X-Plane for Windows 9.00

3.5 out of 5 stars 3.5 (78 votes)

(June 23, 2008)

Windows 2000/2003/9x/XP / Commercial Demo; $49.50 / 93,630 downloads

X-Plane is a powerful flight simulator with a realistic flight models. Welcome to the world of props, jets, single and multi-engine airplanes, as well as gliders, helicopters and VTOLs such as the V-22 Osprey and AV8-B Harrier. X-Plane comes with about 40 aircraft spanning the aviation industry. Scenery is almost world-wide and you can land at any of over 18,000 airports, as well as test your mettle on aircraft carriers, helipads on building tops, frigates that pitch and roll in the waves, and oil rigs.

X-Plane also has detailed failure-modeling, with 35 systems that can be failed manually or randomly, when you least expect it. You can fail instruments, engines, flight controls, and landing gear at any moment. It is extremely customizable, allowing you to easily create textures, sounds, and instrument panels for your own airplanes that you design or the planes that come with the sim.

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Reviews of X-Plane for Windows

  1. 4 out of 5 stars
    rhy7s

    Reviewing 8.20 (Nov 24, 2005)

    True, it probably would get 5 for a little more usability and if it was a little prettier but they certainly aren't reasons to give this product a 1 star rating Gerwin. Attention to the flight model is the exact reason it CAN be called a flight sim, the simulation of flight being its primary aim. Oh yeah, and if you look into it, there seems to be consensus that a 747 could execute a loop, especially if empty.

  2. 1 out of 5 stars
    Gerwin

    Reviewing 8.20 (Nov 24, 2005)

    There's exactly one thing that's very realistic in this sim: the flight model (if you don't count the fact that you can do loopings in a 747 :) ). The rest looks like MSFS98, and is so utterly NOT immersive, that it doesn't deserve the name flightsim. I don't understand how people can stare themselves so blind at the flight model that they fail to see that the rest of this thing doesn't even try to simulate anything. The planes look like sh*t, the landscape looks like sh*t and is the same where ever you fly, the c***pits don't adapt to your screen resolution, and the for January 2005 promised European Scenery is still not there. Forget it guys, this is nice stuff for aerodynamic geeks, but if you want a flight sim, buy elsewhere.

  3. 5 out of 5 stars
    sn0wflake

    Reviewing 8.20 (Nov 23, 2005)

    I don't use this program but TehMark's remark was just so stupid that I'll give it a rating of 5 to compensate.

  4. 5 out of 5 stars
    ririzarry

    Reviewing 8.20 Beta 8 (Oct 14, 2005)

    Great simulator - the best out there. Its so good, in fact, that the folks over at CarterCopters have used it for their pilot training and another company has hooked this into a full motion simulator for training pilots on some of the larger commercial aircraft. (See X-Plane's page for details).

    Terrorist training tool? That is idiotic at best. What else should we ban because its a "terrorist training tool?"

  5. 4 out of 5 stars
    rhy7s

    Reviewing 8.15 Beta 2 (Jun 10, 2005)

    Betas of X-Plane are released between final versions, obviously the betas show up on ... BetaNews

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