Documentation and explanations
X-Plane uses Decimal Degrees in the map view. However, many charts, maps, and geographical descriptions use degrees, minutes, and seconds. When studying navigation and plotting courses, we often need to convert between the two.
Here are two on-line calculators:
Latitude & Longitude Degrees Minutes and Seconds – to – Decimal degrees
Latitude & Longitude Decimal degrees – to – Degrees Minutes and Seconds
If you are a new user of X-Plane, learning to fly properly, and you are confused about how ATC works, X-Plane can help you by showing you how it is done.
Start a new flight from any metropolitan airport (Mid size – not an airstrip but not a large international). Choose a small GA aircraft. Ideally, in an area you are familiar with in real life.
Set the weather to “Marginal VFR Overcast” and precipitation at “Moderate”. Set a wind speed of 16kts at an altitude of 4000ft
Click “A.I. Flies Your Aircraft” from the Flight pull-down menu:
After a while, the aircraft will come to life, and you will see the ATC panel. A.I. will choose a destination airport and will automatically take off, fly the route and land. All you need to do is watch the ATC conversation and see what ATC says, how the AI pilot replies, and then how “he” reacts. It is particularly useful to do this in cloud conditions where you cannot see the ground and quickly lose orientation. Watch how the A.I. pilot relies on instruments and ATC instructions. Watch how quickly the A.I. obeys ATC.
Once the flight is complete, try it yourself without A.I.
Remember to “read back” every communication ATC sends you.
Note – when trying this tip, set the number of A.I. aircraft to zero.
When there are many A.I. Aircraft around, ATC often gets very slow.
Have you ever cursed X-plane and swore that the simulator was not working realistically when making an initial take-off run in a Cessna C172? It seems to do all sorts of ridiculous weaving.
I am not referring to the well-known fact that it pulls to the left and is quite correctly modeled – the spiralling slipstream propwash effect – but it might surprise you that the spongey effect of steering/correction/over-correcting with the nose wildly swerving left and right is also quite realistic. Essentially the reason for this spongey effect is because the real cessna 172 does not have a direct mechanical link to the rudder, but uses a spring-loaded system.
This effect is actually correctly modeled in X-plane despite your screaming at your yoke in frustration!.
For an explanation of what is actually happening, have a look at this article from the Cessna Owner Organization. There you will finally get an explanation for what you might initially have thought is a bad flight model or a faulty peripheral controller.
The solution? Firm but gentle pressure avoiding sharp yoke and pedal movements.
Do you want to learn how to fly the RIGHT way? Well here’s a radical idea. Invest in an 80-year-old book!
I’m not Joking. In my humble opinion, the finest book ever written on the basics of learning to fly was written in 1944.
Title: Stick and Rudder
Author: Wolfgang Langewiesche
You can get a hard copy version from Amazon
No, I don’t get a commission for recommending this – it’s just simply the best of the best
Or borrow it online for free from Internet Archive
Did you know that in addition to the Flight School section on the massive X-Plane.org site, there is a not-so-well-known treasure trove of downloadable tutorials in the downloads section. This section has nearly 300 downloadable tutorials written by .org members who have tried to give back to the community. While some of the tutorials are new “hot off the press”, some are nearly 20 years old but even the old ones retain some wise wisdom, wonderful explanations and great tips. They are not grouped in any particular way and it’s difficult to search because you are “digging for hidden treasure” and don’t necessarily know what to search for. Take the time to browse through this repository, you find it’s well worth it.
Many new pilots get confused between the different types of airspeeds and how they affect your flying and navigation. Here is a concise easy-to-understand article from the Boldmethod site which clearly explains the difference.
Browse around their site for many other useful lessons on aviation topics. Being a teaching site, they are particularly good at explaining aviation concepts in an easy-to-grasp manner.
After each successful flight, X-Plane stores a whole lot of information from the flight of each aircraft you have flown with, which is used as starting data for the next flight. Its worth having a look into this file and see exactly what is saved there. The entries are sometimes somewhat cryptic, but it’s easy to figure them out. You can find this file in the …X-Plane 12\Output\preferences folder.
These entries can happily be changed (It’s just a text file) if you are unhappy with the numbers, or even deleted of they are screwed up. X-Plane will replace anything deleted with it’s default value.
For example, the fuel left over from the previous flight (shown in red), or the payloads (shown in Blue) of a particular aircraft (in this case the Cessna 172) is stored in these lines:
P _weight_and_balance _AircraftLaminarResearchCessna172SPCessna172SPG1000acf {“weight”:{“deicefluid_in_liters”:0.0,”deice_holdover_time_in_minutes”:0.0,”fueltank_weight_in_kilograms”:[39.641891479492188,39.641849517822266,0.0,0.0,0.0,0.0,0.0,0.0,0.0],”oxygen_pressure_in_millibars”:0.0,”payload_weight_in_kilograms”:[41.788509368896484,41.788509368896484,34.190597534179688,34.190597534179688,22.793731689453125,9.4973878860473633]}}
You can either change these values (don’t worry about the numbers after the decimal point),
or simply delete the whole entry and when you begin a flight with that particular aircraft X-Plane will load the aircraft with it’s default fuel (usually half-full tanks) and default payload.
Is VNAV in an airliner FMS the same as in the G1000? The answer is no!
Definitely worth watching.
Since most airports in X-Plane are fitted with fully functional PAPI or VASI lights, the question arises whether it is better to use them or rather use the runway aiming points. Here is a very simple, concise, but beautifully illustrated article on the Boldmethod site (aimed at real-world pilots) that is well worth the 5-minute read. Click here.
