flight sim

Pro · Post by **Pro** » Sat Sep 17, 2011 10:44 am

Any suggestions for a flight sim for a Mac computer?

Just for IFR practice in a turboprop.

notabus · Post by **notabus** » Sat Sep 17, 2011 11:35 am

X-Plane is brilliant on the Mac. Use mine for IFR recurrency all the time.

fingersmac · Post by **fingersmac** » Sat Sep 17, 2011 11:39 am

I think there's only one available: X-Plane.

moocow · Post by **moocow** » Sat Sep 17, 2011 2:32 pm

Don't buy X-Plane just yet. New release coming around Christmas!

YYZatcboy · Post by **YYZatcboy** » Sun Sep 18, 2011 4:31 am

Or Buy X-Plane now for $30 and enjoy it until next summer which is when the new release will likely be more or less stable if they release at xmas. If you like X-Plane then, by all means buy 10, but for 30$ its kind of hard to go wrong getting 9 now. Plus the new release will likely be around $100 USD when it comes out.

you can check out more at www.x-plane.org and www.x-plane.com

Feel free to message me for more information about X-Plane as well.

(Disclaimer: I am very active in the X-Plane community as well as being a part time Payware developer for X-Plane so make of my post what you will.)

moocow · Post by **moocow** » Sun Sep 18, 2011 1:19 pm

Ah damn it! Is it summer 2012 instead of Christmas 2011 for X-Plane 10?

C-GGGQ · Post by **C-GGGQ** » Sun Sep 18, 2011 4:58 pm

So there seems to be two camps. One for Microsoft Flight Sim (and possibly the new Microsoft Flight though admittedly not for Mac's) and one for X-plane. Has anyone on here used both? If so why pick one over the other out of curiosity?

Nark · Post by **Nark** » Sun Sep 18, 2011 7:36 pm

I recently became a hippy and bought a Macbook, so it looks like X-plane is the only sim available.
I used to play around on Flight sim X while stationed overseas and unable to fly. Since coming back to North America 5 years ago, I haven't touched it.

With that said, I'm willing to give it away (sort of) to anyone who wants it. (Flight Sim X plus the expansion pack)

Donate $20 to Avacanada, and $5 to cover the shipping, and it's all yours.

(can someone verify that their is only has 2 disk's?) I'm not sure if I'm missing one, or more.

iflyforpie · Post by **iflyforpie** » Sun Sep 18, 2011 8:20 pm

I use X-Plane 9 on both my iMac and my iPhone. Awesome on both.

Don't expect to recognize too many landmarks but the flight modeling is awesome. You can even turn on the force vectors to see what each part of the plane is doing.

moocow · Post by **moocow** » Mon Sep 19, 2011 12:11 am

OK from the website, it does say Christmas 2011 for X-Plane 10.

http://www.x-plane.com/news/

YYZatcboy · Post by **YYZatcboy** » Mon Sep 19, 2011 3:56 am

Yes, but that will be the first public beta, which they sell as a 'Release' and then have periodic updates. From my experience (with 5 version updates and all the minor ones) with the sim you won't see a stable release until April/May. That's not to say that the sim won't be any good, but Laminar Research gives it's users the option to be beta testers for all of it's releases.

So yes you can buy it in December, but it won't be stable till close to summer as they work out all the bugs.

daedalusx · Post by **daedalusx** » Mon Sep 19, 2011 10:33 am

Xplane sucks.

Install bootcamp, windows 7 x64, and install FSX with the SP2, purchase the realair duke if you want piston twin or the turbine duke if you want to practice PT6s and RealityXP's incredible 430/530w simulator and you'll be set to practice IFR, flight plans, VNAV, GNSS Approaches, on all Canadian Airports, you can even update the Garmin's AIRAC to the latest navdada (I'm running 11/10 and it has the new LPV R24 at YQB).

This is what it looks like in high res. And these screenshots are ugly compared to the real game because they loose all sharpness in the jpeg compression.

On approach, AP ON, FD ON
http://img87.imageshack.us/img87/7935/newpicture1q.jpg

GS intercepted, FD ON, AP OFF

http://img577.imageshack.us/img577/1861 ... ture2b.jpg

RH engine failure, feathering and securing.

http://img651.imageshack.us/img651/6519 ... ture3v.jpg

Runway lights in sight.
http://img98.imageshack.us/img98/3998/newpicture4.jpg

Nice view of CYQB in fog/imc
http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/5448/newpicture5.jpg

YYZatcboy · Post by **YYZatcboy** » Mon Sep 19, 2011 10:52 am

Have you ever seriously tried X-Plane? It's been my experience that people who say blanket statements like X-Plane sucks have never really tried it.

I've seriously tried FSX and still prefer X-Plane. They both have their good points. I like x-plane. It runs better, feels better and gets better performance than FSX on my Imac. There is very little in FSX that I can't do in X-Plane either now or in the very near future.

