X-Plane 12 Demo

[Bill Bridges]

Laminar Research is offering a free demo of it's new simulator X-plan12. The demo lasts a little over 10 minutes and takes up about 20 gigs of disk space.

https://www.x-plane.com/desktop/try-it/

[Bill Bridges]

I've been trying this and it is nice. The sim can be flown for 15 minutes after it is setup. It is in the KPDX area. Two of the airplanes that it includes are the F-4 and the SR-22. It seems to be very smooth on my system.

[John O'Shaughnessy [FCM]]

I bought X-Plane 11 last year. Runs like a dream on my MacBook Pro laptop with the M1 / Arm chip. I just paid for X-Plane 12 last week. My use-case is primarily instrument training for students, so the whole range of aircraft and "looking out the window" stuff, isn't terribly useful to me.

[Terry Carraway]

I have X-plane 11 installed, with a LogiTech (CH) yoke, throttle quadrant, and rudder pedals (Saitek). It worked well to knock the rust off.

The LogiTech yoke has a bit of stiction, so not ideal. I plan on picking up a HoneyComb Alpha yoke. There is a guy who does a 3D printed push/pull throttle setup, with flap switch. I contacted him about adding a gear switch. There is a commercial push/pull setup, but over $1000. OUCH

There are some add on companies that sell various instruments to customize your panel (G5, Aspen, GPS), and a couple that sell hardware GPS navigations (GS-430/530, STN-650/750) and autopilot controllers (GFC-500).

I just wish someone would model the Mooney 252. How hard is it to tweak a commercial model? There is a J and an Ovation available. The J is the same airframe as mine, but different engine plus mine is turbo.

[Russell Holton]

My use-case is primarily instrument training for students, so the whole range of aircraft and "looking out the window" stuff, isn't terribly useful to me.

To some extent, I'd think that would be useful. If they can stay ahead of a Lear Jet, then their Cessna should be easy-peasy. But yeah, an F-4 probably isn't that useful to you (unless you need to humble a smart-aleck.)