My XPlane 11 Flight Simulator Setup & Software

-
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

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Around the World in a (Simulated) Airplane, Part 5 : Northbound Across Hispaniola

-
Image
See the above region on Google maps HOT NEWS!  I'm pleased to a announce the launch of a new YouTube channel called "A rt of Virtual Flight " , with flight-simulator videos that are somewhat longer and more elaborate than most of the short clips featured in the early entries of this blog.  Typically 1-2 mins long, from a number of scenes, with cuts matched to a musical score that I apply.  I had edited video professionally for years – so, time to put that skill to good new uses! A little down the line, I will open the channel to guest submissions ; I'll post guidelines as soon as the direction of the channel is more established... Heading Inland to the North Coast Having reached the south coast of  Dominican Republic  after crossing southern  Hispaniola  in  part 4 , I turn north and slightly backtrack westward (into Haiti) to reach the north coast of the island, the 2nd largest one in the Caribbean. For an overview of the journey, including the pass
Read more

Malta - a Fascinating English-Speaking Island in the Center of the Mediterranean

-
Image
It was a magical time for me, when I was 16 1/2, to go on a 3-week summer study program on the island of Malta - a pivotal moment towards my eventual bilingualism .    My first time abroad on my own. To the astonishment of friends who have grown up in a world of digital cameras, I didn't take a single picture at that time. Ah, the days before handy digital cameras!  Hard to explain to anyone who hasn't lived thru them!  Teenage me didn't feel like lugging around a heavy, pricey camera that needed expensive film - film to carry, safeguard and later spend more money I didn't have on developing...  Assuming that my dad would have loaned his camera to me in the first place! So, how to illustrate this grand adventure?  Well, I managed to pull off the Internet a number of images that adequately match my memory of the place.  Theses are NOT generic images - they are images that best approximate Malta, as close as possible to the way I remember it. The capital - Valletta I arr
Read more