Beefitarian · Post by **Beefitarian** » Mon Sep 19, 2011 10:54 am

Ok, sorry to anyone with a 486 on dial up or whatever.

daedalusx · Post by **daedalusx** » Mon Sep 19, 2011 10:58 am

YYZatcboy wrote:Have you ever seriously tried X-Plane? It's been my experience that people who say blanket statements like X-Plane sucks have never really tried it.

I've seriously tried FSX and still prefer X-Plane. They both have their good points. I like x-plane. It runs better, feels better and gets better performance than FSX on my Imac. There is very little in FSX that I can't do in X-Plane either now or in the very near future.

Of course I did. I program and modify addons/cockpits on both platforms. There is a reason why there is almost no community for Xplane.

Beefitarian,
I wouldn't quote these screenshots, it may hang the browser of someone without the bandwitdth.

YYZatcboy · Post by **YYZatcboy** » Mon Sep 19, 2011 11:04 am

Funny. Just one english language forum for X-Plane has 174100 members. Sure we may be a small community, but we are still there and growing every day. Which X-Plane addons have you worked on?

To the OP, If you want to know what it is like, download and check out the free demo. To each their own.

daedalusx · Post by **daedalusx** » Mon Sep 19, 2011 11:23 am

YYZatcboy wrote:Funny. Just one english language forum for X-Plane has 174100 members. Sure we may be a small community, but we are still there and growing every day. Which X-Plane addons have you worked on?

To the OP, If you want to know what it is like, download and check out the free demo. To each their own.

I was talking about the addon/commercial community. Spend 10 minutes in the PMDG 737 NGX virtual cockpit at the KBOS Gate and you'll never want to touch Xplane again.

My xplane experience is pretty dim, I worked on some personal projets for fellow pilots and myself, modifying of the shelf/addons to fit my sets of gauges, mostly on the Kingairs b200, p-180 avanti, 337 cockpits to include 530/430 gauges, Sandel TAWS, full feather with saitek quadrants, trying to tune the AS350 physics to match the real thing and it was really just too much time/trouble compared the FSX/FS9 with FSUIPC and simconnect and the almightly panel.cfg. Perhaps I'm biased because I've played with the FS platform since FS98 (I was 12 at that time). My helo instructor didn't believe me when I told him that one of the reason I could hover on all 3 axes on my first Hu30 flight having never flow even a glider was the time I spent in flight sims, or maybe it was just dumb luck.

Carrier · Post by **Carrier** » Mon Sep 19, 2011 11:59 am

The system requirements on the X-Plane website assume that all would-be users have late model Macs. Where is the version for those who have older computers?

I have and am very satisfied with a 2005 iBook G4. I bought it used in April last year from a store that sells reconditioned laptop computers. It has a 1.33 GHz cpu, 1 GB of memory and 32 MB VRAM. It's size is convenient and it does all I need except for having a flight sim. I would like to use a flight sim on this for IFR practice.

I previously had a Toshiba laptop. I still have MSFS2002 and a CH Products control yoke which I used on the Toshiba. I found this to be an excellent combination for IFR practice until the laptop expired two years ago. It was a great help with keeping my scan and IFR procedures/mindset at a suitable level. It was useful to be able to try all the approaches and missed approach procedures at a forthcoming new destination before actually flying there. On a couple of occasions when flying in Africa it even helped me with flight planning when there was no (or "inadequate") information available from the civil aviation agencies or other sources.

I would like to be able to do the same on my iBook. The control yoke will work on it so all I need is a flight sim. It seems that X-Plane's makers have abandoned those of us who do not have the very latest computers. They should have a simplified version or an older release available for our market.

The alternative which I would prefer to avoid would be to buy a used Windoze laptop and reactivate the MSFS2002. I would not be able to take two laptops with me so this would only be of use when I am at home. I think the X-Plane makers could pick up some useful extra business if they had a suitable version for older computers. There should not be any development costs so it would all be profit.

YYZatcboy · Post by **YYZatcboy** » Mon Sep 19, 2011 12:06 pm

Simplest way to find out how X-Plane will perform on your system is to download the free demo from X-plane.com

Louis · Post by **Louis** » Sat Sep 24, 2011 9:09 pm

Carrier: Flight simulation is one of those kinds of softwares where you can throw every last hardware upgrade available and not have the settings all to the max.

In your case, iirc X-Plane 8 still ran on PowerPC Macintoshes. You should be able to order a copy online for not too much.

iflyforpie · Post by **iflyforpie** » Sat Sep 24, 2011 10:32 pm

The iBook G4 was never a good graphics performer--the TiBooks (Power Book G4s) were much better, but perhaps with the RAM upgrade it might work. I ran X-Plane 9 on an iMac G5 1.8GHz and the bone-stock 250MB of RAM and it got a bit chunky with everything set on the medium. My on my current iMac (Core 2 Duo 2.66 GHz, 2GB RAM) it is excellent with all of the graphics turned way up except for doing really high speed stuff.

But for IFR, you don't need any of that. Turn all of the scenery and and graphics way down, set vis to minimum and get rid of those complex clouds and the frame rate should be acceptable.

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