster a computer can run X‑Plane the more realistic and
rewarding the simulation will be. Testing has shown that the
human brain can separate individual frames at frame rates of
less than about 20 FPS, causing the simulation to appear

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 “choppy.” Coincidentally, this is also about the same place that
the engineering behind the simulation begins to fall apart. For
this reason, X‑Plane has set the minimum operating speed at
this level. If a computer is not capable of delivering a frame
rate of 20 FPS while rendering the level of detail set up in the
Rendering Options page, X‑Plane will automatically introduce
fog to help the simulation to run more smoothly. The fog
keeps X‑Plane from having to draw the world to as great a
distance, allowing the simulation to run faster.

Displaying the Frame Rate

Before we begin, we will need to be able to tell how fast

X‑Plane is running on your computer. To do this, launch
X‑Plane and:

1. Move your mouse to the top of the screen (causing the

menu to appear) and click the settings icon, then the Data
Output tab.

2. On the first line, Frame rate, check the first box to display
the current frame rate in the upper left of the screen
during flight.

Figure 4.10: Checking the box to display the frame rate

while in the simulator

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 3. Close the Data Output window. You should now see how
fast the simulation is running, in the f-act / sec output
on the far left (highlighted in orange in the image below).
This is the current frame rate, given in frames per second
(fps).

Figure 4.11: The frame rate per second highlighted

Note that the frame rate will change depending on what is

happening in the simulation. It is not uncommon for a
computer to output 50 fps while sitting on an empty runway,
but drop down to, say, 30 fps when rendering lots of
buildings, other aircraft, etc.

Refer to the following to determine the significance of this

number.

1. 19 fps is terrible and barely adequate to run the simulator.

2. 25 to 35 fps is the ideal range. Higher frame rates indicate

the computer isn’t rendering with as much detail as it
could.

3. 50 fps is very high and indicates that the system could

probably draw more buildings, clouds, and other objects.

Setting the Rendering Options

The Graphics screen is used to configure the level of detail in

the simulator. This window can be found by moving the mouse
to the top of the screen, clicking on the settings icon, and
clicking Graphics.

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 The rendering options sliders are organized with settings that
depend primarily on CPU on the right, and GPU-heavy options
on the left. The Visual Effects slider adjusts the quality of the
visual effects, such as shadows and light reflection and is
dependent on the quality of your graphics card. If you have a
new and/or fairly powerful GPU, try setting this slider to
“high” or “maximum.” Note that spill lights, such as the
overhead lights in the Boeing 737 cockpit, only function if
HDR is enabled, which is available on the top two settings.

Figure 4.12: The Rendering Options screen of the Settings

window

Adjust the Texture Quality slider to fine tune the level of detail
in the textures of the cockpit and world objects. This setting
determines the clarity and detail of the textures displayed in
X‑Plane. Textures are the image-maps that are draped over
the terrain and aircraft to make them look realistic. If it is set
too low, the runway and terrain will look blurry and blocky.
While this will not look very good, it will use very little video
memory (VRAM), so a high frame rate will be more easily
achievable. The more powerful a computer’s video card is,
though, the higher the texture resolution can be set in X‑Plane
without hurting the frame rate. The frame rate will be
significantly impacted, though, if a texture resolution is
selected that requires more VRAM than the computer’s video
card has. You will need to restart X‑Plane to see the effect of
changing this slider.

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 The Antialiasing slider is used to smooth the edges of the
objects drawn in the simulator. When a computer tries to draw
diagonal lines across the finite number of rectangular pixels in
a monitor, “jaggies” result–pixelated-looking, stair-stepped
lines. These jaggies may be (somewhat) eliminated by turning
on anti-aliasing. This will cause X‑Plane to actually draw the
simulated world several times per frame and blend those
frames together, resulting in a better looking image. Thus, it
is similar to using a higher screen resolution; running at a
resolution of 2048×2048 without anti-aliasing is similar to
running at 1024×1024 and 4× anti-aliasing. Both situations
tax the video card with virtually no increase in CPU use. This
will completely kill the simulator’s frame rate if the system
doesn’t have a strong video card, but if the video card can
take it, crank this option up. Note that X‑Plane must be
restarted to see changes to the antialiasing slider in non-HDR
modes.

The Number of Objects slider will adjust how many 3D objects

are drawn in the world, such as trees, buildings, and static
aircraft. If you have a powerful CPU you can set this to high or
even maximum without affecting your frame rate too much,
and the highest settings will ensure that you see all there is to
see around an airport. Check the Draw parked aircraft box
if you would like to see static aircraft at airports.

If X‑Plane is still running at a very high frame rate, you can

also choose to check the box next to “Use Vsync” at the
bottom of the window. This will limit X-Plane’s frame rate to
the refresh rate of your monitor, thus preventing brief frame
rate drops, or stutters. Checking the Draw shadows on
scenery box will also add detail that older, slower cards may
not be able to handle.

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 Always keep in mind that, if your graphics card has too little
VRAM for the textures X‑Plane is loading (a very real
possibility in this version), you may see a huge drop in frame
rate when you move up a notch on one of the GPU-dependent
sliders on the right.

We recommend putting the Texture Quality slider on its lowest

setting, exiting the sim, restarting it, and noting the frame
rate. Keep an eye on the message below the slider that shows
how many megabytes of textures are loaded. From there,
raise the slider up one level and repeat until the frame rate
decreases. This is the point at which all of the video card’s
RAM is being used. Back the texture resolution off to one level
lower than where the decrease was noted and restart X‑Plane
one more time.

X-Plane 12.50 adds the ability to run the sim with the modern
rendering APIs Vulkan (for Windows & Linux) and Metal (for
Mac). Check the box “Use Metal/Vulkan driver for faster
rendering” then restart the simulator to use the new
rendering engine. The sim should perform at higher frame
rates and reduced stuttering with this turned on. Note that
using this option may require graphics driver updates and that
not all add-ons are compatible with Vulkan and Metal. If your
add-on does not appear to work correctly, disable this check
box and restart to return to OpenGL rendering. For more
information on new driver requirements, see this Knowledge
Base article.

Finally, you can enable the TrackIR, TrackHat or Matrox

TripleHead2Go with the checkboxes at the bottom of the
window.

Setting the Rendering Options for Best Performance

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 If the simulator’s frame rate isn’t as high you would like, you
can raise it by following the instructions below. We
recommend being very methodical and following these
instructions in order, checking the frame rate after each major
change until you find settings that give an acceptable frame
rate. Ensure the frame rate is visible on screen per the
instructions in Displaying the Frame Rate above.
Video 4.2: Setting the rendering options tutorial

First, know that your overall frame rate will be limited by

either your CPU or your GPU (your graphics card). Your CPU
may be much more powerful relative to your graphics card, or
vice versa. In such a case, you could hypothetically turn the
CPU-heavy features up much higher than the GPU-heavy
features (or vice versa).

The left half of the “Rendering Options” settings section

contains the GPU-heavy features: visual effects, texture
quality, antialiasing, and shadows. Likewise, the right half of
the Rendering Options is the CPU-heavy features: world
objects, reflection detail, and parked aircraft.

To find the best compromise between performance and visual

quality for your specific machine, start with all sliders at their
minimums, and all checkboxes off. From there, turn up the
settings in the order detailed below.

Tuning CPU Settings

Go to a big airport with lots of 3-D objects, like KPDX. Enable

the parked aircraft, and start turning up the number of world
objects and reflection detail. Eventually you will hit a point
where your frame rate drops lower than you would like, and
at that point, you’ll want to back off a step.

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 Note that the effect on your frame rate from the number of
objects and reflection detail are very much cumulative: if you
have minimal objects, you might be able to max out the
reflection detail, but as you add more objects (giving X‑Plane
more things to calculate reflections for) you’ll need to dial
down the reflections.

Tuning GPU Settings

Now let’s adjust the texture quality.

Having found the number of objects you want to use, start

bringing the texture quality slider up. Note that you’ll need to
restart X‑Plane (and go back to your testing airport) for
changes to take effect. If the size of the loaded textures ever
goes beyond your graphics card’s VRAM, you’ll see a sharp
drop in performance, so for safety’s sake, leave some
“padding” here–different airplanes and different scenery packs
might need more VRAM than your test area.

For other features on the GPU side, increase the Visual Effects
slider first, and only increase the Antialiasing or add scenery
shadows if you get all the other rendering settings to a point
you’re happy with and still have higher frame rate than you
need.

Changing the Number of Other Aircraft

The final setting that really impacts the simulator’s frame rate
is the number of other airplanes. Access this by going to the
Flight Configuration screen and clicking the AI Aircraft
button.

There, remove all other aircraft by clicking the ‘X’ for

maximum speed. This means X‑Plane will only have to

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 calculate physics on your aircraft, providing a significant
speed increase on slower CPUs.

With that done, your performance should be optimized, and

you’re ready to fly.

Configuring the Monitor

At the bottom of the Graphics section of the Settings screen
are the options for configuring the monitor. Use the drop
down menu to switch between full screen and windowed
mode, or the Instructor Operating Station (requires at least
two monitors).
Video 4.3: Configuring the monitor tutorial

When using X‑Plane in full screen mode, the resolution will

default to the same resolution as your operating system. You
can change this with the Resolution drop down, but keep in
mind that if you choose a resolution with a different aspect
ratio than your monitor has, X‑Plane will appear stretched.
This would happen, for instance, if your monitor had a native
resolution of 1920×1080 (a widescreen, 16:9 aspect ratio)
and you selected a resolution of 1024×768 (a “standard” 4:3
aspect ratio). The lowest available resolution is 1024×768.
Increasing the resolution may also cause a drop in frame rate
if your graphics card is not powerful enough.

If X‑Plane is displayed full screen or in a window that is larger

than 1920x1080, you will also have the option to increase the
User Interface Size in a drop down menu in the middle
“Accessibility” section. This is especially helpful for those with
large, high resolution monitors. Set this to 150% or more to
increase the size of the text and interface throughout the
simulator. Starting in X‑Plane 12.30, you can also pick

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 between 8 options to increase the font size of the user
interface in this section.

Figure 4.13: Font size set a few options higher than default

Expand the Visuals Settings to set the default view or turn off
windshield effects such as cracked glass after a crash.

You can adjust the Lateral field of view in the Field of view
section. This changes the extent of the observable scenery
that is onscreen. Widescreen monitors will most likely want to
keep the default setting of 80°. Older monitors with a 4:3
aspect ratio (corresponding to a resolution like 1024×768 or
1600×1200) may want to change to a 45° field of view.

If you are using a multimonitor set up, expand the Visual

Offsets section to make adjustments for monitor bezels or
wraparound monitors. See the section Configuring a Multi-
Monitor Simulator for more details.

Configuring the Sound

To configure the sound, move your mouse to the top of the
screen and click on the settings icon, then Sound. The options
here allow you to configure the relative volumes of all sounds
in X‑Plane using the sliders on the left side of the window. By
default, all sounds are enabled, with volumes set at 100%
(sliders fully to the right).

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 On the right side, ATC sound and text can be turned off or on.
You can also change the pilot voice here from male to female.

This window will also check the status of speech synthesis

software used for ATIS/AWOS. If the software is not installed
on Windows, download the Microsoft Speech SDK 5.1.

Setting the Language

To change the language used throughout X-Plane, move your
mouse to the top of the screen (causing the menu to appear)
and click the Settings icon. Then, click on the General tab and
select select your language from the list in the section labeled
“Language.” Note that the simulator must be restarted for this
change to take effect.

Updating X-Plane
The X‑Plane simulator is designed for both realism and
longevity. Maximizing both of these requires that X‑Plane be
updated often. We regularly release new updates to the
simulator that contain feature enhancements, bug fixes,
stability improvements, aircraft and resource updates, flight
model improvements, and even new feature additions.

A purchase of X‑Plane entitles you to free updates through

that full X‑Plane version run. This means that if you purchase
Version 12, you will get the Version 12.10 update, the Version
12.20 update, etc., all the way through Version 12.99 if it
exists—all free of charge. Of course, you do not have to take
advantage of these updates, but it is recommended that you
do so.

If an update is available you will be notified the next time you

start X‑Plane. If you’d like to update immediately, click the

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 Update button to automatically download and launch the
latest installer/updater, then complete the process.

If you would like to check what version of the simulator you’re

using:

1. Go to Settings > General.

2. Click the About X-Plane button in the bottom left corner.

3. Your version number will be listed in the “About This Copy

of X-Plane” section. There will be an Update X-Plane
button if an update is available. Clicking this will cause
X‑Plane to download the latest updater and run the
updater for you.

Using the X-Plane Betas

In between official (or “stable”) releases, users can download
beta versions of the upcoming update. These are treated as a
kind of “update in progress”—new features and bug fixes are
included, but in the beta stage, the updates have not been
fully tested in a range of situations. This means that they may
create incompatibilities or create other problems that would
not be experienced in the stable releases.

The X‑Plane beta updates are for users who want to help test
the newest refinements to the X‑Plane software. The
advantage to doing so is that these users get access to the
latest enhancements to the software. The downside is that
there is a greater risk of encountering problems with third-
party models or other general bugs. We recommend that most
users stick to the stable version releases, as these are the
ones known to “just work.”

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 See the X‑Plane Release Notes page for information on the
latest builds.

To install a beta:

1. Run the installer/updater.

2. Pick “update”
3. Uncheck “get betas”
4. When prompted to keep or overwrite modified files, pick
“overwrite”. (WARNING: if you have your own
modifications, do not pick overwrite for your own mods.
This is only an issue if you have add-ons that modify x-
Plane system files.)

Note that Steam users only have access to the final betas,
called “release candidates.”

Uninstalling X-Plane
The X‑Plane installer does not infest your hard drive with
shortcuts and directories. Therefore, all it takes to uninstall
the program is to delete the X‑Plane installation folder
(located by default on the Desktop) by dragging it to the
Recycle Bin or Trash. After you empty the Recycle Bin/Trash,
the program will be removed completely from your hard drive.

Allowing X-Plane through Your Firewall

Some features of X‑Plane require that X‑Plane be able to
communicate across your network. These features include:

1. networked multiplayer flights,

2. multi-computer simulations,
3. integration with apps on mobile devices or tablets

In order for your computer to “see” the other computers in

the situations above, you must first allow X‑Plane to

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 communicate through your firewall. If your computer is not
running a firewall, of course, this is of no concern to you.

To do this in Windows 10:

1. Open Windows Control Panel and select “System and

Security.”

2. In the Windows Firewall pane, click Allow a program

through Windows Firewall.

3. Select the check box next to X‑Plane in the Allowed

programs, and then click OK. If X‑Plane is not in the list,
you can add it by clicking the Allow another program
button underneath the list and browsing for it.

To allow X‑Plane through the firewall in Mac OS,

1. Open System Preferences from the Apple menu.

2. Click Security & Privacy.

3. Click the Firewall tab.

4. Unlock the pane by clicking the lock in the lower-left

corner and enter the administrator username and
password.

5. Click Firewall Options to customize the firewall

configuration.

6. Click the + (plus) button, then select your copy of X-

Plane.app. With X‑Plane selected, click Add, then OK.

Expanding X-Plane

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 X-Plane can be modified in a number of ways. You can add
aircraft or custom scenery, or you can download plug-ins that
can radically alter the functionality of the simulator. If you
don’t find the aircraft, scenery, or plug-ins you’re looking for,
you can create your own with a bit of programming know-
how.

The X-Plane Developer site has a wealth of information on

creating scenery aircraft, and plug-ins. The Plane Maker
manual will prove especially useful for users creating aircraft
files, while those developing scenery should keep the
WorldEditor manual handy.

Adding Aircraft

Perhaps the easiest place to find new aircraft is on X-

Plane.org. X-Plane.org has models for sale (some of which are
very, very good) as well as free models. Other noted sources
of high-quality, payware aircraft are the folks at X-Aviation.

When downloading a custom aircraft, it will typically be in a

compressed folder (usually a ZIP file) that contains the
airplane and all its various paint jobs, airfoils, custom sounds,
and instrument panels. Once the compressed folder is
downloaded, you should be able to double-click on it to open
or expand it on Macintosh, Windows, or Linux computers.

From here, the folder can be dragged and dropped into the
Aircraft folder. For instance, for a newly downloaded Piper J–3
Cub, the folder path in Windows might look like this:

C:\User\Desktop\X-Plane 12\Aircraft\Piper Cub

With the new aircraft in the proper directory, open up X‑Plane.

When you start a new flight, your aircraft will show up in the
aircraft grid of the Flight Configuration screen. (If the aircraft
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 does not come with icons for the grid, you can have X‑Plane
generate them by using the commands “(re)generate all icons
for this aircraft” or “(re)generate the icon for the current
aircraft & livery”. Bind them to a button or key according to
the instructions in Configuring Flight Controls.)

Of course, users can also upload their own aircraft to X-

Plane.org and similar sites, after creating a custom airplane
per the Plane Maker manual. We place no copyright
restrictions of any sort on aircraft made by users with Plane
Maker, and these custom aircraft may be uploaded and shared
(or sold) at will.

Adding Scenery

Custom scenery packages, too, can be found on the X-

Plane.org download page, among other places. These may be
downloaded and installed at will. Typically, custom scenery
packages will need to be unzipped into the X‑Plane ‘Custom
Scenery’ folder, and X‑Plane will load them automatically the
next time it is started.

Advanced scenery customization may be handled through

modification of the “scenery_packs.ini” file found in the
Custom Scenery folder. This file determines the order in which
scenery packs load, with files at the top of the list overriding
those lower down. Any time a new scenery pack is added to
the Custom Scenery folder, it is automatically added to the
top of the scenery_packs.ini file, and therefore takes priority.

To modify the order of scenery packs, open the

scenery_packs.ini file with a text editor of your choice, and
simply move the scenery pack line to a different location in
the list (i.e., higher for those packs you most want to see and
lower for those it is less important to see). Additionally, the

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 XAddonManager utility may be helpful for managing a large
amount of custom scenery or downloaded objects.

To create your own custom scenery, use the World Editor tool
(WED), downloadable for free from the Scenery Tools page of
the X‑Plane Developer site. A good number of tutorials for the
tools can be found in the Scenery Development
documentation section of X‑Plane Developer and on YouTube.

The Airport Scenery Gateway

The Airport Scenery Gateway is a community-driven effort to

collect airport data into a global airport database. It is a
collection of all airport layouts authored by the X‑Plane
community over the years. Custom airports made in WED and
uploaded to the Gateway are shared with all X‑Plane users via
updates to X-Plane.

The latest Gateway scenery will be provided automatically via

updates. You may also add scenery from the Airport Scenery
Gateway before that happens, but note that if you do so, it
will suppress any later Global Airport updates to that same
airport.

For additional information or to register as an artist, check

out the Airport Scenery Gateway homepage or the Airport
Scenery Gateway reference article.

Installing Plug-Ins

Plug-ins are little programs that let you modify X‑Plane.

People write plug-ins to do all sorts of interesting things like
hang weights on the dashboard that move around accurately,
run little tugs around to push your airplane on the ground, or
draw interesting terrain visualization systems, among other
things. Once again, X-Plane.org is a good place to go to find

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 various plug-ins and other things to tweak your copy of X-
Plane.

For information on creating custom plug-ins, see the X-Plane

SDK site.

Flight in X-Plane
X-Plane, of course, is a flight simulator. A typical flight
consists of some, if not all, of the following steps:

1. choosing an aircraft,

2. going to a location (either an airport’s runway, a location

some distance out from an airport in order to make an
approach to the airport, or a random location),

3. setting the weather and time of day, and

4. actually flying.

In addition, you might take advantage of a number of

features of the simulator either before or during a flight.
These include using instruments in the aircraft’s panel,
switching your view of the aircraft, visualizing your flight
(either on a 2-D map or in 3-D), and creating files to share
your flight with others.

Setting Up Your Flight

The first thing you see when you launch X‑Plane is the main
menu. Here you can pick from four options to get flying. You
can also quit from this screen, or adjust your settings.

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 Resume Last Flight will load the aircraft you were last using
when you quit X‑Plane and place it at the closest airport.
Load Saved Flight will allow you to load one of your saved
replay or situation files (see the section Creating a Reusable
Situation for more details). Flight School accesses the
tutorials and is a great place to start if you’re new to flying or
X-Plane.

For now, we’re going to focus on setting up a New Flight to

customize all its features. Click the button to be taken to the
Flight Configuration screen.

Note that if you return to the Main Menu (found under the File
menu) after starting any flight, the name of some options will
have changed slightly. You can Resume Current Flight or
choose Flight Configuration to modify your current flight or
create a new one. You will also have the option to Save
Flight in addition to Load Saved Flight and access to Flight
School.

Picking and Customizing an Aircraft

Figure 5.1: Setting up a new flight in the Flight Configuration

screen

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 Select an aircraft from the list on the left. You can narrow
down your options by using the drop down menus at the top
of the screen or the search bar. Click on the star in the corner
of the aircraft box to mark it as a favorite, and quickly find it
next time at the top of the list.

By clicking on the Customize button, you can switch between

starting your flight with engines running or cold & dark. You
can change the aircraft’s livery (if available) by using the
scroll wheel of the mouse or the drop down list in the top
right corner. Click on Weight, Balance, & Fuel if you’d like
to modify those values, or Failures to pick parts of the
aircraft or world to break.

Choosing an Airport or Location

X-Plane’s aircraft can be relocated to virtually any airport on

Earth. It can place your aircraft on a runway or apron, or it
can start you in the air on a 3 or 10 nautical mile approach to
a runway.

Pick an airport to start at by searching by Name,

ICAO/IATA/FAA code, or feature (such as “grass strip”) in the
location box at the top right side of the screen. You can obtain
the same results by searching for “KLAX,” “Los Angeles Intl,”
or even just typing “Los Angeles” and scrolling through the
results. The unfiltered list is the complete X‑Plane airport
database, which represents nearly every airport on the planet.

Click on the Customize button to go to the Location screen if

you’d like additional control over where your flight starts. This
screen is divided into three parts. In the top left is a larger
version of the airport selection on the previous screen. The
bottom left portion toggles between ramp & runway starts.
When the toggle button is set to “Runway” you can start on

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 the ground at the runway end, or in the air 3 or 10 nautical
miles away from the runway.

To the right of the list pane is an overhead view of the

selected airport’s layout with your current starting point
marked in blue. You can quickly see which end of the runway
you’ll start on, or where the ramp start you’ve selected is
located. You can zoom in and out by using your mouse scroll
wheel and even click on the location you’d like to start at in
the map instead of picking from the lists on the left.

Note that if the aircraft is moved to an area that does not

have any scenery installed, it will end up on a runway which is
hovering above the ocean down below. This is referred to as
“water world” and it is covered in detail in the appendix Water
World, or “Help, there’s water everywhere!”.

Other Ways to Choose a Location

You do not have to choose a location for your flight using the
list of world airports. You can have X‑Plane choose a random
location near you by clicking the Special Starts button at the
bottom of the Location screen, then selecting “Get Me Lost”
from the bottom of the list. You can also choose from a
number of special starts in this screen, such as a carrier cat
shot, oil rig approach, or the space shuttle landings.

Changing the Environment

The X‑Plane environment consists of weather, time of day, and

date, each of which can be modified at will.

Setting the Weather

X-Plane’s weather simulation is highly configurable and

remarkably realistic. Weather in X‑Plane can be set in three
ways. The first, and easiest, way to set the weather is using

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 the slider on the Flight Configuration screen. Eight options are
available, with the cloud cover getting increasingly heavy as
you drag the slider right.

Click the Customize button for much finer control over the
weather. It may be easiest to start with the closest type of
weather you want with the slider, then go to the Weather
Settings screen to tweak the individual settings.

