X-Plane manual

Why X-Plane?

So you need to keep your instrument flying skills up to date and you don't relish paying $100.00/hour to keep going up with instructors for instrument currency?

Maybe you want to see what it is like to fly an airliner but you're not a professional pilot so you can't get your hands on a Boeing for real? So you fly a Glasair homebuilt and you've noticed that there are no instrument trainers for your airplane?

Maybe you don't need instrument training, but just want to fly the Glasair on the sim a few times before you take it up for real for the first time!

Maybe you're getting your helo lessons and want to practice hovering in the R-22 to get your hovering and helo airmanship skills up to speed before your first solo, or even before your next flight.

Maybe you want to design and test-fly your own aircraft concept, perhaps before building and flying it for real?

Maybe you love flying, can't get enough of it, and want to fly the sim when you're not in the real plane?

Maybe you're not a pilot, you just like flying on the PC, and want the best sim for it.

If you want any of these things or more, X-Plane is for you.

The X-Plane design system is based on the following principals:
=>You measure the dimensions of any airplane.
=>You enter those dimensions into the computer.
=>You fly the airplane on your desktop.

X-Plane was designed to simulate aircraft by using an engineering process called "blade element analysis", a procedure frequently used by engineering companies to predict the performance of aircraft propellers and helicopter rotors. The process is actually quite simple: The propeller or rotor blade is broken down into a number of pieces (usually about 5 to 20), and the exact speed of each "piece" is found by considering the movement of the airplane and the rotation of the propeller. Once the speed and angle of attack of each piece of the propeller are known, the forces on the propeller can be found. X-Plane uses this theory not just on the propeller, but on the entire aircraft. The props, rotors, wings, horizontal stabilizer, and vertical stabilizers are each broken down into several pieces and the forces are found on each piece. These forces are then added up to give the total force on the aircraft. Once the total forces on the aircraft are known, X-Plane can easily determine what the aircraft will do next.

The flight physics of X-Plane are designed to handle subsonic, compressible, and even supersonic flow, so the flight-model is good across a wide range of mach numbers from the 96 knots of the Cessna 152 to the Mach-2.02 flight of the Concorde.

The standard atmosphere is modeled up to 400,000 feet as well, so flight is accurately modeled from the low-and-slow Cessna 172 to the Space Shuttle during re-entry!

Many thousands of airports and NAVAIDS are modeled so you can practice VFR as well as IFR flight.

The Martian (!!!) standard atmosphere and gravity profiles are also available for testing aircraft concepts on the red planet.

(next section)


	So you need to keep your instrument flying skills up to date and you don't relish paying $100.00/hour to keep going up with instructors for instrument currency? Maybe you want to see what it is like to fly an airliner but you're not a professional pilot so you can't get your hands on a Boeing for real? So you fly a Glasair homebuilt and you've noticed that there are no instrument trainers for your airplane? Maybe you don't need instrument training, but just want to fly the Glasair on the sim a few times before you take it up for real for the first time! Maybe you're getting your helo lessons and want to practice hovering in the R-22 to get your hovering and helo airmanship skills up to speed before your first solo, or even before your next flight. Maybe you want to design and test-fly your own aircraft concept, perhaps before building and flying it for real? Maybe you love flying, can't get enough of it, and want to fly the sim when you're not in the real plane? Maybe you're not a pilot, you just like flying on the PC, and want the best sim for it. If you want any of these things or more, X-Plane is for you. The X-Plane design system is based on the following principals: =>You measure the dimensions of any airplane. =>You enter those dimensions into the computer. =>You fly the airplane on your desktop.

X-Plane was designed to simulate aircraft by using an engineering process called "blade element analysis", a procedure frequently used by engineering companies to predict the performance of aircraft propellers and helicopter rotors. The process is actually quite simple: The propeller or rotor blade is broken down into a number of pieces (usually about 5 to 20), and the exact speed of each "piece" is found by considering the movement of the airplane and the rotation of the propeller. Once the speed and angle of attack of each piece of the propeller are known, the forces on the propeller can be found. X-Plane uses this theory not just on the propeller, but on the entire aircraft. The props, rotors, wings, horizontal stabilizer, and vertical stabilizers are each broken down into several pieces and the forces are found on each piece. These forces are then added up to give the total force on the aircraft. Once the total forces on the aircraft are known, X-Plane can easily determine what the aircraft will do next. The flight physics of X-Plane are designed to handle subsonic, compressible, and even supersonic flow, so the flight-model is good across a wide range of mach numbers from the 96 knots of the Cessna 152 to the Mach-2.02 flight of the Concorde. The standard atmosphere is modeled up to 400,000 feet as well, so flight is accurately modeled from the low-and-slow Cessna 172 to the Space Shuttle during re-entry! Many thousands of airports and NAVAIDS are modeled so you can practice VFR as well as IFR flight. The Martian (!!!) standard atmosphere and gravity profiles are also available for testing aircraft concepts on the red planet.