My XPlane 11 Flight Simulator Setup & Software

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UPDATED May 2021.  

Several people asked me...  so, I quickly put together a brief description.

COMPUTER

A fairly high end desktop that I put together myself.  Details.


GPU

I splurged on a high end GPU in Dec. 2018 : Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2080 Gaming OC 8G   Manufacturer's page
I have been quite pleased with it.


Yoke and Controls


Quite pleased with the all-in-one "CH Products Eclipse Yoke with 144 Programmable Function".

Available from Amazon.

I actually like having thumb-controlled rudder pedals....

Tons of handy programmable buttons.




Software

XPlane 11.  Be careful not to accidentally get the DVD version, unless that's what you want, because it does NOT include a license for the downloadable version.  (The manufacturer of XPlane 11 was of zero help, and I had to re-buy the software!!)

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020.  Will start to make an appearance in an upcoming blog entry.


Add On's for XPlane 11

1) Airspaces   (Version 2.6.0)
Free and worth its weight in gold!  It frees you from the limitations of the absurdly minimalist charts provided by XPlane, and lets you see your course on Google Maps.  It works best if you have a separate laptop or pad for the map.
Download and install the desktop version of Airspaces from https://airspaces.app/


2) Ortho4XP   (v. 1.30)
A pain to install and use.  Steep learning curve!  But it makes small lakes, rivers and coastlines look much more realistic, at the expense of a few artifacts (primarily some oddball-looking flooded areas.)

Check out my video comparing side-by-side with-and-without Ortho4XP, through a variety of landscapes.

MAY 2020 UPDATE:  Ortho4XP rocks, and it was a game changer for vastly more beautiful scenery when I returned to the fairly flat Turks & Caicos Islands in the Caribbean.


Download it from this Google Drive (ignore the error message and click on the Download button), and plan on watching at least an hour of how-to tutorials for learning how to install and use it: not for the faint of heart!

As soon as I clean up my how-to-use notes, I'll post them.  For now, here are 4 excellent, and recent, tutorials that helped me (all based on the newest v. 1.30):



LIST OF ALL EPISODES of my flying-around the-world blog

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