Advanced Weather Customization

The Weather Settings screen allows you to specify the exact

weather you want. The largest portion of the screen is for the
weather map, which displays the clouds and wind layers in
relation to each other.

You can use the Preset Conditions drop down menu to set
some preset weather conditions to start designing your
custom weather from:

1. Clear sets no wind or cloud layers in the weather map,

and the visibility slider is set to 25 statute miles.

2. VFR Cirrus sets the weather to good visual flight rule

conditions—sunny skies with no wind, a few clouds, and
visibility at 20sm.

3. VFR Scattered sets the weather to good visual flight rule

conditions, but with a few more cloud layers, some wind,
and visibility at 25sm.

4. VFR Broken sets the weather to visual flight rule

conditions, but with more prominent cloud layers, wind,
and visibility at 20sm.

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 5. Marginal VFR Overcast sets the weather marginal VFR
flying conditions, with about seven miles of visibility,
gusting winds, and a 2,000 foot ceiling.

6. IFR Non-Precision Approach sets the weather for a

non-precision approach, with a 5 mile visibility and a 0
foot ceiling.

7. IFR Precision sets the weather up for a Category-I ILS

approach, with poor ceiling and visibility.

8. Convective adds precipitation and high visibility.

9. Large-Cell Thunderstorms sets the weather to about

IFR-I level ceiling and visibility conditions with heavy
precipitation and storms, of course.

Or you can simply add up to six cloud and/or wind layers (3

each) by clicking on their respective buttons. Note that each
layer you add will be placed above any existing layers of the
same type, so it will be most efficient to design your weather
from the bottom up.

The weather map is very tactile–you can grab the icons and
drag them up and down, and some cloud types allow you to
adjust their edges to make them wider or narrower. Click on a
layer to adjust additional settings in the Layer Properties
column on the left side of the window. Press the Delete
Layer button if you’d like to remove the wind or cloud layer.

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 Figure 5.2: Specifying the cloud and wind layers in Weather
Settings

Cloud layers can be set to cirrus, various amounts of cumulus,

and stratus. You can adjust the heights of the clouds by using
the sliders, or typing in the boxes for the most precision.
These heights are measured in feet above mean sea level
(MSL).

The altitude, speed, turbulence, gust, and shear of wind

layers can also be adjusted by dragging the sliders or
specifying a number in the boxes. X‑Plane will use the high,
middle, and low altitude settings to interpolate between the
layers. You can click and drag near the edge of the direction
circle to make the wind come from that direction.

In the right side of the Weather Settings window are the

setting sliders for atmospheric conditions. Here you can also
change the units of measure, such as switch the temperature
from Fahrenheit to Celsius for example.

The Set visibility drop down and slider adjusts what its name
suggests, measured in statute miles for atmospheric visibility
or feet for runway visual range.

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 The precipitation slider sets the level of precipitation.
Depending on the temperature around the airplane and in the
clouds where it is formed, this will be in the form of rain, hail,
or snow.

The storminess slider adjusts the tendency for convective

activity. The weather radar map in the lower-right of the
window shows where the cells are forming. Flying into these
cells results in heavy precipitation and extreme turbulence.
The turbulence is great enough that in reality, airplanes can
fly into thunderstorms in one piece and come out in many
smaller pieces.

Taking helicopters into these icing and thunderstorm

situations is interesting because their very high wing-loading
on their rotor and the fact that the rotor is free teetering
causes them to have a pretty smooth ride in turbulence. They
are still not indestructible, though, and they are subject to
icing on their blades just like an airplane.

Next, the temperature at the nearest airport and the

barometric pressure (air pressure) at sea level can be set.
Keep in mind that the “standard atmosphere” is 59° F (15° C)
and 29.92 inches mercury (1013 millibars).

Expand the “Thermals” section to enter the altitude, coverage,

and climb rate. These controls are mainly used when flying
gliders. In addition to thermals, X‑Plane also runs air up and
down the terrain as wind blows into mountains, simulating the
effects that real glider pilots have to keep in mind and try to
take advantage of. Try setting the wind at 30 knots or better
at a right angle to a mountain range and running along the
upwind side of the mountain range in a glider—you should be
able to stay aloft on the climbing air if you stay pretty low.

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 Drift to the downwind side of the mountain, though, and an
unstoppable descent is assured!

Expand “Bodies of Water” to set wave height and wave

direction for bodies of water. Changing the wave height, in
feet, will also modify the wave length and speed.
Video 5.1: Weather Customization tutorial

Downloading Current Real-World Weather from the Internet

Another method of setting the weather in X‑Plane is to

download the weather from the Internet. Downloading real
weather will obtain weather and winds information for the
entire world.

To enable this, first open the Customize Weather screen from

Flight Configuration. There, pick Download Real Weather
from the “Manual/Real Weather” drop down menu at the
bottom left of the window. X‑Plane will automatically
download the weather in your current location, and it will set
a timer to re-download weather in the increments you specify
in the “Refresh rate” drop down. If you want to download
weather at some other time, you can always come back to
this window and press the Refresh button.

Setting the Date and Time

The simplest way of setting the time of day is by dragging the

slider in the bottom right of the Flight Configuration screen.
Time is given as both local and Zulu time (that is, Greenwich
Mean Time or UTC). Click on the Customize button to change
the date, time or GMT offset by using the drop down menus.
Changing the date will accurately track changes in the length
of days and nights within X‑Plane. For instance, there are

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 fewer daylight hours in December than in June in North
America, as in the real world.

Additionally, you can check the always track real date and
time box to keep X‑Plane in sync with the date and time set
in your operating system.

Figure 5.3: The options available in the Customize window of

Time of Day

How to Fly
When flying for the first time (both in X‑Plane and the real
world), it’s a good idea to use a relatively simple aircraft. The
Cessna 172 is an excellent choice in this regard, a fact
attested to by the millions of real-world pilots trained in this
model.

Before beginning, be sure you have configured your flight

controls, if applicable, per the section “Configuring Flight
Controls” of the chapter Configuring and Tuning Your X‑Plane
Installation. If you are not using flight controls, you will have

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 to fly with the mouse. In this case, there will be a small white
plus sign (+) in the center of the screen. If only this cross is
visible, with no white box around it, X‑Plane is indicating that
the pilot’s “hand” is not on the stick. This means that the
mouse is free to move anywhere without impacting the flight
controls.

To grab the stick (and thus take control of the aircraft), click
the left mouse button in the vicinity of the little white cross
and a white box will appear around the cross. The mouse
button should not be held down, only clicked once to turn the
box on (i.e., to grab the stick) and again to turn the box off
(to release the stick). When the box is visible, the pilot’s hand
is on the stick and any movements of the mouse within the
box will position the flight controls accordingly. Thus, moving
the mouse directly below the cross will command some up
elevator (causing the plane to climb) and will not impose any
roll commands (which should keep the aircraft from changing
its bank). Likewise, keeping the mouse lined up exactly with
the cross but deflecting it to the right a bit will cause the
plane to bank to the right without altering its pitch.

Flight School

If you are not familiar with flying an airplane or using X-Plane,

check out Flight School for tutorials on many basic aviation
concepts. Tutorials range from how to take off and land in the
default Cessna 172 SP, to how to use a VOR to navigate. To
access Flight School, go to the main menu (found under the
File menu) and click the button for Flight School.

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 Figure 5.4: The General Aviation section of Flight School

Take off

To take off, the airplane must first be located at the end of a

runway. By default X‑Plane relocates the craft here, unless
you have specifically picked a different location in the
Customize Location screen. To take off in the Cessna 172,
release the brakes (for instance, by using the ‘b’ key) when
the throttle reaches its halfway point, then slowly advance the
throttle (the F2 button when not using a joystick). Continue to
advance the throttle and be ready to feed in some right yaw
(using the right rudder or the twist on the joystick, if
applicable) as the airplane accelerates. The tendency to turn
to the left is normal in single engine aircraft due to the turn of
the propeller.

Don’t worry if it takes a few tries to learn how to keep the

aircraft on the runway—a Cessna can take off in the grass just
fine. If the airplane turns off the runway as it’s accelerating,
just keep on going. Normally, the pilot will rotate (that is,
apply some up elevator by pulling back on the yoke or stick)
at about 60 knots in the Cessna 172. Once the aircraft leaves
the ground, push the stick forward a bit to momentarily level
off and allow the airplane to build speed. Once the craft
reaches 80 knots or so, pull back gently on the stick again
and resume climbing. Building airspeed before climbing this
way will help keep the plane from stalling.

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 Note that if a crash occurs that damages the airplane too
badly, X‑Plane will ask if you’d like to set up a new flight. You
can turn this off by checking the box inside the pop up
window to “Always reset flight immediately,” which will instead
place you on the nearest runway of the last airport you
selected in Flight Configuration.

If the impact is only hard enough to damage the airplane

without necessarily destroying it, the aircraft will just sit there
and smoke. If this happens, you will need to open the Flight
Configuration screen and start a new flight. If only it were so
easy in the real world!

Landing

To land the plane you must first locate an airport and runway.
This can be done during a flight by “dead reckoning” (that is,
looking at your surroundings to find an airport nearby) or by
opening Local Map (either by clicking on the icon in the menu,
or using the ‘m’ key by default). The simplest option is to
have X‑Plane set you up on a final approach by opening the
Flight Configuration screen, choosing an airport in the
Location section, and selecting your desired approach
distance.

To begin the descent in the Cessna 172, gradually lower the

throttle to about 20% power and pitch the nose down
between -3 and -5 degrees. Start to gradually lower the flaps
(by using the ‘2’ key if no replacement button was configured)
to further slow the aircraft. The goal is to be around stalling
speed (about 50 knots in the Cessna) right at touchdown for
the smoothest landing. As you near the runway, cut the
throttle completely and pitch the nose up about 7 degrees to
gently land the plane. Apply the brakes to come to a complete
stop.
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 Using the Instruments and Avionics
When using the forward cockpit view, the mouse can be used
to control the instruments in the panel, just as the pilot’s
hand would be used to manipulate the instruments, switches,
and other controls.

To operate a button, just click it and release. To operate a

switch, do the same to change its position. For example, to
bring the landing gear down (on planes that are able to), click
with the landing gear switch. Of course, this control will look
different in different aircraft. Keep in mind that the g key
could also be used or a joystick button could be assigned to
toggle the gear.

To turn knobs, move the mouse to the “plus” or “minus” side,

whichever is necessary, and click to move the knob. Click
repeatedly for greater movements.

To easily see the controls within the cockpit that the mouse
can operate, open the Settings and go to the General tab.
Under the Flight Model section, check the box labeled Show
clickable regions in the cockpit. This will draw green boxes
around the areas of the instrument panel that can be
manipulated with the mouse.

If you have trouble interacting with (or even seeing) a control,

you can switch to the 3-D cockpit mode by pressing Shift + 9,
then move your view backward by pressing the comma key
(‘,’). This will allow you to see the whole of the cockpit. You
can also use the period key (‘.’) or mouse wheel to zoom in
and get a closer look. Alternatively, you can use the up, down,
left, and right arrow keys to move your view around in the 2-
D panel view.

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 To get a quick description of the instruments in the panel,
open the Settings and go to the General tab. Under the Flight
Model section, check the box labeled Show instrument
instructions in the cockpit. After closing the window, you’ll
see a description of an instrument whenever you hold the
mouse over it.

A Note on Radio Tuning

Avionics in most airplanes utilize twin concentric knobs that

allow the pilot to tune the radio. For example, there will
typically be a large knob on the surface of the radio, with a
smaller knob sticking out from the large one. The large knob
controls the integer (“counting number”) portion of the
frequency and the smaller knob controls the decimal portion.

For example, imagine that the COM1 radio (the

communications radio number 1) needed to be tuned to
128.00 MHz. In a real aircraft, the pilot would turn the big,
lower knob until 128 was visible in the window, then turn the
small, upper knob until 00 was visible.

X-Plane is set up the same way. When hovering the mouse in

the vicinity of one of the radio tuning knobs, two counter-
clockwise arrows will appear on the left of the knob and two
clockwise arrows on the right. The arrows closest to the knob
are physically smaller than those on the outside-these adjust
the decimal portion of the frequency. The outside arrows are
larger and adjust the integer portion of the frequency.

Using the Views

You can change your view of the aircraft using the View menu,
or by using the keyboard shortcuts listed on the right side of
each option in the View menu. For example, to select the

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 forward view, one would press the ‘w’ key, and to turn the
view 45° left, one would press the ‘q’ key.

Using the menus or the appropriate keyboard shortcuts, you

can select a view or modify your current view. The controls
for view selection affect the type of view that you are using.
For instance, you may choose to be in the cockpit, looking
forward at the instrument panel, or you may select an
external view, perhaps where you look at your aircraft from
the point of view of the nearest air traffic control tower. View
selection controls are described in Table 5.2.

After selecting some view, you can modify the view using
translation (moving left, right, fore, or aft), rotation (spinning
about your point of focus), or zoom (changing the angle of
view). The default keyboard shortcuts for these effects are
listed in Table 5.1.

In the 3-D cockpit mode, if you want to move your view closer
to the instrument panel, you would press the '.'' (period) key,
not the '='' key. To move your view farther from the
instrument panel, you would press ‘,’ (comma), not the ‘-’ key.
Furthermore, you cannot zoom out past your camera’s actual
location; you have to translate backward (using the ‘,’ key) to
move farther away.

Many aircraft use 3-D cockpit mode by default, but you can
also switch to it by opening the View menu, clicking Change
(Internal), then clicking “3-D Cockpit Command Look,” or by
pressing Shift + 9 on the keyboard. In this mode, you can
move your view around the cockpit in one of a few ways:

1. by clicking the right mouse button and and dragging your

mouse around the screen,
2. by using the keyboard shortcuts listed in Table 5.2,
3. by selecting different views from the View menu, or
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 4. by pressing a button on your flight controls which you
previously configured to modify the view.

This mode leaves the mouse free to click on things in the

cockpit without affecting where you are looking.

In 3-D cockpit mode, you can use the keyboard shortcuts or

the View menu itself to change where you are looking. These
are described in Table 5.1.
Movement Keyboard
Effect
Name Shortcut
Translate left,
Corresponding Shifts the view a bit in the
right, up, and
arrow key direction you choose
down
Shifts the view toward the
Translate fore ‘,’ (aft) and ‘.’
front and rear of the aircraft,
and aft (fore)
respectively
Rotate left, ‘q’ (left), ‘e’
Spins the view in the
right, up, and (right), ‘r’ (up),
corresponding direction
down and ‘f’ (down)
Zoom in and ‘=’ (zoom in) and
Simple zooming
out ‘-’ (zoom out)
Table 5.1: General view modification commands
Name of Keyboard
Effect
View Shortcut
View Selection Controls for cockpit views
Forward with Shows the instrument panel as though
‘w’
panel you were in the cockpit, facing forward
Shows a front-facing view with no
Forward with Shift+‘w’
instrument panel, only a head-up
HUD (i.e., ‘W’)
display (HUD)
Shows a front-facing view
Forward with
Ctrl+‘w’ unencumbered by an instrument panel
nothing
or any other display

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 Name of Keyboard
Effect
View Shortcut
3-D cockpit, Displays the in-cockpit view of the 3-D
using instrument panel, where available.
Shift+9
keyboard Uses translation and rotation
(i.e., '(')
shortcuts to commands (listed in Table 5.1) to
look around move and look around.
View Selection Controls for external views
Shift+1 Moves the camera with your craft’s
Linear spot
(i.e., ‘!’) initial velocity.
Fixes the camera’s location some
Shift+2
Still spot distance in front of your craft’s
(i.e., ‘@’)
position.
On the Shift+3 Fixes the camera’s location on the
runway (i.e., “#”) ground at the nearest runway.
Moves the camera with the aircraft,
Circling the Shift+4 allowing you to use the rotation and
aircraft (i.e., ‘$’) translation keys (see Table 5.1) to
circle the craft.
Shift+5
Tower view Fixes the camera at the nearest tower.
(i.e., ‘%’)
“Mounts” a camera to the aircraft,
Shift+6 which can then be moved using the
Ride-along
(i.e., ‘^’) rotation and translation keys (see
Table 5.1).
Track fired Shift+7 Causes the camera to follow any fired
weapon (i.e., ‘&’) weapon.
Shift+8 Sets the camera directly behind the
Chase
(i.e., ‘*’) aircraft.
Table 5.2: Controls for selecting a view

Using the Quick Look Feature

Quick Look allows you to set up a view just the way you like
it, and then save it as a hot key or command. Then, in the
future, whenever you press that key on the keyboard (or

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 button on your joystick, as the case may be), you can go right
back to that view again.

Note that the Quick Looks are aircraft-specific preferences.

This means that your Quick Look views in the Cessna 172 do
not interfere with your views in the King Air, and so on.

For example, suppose you’re flying the default King Air and
you find yourself frequently positioning your view in the
cockpit by tilting down and zooming in on the throttle
quadrant to see how you have the aircraft configured. This
can take some time to set up and if you do it often, it can get
tedious.

The solution, then, is to set up a Quick Look. Set the view to

however you like it, and assign it to Quick Look 1 by pressing
Ctrl+Num Pad 1 (i.e., the control key, with the 1 key on the
number pad). Note that the Num Lock must be on in order to
do this. Now, no matter how your view changes, when you
press the shortcut for Quick Look 1 (by default, Num Pad 1),
your head position, orientation and zoom goes right back to
your memorized view of the throttle quadrant.

By default, the numbers 0 through 9 on your keyboard’s

numeric keypad (a.k.a. the num pad or tenkey) are used to
bring you back to Quick Looks 0 through 9. When pressing the
Ctrl key along with any of those numbers, you will store your
current view to be recalled later by that number key. Thus, to
set a view for Quick Look 3, you would get the view to the
way you like it, then press Ctrl + Num Pad 3, and to go back
to that view, you would press Num Pad 3. However, like most
keys in X-Plane, you can modify these settings if you like, and
you can even assign an established Quick Look to your

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 joystick as described in the section “Assigning Functions to
Buttons”.

Quick Looks are not just for 3-D cockpit mode, either. They
work in all aircraft-relative views, such as 3-D Cockpit,
Ridealong, Chase, Circle, and Forward with HUD.

To use Quick Looks 11–20, you must assign key assignments.

For example, you could go to the keyboard settings screen
and assign a key to the command “memorize 3-D cockpit
location #11” then return to the cockpit, set up the desired
view, and press that key. Then return to keyboard settings
and assign a key to “Go to save 3-D cockpit location #11.”
Now when you return to the cockpit and use the new key
assignment, your view will change to the memorized location.

Letting X-Plane Fly Your Aircraft

X-Plane has the capability to fly an aircraft using artificial
intelligence (AI). The AI system can handle all aspects of
flying your aircraft, including taxiing around the airport, take
off and landing.

To enable the AI’s control of the craft, move the mouse up to

the top of the screen to bring down the menu bar. Click
Aircraft, then select A.I. Flies Your Aircraft.

With the AI controlling the airplane, you are free to

experiment with the different views and also to practice
raising and lowering the aircraft’s landing gear, flaps, and so
on. Furthermore, this is an excellent way to practice tuning
radios.

In addition, you can have the AI control your view by opening

the Aircraft menu and selecting A.I. Controls Your Views.

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 Getting Quick Help
If you need help with a certain aspect of the simulator, open
the menu and check for a question mark icon in the right
corner. Click on the icon to open a webpage with additional
information and instructions about the screen you are
currently viewing.

You can also quickly access a list of essential commands and

their associated keyboard shortcuts by going to the Flight
menu and picking the “Show Key Shortcuts” option.

To see what buttons, knobs or switches in the cockpit are

interactive, turn on green boxes the green boxes of mouse
click regions by going to View > Show Instrument Click
Regions. In addition, toggling “Show Instrument Descriptions”
will display the name of the instrument when you hover the
mouse pointer over it.

Saving and Sharing Your Flight

X-Plane offers a number of ways to save and share a
particular flight. These are:

1. Situations, which note the current location, environmental

conditions, and properties of the aircraft in use.
2. Replays, which store a “recording” of your entire flight
since the last load. These are only replayable in X-Plane,
but they have the advantage of being made up of X‑Plane
data points storing your aircraft’s location, so you can
change your views during the replay.
3. Screenshots, which store an image of a single moment in
your flight and are viewable on any computer.

In each case, you can save the flight and replay it yourself, or
you can upload it to the Internet for others to see.

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 Figure 5.5: Load a situation, replay, FDR or Xavion file from
the Load Flight screen
Video 5.2: Saving and Loading Flights tutorial

Creating a Reusable Situation

A “situation” in X‑Plane is a file readable only by X‑Plane. It is

essentially a “snapshot” that makes a note of the aircraft you
are using, its position in the air or on the ground, its payload,
the amount of fuel in its tanks, and so on. It also includes
information on the environmental conditions of the flight,
including cloud conditions, temperature, and time of day.
Furthermore, any other aircraft you have loaded will also be
noted.

To create a situation (a ‘.sit’ file), move the mouse to the top

of the screen, click File, then click Save Flight.

You may need to toggle the “Save As” file type to the correct
file type, then enter a name in the File Name field and click
the Save button.

By default, X‑Plane saves your situation files to the following

directory: ‘X-Plane/Output/situations/’, although you can pick
a different save location with the Change Destination
button.

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 This is especially useful for quickly loading and practicing a
specific type of approach, or for recreating a specific combat
situation. The situations can even be sent to other X‑Plane
users; all they need is the ‘.sit’ file that you created.

To load a situation in order to fly it again, open the File menu

and click Load Flight. You can narrow down the list of all the
saved files by clicking on the Situations button. If you do not
see your file in any of the lists, you can also click the Open
Saved Flight Not Listed button to open a file browser
window to navigate to the file, wherever you saved it. Click on
the .sit file you want to load, then press the Load Flight
button at the bottom of the screen.

Creating a Replay

A “replay” in X‑Plane is essentially a “movie” of your flight

which notes the aircraft’s location and attitude at each time
step, beginning at the last time you loaded an aircraft or
traveled to an airport and ending at the moment you click the
“Save Replay” button. This file is only viewable in X-Plane, but
because it is so complete, you can change your view as much
as you like while replaying. This is in contrast to an AVI
movie, which records only what you see while you’re
recording.

These files, like situations, can be shared with and replayed

by any X‑Plane user.

To create a replay (a ‘.rep’ file), move your mouse to the top

of the screen, click File, and click Save Flight. You may need
to toggle the “Save As” file type to the correct file type, then
enter a name in the File Name field and click the Save button.

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 By default, X‑Plane will store your replay in the following
directory: ‘X-Plane 12/Output/replays/’, although you can pick
a different save location with the Change Destination
button.

To load a replay, open the File menu as before, but select

Load Flight. You can narrow down the list of all the saved files
by clicking on the Replay button. If you do not see your file
in any of the lists, you can also click the Open Saved Flight
Not Listed button to open a file browser window to navigate
to the file, wherever you saved it. Click on the .rep file you
want to load, then press the Load Flight button at the
bottom of the screen.

Creating a Movie

In addition to file types readable only by X-Plane, you can also

create more universally readable movies. The downside to
these movie files is that they record exactly what you see
when you record them, and they do not record sound. You will
toggle the recording on, fly around a bit, then toggle the
recording off; the resulting ‘.avi’ file will contain what you saw
on your screen while flying around. After recording the movie,
you can edit it in a program like iMovie (installed on new Macs
by default) or Windows Live Movie Maker.

Before recording your movie, you will want to set up the

movie’s specifications. Do so by moving the mouse to the top
of the screen, clicking on the File menu, then clicking
“Configure video recording.” In the dialog box that appears,
you can set:

1. the frame rate of the movie (measured in frames per

second)
2. the resolution of the movie (width only; height will be
calculated automatically from the width), and
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 3. the time multiplier, indicating how many frames to skip
when doing a time lapse video.

