9.2 How I Use X-Plane 11

In the past 20 years, home simulators running on relatively affordable personal computers have reached levels realism and detail that the computer nerds of the 1980s could only dream of. And while simulators obviously cannot replicate all aspects of flying planes in real life, the parts that they can do, they do very well, at a fraction of the cost, and without risking life or limb. 

Two simulators dominate the desktop market: Microsoft Flight Simulator (MSFS) and X-Plane. Without wading into the Internet flame wars about which platform is better, I will just say that I prefer X-Plane because of its focus on physics and extensibility.

How I use X-Plane -11 

In 2021, I picked up a copy of the X-Plane 11 from Steam for $47 CAD. I paired it with a $20 CAD joystick I found on sale at Canada Computers and installed it onto an inexpensive gaming laptop running Windows 10. Installation with Steam was straightforward. 

My goals with X-Plane are simple:

1. I only want to fly the Boeing 737-800 

2. I want to hand-fly a couple of fun instrument approaches every month 

3. I want to fly short flights not longer than one hour 

4. I want to use the ‘real world weather’ feature in X-Plane 

5. I want to use X-Plane out-of-box as much as possible 

Some explanation for the last point: X-Plane and MSFS both have extensive marketplaces offering professionally developed addon content like aircraft, scenery, navigation data, and so forth. However, being a lazy individual, I do not want to start sinking effort and money into installing, harmonizing and maintaining various addon packages. 

There is one hiccup to my goals: flight planning. Out-of-box, the 737-800 in X-Plane 11 comes with two supports for flight planning:

1. The FMS: The Flight Management System (FMS) in the cockpit can generate flight routes for a given origin and destination

2. Load Sheets: The Fuel Calculation section in the Pilot Operating Manual has suggested fuel amounts for various combinations of payload and flight time. 

These are useful but have the following limitations:

• The default FMS can produce a routing from A to B, but does not compute flight times or fuel burns

• The load sheets assume you know the flight time a priori; the flight time is difficult to estimate in a non-zero wind situation 

• Rates of climb and descent are closely tied to aircraft mass; neither the FMS nor the load sheets can accurately tell me where I will reach top of climb and where I should start my descent 

Because of these limitations, and not wanting to use a 3rd party flight planning tool, I decided to build my own.