Took another shot at X-Plane

[Bruno Cote]

After reading some of the posts on the X-Plane forum, I decided to take another shot at X-Plane. The first time around, I had found that the controls were way too much sensitive compared to the real world counterpart so I put it aside quickly.

 

I found this time that my computer does not meet minimum specs for version 8 and the sim was actually running at about .5X. I therefore downloaded a demo of version 7.63. I tried two different planes, the default 172 SP and a 177RG Skylane freeware by Daman Thierry (based on a .acf file by Heinz Dziurowitz). I probably had the opportunity to do the traffic pattern 10 times, tweaking the setting in between each run.

 

Initial thoughts were as follows:

 

- The user interface may not be as friendly as FS but it still can be worked reasonably well

- As I experimented, I found some neat features which were not on FS, but could did not get much time to pay much attention to them.

- Although I did the adjustment on the control sensitivity and the flight model, I was fighting with the controls of the aircrafts. I then put wind/turbulence to zero and still had to over-control the aircraft a bit. The elevator trim did not seem to be as effective as I thought it should have been.

 

Therefore, so far, I have not been able to replicate the feeling of the real-world aircraft through X-Plane. Now, I am wondering if this could be for one of the following reasons?

 

- The fact that I was using version 7.63 instead of version 8 ?

- Maybe I did not have a good enough aircraft?

- Maybe I did not fall on the right set of settings for yoke/rudder sensitivity and flight model?

- Perhaps there is a trim effectivemeness setting somehwere which I did not find?

- Perhaps it is another setting which I have overlooked?

 

Just wondering if someone would have any advice in order to enhance my x-plane experience and make it closer to the feeling of a real-world piston aircraft.

 

Could someone recommend me a piston aircraft for which they had a succesful experience. I prefer the C152, C172, C182 or a PA28-180 if at all possible. C182 is my favorite among them.

 

Thanks for your help.

[Wade Williams 877539]

The first time around, I had found that the controls were way too much sensitive compared to the real world counterpart so I put it aside quickly.

 

Joystick sensitivity can be adjusted to your liking. Control tweaking is a black art. One real-world pilot will tweak his controls to all minimums and swear it's accurate while the next real-world pilot will set his controls to all maximum and swear it's accurate. In short, you just have to find the settings that make you comfortable.

 

In theory, X-plane's flight model is better than MSFS, so once you find the sweet spot, it should be as close as it gets for a home simulator. However, I'll let others debate the flight model topic.