In choosing a frame rate, know that videos produced at 15

frames per second will look jittery. Film and television use 24
and 30 frames per second, respectively. In choosing a
resolution, keep in mind that an x-resolution of 720 pixels is
720p, and that increasing beyond the resolution you’re using
on your screen will give no benefit.

To begin recording a movie, either press Ctrl + Spacebar or

open the File menu and click “Toggle video recording.” After
flying whatever you intended to record, turn the recording off
by either pressing Ctrl + Spacebar or clicking Toggle Movie
from the File menu. A file called “X-Plane [aircraft
name]_[number].mov” will appear in the Output folder of the
X‑Plane directory.

Your movie file can be played back on virtually any computer.

If the appropriate software is not installed on the computer
you want to play the file on, you can get a free cross-platform
multimedia player from the VideoLAN Organization.

Capturing a Screenshot

The final method of saving or sharing your flight is to take a

simple screenshot. This can be done either by pressing Shift +
Spacebar, or by moving your mouse to the top of the screen,
clicking the File menu, and clicking “Take Screenshot.” The
captured image (a ‘.png’ picture file) will appear in the Output
folder of your X‑Plane directory.

These ‘.png’ screenshots can be opened and viewed on any

modern computer, regardless of whether X‑Plane is installed.

Visualizing and Replaying Your Flight

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 In addition to being able to save replays for later playback (as
described in the section Saving and Sharing Your Flight
above), you can visualize your flight up to your present
location in a few different ways. You can view your flight path
on X-Plane’s 2-dimensional maps, or you can toggle the 3-D
flight path and view that path in the main simulator. If you
want to replay your flight, beginning at the last time you
loaded an aircraft or location, you can use X-Plane’s built-in
replay function, which has shuttle controls to play, rewind,
and fast forward, just like you would expect. Finally, if you
want to visualize the path taken by a real-world aircraft, you
can format its flight data recorder information in a way that
X‑Plane can interpret. X‑Plane will treat the data in the FDR
file just like a regular replay, so you can play, fast forward,
and rewind as usual.

Viewing the Path Taken by Your Aircraft

Figure 5.6: Visualizing a 3-D path

The path taken by an aircraft up to its current location can

always be seen as a trail behind the aircraft when you toggle
the 3-D flight path on. To do so, either press Ctrl + ‘p’ on the
keyboard, or move the mouse to the top of the screen, click
on the View menu, and click Cycle 3-D Flight Path. Doing so
once will cause X‑Plane to display a violet-striped line behind

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 the aircraft. Cycling it again will give a semi-transparent black
bar extending from the flight path to the ground (seen in
Figure 5.6). Cycling the path once more will turn off the flight
path lines.

To reset the 3-D flight path, either press Shift + ‘p’ on the
keyboard, or open the Aircraft menu and click Reset 3-D
Flight Path. The flight path will also be reset whenever you
load an aircraft or a location.

For more information on using the navigation maps here, see

the section “Using X-Plane’s Navigation Maps” of the chapter
Navigation, Autopilots, and Flying on Instruments.

Viewing the Behind-the-Scenes Flight Model

X-Plane models flight by breaking an aircraft down into a

number of little pieces and finding the forces acting on each
piece. By clicking the “Show Flight Model” option from the
View menu (or by pressing Ctrl + ‘m’ on the keyboard) and
moving to an outside view (e.g., by pressing Shift + 8 on the
keyboard for the chase view), you can actually see all the
forces calculated on each piece of the craft, as illustrated in
Figure 5.7. With some wind and turbulence turned on in the
Weather screen, you can even see the pseudo-random
velocity vector flow field around the airplane. The velocity
vectors seen are the actual vectors interacting with the
aircraft, and the force vectors (the green lines coming off the
plane) are the actual forces acting on the plane—nothing is
just for show here. This is the actual work that X‑Plane is
doing.

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 Figure 5.7: Illustrating the forces acting on a Baron 58

To see the forces at work on each element of the aircraft,

toggle the flight model 3 times. The green bars extending
from the control surfaces of the aircraft indicate how much lift
each section of the surface is generating; longer bars
represent greater force. The red bars, likewise, represent
drag, and the yellow bars represent lift from vertical control
surfaces.

Press Ctrl + ‘m’ (or select Show Flight Model from the menu)
1–3 more times to continue cycling through the flight
modeling options for wind forces. Note that X‑Plane is not a
computational fluid dynamics application, but it makes a
decent stab at seeing how the craft affects the flow field, and
how that in turn affects other parts of the craft.

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 Figure 5.8: The flow field around a Baron 58

The vector popping out of each point around the airplane

shows if the air is being pushed up, down, fore, or aft (or, for
that matter, side to side by the rudder or vertical stabilizer)
compared to the speed and direction of the center of gravity
of the airplane. The color of the vectors represent airspeed,
where yellow is the middle of the spectrum, and a 10% speed
change takes us to red (10% lower) or green (10% higher)
vector color.

Additionally, these on-screen visual representations provide

no numerical data. In order to obtain that information, press
Shift + ‘m’ and the data will be output to the file “Cycle
Dump.txt” in the main X‑Plane directory. The text file will
include angles of attack, forces, velocities and additional data
for that instant of your flight.

Using the Built-In Replay

You can replay your flight, from the last time you loaded an
aircraft or a location up to your current location, by toggling
the replay mode on. This can be done either by pressing Alt
(Option on a Mac) + ‘r’ or by opening the File menu and
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 clicking Toggle Replay Mode. In the top of the window, you
will see shuttle controls to (listed left to right):

1. stop playback,
2. play backward faster than real-time,
3. play backward at real-time speed,
4. play backward slower than real-time,
5. pause playback,
6. play forward slower than real-time,
7. play forward at real-time speed,
8. play forward faster than real-time, and
9. stop playback.

Additionally, you can click the shuttle slider and drag it to

quickly jump around in the playback.

To return to the flight, either press Alt (Option) + ‘r’ again, or

open the menu and click Toggle Replay Mode once again.

Replaying a Flight from a Flight Data Recorder (FDR)

The final method of visualizing a flight is to load information

from a flight data recorder (FDR). This is useful primarily in
accident investigation and re-creation. In that case, you would
need to take the data from the “black box” of the aircraft
you’re interested in and put it in a format that X‑Plane can
read. That format is the Flight Data Recorder (or ‘.fdr’)
format.

You can load .fdr files, including an example file from the
Instructions folder, by going to the File menu and clicking on
“Load Flight.” Click the Flight Data Recorder button, select
the desired file from the list, and click Load Flight. Then you
will be greeted with the standard replay shuttle buttons with
which you can replay the flight.

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 Note that even if your custom instantaneous “snapshots” of
the aircraft does not use a given parameter (such as the
engine pressure ratio, perhaps), your data file must use a
dummy value as a placeholder so that the columns of data are
interpreted correctly. The FDR file specification and
information on each field can be found in the X-Plane
Knowledge Base.

Advanced Simulation in X-Plane

X-Plane is the most comprehensive and powerful flight
simulator available. As such, there are a great number of
features available that go beyond simply taking off, flying
around, and landing. These include tools like the logbook and
checklists, and features like equipment failures and damage
modeling.

Keeping a Logbook
Each time an aircraft is flown in X-Plane, the program logs the
flight time in a digital logbook. By default, X‑Plane creates a
text file called “X-Plane Pilot.txt” in the ‘X-Plane
12/Output/logbooks directory’. Inside this text file are the
following details of previous flights:

1. Dates of flights
2. Tail numbers of aircraft
3. Aircraft types
4. Airports of departure and arrival
5. Number of landings
6. Duration of flights
7. Time spent flying cross-country, in IFR conditions, and at
night
8. Total time of all flights

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 To see your logbook, open the File menu and click “Open
Logbook.” You can load a logbook by clicking the Open
Logbook button and navigating to your logbook, or you can
create a new logbook using the New Logbook button.

Working with the Air Traffic Control

X-Plane’s air traffic control (ATC) system is powerful and
realistic when you want to practice real-world protocols, but
completely unobtrusive when you want to just fly. Although AI
aircraft will always follow the guidance of the air traffic
control, they will also work around your aircraft if you are not
interacting with the ATC.

Note: You will only be able to hear the air traffic control
chatter if ATC audio output is enabled; to confirm this is the
case, open the Settings screen, then click Sound.

All interactions with the air traffic control occur via the on-
screen ATC window. To access this feature, simply press Enter
(Return) on the keyboard. You can also program a button on a
joystick to access this screen or click the headset icon in the
menu.

In order to make a request or hear from the air traffic

controllers, you must have your COM 1 radio tuned to the
proper frequency for the request. Filing a flight plan is
independent of any controller, so that option is always
available. However, once the flight plan is filed, you must tune
to the Clearance Delivery, Ground, or Tower frequencies (if
available, in that order as in the real world) to get clearance
for takeoff.

After you get clearance, you tune to the Ground (if available)
or Tower frequencies for your taxi clearance. When you get to

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 a hold short line, ground control will hand you off to tower
and then you’ll receive handoffs throughout the rest of your
flight when necessary; keep tuning to the proper frequency to
continue to receive air traffic control guidance.

To see these frequencies, as well as other important airport

information, click on the airport in the Map window, then on
Details in the box that opens.

You can always tune your radios by hand, but you can also
auto-tune your COM1 radio by clicking on any line in the ATC
list. In addition, if you’re ever en route and not sure which
controller you should be talking to, X‑Plane will do its best to
suggest the right one—you’ll see a little asterisk (*) next to
the recommended controller. X‑Plane can automatically switch
between the correct controllers for you if you check the “Auto-
tune recommended frequencies” box.

Figure 6.1: The Air Traffic Controller list at KSEA

As in the real world, any ATC interaction begins with filing a

flight plan. Thus, the first time you press Enter during a flight,

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 the option to “File Flight Plan” will always be available. Click
that button to open the Flight Plan window (shown in Figure
6.2).

Your aircraft’s tail number will be filled in, but you may
change this to a different callsign if you wish. Select a
manufacturer and aircraft model from the drop down lists as
these are required with the new ATC voice system in X‑Plane
12.30. You may specify an airline and a flight number if
desired. The starting airport will already be filled in, but you
must enter your destination airport code, as well as your
planned cruising (enroute) altitude. You may also specify your
route using NDBs, VORs, Fixes and airways. Pressing the File
Flight Plan button will register your flight plan with the
X‑Plane air traffic control.

Figure 6.2: The initial Flight Plan window

With your flight plan filed, you can bring up the ATC menu
again by pressing Enter, then click “Request Clearance.”

Seattle ATC Walkthrough

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 The following is a brief walkthrough on how to depart the
KSEA area:

1. Load a small aircraft, such as the Cessna 172, and

position yourself at a gate at KSEA.

2. Tune your COM1 radio to 128.00, the clearance delivery

frequency at KSEA. Remember you can do this by hand,
by clicking on the line in the list of controllers, or, if auto-
tune is enabled, it will happen automatically.

3. Press Enter on the keyboard to bring up the ATC menu,

then select “File Flight Plan.”

4. Pick your aircraft’s manufacturer and model, set your

destination to KBFI, and then set your altitude to 3,000
feet. We’re going to leave the route blank because we
want to go direct, but you could also enter any
NDB/VOR/FIX/Airway to get real routings. When you’re
done click File Flight Plan.

5. You now have a flight plan in the system. If you wish to

change your mind, you can return to the flight plan dialog
in the same way and update it. (You may need to uncheck
“Use departure wizard” if you no longer see the option to
file a flight plan.)

6. You need an IFR clearance before you can proceed, and in

the ATC window and you’ll see an option for “Request
Clearance.” Click that and you’ll receive your clearance.

7. Read back your clearance by clicking the option “Read

back transmission.” Note that if you hear a beep when you
click on any ATC menu items, that means that another
aircraft or controller is busy talking on the radio. As in the

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 real world, you must wait for them to finish talking before
you can talk. You must also respond within a reasonable
amount of time or they will repeat their instructions.

8. Once you’ve received and read back your clearance, tune

the COM1 radio to 121.70, the frequency for the ground
controller at KSEA. Click Request Taxi to call ground to
receive a taxi clearance. Acknowledge the clearance as
described above and then look around you. You’ll see
yellow arrows painted on the ground directing you to
where you should go. Where the arrows stop, you must
also stop and wait for further instructions.

9. Taxi to where the arrows are taking you. When you reach
the side of the runway, ground will instruct you to contact
the tower. Read back the command and then tune to the
tower frequency of 119.90.

10. Check in with this new controller. This is how you tell the
controller you’re now on their frequency waiting for their
command. If there are aircraft using the runway, you will
have to wait until they are done. This may take some
time! At that time,

11. Tower will call you and give you your takeoff clearance.
Respond and then depart. Unless otherwise instructed, fly
the runway heading up to your cleared altitude of 3,000
feet.

12. At some point, you will be handed off to the center

controller on 124.20. Check in as you did before. Continue
on your heading and altitude and eventually Center will
begin vectoring you to an approach at your destination of
KBFI.

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 13. Once the approach is set up, you will be handed off to
KBFI’s tower for landing and the process continues until
you’ve arrived back at the gate.

Using a Checklist
X-Plane has the ability to display a simple checklist in the
simulator. This checklist must be stored somewhere in the
X‑Plane directory as a plain text (‘.txt’) file.

To load a check list, open the File menu and click Open
Checklist. Click on Load New Checklist and navigate to your
‘.txt’ file. Open it and you will see the checklist displayed line-
by-line in the checklist window. You can use the forward and
back buttons to go to the next and previous lines,
respectively.

If you prefer to see the text file all at once (rather than line-
by-line as in the checklist view), you can select Open Text File
from the File menu and then load a file in the manner
discussed above.

Changing How Damage Affects the Aircraft

By default, X‑Plane does not remove parts of the aircraft when
the craft’s limits are exceeded. However, by opening the
Settings screen and clicking on General, you can enable the
option to Remove flying surfaces when over speed or
over G limits

Additionally, with the reset to the nearest airport when

you wreck box checked, X‑Plane will automatically reload
your aircraft at the nearest airport in the event of a fatal
crash.

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 By making these damage modeling features optional, X‑Plane
allows both easy, possibly unrealistic flights, as well as much
more accurate, more challenging simulations.

Setting the Weight, Balance, and Fuel

To modify an aircraft’s weight, balance, and fuel, go to the
Flight menu and pick “Edit Weight & Balance.” You can also
access this screen during Flight Configuration. Click on the
icon for the aircraft you’d like to modify, click the Customize
button, then the Weight, Balance, & Fuel button. Either
way will open a window where you can use the sliders to set
the aircraft’s center of gravity, the weight of its payload (and
locations, if enabled on the specific aircraft), and the amount
of fuel in its tanks.

Figure 6.3: Weight, Balance, & Fuel screen for the default
Boeing 737

An airplane can typically stay in the air at very high weights,

but it will have a hard time getting off the ground initially.
Additionally, moving the center of gravity forward (left on the
slider) makes the plane behave more like a dart, and moving
the center of gravity aft (right on the slider) makes the plane

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 more unstable, and potentially unflyable. Flying a plane with
the center of gravity far aft is like shooting an arrow
backwards—it wants to flip around with the heavy end in the
front and the fins in the back.

Since X‑Plane calculates in real time how the plane is burning

fuel, and the engines need fuel to run, and the weight
distribution of the fuel is considered in the simulation, the fuel
put on board does indeed matter.
Video 6.1: The weight, balance and fuel tutorial video

Simulating Equipment Failures

X-Plane can simulate countless aircraft systems failures. Using
this feature lets you experience what happens when important
pieces of equipment don’t do what they’re supposed to in
flight.

You can access this feature while in the Flight Configuration

screen by clicking on an aircraft icon, then the Customize
button, then the Failures button. Or, access it during flight by
going to the Flight menu and picking “Edit Failures.”

If the Set global mean time between failures box is

checked, the simulator will use the value to the right to
determine how often, on average, each piece of equipment
will fail. For instance, if the mean time between failure is
set to 1000 hours, X‑Plane will decide that each piece of
hardware in the plane has about a one in a thousand chance
of breaking each hour. Since the airplane has a few hundred
pieces of hardware, that means a failure might occur every 5
to 20 hours or so. Checking this box essentially allows the
possibility of random and unexpected failures.

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 The World section of the Failures window controls things
outside of the airplane, such as bird strikes and airport
equipment failures. The other categories and subcategories in
this window let the user set the frequency of specific failures
for hundreds of different aircraft systems. Many of the options
allow you to specify a time, speed, or other condition at which
they will fail.
Video 6.2: Setting failures tutorial

Enabling a Smoke Trail

A smoke trail, as might be used by an aerobatic airplane in an
airshow, can be enabled behind your aircraft. This control is
assigned to the ‘x’ key by default. You can assign a different
key by following the instructions in Configuring Keyboard
Shortcuts.

Speeding Up the Simulation

By pressing Alt+‘t’ on the keyboard, you can increase the
simulation speed to 2× the standard speed. Pressing Alt+‘t’
repeatedly will increase the speed to 4×, then 6×, and then it
will finally return the simulator back to standard speed.

Note that if your computer cannot run the simulation at the

required frame rate, X‑Plane will slow its measurement of
time to compensate. This is seen most often for users running
at standard speed, but failing to maintain 20 frames per
second. When X‑Plane runs slower than 20 fps, it slows down
its simulation of real-time so that the simulator is “effectively”
running at 20 fps. For instance, if the simulator is running at
10 fps due to extreme rendering settings, X‑Plane will run the
flight model at half speed. The result is that the physics are
integrating in slow-motion in order to avoid destabilizing from

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 the low framerate. Thus, if you need real-time simulation, you
must run the simulator at 20 fps or faster.

Taxiing More Accurately

In commercial aircraft, a nosewheel tiller is used to more
accurately align the nosewheel to the taxi lines, and to get the
aircraft safely docked at jetways. You can assign an axis on
your joystick to control this tiller by opening the Settings
screen, going to Joystick and, in one of the drop-down menus
in the Axis tab, selecting nosewheel tiller. Note that this is
the same procedure used in setting up the joystick axes
normally, as described in the section “Configuring Flight
Controls” of the chapter Configuring and Tuning Your X‑Plane
Installation.

Virtual Reality
X-Plane 12 supports native virtual reality, or VR. The
additional system requirements for VR are:

1. Windows 8 64-bits or newer operating system

2. HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, or Windows Mixed Reality (WMR)
3. Steam VR installed for Vive/WMR
4. “Windows Mixed Reality for SteamVR” for WMR

Your CPU & GPU will need to meet all additional requirements
as specified by your headset manufacturer. X‑Plane supports
the HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, and Windows Mixed Reality (WMR).

Note: Steam VR is a free download that enables X‑Plane

12 to use VR. Steam VR is compatible with the digital
download edition, and X‑Plane on Steam.

Room-sized VR is supported, as well as using joysticks and

other USB devices.

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 This video shows how to get started and some of the tricks
you can use with X‑Plane VR.
Video 6.3: X‑Plane VR instructions and tips

To get started using VR, first set up your device according to

manufacturer’s instructions. In addition, you may need to
enable foreign apps in the VR system settings. For example,
with the Oculus Rift, you would go to Settings > General and
toggle the button to the right to enable apps from Unknown
Sources, such as X-Plane.

Next, if you don’t already have it, Vive & WMR users will need
to download the Steam software and create a free account in
order to install Steam VR. Once the Steam client is installed
and you have signed in, go to Library > VR. Click on SteamVR
under the Tools section in the left sidebar, then the install
button.

If you’re using a Windows Mixed Reality (WMR) device, in

addition to SteamVR you’ll also need to install “Windows
Mixed Reality for SteamVR,” which is available from the Steam
Library as well.

Finally, launch X‑Plane and go to Settings > VR Hardware. As

long as your headset is attached (and your GPU meets
minimum requirements), there will be a checkbox to enable
VR hardware.

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 Figure 6.4: The VR Hardware Settings tab

You can turn VR off by unchecking the box in Settings, or by

using the large blue Disable VR Headset button in the
X‑Plane window on the computer. Note that if you have the VR
Mouse cursor enabled, you may need to completely remove
the headset to restore use of the 2d mouse cursor on your
computer monitor.

Once VR is up and running on all devices, you should find

yourself in a virtual hangar in X‑Plane. From here you can
access the main menu, all settings, and any pop up warning
screens.

Controls & Manipulators

In general, the manipulators in and around the aircraft

function the way they would it real life. Grab the throttle of
the Cessna 172 by pressing and holding the trigger near it. It
will light up green, then push or pull the knob to adjust the
setting. Alternatively, you can use “laser manipulation” to
interact with objects. Lightly and partially squeeze the VR
controller trigger to see a green laser appear. Aim that laser
at the thing you want to interact with and ‘grab it’ by
squeezing the trigger the rest of the way in. This feature

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 essentially takes traditional manipulation and lets you perform
the motion at any distance or angle that is convenient for you.

By default, the pilot yoke behaves in a realistic manner–tilt

your wrist left or right for roll, and push in or pull out to
control pitch. This behavior can be tiring if you fly for long
hours at a time, so you can switch to “ergonomic” mode by
using the checkboxes in Settings > VR Hardware. Ergonomic
mode behaves slightly differently than real life–it works by
tilting your wrist up or down to control pitch, and rolling your
wrist left right for roll. (Moving forward and back does
nothing.) This allows you to keep your hand in a relaxed and
comfortable position while you fly and also allows you to be
more precise with the controls.

In addition, the yoke is a “latching” manipulator by default: if

you click it once, your controller will stay attached to it. You
must press the trigger a second time to release it. You may
also change this behavior by unchecking the “Latch to yoke
manipulators” checkbox in VR Hardware settings.

Some rudder input will be added automatically as roll is

controlled in order to allow you to taxi on the ground if you
don’t have rudder pedals attached. If you do have hardware
rudder pedals, it is up to you to control them.

Move around the aircraft or the world by using teleport: push

down on the thumb stick (Oculus) or touchpad (Vive) to see a
blue arc with a circle at the end, which is your landing spot.
As you rotate the thumb stick you’ll move the red line on the
circle, which indicates your view direction when the teleport is
executed. Some parts of the aircraft, such as seats, have a
hotspot which will light up and snap you to that location.

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 “VR Quick-Zoom” is a command that you can bind to your
controller or a key. When you press the button, it zooms your
view in so you can see distant things a bit clearer. When you
release the button, your view resets.

Press the three line button (the menu button) of the virtual
controller to access the menu options. Note that the “Get in
Pilot’s Seat” controller menu option (the top most icon) is
both a shortcut into the cockpit if you’ve moved to a different
view, and a way to recenter yourself in the pilot seat. This
option is the only supported way to recenter your view inside
the cockpit.

Figure 6.5: The quick menu options accessible by pressing

the controller’s menu button

Within the quick menu is a three-line menu option that opens

the main menu so you can access the usual options: load or

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 save a flight, change your view, modify the flight, and so on.
Use the thumb stick (Oculus) or touchpad (Vive) to move
around menus and submenus, then use the trigger on the
controller to select an option.

Figure 6.6: The menu option provides access to many of the

options from the traditional menu bar

Pop out windows such as ground services, ATC, the map, and
more are available from the controller menu by selecting the
icon that looks like two window boxes on the left side.

Using the Mouse in VR

You can turn on a 3D mouse cursor while using VR by

checking the “Enable 3D Mouse Cursor” box in Settings > VR
Hardware. You can also bind a joystick button or key to this
option. This cursor will function basically the same as a non-
VR mouse. Clicking the right mouse button will open up the
VR menu, which is the equivalent to the traditional horizontal
menu bar in non-VR X‑Plane flights.

Troubleshooting

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 VR is more demanding on your computer than simply using
the desktop simulator. If you are not consistently running at
least 45 fps in the base desktop sim, you will need to turn
rendering settings down. Review the section “Setting the
Rendering Options for Best Performance” if you need to adjust
your settings for VR.

If you encounter errors when trying to start X‑Plane or enable

VR, try quitting and restarting both Steam VR and X‑Plane. If
that does not help, a full restart of the computer often seems
to fix many problems with launching VR. There are many
layers with a multitude of processes and subprocesses
involved in running X‑Plane VR, and many times it is faster to
reboot the machine than try to isolate which one is causing
the problem.

Currently the thumbsticks on the WMR controllers do not have

a useful In-press/Click. That click is being stolen by SteamVR
for internal functions. Clicking the thumbstick is currently
causing the controllers to become unresponsive to X‑Plane
until the Mixed Reality Portal, SteamVR and X‑Plane are
restarted. This is a design decision by SteamVR, so it’s best to
just use the X/Y axis of the thumbsticks and not the click
function.

Navigation, Autopilots, and Flying

on Instruments
This chapter will cover the more advanced things that pilots
do in the real world—how to navigate, use an autopilot, or fly
on instruments—in a fair amount of detail, but we recommend
that, if you are really serious about mastering these facets of

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 aviation, you head down to a local general aviation airport and
hire a CFI (Certified Flight Instructor) for an hour or two. If
you have a laptop, by all means bring it along and have the
instructor detail these things in practice. There is much more
to review here than this manual could ever cover, so a quick
search for information on the Internet will also be of
assistance.

Navigating
Navigating over the Earth’s surface is as easy as knowing
where your aircraft is and how to get to where you want to
go, although this isn’t quite as straightforward as it sounds.
Imagine that you’re flying IMC (Instrument Meteorological
Conditions—that is, in the clouds). You have no reference to
the ground and are flying over St. Louis in the middle of an
overcast layer. As you might guess, this looks pretty much
identical to the view you would have flying over Moscow on
instruments. The only way to know that you’re over St. Louis
and not over Moscow is to be able to navigate. Navigation is
the art of being able to tell where your aircraft is and how to
make it go where you’d like.

Using X-Plane’s Navigation Maps

X-Plane’s navigation maps come in a few different varieties,

each of which is useful for a different situation. These
navigation maps are opened by hitting the ‘m’ key or clicking
the map marker icon in the menu. You can pick from three
different modes: VFR Sectional, IFR Low Enroute, and IFR
High Enroute.

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 Figure 7.1: The map window in IFR low enroute mode, with
the default KPDX airport inspector window open

The VFR Sectional map is designed for use under visual flight
rules. The IFR Low Enroute map is used as a low altitude
Instrument Flight Rules navigation chart by piston (propeller)
aircraft pilots. The IFR High Enroute map is essentially the
same as the IFR Low Enroute view, but it displays the medium
and high level airways instead of low level ones. It only shows
the information of interest to pilots flying above 18,000 feet
and making use of victor airways that are much longer, based
on larger VORs with longer ranges.

The maps provide a lot of information on the area where your

aircraft is located, including topography and selectable
NAVAIDs. Each map is made up of ticked, thin black lines that
make “boxes” officially named “Quadrangles.” Each box is 1/4
of a degree of latitude and longitude. The thick blue and gray
lines running across the maps are airways, which are basically
like highways in the sky. These victor airways are given
names (for example, V503) and are used by air traffic

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 controls to assign clearances. The triangles along them are
“fixes.”

Small airports are indicated by notched circles, while larger

airports with are shown as full runway layouts. Airports shown
in blue on the VFR sectional map have control towers in the
real world. Note that a discussion of the navigational aids
(NAVAIDs) of these maps (the ILS, VOR, and NDB beacons)
can be found below, in the section “Modern Means of
Navigation.”

To move your view around a map, you can click the map and
drag. You can also zoom in and out by using your mouse scroll
wheel. Additionally, you can use the viewing control buttons
located in the top left corner of the map window to alter your
view. Use the plus or minus icons to zoom in or out
respectively.

Tap the target icon to center the view on the aircraft. This will
also lock the map view onto the aircraft so that as you fly, the
map will scroll underneath it and the aircraft will stay in the
center. Drag anywhere on the map to break the lock. Tap the
arrow icon to change whether the top of the map is North or
the aircraft’s heading. In this second case, if the plane is
flying south, the top of the map will be south. If the plane
banks to the east, the map will automatically rotate and east
will now be on top.

Click on anything in the map to get more information on it.

For example, if you click on your aircraft, the Inspector box
will pop up with its name, heading, altitude, speed, and climb
angle, most of which you can also edit from within the
window. Clicking on an airport will allow you to pick a new
runway or final approach, or view details such as weather

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 conditions and communications frequencies. Click on a
NAVAID such as a VOR to tune radios with a click of a button.

In the right side of the map window you can change what is
displayed on the map. In the “Layers” section you can use the
drop down menus to show wind or clouds and precipitation in
real time on the map. You can check the boxes to toggle the
flight path, a compass rose around your aircraft, or to disable
downwind ILS beacons.

Finally, toggling the “Glideslope” slider will display a vertical

profile of the flight at the bottom of the map screen. You can
change what approach is displayed there by using the
“Approach” drop down menu.

Modern Means of Navigation

“Modern” navigation (after the 1930s) was based on ground-

based transmitters. You’ll need a good set of charts if you’d
like to actually fly in X‑Plane using any of these methods, but
the software does contain a full set of (mostly) current charts
as well. Remember you can open the map by pressing ‘m’ or
from the menu icon.

NDB Navigation

Non-directional beacons were invented in the late 1940s and

consisted of a ground-based transmitter that broadcast a
homing signal. A receiver in the aircraft could be tuned to one
of about 300 discrete frequencies in order to tune to a
particular transmitter. With that done, an instrument in the
panel, called the NDB (or, interchangeably, the ADF, or
Automatic Direction Finder), would point to the station.

Although nearly abandoned in the United States, NDBs are

still used in many countries around the world. It is for this

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 reason that they are modeled in X-Plane.

An ADF is located in the instrument panel for the Cessna 172

that comes with X‑Plane. It is located above the mixture knob
and trim wheel, below the dual VOR CDIs, and is pictured in
Figure 7.2 below.

Figure 7.2: The ADF in the Cessna 172

VOR Navigation

Very High Frequency Omni-Range navigation (or VOR) was

introduced in the mid–1950s and represented a large
improvement in navigation accuracy. Instead of an NDB that a
pilot could home in on, the VOR sends a series of 360 discrete
little carrier tones on a main frequency. Each of these carriers
is oriented along a different radial from the station, one of
360 just like a compass rose. You can imagine it like the
wheel of a bike: the VOR transmitter is the hub of the wheel
with 360 spokes representing each radial. Thus, when you are
flying along and tune in the main VOR frequency, you then
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 fine tune your navigation display to tell you which of the 360
radials you are flying and also whether the transmitter station
is in front of or behind you. Impressive!

This finally gave pilots a means of telling exactly where they

were in relation to a fixed spot on earth, and this system
“automatically” adjusted for any winds aloft as the system
would quickly display any error in track that the plane was
making. This error could only be due to two factors—either
the pilot was not flying along the radial or the wind blew the
airplane slightly off of course.

VORs are modeled in X‑Plane. Clicking on one in the map will

display its information and allow you to tune your
Navigational radios with a click of a button.

A specific type of VOR, a VOR-DME, combines the lateral

guidance (that is, guidance left and right) of a VOR with the
distance guidance of a DME (distance measuring equipment).
Another type of VOR beacon, a VORTAC, is also found
throughout the X‑Plane maps. This is a transmitter that
combines both VOR and TACAN features. TACAN (or tactical
air navigation) provides special information to military pilots
similar to a civilian VOR. However, for our purposes, this is
functionally identical to a VOR-DME.

VOR close up

Figure 7.3: A close-up of a VORTAC near KPDX as displayed

on the VFR sectional map

To learn about the basics of using a VOR to navigate, check

out the “VOR Navigation” tutorial in the Navigation tab of
Flight School, or follow the instructions below.

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 To use a VOR, first look on your map to find a VOR station
that is close to the location of the aircraft. Click on the map
icon to open a window that will allow you to tune the
frequency into your NAV 1 radio automatically. The little red
‘nav1’ or ‘nav2’ flags on your CDI (Course Deviation Indicator)
should disappear. Make sure the GPS is set to VLOC, if
applicable. (Keep in mind that you can also tune the
navigation radio built into the GPS, but you may have to hit
the flip-flop switch to bring the frequency you just tuned into
the active window on top.)

A CDI or OBI is the other key instrument to VOR navigation.

X-Plane’s Cessna 172 is equipped with two CDIs, but we are
only concerned with the top one. The vertical line in the
center is the reference indicator, and moves to the left and
right to indicate where the aircraft is in relation to a chosen
radial. Select a radial by turning the OBS knob which rotates
the compass rose around the instrument; the chosen radial is
indicated above the top yellow arrow. There are also arrows
above and below the white horizontal glide slope indicator
(which does not move during VOR navigation) showing
whether the aircraft is headed “TO” or “FROM” the station
center, respectively.

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 Figure 7.4: A CDI in the Cessna 172SP

Now you can determine where you are in relation to the VOR
by finding what radial you are on, or you can enter a radial
you want to be on in order to plot your desired course. Keep
in mind that all radials are measured as the heading when
moving away from a VOR beacon.

Determining what radial you are on is simple. Turn the OBS

knob on the CDI until the vertical white indicator is perfectly
centered in the little white circle in the middle of the
instrument, and the “FROM” flag is displayed. The number
above the yellow arrow at the top of the CDI is your current
radial position.

To intercept a different radial, look at your map again to

determine where you are in relation to the station. If you are
inbound to the station, pick the reciprocal on the opposite side
of the station from your aircraft. If you are outbound, use the
radial your aircraft is currently on. Turn the OBS dial again to
enter the desired radial at the top of the circle. Most likely the

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 vertical line will be off to one side or the other. This indicates
how far you are from your desired radial.

To the left and right of the center target (the little white
circle) the instrument displays five dots or short lines on each
side. Each of these dots indicates that you are two degrees off
of course. Thus, a full scale left deflection of the vertical
reference indicates that the aircraft is 10 degrees right of the
desired radial. Just remember that as long as you are flying
towards the VOR, the line on the CDI indicates the location of
the desired course. If the reference line is on your left that
means that your target radial is on your left, and you should
turn that direction. (Of course, if the station is behind you
while displaying the “TO” arrow, then the instrument is
reverse sensing. That means that a left deflection indicates
that the plane is to the left of your desired radial-the aircraft’s
movement in relation to the vertical reference indicator is
displayed in reverse.)

Your aim is to get the vertical line in the center and to stay
there, indicating you are flying the desired radial. As you get
closer to the VOR station, the indicator’s movement will
become more sensitive to even slight changes of the aircraft’s
course. Flying over the station will cause the vertical line to
swing to one side, and eventually the instrument will change
from displaying the “TO” arrow to the “FROM” arrow.

With only one VOR you really don’t know where you are along
a given radial, only that you are in front of or behind a station
and what radial you’re on. You have no way of telling if you
are 15 miles from the station or 45 miles away. The solution is
to use two VOR radios so that you can plot your location from
two different VORs. If you can determine that you’re on the
67th radial from the OJC VOR and on the 117th radial from

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 the MKC VOR then you can pinpoint your location on a
sectional chart. Don’t forget that you’ll have to work fast as
your position will be continually changing.

ILS Navigation

An ILS (or instrument landing system) differs from a VOR in

that it provides both lateral guidance (left and right, as given
by a VOR) and vertical guidance (up and down). An ILS is
therefore made up of two transmitters, a localizer and a glide
slope—one for each component of the navigation. Both these
components of the ILS are tuned together; tuning an ILS is
just like tuning in to a VOR.

A localizer (LOC) transmitter provides lateral guidance to the

centerline of a runway. It works by sending out two signals on
the same channel, one of which modulates at 90 Hz and the
other of which modulates at 150 Hz. One of these signals is
sent out slightly to the left of the runway, while the other sent
out slightly to the right of it. If an aircraft is picking up more
of the tone modulated at 150 Hz, it is off to the left. If it is
picking up more of the tone modulated at 90 Hz, it is off to
the right. The course deviation indicator (or CDI) in the
instrument panel then indicates this so that the pilot can
correct it. When both tones are being received in equal
amounts, the craft is lined up with the physical centerline of
the runway. These LOC transmitters do not necessarily have
to be paired with a glide slope (but doing so makes them an
ILS).

The glide slope beacon functions similarly to the localizer,

sending out two tones that have the same frequency, but
different modulations. The difference is that the glide slope
tells the plane that it is either too high or too low for its
distance from the runway. The pilot uses this information to

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 push the craft’s nose up or down as needed. The ILS will allow
a pilot to fly on instruments only to a point that is a half mile
from the end of the runway at 200 feet (depending on the
category of the ILS) above the ground. If the runway cannot
be clearly seen at that point the pilot is prevented from
executing a normal landing. If this happens, the pilot in real
life is required to fly a “missed approach” and climb back to
altitude in order to try again or go somewhere else.

For detailed instructions on how to fly an ILS approach, see

the tutorial “Flying an ILS Approach” in the Navigation section
of Flight School.

GPS Navigation

The Global Positioning System was first created for the US

military and introduced to the public in the early 1990s. This
system consists of a series of satellites orbiting the Earth
which continuously send out signals telling their orbital
location and the time the signal was sent. A GPS receiver can
tune in to the signals they send out and note the time it took
for the signal to travel from the satellite to the receiver for
several different satellites at once. Since the speed at which
the signals travel is known, it is a simple matter of arithmetic
to determine how far from each satellite the receiver is.
Triangulation (or, rather, quadrangulation) is than used to
determine exactly where the receiver is with respect to the
surface of the Earth. In an aircraft, this information is
compared with the onboard database to determine how far it
is to the next airport, navigational aid (NAVAID), waypoint, or
whatever. The concept is simple, but the math is not. GPS
systems have turned the world of aviation on its head,
allowing everyday pilots to navigate around with levels of
accuracy that were unimaginable 20 years ago.

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 There are several types of GPS radios available, and about 11
of these have been modeled in X‑Plane. While the intricate
workings of the various GPS radios are complex, the basic
principals are pretty consistent. If you want to navigate from
one location to another just launch X-Plane, open the aircraft
of your choice, then press the Direct To key on the GPS radio
(sometimes shown as a capital D with an arrow going through
it) and enter the airport ID you’d like to navigate to. On the
Garmin 430, entry is performed using the control knob on the
bottom right of the unit. Use the outer knob to select which
character of the identifier to modify, the use the inner knob to
scroll through the characters (see the section “A Note on
Radio Tuning” of the chapter Flight in X-Plane for more
information on using the knobs).

The databases in these radios are not limited simply to the

identifiers of the airports you may wish to fly to. You can
enter the IDs for any VOR or NDB station you’d like, or the
name of any waypoint or fix you’d like to go to.

Flying on Instruments
To begin a discussion on instrument flight, we must first
discuss why it is so difficult. It isn’t that the principles behind
flying on instruments are so difficult or that interpreting what
the instruments are telling you is that difficult. Rather, the
difficulty lies in believing what the instruments are saying.
Your body has developed a system of balance and equilibrium
that has evolved in humans over millions of years, and forcing
your brain to ignore these signals and to believe what the
instruments are telling you is very difficult. To put it bluntly, in
a real aircraft, your life depends on ignoring your feelings and
senses and flying based solely on the information in front of
you.

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 Gyroscopes and Their Application in Flight

The gyroscope was invented many decades before aircraft,

but its tremendous implications for flying were not realized
until the mid- to late–1920s. The basic principal that they
work on is that if you take a relatively heavy object and rotate
it at a high rotational velocity it will hold its position in space.
You can then mount this stable, rigid gyroscope in an
instrument that is fixed to your aircraft and measure the
relative motion of the instrument case (and thus the airplane)
about the fixed gyro. The gyroscope is physically attached to
an indicator of some sort, and these indicators then relay
critical information to the pilot concerning the aircraft’s
attitude (that is, its orientation relative to the horizon). There
are three primary gyroscopic instruments in the panel. They
are:

1. the attitude indicator (or AI, normally driven by a vacuum

pump on the engine),
2. the turn coordinator (or TC, typically electrically driven),
and
3. the directional gyro (or DG, typically vacuum powered,
though possibly electric).

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 Figure 7.5: The three primary gyroscopic instruments in the
Cessna 172

The AI indicates what attitude the aircraft is flying at—how far

the nose is above or below the horizon, as well as how far the
wings are banked and in which direction. The TC indicates the
rate of turn—that is, how steep or shallow your bank is in
relation to a standard 2 minute turn rate, and the DG is
nothing more than a gyroscopically driven compass that is
more stable and accurate than the old standby, the magnetic
(or “whisky”) compass.

The Primary Flight Instruments

There are six primary instruments that have become standard

in any instrument panel. Since the early 1970s, these have

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 been arranged in a standard layout referred to as “the six
pack.” They are laid out in two rows of three instruments
each. The top row, from left to right, contains the airspeed
indicator (ASI), the attitude indicator (AI) and the altimeter
(ALT). The bottom row contains the turn coordinator (TC), the
directional gyro (DG) and the vertical speed indicator (VSI).

The airspeed indicator shows the speed at which the aircraft is

traveling through the air. In its simplest form, it is nothing
more than a spring which opposes the force of the air blowing
in the front of a tube attached under the wing or to the nose
of the aircraft. The faster the airplane is moving the stronger
the air pressure is that acts to oppose the spring and the
larger the deflection of the needle from which the pilot reads
the craft’s speed. Obviously, it’s quite a bit more complicated
than this, as the pressure exerted by the stream of air varies
with the local air density (which continually changes as the
airplane climbs or descends), and the ASI must account for
this.

The attitude indicator informs the pilot of his or her position in

space relative to the horizon. This is accomplished by fixing
the case of the instrument to the aircraft and measuring the
displacement of the case with reference to a fixed gyroscope
inside.

The altimeter looks somewhat like the face of a clock and

serves to display altitude. This is measured by the expansion
or contraction of a fixed amount of air acting on a set of
springs. As the airplane climbs or descends, the relative air
pressure outside the aircraft changes and the altimeter
reports the difference between the outside air pressure and a
reference, contained in a set of airtight bellows.

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 The turn coordinator measures the rate of turn for the
aircraft. The instrument is only accurate when the turn is
coordinated-that is, when the airplane is not skidding or
slipping through the turn. A skid is the aeronautical equivalent
to a car that is understeering, where the front wheels do not
have enough traction to overcome the car’s momentum and
the front of the car is thus plowing through the turn. In a car,
this results in a turn radius that is larger than that
commanded by the driver. A slip is a bit more difficult to
imagine unless you’re a pilot already. It results from an
aircraft that is banked too steeply for the rate of turn
selected. To correct the slip, all the pilot has to do is increase
back pressure on the yoke, pulling the airplane ‘up’ into a
tighter turn, such that the turn rate is in equilibrium with the
bank angle.

The directional gyro is a simple instrument that points north

and thus allows the pilot to tell which way she or he is flying.

The vertical speed indicator reports the craft’s climb or

descent rate in feet per minute. Typically, non-pressurized
airplanes will climb comfortably at about 700 fpm (if the plane
is capable) and descend at about 500 fpm. Descent rates
faster than this cause discomfort in passengers' ears.
Pressurized airplanes can climb and descend much more
rapidly and still maintain the cabin rate of change at about
these levels, since the cabin altitude is not related to the
ambient altitude unless the pressurization system fails.

Flying an Instrument Approach in X-Plane

Nearly all of the airplanes included with X‑Plane have basic

navigation radios and instruments built into them, and all of
these are used in more or less the same way. Visit Flight
School for the example tutorial “Flying an ILS Approach” (that
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 is, an approach using an instrument landing system) to
Seattle-Tacoma International, identifier KSEA, or follow the
procedure described below. Similar steps can be used for any
airport in any application.

Finding the Frequencies

Start by loading the Cessna 172 at KSEA airport. To fly an

instrument approach, we first need to know the local
navigational aid (NAVAID) frequencies in order to tune our
radios. To find this, open the map by pressing the ‘m’ key or
the icon in the menu. If needed, switch to either the IFR Low
or IFR High Enroute view.

Now, Sea-Tac is a busy airport, so you may have to zoom in

to find the ILS for the runway you are approaching. When you
find it, though, you can click on it to highlight in yellow the
ILS path and to open a small window with details. From this
window you can tune your radios with a click of a button and
place your aircraft up in the air at the perfect spot for the
approach.

Recall from the discussion of ILSs previously in this chapter

that an ILS combines the functionality of a localizer (providing
lateral guidance to the centerline of the runway) with a glide
slope transmitter (providing vertical guidance down to the
runway).

Setting Up the CDI or HSI

Having found the relevant ILS frequency, enter it into the Nav
1 radio (remember you can tune your radios automatically
using the buttons in the map window). Make sure the GPS (if
applicable) is set to VLOC by clicking the CDI button near the
bottom of the panel to cycle through GPS or VLOC navigation.
Click the GPS screen in the cockpit to bring up the close-up of

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 the instrument if needed. You can tune the frequency here as
well; changing the GPS frequency will adjust the NAV 1 radio,
and vice versa.

Now let’s discuss the instruments we’ll use to follow this ILS.

As in VOR navigation, the CDI is the primary instrument used

for ILS navigation in the Cessna. However, in ILS navigation
both the horizontal and vertical lines move to provide
guidance. The localizer is represented by a vertical line. When
it is in the center of the CDI, it means that the aircraft is lined
up almost perfectly with the physical centerline of the runway.
The glide slope indicator portion of the CDI is represented by
a horizontal line. When this is in the center of the instrument,
the aircraft is perfectly in line with the glide slope and is
descending at an ideal rate.

Below the attitude indicator is the directional gyro. The

directional gyro works like a compass in that it indicates the
aircraft’s heading. You can use this to line up your approach
with a known heading (e.g., about 160 degrees for runway
16L).

Flying the Approach

Now that we’ve found the relevant ILS frequencies and set up
the navigation instruments, let’s begin flying the actual
approach.

Once again, we’re flying into Seattle-Tacoma International

Airport (KSEA), and we set ourselves up for a 10 nm final
using a button in the map. We have tuned our navigation
radio, used the navigation source selector to choose the right
radio, and we’ve reviewed the CDI.

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 As you’re flying toward the airport, the CDI will begin to
wander left or right to indicate which direction your airplane
needs to move in order to point down the centerline of the
runway. Aim toward the deflection to intercept the localizer
course; when the CDI wanders right, point the aircraft’s nose
right, and so on.

Additionally, the glide slope indicator will begin to move. This

line functions like the vertical one: If its needles are above the
center of the instrument then the craft needs to fly up to get
back on track, and if they are below the center of the
instrument, it needs to fly down to intercept the glide slope.
However, the glide slope is (in most cases) a downward slope
at three degrees, so you should never need to climb to
intercept it, just adjust the rate of descent. The horizontal line
is above us when we start the approach, since we started 10
nm out from the runway. Continue flying the same altitude,
and the line will slowly come down to the center, and from
there you should control the descent to keep it there. The
goal is to keep the vertical line centered to stay on the
localizer, and the horizontal line centered to stay on the glide
slope.

Follow the guidance of the localizer and glide slope until the
craft reaches an altitude of about 300 feet above the runway.
At this point, if everything was done correctly, the runway will
be right in front of the aircraft. If the landing itself was
managed properly, the aircraft will be at its stalling speed plus
30% with the gear and flaps down as it comes in for a
landing. In the Cessna, this is about 65 knots.

Using the X-Plane GPS

The X‑Plane GPS is modeled closely after the Garmin G430W

or G530. This instrument allows pilots to fly a GPS approach
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 as well as direct-to navigation. The GPS essentially combines
three things: A NAVCOM 1 radio, a GPS, and a very small
moving map.

Figure 7.6: The X‑Plane 430 GPS navigator in the Cessna

172.

To use the GPS, first click on its display in the cockpit to bring
up a close-up window, otherwise you won’t be able to see
more than one screen. This can be moved around the cockpit
as needed. Clicking the GPS display in the cockpit a second
time will close the window. The controls on left side adjust the
VOR, localizer and communication frequencies, while the ones
on the right control GPS functions.

To adjust the radio frequencies, “press” the center of the large

knob at the bottom to switch between controlling voice radio
(COM or “C”) and navigation radio (“V”). The “active” channel
is the top frequency in each dark blue box. When the bottom
frequency is highlighted in a paler blue, you can use the inner
and outer rotating knobs to change the frequency. Then use
the vertical “swap” buttons (“C” up/down arrows or “V”
up/down arrows) to make the standby frequency, which you
just set, into the active frequency.

Read messages, create or edit a flight plan, and activate

procedures by pressing the buttons at the bottom. Press the

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 button again to return to the main navigational screen where
you can zoom in and out in map view by using the “RNG”
button, or change the level of detail with the “CLR” button.
The large dial on the button moves through the categories
navigational, waypoint or nearest (shortened to “NAV,” “WPT”
and “NRST”), while the smaller dial moves through the sub
screens of that type. Click on the “PUSH CRSR” button to
activate the cursor in applicable screens, then use the dials to
change what text is selected. In general, the large dial moves
between lines or options, while the smaller one is used to edit
a line. Press “ENT” to keep changes or activate selections, and
“CLR” or the CRSR button again to cancel.

To enter a GPS destination, press the “Direct to” button (the D

with an arrow through it). The LCD will change to a data entry
screen. Use the large, outer knob in the bottom right to pick
the character position you want to change, and use the inner
ring of the knob to scroll through the alphabet/numbers (click
and hold to move through the list quickly). For example, to
pick the airport KSEA as your destination, use the inner knob
to scroll to “K”, use the outer knob to move the cursor to the
next position, use the inner knob to scroll to “S”, and so on,
then press ENT twice to activate it. (Note that the X‑Plane
GPS includes data for the whole world and can only use ICAO
identifiers.)

Alternately, you can select a waypoint or destination by using

the “nearest” function. From the main navigation screen, click
the large knob twice to get to the group of menus for nearest
airport, intersection, NDB, VOR, and airspace. Activate the
cursor by pushing the knob, scroll to select the destination,
then click the “Direct to” button and enter to activate it.

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 After creating a flight plan, you can save it to load later by
pressing the Menu button while in the active flight plan
screen. You can also reverse the order of waypoints or delete
the entire plan from this menu. To load a saved plan, use the
small knob to go to the second screen of the Flight Plan
category. Any .fms file that has been saved in the FMS plans
folder (located within the Output folder in the main X‑Plane
directory) can be selected from this list.

<!– Keep working here

For a list of all the new features of the GPS with images of
each, see the developer notes.

Flying a GPS Approach

Select an airport with RNAV runway information. Set approach

to 10 nm out from runway. On the GPS, click the “direct to”
button (Looks like a “D” with an arrow through it) and enter
the airport ICAO as a waypoint in the Active Flight Plan
screen. Use the cursor to select the line, press the ENT
button to activate the destination, then the PROC button. In
this menu, choose the last option, “Select Approach,” then the
runway. Since we are coming in for our final approach, select
“Vectors.” Vectors uses ATC to tell you where to go to line up
for approach. (Does this mean I need to file a flight plan, set
up com1 radios, etc?) The other option is to pick a fix from
the list.

Remove KSEA as waypoint from list because activating it in

above step adds the correct fix(es) to the list as well as the
rwy. (After the RW line is the missed approach information.)

Set up VLOC 1 with proper frequency & make sure GPS shows
in bottom of screen (press CDI if not). When approach is
active, switching to LNAV is automatic.
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 Due to the small size of the 430 screen, a map view is not
available within the GPS. Instead, use the difference between
the desired track (DTK) and the aircraft’s actual track (TRK-
just below the DTK) for reference.

GPS will not fly glideslope landing. Must switch to nav radios.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aL3CQlrqOS8

Track (TRK/DTK) compensates for wind. When flying just a

heading, wind can push you off course.–>

Using the Autopilot

The autopilot works by implementing a number of different
functions. These include, among other things, the ability to
automatically hold a certain pitch, altitude, heading, or speed,
or to fly to a commanded altitude.

The following autopilot functions are available in X‑Plane. Each

of these is a mode that the aircraft can be put into simply by
clicking that button on the panel with the mouse. Not all
aircraft have autopilot, and some of the simpler craft, such as
the Cessna 172, may have fewer modes than those listed
below. The actual use of these autopilot functions will be
discussed in the following sections.

1. The WLV button is the wing leveler. This will simply hold
the wings level while the pilot figures out what to do next.

2. The HDG button controls the heading hold function. This

will simply follow the heading bug on the HSI or direction
gyro.

3. The LOC button controls the localizer flight function. This

will fly a VOR or ILS radial, or to a GPS destination. Note

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 that the GPS may be programmed by the FMS.

4. The HOLD button controls the altitude hold function. This

will hold the current or pre-selected altitude by pitching
the nose up or down.

5. The V/S button controls the vertical speed function. This

will hold a constant vertical speed by pitching the
aircraft’s nose up or down.

6. The SPD button controls the airspeed function. This will

hold the pre-selected airspeed by pitching the nose up or
down, leaving the throttle alone.

7. The ATHR button also controls airspeed, but in the

reverse of the SPD button. It will maintain the craft’s
current airspeed by increasing or decreasing the throttle,
while leaving the pitch alone.

8. The FLCH button controls the flight-level change function.

This will hold the pre-selected airspeed by pitching the
nose up or down, adding or taking away power
automatically. This is commonly used to change altitude in
airliners, as it allows the pilot add or take away power
while the airplane pitches the nose to hold the most
efficient airspeed. If the pilot adds power, the plane
climbs. If they take it away, the plane descends.

SPD and FLCH are almost identical functions in X-Plane—

they both pitch the nose up or down to maintain a desired
aircraft speed, so adding or taking away power results in
climbs and descents, respectively. The difference is that if
you have auto-throttle on the airplane, FLCH will
automatically add or take away power for you to start the
climb or descent, whereas SPD will not.

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 9. The PTCH button controls the pitch sync function. Use
this to hold the plane’s nose at a constant pitch attitude.
This is commonly used to just hold the nose somewhere
until the pilot decides what to do next.

10. The G/S button controls the glide slope flight function.
This will fly the glide slope portion of an ILS.

11. The VNAV button controls the vertical navigation

function. This will automatically load altitudes from the
FMS (Flight Management System) into the autopilot for
you in order to follow route altitudes.

12. The BC button controls the back course function. Every

ILS on the planet has a little-known second localizer that
goes in the opposite direction as the inbound localizer.
This is used for the missed approach, allowing you to
continue flying along the extended centerline of the
runway, even after passing over and beyond the runway.
To save money, some airports will not bother to install a
new ILS at the airport to land on the same runway going
the other direction, but instead let you fly this second
localizer backwards to come into the runway from the
opposite direction of the regular ILS! This is called a back
course ILS.

Using the same ILS in both directions has its advantages

(e.g., it’s cheaper), but there’s a drawback: the needle
deflection on your instruments is backwards when going
the wrong way on the ILS. Hit the BC autopilot button if
you are doing this. It causes the autopilot to realize that
the needle deflection is backwards and still fly the
approach.

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 Note that HSIs do not reverse the visible needle deflection
in the back-course; you must turn the housing that the
deflection needle is mounted on around 180° to fly the
opposite direction.

Note also that the glide slope is not available on the back
course, so you have to use the localizer part of the
procedure only.

Turning It On and Off

Before using the autopilot, it needs to be turned on. The

autopilot power switch is labeled “Flight Director Mode,” or
simply “FLIGHT DIR.” It has OFF, ON, and AUTO modes.

If the flight director is OFF, nothing will happen when you try
to use the autopilot. If it is ON, then the autopilot will not
physically move the airplane controls, but will rather move
little target wings on your artificial horizon that you can try to
mimic as you fly. If you do this, you will be following the
guidance that the autopilot is giving you, even though you are
the one actually flying. The flight director, then, is following
whatever autopilot mode you selected, and you, in turn, are
following the flight director to actually fly the plane. If the
flight director is set to AUTO, then the autopilot servos will
actually fly the airplane according to the autopilot mode you
have selected.

In other words, turning the flight director ON turns on the

brains of the autopilot, displaying the commands from the
modes above on the horizon as little magenta wings you can
follow. Turning the Flight Director switch to AUTO turns on the
servos of the autopilot, so the plane follows the little magenta
wings for you without you touching the stick.

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 Therefore, if you have a flight director switch, make sure it is
in the right mode for the type of autopilot guidance you want
—-none, flight director only, or servo-driven controls.

With the flight director set to the right mode, you can engage
the autopilot functions by simply pressing the desired button
in the instrument panel. To turn off an autopilot function,
simply hit its button once again. When all other autopilot
functions are turned off, the autopilot will revert to the default
functions.

To turn the autopilot off altogether, simply turn the FLIGHT

DIR switch to OFF. Alternatively, assign a key or joystick
button to turn it off in the Joystick & Equipment dialog box of
X-Plane.

Using the Controls

With the autopilot turned on (either to the flight director-only

mode or the servo-driven control mode), you are ready to use
the autopilot functions. We will discuss when it would be
appropriate to use some of the most common functions.

Wing Leveler and Pitch Sync

Hit either the wing leveler (WLV) or the pitch sync (PTCH) to
hold the current roll and pitch attitude, respectively. This is
useful when switching between autopilot functions.

Heading, Altitude, Vertical Speed, Speed Hold, Flight Level

Change, and Auto-Throttle

Hit the heading hold (HDG), altitude hold (ALT), vertical

speed (V/S), speed hold (SPD), flight level change (FLCH),
or auto-throttle (ATHR) buttons and the autopilot will
maintain whatever values are entered into their respective
selectors. For the sake of smooth transitions, many of these

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 values will be set by default to your current speed or altitude
at the moment the autopilot function buttons are hit.

If you want the autopilot to guide the aircraft to a new

altitude, you have to ask yourself: Do you want the airplane
to hold a constant vertical speed to reach that new altitude, or
a constant airspeed to reach it? Since airplanes are most
efficient at some constant indicated airspeed, climbing by
holding a constant airspeed is usually most efficient.

Imagine you are flying along at 5,000 feet and you hit ALT,
causing the autopilot to store your current altitude of 5,000
feet. Now, though, you want to climb to 9,000 feet. You would
first dial 9,000 into the altitude window. The plane will not go
there yet; before it will, you must choose how you want to get
to this new altitude.

To get to your new altitude via a given airspeed (as airliners

do), after dialing in 9,000 feet in the altitude window, you
would hit the FLCH or SPD buttons. This will cause the plane
to pitch the nose up or down to maintain your current
indicated airspeed. Now, simply add a dose of power (if
needed) to cause the nose of the plane to rise (which the
autopilot will command in order to keep the speed from
increasing). When you reach 9,000 feet, the autopilot will
leave speed-hold mode and go into altitude-hold mode,
holding 9,000 feet until further notice.

Both the airspeed and vertical speed modes will be

maintained until you reach the new specified altitude, at
which point the autopilot will abandon that mode and go into
altitude-hold mode. The same thing will happen with the glide
slope control. If the glide slope is armed (that is, lit up after
you pushed the button), then the autopilot will abandon your

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 vertical mode when the glide slope engages. This will also
happen with the localizer control. If the localizer is armed, the
autopilot will abandon your heading mode when the localizer
engages. This is referred to as “capturing” the localizer or
glide slope.

The key thing to realize is that the vertical speed, flight level
change, and heading modes are all modes that command the
plane the moment they are engaged. Altitude, glide slope,
and localizer, on the other hand, are all armed (in standby)
until one of the modes above intercepts the altitude, glide
slope, localizer, or GPS course.

An exception to the above rule is altitude. If you hit the

altitude button, the autopilot will be set to the current
altitude. This is not the way a smart pilot flies, though. A
smart pilot with a good airplane, a good autopilot, and good
planning will dial in the assigned altitude long before he or
she gets there (including the initial altitude before take off)
and then use vertical speed, flight level change, or even pitch
sync to reach that altitude.

Here is how the system in a real plane would be used (and

thus how the system in X‑Plane is best used):

1. While on the ground, short of the runway, you are told to

maintain, say, 3,000 feet. You are given a runway heading
and cleared for takeoff.

2. You enter 3,000 feet into the ALTITUDE window and a

runway heading (for instance, 290) into the HEADING
window.

3. You take off.

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 4. In the initial climb, around maybe 500 feet, you set the
flight director to AUTO. The autopilot notes the plane’s
current pitch and roll and holds the plane steady.

5. You hit the HDG button, and the plane follows or turns to
the heading. Once there, click the HDG button again and
the plane will maintain its course.

6. You hit either the V/S, FLCH, or SPD button. The

autopilot automatically notes the current vertical velocity
or airspeed, and the plane flies at that airspeed or vertical
velocity until it gets to 3,000 feet, where it levels off.

7. You are given a new heading and altitude by ATC, and dial
these into their respective windows.

8. You click the HDG button and the aircraft turns to the new
heading, then hit V/S, FLCH, or SPD to let the plane
zoom to the new altitude.

<!–9. You are cleared to the plane’s destination or some other

fix. You enter those coordinates into the GPS and the HSI
source is set to GPS (since the autopilot follows the HSI). You
hit the LOC button. The autopilot will then follow the HSI
needle deflection laterally as it climbs to the new altitude.

Do this, and you can get where you are going.–>

<!– check this sometime: doesn’t seem to work as described

below

Pitch Sync with the Pitch Sync Joystick Button

You can assign a joystick button to the pitch sync (PTCH)

control. When pressed, this button will make the autopilot
match its settings to whatever you are doing as you fly the
plane. Then, when you release the pitch-sync joystick button,
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 the autopilot servos will take hold of the yoke and maintain
the vertical speed, altitude, airspeed, or pitch that you were
just flying.

Instructions on assigning a joystick button to this function can

be found in the chapter Configuring and Tuning Your X‑Plane
Installation, in the section “Assigning Functions to Buttons.”

Here’s how the pitch sync works. Imagine you are at 3,000
feet. The flight director is in altitude mode, so the autopilot is
holding 3,000 feet for you. You hit the pitch sync joystick
button. When you do this, the autopilot servos release control
of the yoke and let you fly. You fly to 3,500 feet (with the
autopilot still in altitude mode) and let go of the pitch sync
joystick button. At that point, the autopilot will hold 3,500
feet, since you were in altitude mode at 3,500 feet at the
moment you let go of the pitch sync button.

If you are in vertical speed mode, the autopilot will try to

maintain the vertical speed that you had at the moment you
released the pitch sync button.

If you are in speed or level change mode, the autopilot will try
to maintain the airspeed (by pitching nose up or down) that
you had at the moment you released the pitch sync button.

When you press the pitch sync joystick button, the autopilot
turns the servos off and lets you fly, but when you release the
button, the servos take hold and try to maintain the speed,
altitude, or vertical speed that you had at the moment when
you released the pitch sync joystick button. The same applies
to bank angle. If you are in wing level or heading mode when
you hit pitch sync, then the plane will try to maintain the bank
angle you had at the moment you released the button.

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 Note that if the plane’s bank angle is less than 7 degrees, the
autopilot will just level the wings, as it assumes that you want
nose level. –>

Localizer and glide slope

These are the options that are most difficult to figure out,
partially because the right frequencies and HSI mode must be
selected to use them, and partially because they will do
nothing until they capture the approach path they are looking
for. For that to happen, some other mode (any of the ones
discussed above) must be engaged to do that.

These modes capture an ILS, VOR, or GPS course, so they

must obviously be able to fly either NAV 1, NAV 2, or GPS.
The autopilot only knows which of these three to use when
you tell it which one. This is done with the button labeled
“NAV–1 NAV–2 FMC/CDU (or GPS),” which is the HSI source
selector.

Note: In some aircraft, this is instead a three-position switch

labeled SOURCE.

If you set this button to NAV 1, the HSI will show deflections
from the NAV 1 radio, and the autopilot will fly VOR or ILS
signals from the NAV 1 radio when you hit the LOC or G/S
buttons.

Similarly, if you set this to NAV 2, then the HSI will show
deflections from the NAV 2 radio, and the autopilot will fly
VOR or ILS signals from the NAV 2 radio when you hit the
LOC or G/S buttons.

If you set this switch to FMC/CDU (or GPS), then the HSI will
show deflections from the GPS, which can be set manually or
by the FMS, and the autopilot will fly to the GPS destination

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 when you hit the LOC button. Remember that if you enter
destinations into the FMS, they will automatically feed into the
GPS, so the autopilot will follow them if you select LOC.

To repeat: be sure to send the right signal (NAV 1, NAV 2, or

GPS) to the autopilot when using the LOC and G/S (lateral
and vertical navigation) buttons.

The LOC button will immediately begin lateral navigation to a

GPS destination once engaged. It will, however, only track a
VOR radial or ILS localizer after the needle has come off of
full-scale deflection. This means that if you have a full-scale
ILS needle deflection (simply because you have not yet gotten
to the localizer) the localizer mode will simply go into armed
(yellow) mode, and will not do anything yet to the plane. Your
current heading or wing level mode (if engaged) will remain in
force (or you can fly by hand) until the localizer needle starts
to move in towards the center. Once that happens, the LOC
will suddenly go from armed mode (yellow) to active mode.
This causes the autopilot to start flying the plane for you,
disengaging any previous modes.

The reason that the localizer function disengages previous

modes is that as soon as the localizer needle comes in, you
want the autopilot to forget about heading and start flying the
localizer down to the runway. Alternatively, you may simply fly
the plane by hand to the localizer (with no autopilot mode on
at all) and have the autopilot take over once the ILS needle
starts to come in, indicating you are entering the localizer.
Interestingly, this is much the same as the altitude modes.
Just as the localizer is armed by hitting the LOC button, and
you can do anything until the localizer arms take over lateral
control, the altitude is also armed (always and automatically)
and you can fly any vertical speed, airspeed, or pitch

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 (manually or on autopilot) until the altitude is reached, at
which point the autopilot will go into altitude hold mode.

Just like the lateral navigation (that is, the localizer function),
the vertical navigation (glide slope, or G/S mode) will not do
anything until the glide slope needle starts to move. Unlike
with the localizer, though, the glide slope function won’t do
anything until the glide slope needle goes all the way through
the center position. It does this because you typically have
the airplane on altitude hold until you intercept the glide
slope, at which point the plane should stop holding altitude
and start descending down to the runway. In other words, the
glide slope function will automatically go from armed to active
once the plane hits the center of the glide slope.

Let’s now put the LOC and G/S functions into use to fly an
ILS.

Flying an ILS Using LOC and G/S

To fly an ILS, do the following while still far away from the ILS
and below glide slope:

1. Hit the ALT button to hold the current altitude.

2. Enter a heading in the heading window to be followed

until you intercept the ILS.

3. Hit the HDG button to hold that heading.

4. Hit the LOC button. It will go to “armed” (yellow).

5. Hit the G/S button. It will also go to “armed” (yellow).

6. As soon as you intercept the localizer, the LOC button will

go from yellow to green, abandoning the heading mode to
instead fly the localizer.
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 7. As soon as you intercept the center of the glide slope, the
G/S button will go from yellow to green, abandoning the
altitude hold mode to instead fly the glide slope.

8. The autopilot will track you right down to the runway, and
even flare at the end, cutting power if auto-throttle mode
is engaged.

Just as in a real airplane, these things only work well if you:

1. intercept the localizer far away (outside of the outer

marker) and below the glide slope,
2. intercept the localizer at less than a 30° angle, and
3. hold altitude when you intercept the glide slope.

If you come in above the glide slope, cross the localizer at a

wide angle, or intercept the localizer too close to the airport,
the autopilot will not be able to maneuver the airplane for
landing (again, just as in a real plane).

Now that we’ve detailed flying with the autopilot, let’s talk
about flying an FMS (flight management system) plan.

Flying an FMS Plan

To use the autopilot to fly a flight management system plan, a

few things must happen:

1. You must enter your entire flight plan into the FMS.

2. You have to have the HSI set to GPS, not NAV 1 or NAV 2
(because the autopilot will fly whatever it sees on the
HSI).

3. You must have the LOC button selected ON since that

button causes the autopilot to follow the localizer (or
whatever is on the HSI).

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 4. You must have the FLIGHT DIR switch set to AUTO, so
that the servos are running.

5. You must hit the VNAV button if you want the FMS to also
load altitudes into the altitude window.

Do all these things and the plane will follow any FMS plan,
assuming, of course, that the plane you are flying has all this
equipment (which of course some do not).

To demonstrate the use of an FMS, we’ll go through the

procedure in a typical aircraft. The steps will be similar in any
aircraft.

1. Start the flight by opening the Quick Start dialog box and
selecting an aircraft with the default FMS, such as the
P180 Avanti. It is found in the General Aviation aircraft
folder. Select San Diego International Airport (KSAN) as
the starting airport from the Airport box. Time of day and
weather can be anything you like, but to keep it simple,
let’s use the “day” and “clear” settings.

2. In 3-D cockpit view, the FMS is found to the right of the

pilot’s seat (it should be displaying the text “PLAN
SEGMENT 01”). Hit the top left INIT button on the FMS.
This gets the FMS ready to receive a flight plan and puts
the cursor on the second line labeled “APT.”

3. Now enter the ID of the starting airport by hitting the FMS

keypad with the mouse. We are starting at San Diego
International Airport (KSAN) and flying to San Bernardino
International (KSBD).

4. If you like, hit the line-select button on the left side of the
FMS next to the text “FLY AT FT” and enter the altitude

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 you want to fly at using the keypad.

5. Now, hit the NEXT button on the FMS and repeat the
steps above for the next waypoint. For our purposes,
press the AIRP button and enter KSBD for our final
destination airport here, then click the dash button to the
left of the “Fly At” line on the screen to enter the altitude
at which you’ll be flying. Any VOR, NDB, FIX or LAT/LON
can be entered here instead (or as additional plan
segment pages) to program your route. Make sure your
press the appropriate button on the FMS before entering
the code for the NAVAID of your choice.

Use the DEL button to erase mistakes, or CLR to cancel the

entire plan. The PREV PAGE and NEXT PAGE buttons will
cycle through the various waypoints in your plan. To save an
FMS plan, click the SA button, or click the LD button to load a
saved plan. X‑Plane stores these plans in the Output folder of
the home directory.

1. Once you have entered the plan into the FMS, set the
white NAV Source switch to GPS so that the HSI is getting
data from the flight management computer we just
programmed. Move the FLIGHT DIR switch to on, then
take off.

2. The second waypoint should activate automatically.

Engage HDG mode on your autopilot and set it to
intercept the FMS course. Press the LOC autopilot button
to arm FMS course capture so as you approach the course
the autopilot will lock on and turn toward the waypoint.
You must first intercept the FMS course to make the
autopilot lock on. Press the autopilot VNAV button to
select the “Fly At” altitude.

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 If your flight plan has more than one waypoint, as you
approach the FMC’s active waypoint it will automatically
switch to the next Plan Segment. If for some reason the FMS
fails to do this, you can force it to step forward or skip
waypoints by using the NEXT button to display the desired
waypoint and the select button (a D with an arrow through it)
to activate it.

1. Sit back and let the autopilot take you to your destination.
Once you arrive, note that you can’t use the FMS to land
the plane so you must deactivate GPS mode and fly your
approach as you usually would.

Special Situations in X-Plane

Using an Instructor Operator Station (IOS) for
Flight Training
An Instructor Operator Station is a sort of console used by a
flight instructor or someone standing in for an instructor. This
console can be used to fail multitudes of aircraft systems,
alter the weather and time of day, or relocate the aircraft. The
IOS can be run on a second monitor on the same computer as
the simulator.

Setting up the IOS

If you are using one computer with two (or more) monitors,
you can enable the IOS on the second monitor by going to the
Graphics tab in the Settings screen. Under Monitor
Configuration, ensure your primary monitor is set to “Full
Screen Simulator” in the drop down box, then pick “Instructor
Operating Station” in the drop down menu for the other
monitor. (Note that the IOS can only be used full screen, not
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 windowed, when set up in this manner.) When you close the
Settings window you will have the IOS screen options on your
second monitor and the flight on the primary monitor.

If you would like to use X‑Plane windowed, you can also open
the IOS as a window, pop it out and drag it around to
whatever location you want on your monitors. Open the IOS
window by going to the Flight menu > Toggle Instructor
Operating Station. Click the two squares in the top right
corner to pop it out as a separate window that you can then
drag to a different monitor.

IOS Features

Once you have the IOS configured how you would like it, you
will be able to fly on one monitor while controlling many of
the aspects of your flight on the other.

In the IOS window you you will have the standard Map display
as well as buttons along the left of this window which allow
the instructor to perform all sorts of tasks from one location,
while maintaining a watch on the X‑Plane pilot using the map
view.

The “instructor” can load different aircraft, relocate the

aircraft, alter weather conditions, fail systems, and change
the time, weight, balance, or fuel for the “student” pilot. In
addition, there are buttons to load or save a flight, reset the
flight path and quit X-Plane.

Flying Helicopters
The following is a description of how helicopters are flown in
the real world, along with the application of this in X‑Plane.
You can also use the Flight School tutorial “Helicopter Basics”

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 to get hands on experience flying helicopters in the sim. Note
that helicopters are loaded in X‑Plane just like any other
aircraft, using the Flight Configuration screen. Note also that
you can move to the helipad nearest you at any time by
opening the Customize Location screen, clicking the Special
Starts button and clicking on the Helipad Start line.

All manner of different helicopter layouts can be found in

reality, but we will discuss the standard configuration here—-a
single overhead rotor with a tail rotor in the back. Here’s how
this works: First, the main rotor provides the force needed to
lift the craft by continuously maintaining the same rotor RPM
for the entire flight. The amount of lift generated by the main
rotor is only varied by adjusting the blade pitch of the main
rotor blades.

So, imagine the one-and-only operational RPM of a helicopter

is 400 RPM. When the craft is sitting on the ground, the rotor
is turning 400 RPM, and the pitch of the rotor’s blades is
about zero. This means that the rotor is giving about zero lift!
Because the blades have zero pitch, they have very little drag,
so it is very easy to move them through the air. In other
words, the power required to turn the rotor at its operational
RPM is pretty minimal. Now, when the pilot is ready to go
flying, he or she begins by pulling up on a handle in the
cockpit called the “collective.” When this happens, the blades
on the rotor go up to a positive pitch. All the blades on the
main rotor do this together at one time—“collectively.” Of
course, they are then putting out a lot of lift, since they have
a positive pitch. Equally apparent is the fact that they are
harder to drag through the air now, since they are doing a lot
more work. Of course, since it is a lot harder to turn the
blades, they start to slow down—if this were allowed to
happen, it would be catastrophic, since the craft can’t fly

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 when its rotor isn’t turning! To compensate, at that point any
modern helicopter will automatically increase the throttle as
much it needs to in order to maintain the desired 400 RPM in
the rotor.

To summarize, this is the sequence for getting a helicopter in

the air in X-Plane:

1. While on the ground, the collective handle is flat on the

floor. This means the rotor pitch is flat, with minimum
drag and zero lift. In X-Plane, a flat collective corresponds
to the throttle being full forward, or farthest from the
user. The automatic throttle in the helicopter is
obsessively watching the rotor’s RPM, adjusting the
throttle as needed to hold exactly 400 RPM in the example
above. On the ground, with the collective pitch flat, there
is little drag on the blades, so the power required to hold
this speed is pretty low.

2. When you decide to take off, you do so by raising the

collective up—that is, by pulling it up from the floor of the
helicopter. In X-Plane, this is done by easing the throttle
on a joystick back down toward you. This increases the
blade pitch on the main rotor and therefore increases its
lift, but it also increases the drag on the rotor a lot. The
rotor RPM begins to fall below 400 RPM, but the auto-
throttle senses this and loads in however much engine
power it has to in order to keep the rotor moving at
exactly 400 RPM.

3. More collective is pulled in until the blades are creating

enough lift to raise the craft from the ground. The auto-
throttle continues adding power to keep the rotor turning

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 at 400 RPM no matter how much the collective is raised or
lowered.

Once the craft is in the air, the first-time helicopter pilot’s first
crash is no doubt beginning. This inevitability can be delayed
for a few moments using the anti-torque pedals.

The main rotor is putting a lot of torque on the craft, causing

it to spin in the opposite direction (because of course for
every action there is an equal and opposite reaction—the
rotor is twisted one way, the helicopter twists the other way).
This is where the anti-torque pedals come in. The rotational
torque on the helicopter is countered with thrust from the tail
rotor. Just push the left or right rudder pedal (such as these)
to get more or less thrust from the tail rotor. If rudder pedals
aren’t available, the twist on a joystick can be used for anti-
torque control. If the joystick used does not twist for yaw
control, then X‑Plane will do its best to adjust the tail rotor’s
lift to counter the main rotor’s torque in flight.

Incidentally, the tail rotor is geared to the main rotor so that

they always turn in unison. If the main rotor loses 10% RPM,
the tail rotor loses 10% RPM. The tail rotor, like the main
rotor, cannot change its speed to adjust its thrust. Like the
main rotor, it must adjust its pitch, and it is the tail rotor’s
pitch that is being controlled with rudder pedals or a twisting
joystick.

Once the craft is in the air and the collective pitch of the main
rotor is being adjusted (in X-Plane, using the joystick
throttle), try holding the craft 10 feet in the air and adjusting
the tail-rotor pitch with the anti-torque pedals (i.e., rudder
pedals or a twisting stick) to keep the nose pointed right down

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 the runway. From here, the joystick should be wiggled left,
right, fore, and aft to steer the helicopter around.

Here is how this works: If the stick is moved to the right, then
the rotor blade will increase its pitch when it is in the front of
the craft, and decrease its pitch when it is behind the craft. In
other words, the rotor blade will change its pitch through a
full cycle every time it runs around the helicopter once. This
means that it changes its pitch from one extreme to the other
400 times per minute (7 times per second) if the rotor is
turning at 400 RPM. Pretty impressive, especially considering
that the craft manages to stay together under those
conditions! Now, while it seems that the right name for this
might be the “helicopter destroyer,” the fact that moving the
stick sends the blade pitch through one cycle every rotation of
the rotor blades means we call the control stick the cyclic
stick. So, we have the collective, cyclic, and anti-torque
controls.

Let’s talk more about the cyclic. When the stick is moved to
the right, the rotor increases pitch when it is in the part of its
travel that is in front of the helicopter. This will increase the
lift on the front of the rotor disc, causing it to tilt to the right,
since the gyroscopic forces are applied 90° along the direction
of rotation of the gyroscope. Now that the rotor is tilted to the
right, it will of course drag the craft off to the right as long as
it is producing lift.

The fascinating thing is that the rotor on many helicopters is

totally free-teetering; it has a completely “loose and floppy”
connection to the craft. It can conduct no torque (left, right,
fore, and aft) to the body of the helicopter. Maneuvering is
only achieved by the rotor tilting left, right, fore, and aft,
dragging the top of the craft underneath it in that direction.

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 The helicopter body is dragged along under the rotor like
livestock by a nose-ring, blindly following wherever the rotor
leads.

Once you master hovering in place, push the nose down to tilt
the rotor forwards. The lift from the rotor acting above the
center of gravity of the aircraft will lower the nose of the
helicopter, and the forward component of lift from the rotor
will drag the craft forward as it flies along.

Flying Special Situations

To view all the possibilities for special starts in X-Plane, go to
Flight Configuration and click the Customize button in the
Location box. In the following window, click the Special
Starts button at the bottom left of the screen. In this list you
will find a number of special ways to take off and fly. Selecting
the Grass Strip, Dirt Strip, Gravel Strip, or Seaplane
Start lines will take you, in your current aircraft, to the
nearest airstrip of that type.

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 Figure 8.1: Special starts in the Location Customize screen

Selecting the Frigate Approach, Small Oil Rig Approach,

or Large Oil Platform Approach lines will give you excellent
targets for a helicopter landing. Additional types of special
starts are discussed in more detail in the following sections.

Flying Gliders

Get started with flying gliders by going to the Flight

Configuration window and picking a glider, such as the default
ASK 21. Now you have to get in the air, either by being towed
by another aircraft or by a winch. Click the Customize button
and pick which start you’d like from the two options at the
bottom of the window.

The Glider Tow button will load another aircraft (the Stinson
L–5) to which your glider will be attached. This aircraft will

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 pull yours along behind it, and you will be able to release the
line connecting you to the towplane at your desired altitude.
On the other hand, the Glider Winch button will set up a
stationary winch on the ground which will quickly pull in a
wire attached to your glider, which you will release once you
are 1500 feet or so above the ground. In either case, you can
release the tow line by pressing the space bar.

When using the towplane, you will start behind the plane with
its engine running and ready to go. Releasing the glider’s
brakes (using the b key by default) commands the towplane
to take off, dragging your glider with it.

The towplane, once in flight, will take the glider as high as

you like. Pressing the space bar will release the line between
the aircraft, allowing you to soar freely. While being carried up
to altitude, though, you must keep your glider in formation
behind the towplane.

Notice that until you have unhooked yourself, the tow rope
connecting your glider to the towplane is attached to your
nose and the towplane’s tail. X‑Plane models the real physics
of this situation, so if your glider pulls left, right, up, or down,
it will drag the towplane’s tail in that direction. This could
result in simply pulling the plane off course, or ultimately in
dragging the plane into a stall or spin. If that happens, things
will get very complicated very quickly—-the towplane (which
will likely be crashing) will be dragging the glider with it! The
dynamics of the resulting crash are interesting if nothing else.

According to the FAA Glider Handbook, a glider pilot should

keep the glider in one of two positions when being towed to
altitude. It should either be in a “low tow” position, wherein
the glider is just below the wake from the towplane, or it

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 should be in a “high tow” position, just above the wake from
the towplane. Hold this position carefully to keep from
dragging the towplane around!

A glider pilot must watch the wind and the slope of the terrain
carefully to hold inside the upward-moving currents of air,
using the lift of the air flowing up the mountain slope to hold
the craft aloft. With a good 25-knot wind set in the simulator,
you can get a nice, free elevator ride to 10,000 feet when
flying along the windward side of a nice, steep mountain. This
is called ridge lift.

X-Plane will also model the columns of rising hot air, called
thermals, that are useful for prolonging a glider flight. To turn
on the thermals, open the Customize Weather screen from
Flight Configuration. Expand the Thermals section in the right
side list, then drag the Coverage slider up—15% coverage or
more makes for a nice flight. A 500 ft/min Climb Rate is fine,
but you can raise that value, too, if you like. Additionally, as
you’re starting out in gliders, you may want to keep the
Speed, Turbulence, Gust Speed Increase and Shear
Amount settings of your wind layers set to minimum.

Now, to take full advantage of both ridge lift and thermals,

gliders have a unique instrument known as the total energy
variometer. This indicates your glider’s rate of climb or
descent. You can see the visual representation of this
instrument in the panel (it is labeled “Total Energy” and is
found towards the bottom of the panel in the ASK 21); if the
needle is above the center of the dial, you are climbing
(perhaps due to ridge lift or a thermal), and if it is below the
center, you are falling. Even better, you can flip on the switch
next to it labeled “Audio” in the instrument panel to get
auditory feedback from the variometer. If it is beeping, then

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 the aircraft is in a nice updraft from the air following the
terrain. Circling in that area will let the glider ride the climbing
air to altitude. When the variometer is emitting a steady tone,
the craft is in descending air—-the glider has been blown to
the wrong side of the mountain, and a crash will follow soon if
you do not find a way out of that area!

To land the glider, simply circle down to runway level. The

trick is to approach the runway with just enough speed to set
the craft down safely. Remember, pulling the speedbrakes in
can help slow the craft down, but if it doesn’t have enough
speed to reach the landing strip, the glider has no way of
generating thrust. Ideally, you will reach the runway at just
above stalling speed, but it’s always better to have too much
speed (which you can burn off using the speedbrakes) than
too little.

Performing Carrier Operations

To begin carrier operations, select the aircraft you will use

(military aircraft such as the default F-4 Phantom are good
choices). Open the Flight Configuration Screen and click the
Customize button in the Location box. Pick either the
Carrier Catshot, Frigate Approach, or Carrier Approach
line to set up a catapult launch from a carrier or a final
approach to one, respectively.

To take off from a carrier, a few things must be done in quick

succession. First, give the aircraft full throttle, and pull in
about half flaps. Release the brakes (using the ‘b’ key by
default) to activate the catapult propelling your aircraft off the
deck. From there, simply guide the craft down the flight deck
and, once clear, pull the nose up. When you’re safely in the
air, bring the gear up (using the ‘g’ key by default) and you’re
off.
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 Landing on the carrier is a bit more difficult. First, be sure you
have an aircraft with an arresting hook.

To set up an approach to a modern carrier, such as the USS

Nimitz included with X-Plane, bear in mind that the landing
runway is angled 30 to the port (left) side—it is not straight
down the flight deck like in older carriers. This change was
made in order to prevent the all-too-common overruns that
occurred in WWII when a landing plane crashed into the
stacked line of planes at the far end of the carrier. A pilot
landing on such a carrier must correct for this angling. With
your ADF tuned to the carrier, then, you must wait until the
ADF is pointing either 15° or 60° to the right before turning in
for a landing.

When approaching the flight deck to land, a glidepath of about

3.5° is standard. At this time, the tail hook should be lowered
(Option + ‘Q’ by default). This will allow the tail of the aircraft
to catch the arresting wires on the deck. These wires will
decelerate the craft from well over 100 knots down to zero in
little more than a second.

Unlike in a conventional landing, there should be no “flare”

before touching down on the carrier. Whereas, say, an airliner
would raise its nose up just before touching the runway
(thereby ensuring a smooth landing), a carrier approach
should maintain a constant glide slope until the craft hits the
deck.

Also, rather counter-intuitively, a real fighter pilot must slam

the throttle to full the instant that the aircraft touches the
deck. This is because, even when the pilot has done
everything right, the craft’s tail hook can bounce over the
arresting wires in what is called a “bolter.” When this happens,

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 the pilot must be ready to get off the deck safely and come
around for another try. Don’t worry—even when the throttle
revs up like this, the arresting wires will still pull the craft
down to zero velocity.

Flying in Formations

To try your hand at flying in formation with another aircraft,

click the Customize button in the Location box of Flight
Configuration. Click on Special Starts and pick Formation
Flying from the list. X‑Plane will load an AI-controlled version
of the same aircraft you are using. Both aircraft will start the
situation about 10,000 feet in the air, and from there you can
follow the other aircraft as it maneuvers around.

Expert Essays: Unleashing the Full

Potential of the Simulator
Tuning the Handling of Aircraft in X-Plane
If X‑Plane is set up and flying, but aircraft seem to be too
sensitive in pitch, or if they pull to one side, the simulator’s
handling may need to be tuned. It is also vital to make sure
the hardware itself isn’t malfunctioning first.

Make sure the joystick and/or other control devices are set up
and calibrated. See the section “Configuring Flight Controls” of
the chapter Configuring and Tuning Your X‑Plane Installation
for instructions on doing this.

To easily see whether the controls are properly calibrated,

we’ll first need to display their output. Go to the Settings
screen and click Data Output. Find line 8 labeled joystick

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 ail/elv/rud and check the first box to show the values in the
cockpit. When you close the Settings window, you will see in
the upper left corner of the screen the aileron, elevator, and
rudder inputs from the flight controls (such as a joystick,
yoke, rudders, etc.).

With properly configured controls, the aileron, elevator, and

rudder joystick inputs should all read around 0.0 when your
flight controls are centered. When the controls are pushed full
left and forward, they should read around –1.0. When the
controls are pulled full aft and right, they should read around
1.0. If this is what you see, then your controls are properly
calibrated. If not, it’s no wonder the plane is not flying
correctly! You need to configure the controls as described in
the section “Configuring Flight Controls” of the chapter
Configuring and Tuning Your X‑Plane Installation.

If the controls are indeed properly calibrated as per the above

test, but the plane still is not flying correctly, it’s time to look
at the first level of control response tuning. Go to the Settings
screen and click Joystick. Click on the Calibrate button and
follow the instructions to complete calibration.

Once you have ensured the hardware is calibrated and

functioning properly, try flying the plane once again. If it still
does not handle correctly, read on to tune the next level of
control response.

Open the Joystick window again and click on the Control

Sensitivity button. Look at the sliders under the Control
Response column (one each for pitch, roll, and yaw, for the
pilot & copilot).

If these sliders are fully left, then the control response is

linear; that is, a 50% stick deflection in the hardware will give

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 50% control deflection in the aircraft. Likewise, 100% stick
deflection in the hardware will give 100% control deflection in
the aircraft.

If the problem being experienced is that the plane feels too

responsive in the simulator, try dragging the sliders all the
way to the right. This will give a non-linear response. Set this
way, 0% hardware deflection will still give 0% control
deflection in the simulator, and 100% hardware deflection will
still give 100% control deflection. The difference lies in
between—50% stick deflection in the hardware might only
give 15% control deflection in the simulator. In other words,
while the hard-over roll rate in the simulator will remain
unchanged no matter how these sliders are set, fine control
will be increased for smaller, partial deflections, since the
flight controls will move less for a small-to-moderate stick
deflection in the hardware joystick or yoke. This will give a
nice, fine pitch control and slow, detailed roll control.

If, after doing all of the above, the aircraft still does not fly as
it should, nothing more can be done within the simulator. It is
now time to tweak the airplane model itself. In the real world,
if a plane is pulling to one side or the other, a pilot will bend
the little trim tab on the aileron one way or another. This
bending of the aileron trim tab counteracts any imperfections
in the shape of the airplane, the dynamics of the propwash, or
the mass distribution inside the plane. The same thing can be
done in X-Plane—you can bend a trim tab a bit one way or the
other to make the plane fly true.

To do this, exit X‑Plane and open Plane Maker (included in the

X‑Plane installation). Go to the File menu and select Open.
There, select the plane that is pulling left or right and load it.

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 Then, go to the Standard menu and click Control Geometry. In
this window, select the Trim & Speed tab. Look at the far
right-hand column of controls in the top half of the screen,
labeled for aileron, elevator, and rudder trim tab adjust. This
is a measure of how much the trim tabs are bent on each
axis. A value of 0.000 in these boxes means that the trim tab
is not bent at all. A value of 1.000 means the tab is bent so
far that the control is fully deflected by the trim tab—this is
way too far. Try bending the trim tab just a little bit—maybe
set the value at 0.05 or at most 0.10. This would correspond
to being enough force to deflect the controls 5% or 10%,
respectively, due to the trim tab. A positive value corresponds
to bending the trim tab up or right, depending on whether it is
pitch, yaw, or roll. Thus, if the plane needs to roll right a bit
more (or needs to stop rolling left), then enter a positive
number for the aileron control. The same goes for the rudder:
if the plane needs to pull right a bit more, enter a positive
rudder trim tab adjust. If the plane needs to pull up a bit
more, give it a positive elevator trim tab adjust. Tweak the
trim tabs as needed, save the aircraft file (using Plane Maker’s
File menu), and exit Plane Maker. Then, open up X‑Plane and
try flying the plane again. It should noticeably pull one way or
another based on how the trim tabs were bent. The trim tab
controls may need to be tuned again to get the plane to fly as
straight as is desired.

Setting Up a Copilot Station

A copilot’s station is a second computer networked to the
main simulator, set to view a portion of the cockpit intended
for the copilot. To use a copilot’s station, you will first need
two computers on the same network, each running their own
copy of the most recent X‑Plane update.

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 You will need two copies of the aircraft file you intend to fly,
both either created or modified using Plane Maker. The first
copy of your aircraft should have the pilot-side instrument
panel. If you are content with the default panel layout, any of
the stock planes could be used.

With the first version (the pilot-side version) of the plane

ready, simply make a copy of the entire airplane folder and
add some suffix, such as “_copilot” to the end of the folder’s
name—for instance, if the aircraft you wanted to fly was in the
folder “Boeing 737”, you might name the copilot-side version
“Boeing 737_copilot”.

Next, open the copilot-side copy of the aircraft in Plane Maker

and tweak the instrument panel (as described in the chapter
“Creating an Instrument Panel” of the Plane Maker manual) as
desired for the co-pilot’s side of the craft. Save it when
finished and close Plane Maker.

There should now be two copies of the same aircraft folder,

where each aircraft file within has its own instrument panel.
These folders should have names like “[Plane name]” and
“[Plane name]_copilot”. Both folders should be in the same
place within your X‑Plane directory.

Simply copy that entire aircraft folder from one of the

computers over to the other, putting the aircraft folder in the
same directory (relative to the X‑Plane installation directory)
on the second computer. For example, the folder location
might be ‘X-Plane 12/Aircraft/Laminar Research/Boeing 737’
on the pilot’s computer and ‘X-Plane 12/Aircraft/Laminar
Research/Boeing 737_copilot/’ on the copilot’s computer. With
that done, open X‑Plane on each computer and start a flight
with the unmodified copy of the plane on both computers.

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 From our example above, each computer will start a flight
with the Boeing 737. Then open the Settings, and select
Network. Expand the External Visuals section. From here, the
procedure for the pilot’s and copilot’s machines differ slightly.

On the pilot’s machine, leave the role set to Master. Click the
Add External Visuals Machine (Independent View)
button and select the other computer from the drop down list,
if necessary. It should not be necessary to change the Port
number.

Set the copilot machine’s role to External Visuals. Pick the

Pilot’s computer from the drop down under the “Master
Machine” section, if necessary. Check the box Use aircraft
from suffixed folder and enter the folder suffix you used
before (_copilot, in our example). After that, no matter what
aircraft is opened on the pilot’s machine, this computer will
add “_copilot” to the name of the aircraft folder that it needs
to open.

If everything is set up correctly, the pilot’s machine will send

all the appropriate data to the copilot’s machine, the copilot’s
machine will get the message. The copilot’s machine will then
apply the suffix “_copilot” to the name of the aircraft folder,
and it will open the copilot’s version of the aircraft cockpit on
the copilot’s machine.

Configuring a Multi-Monitor Simulator

There are two general ways of configuring multiple monitors.
You can either have your monitors all connected to one
computer, running one copy of X-Plane, or you can have
multiple different computers all networked together, each one
with its own monitor and its own copy of X-Plane.

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 In general, using multiple displays on one computer will be
more restrictive regarding the ways in which you can
configure the simulator. Networking many computers together
will be more flexible, but it will also be much more expensive.

Driving Multiple Displays from One Computer

If you are using only one copy of X‑Plane on one computer

with several monitors, you will be able to configure the view
as

1. one large display of one view or

2. one view and one Instructor Operating Station.

X-Plane only supports one type of view (3-D cockpit, forward

with no scenery, etc) at a time per copy of X-Plane.
Video 9.1: Configuring the monitor tutorial

If your multiple monitors are configured as a single large

display in your operating system, all you need to do to have
X‑Plane fill the screen with a single large window is go to
Settings > Graphics > Monitor Configuration and change the
drop down to “Full Screen Simulator.” If X‑Plane is still only
filling one screen, you may need to pick “Custom” from the
Resolution drop down, and change it to the combined size of
all your monitors (for example, two 1920x1080 monitors
should be entered as a custom resolution of 3840x1080). You
will most likely want to adjust the “Lateral field of view” as
well.

If, on the other hand, your monitors are configured in the

operating system as separate displays, the simplest option is
to have a regular, windowed version of X‑Plane which you
manually resize to fill as much of your display as possible.

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 If your monitors are separate displays and you also don’t
want to have X‑Plane windowed, in the Monitor Configuration
box you will need to set each monitor to “Full Screen
Simulator.” Then you will need to adjust the offsets in the
Visual Offsets section.

For a wrap-around, 3-monitor configuration:

1. Left monitor: set the Lateral rotational offset to the

negative of your main monitor’s Lateral field of view (FOV)
2. Center monitor: no offset
3. Right monitor: set the Lateral rotational offset equal to
your main monitor’s (positive) Lateral FOV

For a flat, 3-monitor configuration:

1. Check the box to Enable flat (fractional) offsets

2. Enter -2 for the left monitor’s offset
3. The center monitor offset should be left at 0
4. Enter +2 for the right monitor offset

If you want to use your secondary monitor as an instructor

operator station, refer to the section “Using an Instructor
Operator Station (IOS) for Flight Training” of the chapter
Special Situations in X-Plane. Note that the flight and IOS is
the only configuration available for separate monitor views if
you are using X‑Plane on only one computer. If you would like
your monitors to display completely different views than the
IOS and the flight, or different offsets of the same view, you
will need to have more than one computer and to follow the
instructions in the next section.

Also recall that in X‑Plane 12 many of the windows, such as

the GPS, map, and ATC windows, can be popped out as
separate displays and moved to a secondary monitor. Simply
click on the icon in the top right corner of the window then
move it around independently.

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 Networking Multiple Computers for Multiple Displays

To set up a multi-computer simulator, each of the computers

you want to use must first be linked together over a network,
and have their own copy of the simulator. For the most
reliable connection, join the computers together with Ethernet
cables, or you can connect over a Wi-Fi network. The
computers should form a simple LAN, configured as normal
within Mac OS X or Windows, whatever the case may be. The
most recent version of X‑Plane should then be launched on
each computer.
Video 9.2: Configuring networking options, including external
visuals

On each computer, open the Settings and go to Network. In

this screen, expand the “External Visuals” section. Here, the
steps differ slightly between the “master” machine (the
computer which is hooked up to all your flight controls) and
the other computers.

On the master machine, press the button for either Add

External Visuals Machine, depending on whether you want
the view locked to this machine or not. If needed, pick the
machine you want to connect to from the drop down list. On
the other machine(s), set the machine’s role to “External
Visuals.” Expand the Master Machine section and pick the
master computer from the drop down, if necessary.

If the button for Independent Views was used, you can now
set up each of the additional computers with a different view
from the Master machine. It may be helpful to set up Quick
Views according to the instructions in Using the Quick Look
Feature to quickly return to your setup the next time you
launch X-Plane.

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 For a complex set up with four computers and four monitors,
or one cockpit and three external visuals, and with the view
locked to the master computer, you’ll need to adjust the view
offsets to accommodate a wrap-around view. On each of the
three computers used for external visuals, we need to open
the Rendering Options dialog box from the Settings menu.
There, we will enter a lateral field of view of 45° for each of
them. Enter a lateral offset for networked scenery of –
45° for the left screen, 0° for the center screen, and 45° for
the right screen, with no vertical offset on all screens. This
will simply yield a 135° (45° × 3) field of view. If this is drawn
out on paper, it becomes apparent that the 45° offsets on the
left and right screens will cause them to perfectly sync up
with the center screen.

From there, the monitors need to physically be moved around

the “cockpit” (that is, where a user will sit when flying the
simulator) in a semi-circle describing a 135° field of view. If
this is not done, then the horizon will not appear straight as
the craft pitches and rolls, caused by the “fisheye lens” effect.
If a 135° field of view is described in a flat plane or in an arc
of monitors that describe less than 135° of arc, fisheye
distortion will result, apparent as a horizon that seems to
bend and distort between monitors.

Lining Up the Horizon (Without Vertical Offsets)

Now, sometimes people sit on the ground and see the horizon
does not line up, so they enter vertical offsets on some of the
display machines only in order to get the horizons to line up.
They quickly become confused when everything breaks down
as they pitch and especially roll. If vertical offsets are used,
they must be used on all networked machines in your
simulator, unless you have one monitor physically above

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 another. If some but not all of your computers have vertical
offsets, things start getting messed up. What often happens is
that a user will fly with a cockpit in the center screen, which
shifts the center of that screen as far as scenery is concerned
to be around 75% of the way up the monitor; this is done in
order to leave room for the instruments. The external visuals,
on the other hand, have screen centers in the center of the
monitor, since they do not have to reserve space for the
instrument panel. In this case, you need to do the following:

1. Open Plane Maker from the X‑Plane installation directory.

2. Click on the File menu, then click Open Aircraft.

3. Navigate to the aircraft you wish to fly and open it.

4. Click on the Standard menu, then click Viewpoint.

5. In the Viewpoint dialog box, go to the Cockpit tab.

6. In the Screen-Centers box, set the view center Y, panel

view (i.e., the y coordinate of the center of the screen
when in the panel view) to be one-half the height of your
monitor in pixels (assuming you run X‑Plane in full screen
mode). For instance, if your monitor has a resolution of
1920×1080 pixels, you would enter 540 here (being
1080/2).

7. Close the Viewpoint dialog box, either by pressing Enter

or by clicking an X in the corner of the window.

8. Open the File menu and click Save As (not Save, since
you do not want to overwrite the original file).

9. Type in a name for this copy of the aircraft file (for

instance, “Triple Monitor [aircraft name]”) and press

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 Save.

10. Close Plane Maker.

Now, when you load the new copy of the aircraft up in X-

Plane, the screen center will be just where you like it.

Correcting for Monitor Bezels

When using more than one monitor to fly in X-Plane, you

must account for the monitor bezels (the frame around each
monitor), or the displays will not line up seamlessly. If you’re
flying an airplane with a 3D cockpit and using two monitors,
an acceptable solution may be to move your point of view a
little to the left to get the bezel out of the way of the runway.
An alternative, experiment with putting a small lateral offset
in the rendering options. The example below describes how to
do this with three monitors.

Let’s imagine that you have three networked computers for

additional visuals to form a wrap-around cockpit. Each
computer might have a 45° lateral field of view (as set in
the Graphics settings). You would enter a lateral offset for
networked scenery of –45° for the left visual, 0° for the
front visual, and 45° for the right visual, as discussed above.
If each display has a field of view of 45°, these images would
blend together seamlessly if you didn’t consider the width of
the displays' bezels. If you cannot set up the monitors to run
their effective image all the way to the edge (as you can with
some, even though you wouldn’t be able to see the part under
the border), you might instead try a field of view of maybe
43° based on whatever fraction of the monitor is visible.
Vertical and roll offsets, of course, are the up/down and tilt
equivalents of the lateral offset.

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 Note: While the view offsets do indicate how much to the left
or right or up or down each view is looking, people make the
same mistake over and over: they run a center view with a
cockpit in the center screen, and external visuals on the left
and right—which is fine—but they notice that the horizon in
the center (cockpit) screen does not line up with the horizons
on either side. The reason for this is that the center-point of
the screen where the horizon rests in a level flight attitude is
up near the top of the screen in the cockpit view (to make
room for the instrument panel) and the center of the screen
for the external visuals (which do not need room at the
bottom for the instrument panel). Often, people will
incorrectly lower the vertical offset of the center panel (with
the cockpit).

This results in countless problems with the views not lining

up. The way to correct this is to do as in the “Lining Up the
Horizon (Without Vertical Offsets)” section above and change
the screen center for your aircraft; only then will the horizon
always line up across all the visuals. In other words, the only
time a vertical offset should be used is if there is one monitor
on top of another.

Using Other Special Viewing Controls

The lateral field of view setting, located in the Monitor

Configuration window of Graphics settings, will change the
way X‑Plane displays the view of the outside world. Higher
settings will allow more of the terrain to be viewed at any one
time, but will reduce performance. Higher settings will also
increase the “fish eye” effect of the simulator. The default
value is 80° per display, which generally gives good
performance and a natural view. Note, of course, that
changing the field of view of a monitor in a multi-display

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 setup will require you to re-evaluate your lateral offset
values as well.

Now, suppose you are using multiple monitors, some for

external visuals and others for cockpit displays. You may
notice that when views are changed within X-Plane, the
change propagates to all the visuals. To stop this from
occurring, use the Add External Visuals Machine
(Independent View) when setting up additional computers.

Networked Multiplayer
Multiplayer allows you to fly with up to 19 other people. You
can race, fly in formation, dogfight and more in this mode. To
use X‑Plane 12’s built-in networked multiplayer, you will first
need all the computers on the same network, each running
their own copy of the most recent X‑Plane update.
Video 9.3: Configuring networking options, including
multiplayer

Set up multiplayer by going to the Settings window, then the

Network tab. Leave the machine’s role set to “Master” and
expand the “Multiplayer” section in the list on the right. Click
the blue Add Multiplayer Machine button, then either find
the other machine’s name in the drop down box, or manually
enter its IP address. Changing the port number should not be
necessary. Increasing the rate of the Transmissions per
second slider can be useful if you notice lagging or stuttering
in the other players' planes.

When you return to your flight you will see the other aircraft
and will be able to chat with the other players by using the
enter key.

Using X-Plane with Mobile Apps

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 g pp
There are numerous apps available that can enhance flying in
X-Plane, including those such as ForeFlight, FlyQ, Aerovie,
Garmin Pilot, or even Laminar Research’s own Control Pad and
Xavion. As long as the device is running on the same local
network as the computer running X-Plane, you can set up
their connection in the Network tab of the Settings screen.
Video 9.4: Configuring networking options, including external
apps

Expand the iPhone & iPad section of the list on the right side
of the screen. Apps that use AHRS and ADS-B data can be
added by clicking on the Add Connection to Xavion or FlyQ
button and either manually entering the IP address or finding
the device name in the drop down (if necessary). These
devices use fixed port numbers so it will not be necessary to
change the port number field.

If you are using other apps that use just AHRS data, under
the “Third-party apps” section, check one of the boxes to
broadcast to either a single device (if you are only using one
tablet, phone or app) or all devices if you are using more than
one.

If you are using Control Pad, a Laminar Research app that

functions as a mobile instructor operating station (IOS), check
the last box and either manually enter the IP address or find
the device name in the drop down (if necessary). Again, it will
not be necessary to change the port number.

If you are using an app that sends and receives UDP data,
expand the “UDP Ports” section to see the default port
numbers, or to edit them.

Serial Port Flight Instruments Set Up

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 If you have flight instruments or other hardware you plug into
a serial port, you can send datarefs from X‑Plane to the serial
port to drive them. To do this, first go to the Data Output
section of Settings and click on Dataref Read/Write. Check
the box next to A COM port, then select the com-port
number and enter the baud rate in the lower-right.

Now you can choose any number of datarefs from the list on
the left to write or read from the serial port. They will show
up on the right. If you selected a dataref that contains an
array of data (like sim/cockpit/engine/fuel_pump_on, for
example), then you simply select the array index you want
from the field there.

Projector Setup for X-Plane Professional

The X‑Plane Professional-Use USB Key or Professional-Use
Digital Download product key enables sending imagery to a
projector to make wrap-around visuals for professional
displays. To set up projection, go to the Developer menu and
toggle “Show Projection Parameters.” In this window are three
tabs that allow customization of the projection, Ren Opts
(Rendering Options), Grid Adjust, and Edge Blend. The
Cylinder Projection box in the first tab should be checked to
optimize projections onto curved surfaces instead of flat. Grid
Adjust has options for test images that can help customize the
warp of the projection. Edge-blending lets you adjust the edge
darkness, or fade-out, near the left and right sides of the
screen to help you overlap projectors.

Kiosk Mode
You can enable “kiosk mode” from within the General section
of the Settings screen. This option is useful when you don’t

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 want others modifying sim settings, especially when the sim is
used at trade shows or by schools.

Figure 9.1: Kiosk Mode outlined in orange

When kiosk mode is active, no preference changes are

allowed at all. This includes everything in Settings, but it also
means that X‑Plane won’t save things like your aircraft, last-
known location, etc. across restarts of this sim.

To enable kiosk mode, check the “Enable kiosk mode and

prevent settings changes” box, then enter a password. To turn
off kiosk mode, enter the settings screen and type this same
password into the box next to the Exit Kiosk Mode button.

Data Input and Output from X-

Plane
X-Plane is a powerful source of data and much of it is handled
using the Data Output screen (found in the Settings window).
The General Data Output button controls where the data will
be output.

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 Figure 10.1: The Data Output section of Settings

Each field has four checkboxes corresponding to the four

places the data can be sent, as shown in Figure 10.1. They
are: Show in cockpit, Disk (data.txt file), Data Graph Window,
and Network via UDP. Checking the Disk option will send
output to the data.txt file located in the main X‑Plane folder.
Data Graph Window options will display in the Data Output
Graph, which is accessed under the Developer menu (or Ctrl
+ g by default).

Data selected to display in the Data Graph Window is

displayed in a graph with different colors for each variable and
can be zoomed in or out using the sliders in the bottom right
corner of the screen.

For detailed examples on how to set up a plugin using data

input & output, see the document “Exchanging Data with X-
Plane.rtd” found in the Instructions folder.

Data Output Table

Please see this webpage for a table of all the fields present in
the X‑Plane Data Output screen.

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 Troubleshooting X-Plane
This chapter is designed as a reference for when you
encounter common problems in X‑Plane. Each of the following
sections describes a common problem and its solution. As a
general rule of thumb, however, the first thing you should do
after encountering any problems is update to the latest
version per the section “Updating X-Plane.” If you are running
the latest version and still have problems, you can check for
problem files by manually downloading and running the latest
installer found on the X-Plane website. Select “Update X-
Plane,” pick which copy you’d like to update, and click the
“continue” button. The installer will scan your installation to
see if any of the default files are missing or altered, and allow
you to restore them.

Water World, or “Help, there’s water

everywhere!”
When scenery is not installed for a given location, all that will
be visible are airports and water. This is referred to as “water
world.” To avoid water world, either install the scenery for the
location in which you’re flying, or choose to fly somewhere
else. To install scenery, run the installer and pick Add or
Remove Scenery. You will need to enter your digital
download product key for authorization.

If scenery for the location is in fact installed, be sure that the

copy of X‑Plane for which it is installed is the one being used—
for instance, if you have two copies of X‑Plane installed (say,
one running a demo version and one running 12.00), the two
versions may have different amounts of scenery installed.

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 The X-Plane Installer Fails to Extract a File
If the X‑Plane installer gives an error about a failed file
extraction, or input/output error, it is almost always because
your DVD drive cannot read the disc. Take note of the file
reported in the error message and try to copy it from the DVD
(using the Finder in Mac OS or Windows Explorer on
Windows). If possible, try copying the file into a different
folder. If multiple DVDs cannot be read, it is likely that your
DVD drive is to blame. If, however, only a single DVD is
causing problems, it is more likely the DVD is defective. Email
sales support at [email protected] for more information.

X-Plane Gives Errors about Missing DLLs, or There

Are Strange Graphical Anomalies
Most graphics- and DLL-related issues in X‑Plane are due to a
lack of video drivers. Make sure your graphics drivers are up
to date by following the instructions in the X‑Plane Knowledge
Base article entitled Updating the Computer’s Graphics Drivers
in Windows.

X-Plane Crashed
A hard crash in X‑Plane can be caused by a multitude of
factors, so isolating a fix for every specific crash is outside the
scope of this manual. If the automatic crash reporter comes
up, be sure to send the report so Laminar Research has the
data on your crash. Be sure to include your email address if
you would like us to be able to track down your specific crash
report at any point.

In general, a good place to start for almost any problem with

X‑Plane is running the installer to update the program. Even if
you are running the latest version of the simulator, the

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 Installer/Updater can find missing or accidentally modified
files and replace them with the correct default files. See the
section “Updating X-Plane” for step by step instructions on
how to check for and update to the latest version of X-Plane.

If you are running the latest version of the simulator and still
have problems, another good place to look is at the
preferences. Move the preferences folder (found in the Output
folder) to the desktop, then restart X‑Plane and default
preferences will be restored. If the default preferences do not
fix your problem, you can simply replace them with the folder
you moved to the desktop and restore your personalized
settings.

The final common culprit is third party add ons, such as

scenery and plugins. Try moving the Custom Scenery folder
and plugins folder (found in the Resources folder) to the
desktop, then restart X-Plane.

Starting in Safe Mode

If X‑Plane detects that it crashed the last time it was run, then
on the next start, you have an option to reset the rendering
settings. If you reset the settings, you might avoid a crash on
startup if the rendering settings were the cause of the initial
crash. You may bring up the option to enter safe mode only if
you start the sim with the shift key pressed down.

My Joystick or Yoke Isn’t Working

If the joystick and other flight controls appear to be
configured correctly according to the steps outlined in the the
section Configuring Flight Controls of the chapter Configuring
and Tuning Your X‑Plane Installation but are not giving the
desired response in the simulator, it’s time to troubleshoot.

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 Thankfully, X‑Plane makes it easy to find out how the software
is perceiving the flight controls' input.

In the following example we’ll assume that the plane’s pitch,

yaw, and roll are not matching the way the joystick is being
moved. A similar procedure may be used for other
malfunctioning controls.

1. Move your mouse to the top of the screen and open the
Settings.

2. Click Data Output.

3. Select the first box on line joystick

aileron/elvator/rudder. This box will cause X‑Plane to
display the input it is receiving while running the
simulation.

4. Close the window.

5. A box in the upper left should be displaying the elev,

ailrn, and ruddr commands (elevator, aileron, rudder,
respectively) being received from the joystick.

6. Now, center the stick and pedals. Each axis should

indicate 0.0, or close to it.

7. Move the stick full left. The ailrn should indicate –1.0 or
near –1.0.

8. Move the stick full right. The ailrn should indicate 1.0 or
near 1.0.

9. Move the stick full aft. The elev should indicate 1.0 or
near 1.0.

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 10. Move the stick full forward. The elev should indicate –1.0
or near –1.0.

11. Move the rudder full left. The ruddr should indicate –1.0
or near –1.0.

12. Move the rudder full right. The ruddr should indicate 1.0
or near 1.0.

By moving the stick and pedals and seeing what values they
are sending X-Plane, you can see if X‑Plane is getting proper
stick input.

If the correct values (according to the tests above) are not

being received in X-Plane, and you have calibrated the
controls in X‑Plane per the section “Calibrating the Hardware”
of the chapter Configuring and Tuning Your X‑Plane
Installation, then the next step is to look at the first level of
control response tuning.

Go to the Settings and click Joystick. In that dialog box, select

the Axis tab. Click the button labeled Calibrate. Follow the
directions to calibrate the controls. Go back to the cockpit and
check to see if the data output (which should still be on the
screen from the pre-test in the above instructions) is around
0.000 when the controls are centered. If it is, then the
hardware works fine and the center point was set successfully.

The last step to solving the issue is checking the hardware’s

calibration in your operating system, not X‑Plane. Finally, if
you have done all of the above steps and still have problems,
then the hardware itself is malfunctioning.

Note: If your frame rate is below 20 frames per second

(which you can confirm by checking the box labeled frame

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 rate in the Data Input & Output window, just like you did with
the joystick ail/elv/rud box), X‑Plane may behave
erratically regardless of your joystick settings. See the section
“Increasing the Frame Rate” of the chapter Configuring and
Tuning Your X‑Plane Installation for help improving your frame
rate.

My Frame Rate is Low

If your frame rate is low, or the simulator seems to “stutter”
or move in slow motion, most likely your rendering settings
are set too high for your system. Make sure your computer
meets the minimum system requirements to run X‑Plane 12,
then review the section “Configuring the Rendering Options”
for a step by step guide to adjusting the rendering options.

Many of the most common problems people encounter with

X‑Plane is due to low frame rate and rendering settings which
are set to high for the system.

Airplanes Flutter and Crash in the Simulator

The tendency for some aircraft to flutter and crash is a known

limitation. Just as a car can only go a certain speed with a
given horsepower, the X‑Plane simulator can only accurately
model flight at a certain speed with a given frame rate.

If the frame rate gets too low for the flight model to handle,
then the plane is likely to start oscillating quickly back and
forth (referred to as “simulator flutter,” often occurring with
autopilot on) as the flight model tries unsuccessfully to predict
what the plane will do next. At this point, the computer is
running too slowly to take small enough steps in the flight
model to see what the plane will really do at each moment.
Smaller and more maneuverable planes will accelerate more

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 quickly, and greater accelerations require a higher frame rate
to simulate.

This occurs due to the way that X‑Plane moves aircraft within
the simulation. X‑Plane calculates the acceleration of the craft
for each frame, then adds up the acceleration between frames
to move the plane. This works fine if the frame rate is
reasonably high and the accelerations are reasonable low. In
fact, for any reasonably normal aircraft that has reasonably
normal accelerations, a frame rate of 20 fps or more is fine.

Problems occur, though, when you have very light aircraft

with very large wings going very fast, or sitting on the ground
with landing gear spread very far out from the center of
gravity. All of these things add up to the same result—high
acceleration.

X-Plane, of course, can handle these high accelerations, but it

needs a high frame rate to do it. For the flight model to work,
there can only be a certain amount of velocity change per
frame of the simulation. If the accelerations are high, then the
frame rate better be high so that there is a reasonable
velocity change (i.e., acceleration) per frame.

To determine how high a frame rate is enough to handle a

given acceleration, just find the frame rate at which there is
no flutter.

For example, imagine a Boeing 747 at approach speed. It

slowly lumbers along, hardly accelerating at all. One frame
per second could track that flight accurately. Now imagine
holding a paper airplane out the window of a car at 80 miles
per hour and letting go. The plane doesn’t smoothly,
gradually, accelerate up to speed, it disintegrates in a

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 thousandth of a second! To simulate that may require a
simulator to run at one thousand frames per second!

So, while a simple 20 frames per second works fine for most
any aircraft, when small, light, big-winged craft with widely
spaced landing gear designs start flying fast, the accelerations
come up enough that in extreme cases, 100 fps might be
needed to model accurately.

This is more of a problem with planes that:

1. are small because they maneuver much more quickly than

big planes,
2. are light because they have less inertia and react faster,
3. have long wings because they have more leverage on the
center of gravity, thus reacting faster,
4. have big wings because they get more lift, thus reacting
faster, or
5. have widely spaced landing gear because the gear has
more leverage on the craft, causing it to torque the plane
faster.

When using an airplane that reacts extremely quickly to the

environment, the computer needs to react just as quickly to
simulate it. This can be achieved by reducing the rendering
options and visibility in X‑Plane enough to raise the frame rate
to a non-fluttering level. More info on this can be found in the
section “Configuring the Rendering Options.”

The Simulator’s Measurement of Time is Slow

If the simulator’s measurement of time is incorrect (e.g., the

“elapsed time” field has a value less than it should), check
your frame rate. If your computer cannot maintain 20 frames
per second, simulator time will not match real time; when
X‑Plane runs slower than 20 fps, it slows down its simulation
of real-time so that the simulator is “effectively” running at 20

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 fps. For instance, if the simulator is running at 10 fps due to
extreme rendering settings, X‑Plane will run the flight model
at half speed. The result is that the physics are integrating in
slow-motion in order to avoid destabilizing from the low
framerate. Thus, if you need real-time simulation, you must
run the simulator at 20 fps or faster.

My PC Freezes after Running X-Plane a While

When a computer freezes after running X‑Plane for a while,
the problem is almost always heat related. When the system
is running X-Plane, the video card and processor can get very
hot because they are running at 100% utilization. This causes
the temperature to rise inside the case. To eliminate heat as
an issue, remove the computer’s cover and aim a fan into the
case. Run X‑Plane for a while and see if the problem goes
away. If it does, then you need to add some additional
cooling.

Note that this assumes that the system has enough RAM.
Running out of RAM will cause crashes as well. (See the
current X‑Plane 12 system requirements here.) This also
assumes that the computer is not overclocked.

Problems with Digital Download

The X‑Plane Digital Download product key is a long, unique
series of numbers and letters that identifies your copy of
X‑Plane 12, allows you to download X‑Plane directly to your
computer over the internet, and allows you to run X‑Plane
without a DVD.

When you buy a digital copy of X‑Plane from Laminar

Research or another company, you receive a 24-digit code
(your digital download product key). The code consists of

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 numbers and capital letters; the letters i and o and the
numbers 0 and 1 are never used, to avoid confusion.

A Digital Download Product Key Is Like a Credit Card Number

Your purchase of the digital download version of X‑Plane

provides you with one product key that is like a credit card
number. Product keys do not have passwords associated with
them; like a credit card number, if someone else has your
digital download product key, that user has access to your
copy of X‑Plane. Just like credit cards, you should not share
your digital download product key with anyone else.

If you have to contact Laminar Research customer support,

we will only require the last eight digits of your digital
download product key; you do not need to send your full
digital download product key to anyone, including Laminar
Research.

If someone manages to steal your digital download product

key, piracy is prevented by fraud detection; our servers will
see your digital download product key being used in a pattern
that looks like multiple people (e.g. your product key used
from two continents at the same time) and it will be locked.
You can contact X‑Plane customer support to receive a new,
unlocked digital download product key, and your old one will
be discarded.

The Digital Download Version of X-Plane Requires an Internet

Connection to Run

In order for X‑Plane to work outside of demo mode with a

digital download product key, the computer running X‑Plane
must have an internet connection to contact our servers.
X‑Plane does not require an internet connection to re-validate
on every single application launch, but it does require

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 authentication frequently. If your internet service is unreliable
or extremely slow, you may prefer to purchase and use the
X‑Plane DVDs.

Note that when you authorize X‑Plane using a product key,

Laminar Research collects your computer’s IP address. We use
this information only to verify your product key has not been
stolen. We do not sell or share this information with anyone
else.

A Digital Copy of X-Plane Is Not A Backup

The digital version of X‑Plane is available online at any time

for download, but it is not a replacement for a good backup of
your computers! Only a true backup can save your
preferences, third party aircraft you’ve downloaded, your log
book, etc.

The only version of X‑Plane that is available digitally is the

latest non-beta version of X‑Plane. If you do not want to
update to the latest version, you need to make your own
backup of X-Plane; re-installing the product will get the latest
version.

For additional information, see the Knowledge Base article “X-

Plane Digital Download.”

Getting Help with Other Problems

Tech Support

Before calling or emailing, save both yourself and customer

service time by checking this manual, the X-Plane Knowledge
Base, or the X-Plane Q & A site for answers. Be sure you have
the latest version of the software you’re using before calling.
(You can check this by following the instructions found in the

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 section “Updating X-Plane” of the chapter Configuring and
Tuning Your X‑Plane Installation.)

How to File a Bug Report

When sending a bug report, please include as much

information as possible—anything that the X‑Plane
development crew might need to know in order to reproduce
the malfunction. This includes (but is not limited to) the
following information:

1. The software in question (X-Plane, Plane Maker, etc.)

2. The operating system being used
3. The version of X‑Plane in question
4. The hardware in use (if the issue only occurs when using
certain hardware)
5. A copy of the scenery or aircraft with the issue
6. A copy of the log.txt
7. A copy of the Apple Crash Report (Mac users can find this
in (your Home
directory)/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/)
8. The exact steps (as specific and step-by-step as possible)
required to reproduce the problem

Additionally, before filing a bug report, please:

1. Be sure you are using the latest version of X‑Plane (this

includes making sure you aren’t using an outdated
shortcut).

2. Delete (or move) your preferences file in order to rule

that out.

3. Disable any plug-ins or third-party add-ons. (Please report

bugs in third-party add ons to the add on developer, not
the X‑Plane team.)

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 4. Be sure you understand the feature you are reporting a
bug on.

5. Ask on the X-Plane Q & A site if you are not sure whether
you have a bug or a tech support problem.

To file a bug report, please use the X-Plane Bug Reporter.

Make sure to attach a ‘log.txt’ file from X‑Plane (or the
installer or other X-Application) when filing the report, as well
as PNG screenshots for any visual problems. The ‘log.txt’ file
will tell us a lot of information about your system that will
speed up bug analysis.

Very often, people will report a bug like, “My speed indicator
does not work.” Well, I might crash my Corvette into a tree,
pick up my cell phone as the airbag deflates in my lap, call
General Motors, and say, “My speed thing indicates zero!”

In a case like that, how good a job can GM do in deciphering

that report?

Filing a report with X‑Plane saying “My speed indicator does

not work” can be that incomplete for two reasons. The first is
that with about 20 or 30 instruments available in the X‑Plane
world (accessible via Plane Maker) that indicate speed, saying
“speed Indicator” does not really isolate what instrument is
being discussed. The second reason is that you have not
really given a checklist of steps that you took to find yourself
with the apparent bug. For example, it may take certain
conditions for the airspeed indicator to not work, conditions
you may cause without thinking about based on your airplane
selection, weather, etc.

In the Corvette analogy above, the proper report to GM would

be:

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 1. I got in my car.

2. I hit the starter button, the engine started, and I put the
transmission in first gear.

3. I hit the gas and turned the wheel and drove until I hit a
tree, which stopped me.

4. The speedometer in the instrument panel indicated zero.

5. I included a picture I took on my digital camera here,

showing both the speedometer indicating zero and the car
actually stopped.

In the X‑Plane world, a proper checklist for the report would

look like this:

1. I renamed my preferences file so I did not have any odd

settings that may cause this that we might not know
about.

2. I fired up X‑Plane on my computer running [some

operating system].

3. I went to the File menu and opened the “Austin’s Personal

Transport” aircraft.

4. I noticed the EFIS airspeed indicator stayed at zero, no

matter how fast I flew.

5. I included a screenshot of X‑Plane showing the panel

here, with the actual speed of the plane shown using the
Data Output screen to show my real speed.

The difference between the five-lined report above and the

one-liner at the top is that you have actually told us what you
are doing. You are starting by resetting the preferences so

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 that we can do the same as you (a first step toward solving
the problem!). You are telling us what aircraft you are opening
(so we can do the same). You are choosing one of the planes
that come with X‑Plane (so we can do the same as you), and
you are listing which of X-Plane’s dozens of speed indicators
you are referring to, so we can see what the problem really is.

To summarize, be sure to give a complete checklist to

duplicate the issue, starting with deleting the preferences and
choosing an airplane that comes with X‑Plane so that we can
go through the same steps as you. Err on the side of sending
too much information, rather than too little! We must be able
to mirror your actions, step by step, to duplicate the bug on
our computers, as this is the first step to solving the problem.

Another common mistake, though, is to say something like, “I

flip a switch and hit a button and an indicator goes to 56%.”
The problem with this is that it doesn’t tell us what the issue
actually is. What do you think the indicator should go to? And,
above all, prove it.

In almost all filed bug reports, the report lacks any sort of
proof that the value being cited as wrong is actually wrong.
Since we sometimes get reports from people that think a
Cessna cannot roll, an airliner cannot take off without flaps, or
a helicopter cannot turn without pulling collective (all incorrect
assumptions on the part of the “bug” reporter). We need
proof that a characteristic that is claimed to be wrong actually
is. Segments of pilot’s operating handbooks are typically just
fine.

So, be sure to include proof that a characteristic of the

simulator is wrong if you believe it to be so.

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 Another very common error is for people to install plug-ins
that modify data in the simulator, third-party scenery
packages that don’t quite follow the standards, or third-party
airplanes that may have problems, and then report it as a
“bug” when something does not work correctly.

We won’t be able to duplicate the problem if it is due to third-

party modifications. So, be sure that starting from a freshly
installed copy of X‑Plane with the preferences (and any plug-
ins) removed is the first item in your step-by-step
walkthrough for recreating the problem. Build up from there
as needed, including each step in the checklist so that we can
go through it and see the same thing you see. Use only
scenery and planes that come with X‑Plane if possible, so that
we can duplicate the bug.

Once again, be sure to:

1. Use a checklist to explain what you are doing, starting

with renaming the preferences and removing add ons.

2. Include every step in the checklist that you send in your

bug report.

3. Use proper terminology. If you do not know the name of

an instrument, then go into Plane Maker and click on it
with the mouse. The X‑Plane instrument name will be
displayed at right. Alternatively, you can get the real
name of the instrument by turning on the instrument
instructions option (by going to the Settings screen,
clicking General, and checking the Show instrument
instructions in the cockpit box).

4. Explain why you think the result you are seeing is wrong.
Provide proof if you think the simulator is not doing what

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 the real plane would do.

Remember, a bad report would say, “The pressure gauge does

not work.” (Which pressure gauge? Why do you think it does
not work? What do you expect it to show? What plane are you
even flying?)

A good report would say, “On a Mac running MacOS Monterey,

I renamed the preferences and opened [an aircraft included
with X-Plane] via the File menu, then I set the controls as
follows, then I observed the manifold pressure gauge to
indicate manifold pressure of zero as I advanced the power,
though in the real plane I would get 25” of manifold pressure
in this plane, as I know from the following excerpt from the
plane’s pilot’s operating handbook."

That report indicates what type of computer you are using,

what you do to get the problem (in a way that lets us
perfectly mirror it), what you think the problem is, and it
gives proof that what you believe about the plane is in fact
true. That is enough info for us to work with!

Also, be sure to send the ‘log.txt’ file! This lists what type of
computer you have. Hardly anyone even thinks to mention
whether they are on Mac, Windows, or Linux!

Glossary of Terms
Working with the Program Itself
Download: To download something means to get files from
some remote server on the Internet and receive those files on
your computer. Users can download lots of airplanes and

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 scenery packages for X‑Plane from the Internet. Downloading
is receiving files from the Internet; it is not the same as
installing those files.

Install: To install something is to move a copy of the

software onto your computer so that it can be run. When you
get a DVD with X‑Plane on it, you run the installer to install
the program from the DVD—this is not downloading the
program. It is installing it. You would only be downloading the
program if the files were coming from the Internet (though
once such files were downloaded, you would install them to
have them ready for use).

Update: To update a piece of software is to convert it to a

newer version. This should be done every couple months or so
in order to take advantage of new features in the simulator. To
update in X-Plane, a user first downloads and then installs a
newer version. The updater program (available for free at X-
Plane.com) does both of these things for you very easily.

Controls in an Aircraft
Anti-torque pedals: In a helicopter, the anti-torque pedals
are the foot pedals which modify the collective pitch of the tail
rotor. Because the helicopter’s throttle governor keeps the
rotors turning at a constant RPM, changing the pitch also
changes the thrust generated by the rotor, so the tail rotor
can swing the helicopter’s tail to the left or right. This is
referred to as yaw motion.

Collective: In a helicopter, the collective is the lever that

modifies the collective pitch of the main rotor’s blades. It is
called “collective” because the pitch of all the blades is
modified at the same time. Because the engine keeps the

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 rotor moving at a constant RPM, increasing the rotor blades'
pitch with this control will also increase their lift.

Cyclic: The control (a joystick in real life) which changes the

pitch of the main rotor’s blades as they go through each cycle,
used to steer the craft left, right, forward, or aft.

Joystick: A control device used in aircraft. It consists of a

base with a handle attached to it. The handle can be tiled
around within the base to control the pitch and roll movement
of the aircraft. Computer joysticks often have the ability to
twist the handle to control yaw movement also. Real airplanes
have either a joystick or a yoke to control them, while
helicopters are controlled with joysticks only.

Rotor: The rotating part of a helicopter that generates the

craft’s lift; similar in appearance to an oversized airplane
propeller, though different in its operation.

Rudder pedals: Foot pedals in an airplane used to steer the

plane down the runway and to control its yaw motion in flight
(that is, the wagging of its tail left or right). This becomes
very useful when starting turns and counter-acting
crosswinds. Note that these are not spelled “petals,” as they
are not named after the fragile leaves of a flower.

Yoke: The yoke, named after a wooden device draped across

oxen to tow things, is the “steering wheel” of the airplane. It
is used to steer the plane in flight by dipping the wings up or
down and by pulling the nose up and pushing it down. Note
that this is not spelled “yolk,” as it is not named after the
center of an egg.

Movement of an Aircraft

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 Figure G.1: This image illustrates the pitch, roll, and yaw
axes of an airplane (which also apply to helicopters). Thanks
to Wikipedia contributor ZeroOne for releasing this image
under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.

Pitch: Movement of the aircraft’s nose up or down (illustrated

in Figure G.1).

Roll: Movement of the aircraft’s body along the line formed

by its body; in an airplane, this is easily seen as the dip or
rise of the wings (illustrated in Figure G.1).

Yaw: Movement of the aircraft’s body left or right, most

easily pictured as a wagging of the aircraft’s tail (illustrated in
Figure G.1).

Other Aviation Terms

Above Ground Level (AGL): When holding an altitude
requested by air traffic control, a pilot will hold an altitude
AMSL (above mean sea level). This lets the pilot stay at a
constant level while flying. In order to avoid a horrific and
instant death, however, pilots should be aware of their

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 altitude AGL (above ground level) as well! The altimeter in the
aircraft works on air pressure, so it measures the altitude
above sea level, so awareness of minimum allowable altitudes
in one’s region is always needed in order to stay at least that
high. The radio altimeter measures the height above the
ground (AGL). Most planes, however, do not have these
installed. This is increasingly okay, though, because in theory
a pilot can follow the en route and approach charts, which list
safe MSL altitudes, and more and more planes have moving
maps that clearly show the terrain elevation, so pilots can be
sure that their elevation is safe.

Airspeed indicator (ASI): The ASI is driven by the pressure

of the air impacting a little tube on the nose or wing of the
plane. More pressure means the craft is moving faster. See
the discussion in the “Indicated airspeed (IAS)” entry below.

Air Traffic Control (ATC): The body governing aircraft

operations in a given airspace. Altitude: An aircraft’s altitude
is its height above sea level. This is typically displayed on the
aircraft’s altimeter, which is driven by air pressure.

Automatic Direction-Finder (ADF): An old-style navigation

device that points a needle at a transmitter on the ground.
These are not used much any more because with GPS
navigation, the idea of going to pre-defined points (like
picking up bread-crumbs to find one’s way home) is
disappearing. The GPS will take pilots all the way to where
they want to go in a straight line, not a zig-zag like would be
achieved in flying from one navigation transmitter to another
with an ADF.

Back Course (BC): This is the part of the ILS that goes
beyond the touch-down zone. Read all about it in Chapter 7,

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 Navigation, Autopilots, and Flying on Instruments.

Course Deviation Indicator (CDI): This instrument (part of

the OBI or HSI) displays which direction the aircraft needs to
turn in order to intercept the VOR course. This is discussed in
Chapter 7, Navigation, Autopilots, and Flying on Instruments.

Density altitude: As the temperature of the air increases, its

density decreases. The barometric pressure can vary based on
a number of other factors, too, so at sea level on a hot, low-
pressure day, the density of the air may be the same as
standard air density at 10,000 feet up in the air! This is a
10,000 foot density altitude. This means there is less air for
the engines, less air for the propeller, and less air for the
wings. All of this adds up to say that it will take the aircraft
longer to get off the ground.

Distance Measuring Equipment (DME): An instrument

used in navigation which measures distance using the delay
between the sending and receiving of a radio signal. Aircraft
use this to determine their distance from a fixed NAVAID.

Drag: The aerodynamic force (created by a fluid such as air

flowing around an object) that slows the object’s motion.

Electronic Flight Instrument System (EFIS): A flight

instrument system (found in an air- craft’s panel) with
electronic displays rather than the mechanical gauges of a
standard panel.

Go Around (GA): An autopilot mode that raises the nose in a

wings-level attitude and calls for lots of power in order to get
back to altitude after a botched landing approach).

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 Glide slope (G/S): The angle at which an aircraft
approaches (or needs to approach) a runway; often used
when discussing navigation by instruments. See Chapter 7 for
more information.

Global Positioning System (GPS): A form of navigation

using data from satellites.

Heading (HDG): An aircraft’s heading is the direction that its

nose is pointing. This is also a mode in the autopilot that lets
the pilot hold a pre-defined heading, typically magnetic. A
magnetic heading is heading to the magnetic north pole,
something a hair different than true north, which is a
geographic heading that will take one to the true geographic
North Pole. Remember, since the magnetic north pole is
separated from the geographic north pole by a bit, true and
magnetic heading are not typically the same! They may be off
by 5 or 10 degrees in the medium latitudes. The difference
between the true and magnetic north poles is called the
magnetic variation.

Hold (HLD): Pressing this button will engage the autopilot in

altitude hold mode. See the Autopilots section of Chapter 7
for more information.

Horizontal Situation Indicator (HSI): This instrument is

found in the panel of many aircraft in X‑Plane. It serves the
same function as an OBI—that is, it indicates course
deviation. See Chapter 7 for more information.

Instrument Flight Rules (IFR): The procedure for flying an

aircraft based solely on the craft’s instrument panel.
Environmental conditions requiring such flight (such as the
poor visibility on a rainy day) are referred to as IFR
conditions. This is contrasted with VFR conditions (those

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 operating under visual flight rules). In bad weather or above
18,000 feet, pilots need to fly by Instrument Flight Rules,
following their instruments and air traffic control instructions
carefully to avoid hitting the ground or other planes, or going
off course.

Instrument Landing System (ILS): A ground-based

system for guiding approaching aircraft into the runway via
radio signals. See the Chapter 7 for more information.

Instrument Meteorological Conditions (IMC): When

pilots are in clouds or rain and cannot see out the window,
they are required to fly by IMC rules. In such conditions, they
need to be on an instrument flight plan.

Indicated airspeed (IAS): The presumed airspeed of a craft

as determined by measuring the pressure acting on a little
tube attached to the craft which points into the wind. This
differs from true airspeed in situations where the air has very
little density (for example, at 80,000 feet in an SR-71
Blackbird or in orbit in the Space Shuttle). This error, though,
can be useful, because if there is less pressure pushing on the
airspeed indicator, then there is also less pressure pushing on
the wings of the aircraft. Therefore, the airspeed indicator
tells how much air pressure is available for the props and
wings (which is what a pilot really cares about, as more
pressure gives more lift and drag). So, if a pilot is going 120
mph in thin air, but the pressure is only strong enough to
measure 100 mph on the airspeed indicator, then that means
the aerodynamic pressure on the wings is only 100 mph-
worth of pressure! It is this pressure that determines how
much lift and drag the wings can put out.

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 Lift: The aerodynamic force (created by a fluid such as air
flowing around an object) that pushes an object upward.

Localizer (LOC): A localizer is part of an instrument landing

system (ILS). It serves as a lateral (left and right) guide to
the centerline of the runway.

Mach speed: The speed of sound through the air. Mach’s

number actually describes the speed of sound through any
fluid (that is, liquid or gas). In application to aeronautics,
though, it is implied that the fluid is air. Note that this number
is dependent on a number of factors, such as temperature,
humidity, and pressure. Generally, “Mach 1” is cited as 768
miles per hour (the speed of sound at sea level in dry air at
68◦ Fahrenheit).

NAV: Short for “navigate.” This is an autopilot mode that

follows an ILS, localizer, VOR, or GPS path. See Chapter 7 for
more information.

NAVAID: A navigation aid transmitter (typically a VOR, NDB,

or ILS) which is used as a reference when flying. These are
often found on or near an airport, but they can also be
scattered between airports to use as node points in an airway.
Pilots often fly from NAVAID to NAVAID on long flights, as a
VOR is only usable from about 50 miles away. See Chapter 7
for more information.

Non Directional Beacon (NDB): See the ADF note above.

Omni-Bearing Indicator (OBI): This instrument, used for

navigation, is found in most general aviation aircraft. It
consists of a moving arrow (called the course deviation
indicator, or CDI) which points the way to whatever VOR
frequency is tuned in the navigation radio. The instrument is

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 set using the Omni-Bearing Selector (or OBS), the knob in its
lower left corner. A more expensive version of this is an HSI.
See Chapter 7 for more information.

Rotations per minute (RPM): a way of measuring the

speed of a rotor or propeller. In a helicopter, the RPM of both
the main rotor and the tail rotor are held constant.

Speed: The change in the position of an object over time;

unlike velocity, speed does not take into account the direction
of the object’s movement.

Thrust vector: The direction in which the engine or rotor’s

thrust is going; for a helicopter sitting on a helipad with its
controls at neutral, this is straight down.

Thrust vectoring: The ability of helicopters and some other

aircraft (such as the Harrier or the F-22) to change the
direction of the thrust from its engines/rotors.

V-airways (victor airways): Victor airways are the pre-

charted airways that are defined by a series of VORs. Pilots fly
from VOR to VOR until they reach their destination, thereby
staying on a V-airway. Each segment of the V-airway
thoughtfully lists the minimum altitude that pilots can fly that
airway segment with to avoid crashing.

Velocity: The combination of an object’s speed and the

direction of its movement; for example, an aircraft might have
a vertical velocity of 500 feet per minute (meaning it moves
upward at a rate of 500 feet per minute) or a vertical velocity
of -500 feet per minute (meaning it moves downward at 500
feet per minute).

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 Velocity of Flap Extension (Vfe): This is the maximum
speed at which the aircraft can deploy its flaps without
damaging or breaking them.

Visual Flight Rules (VFR): This is flying done using a

combination of the pilot’s view of the outside world and the
aircraft’s instruments. Environmental conditions permitting
such flight (such as a sunny day with 10 mile visibility) are
referred to as VFR conditions. It is assumed in such conditions
that pilots are always able to see out the window well enough
to avoid collisions with terrain and other aircraft. To use visual
flight rules, one typically needs about 3 miles visibility and to
stay about 1000 feet from the clouds.

Visual Meteorological Conditions (VMC): These are

environmental conditions suitable for flying by sight (VFR).

Very high frequency Omnidirectional Range (VOR): This

is a type of NAVAID that sends out signals that pilots can
follow to get to or from the transmitter. While an NDB simply
lets the aircraft’s ADF needle point right to it, the VOR actually
lets pilots fly to the station along a programmed radial. So, for
example, rather than just “flying to the VOR,” a pilot can be
sure to fly to the VOR along the 090 radial (from the east),
guaranteeing his or her location to be along an airway for the
entire trip to the VOR. Once the airway is charted, the aircraft
will be over mapped terrain height for the entire trip, and
course corrections can be made quickly to stay on the desired
radial. Light airplanes often track these VOR signals using an
Omni-Bearing Indicator, or OBI, while more expensive craft
often use a Horizontal Situation Indicator, or HSI. See Chapter
7 for more information.

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 Velocity Never Exceed (Vne): This is the maximum speed
that a given airplane can go. Going faster than Vne can result
in “structural damage,” or in extreme cases, death.

Velocity Normal Operating (Vno): This velocity should not

be exceeded unless the air is very smooth. Even then, it
should be exceeded “with extreme caution,” as the operating
handbooks say.

Vertical Speed/Velocity Indicator (VSI or VVI): By

looking at how fast the air pressure is changing, the VSI
deduces how quickly the aircraft must be climbing or
descending.

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