Serious simulators--they can teach you to fly

Flight Journal, Aug 2001 by Lert, Peter S

What Fly! Version II lacks, unfortunately, are two features that are a sine qua non for a training package: the ability to simulate instrument or systems failures and the ability (apart from a limited "instant replay" mode) to analyze your flight track after you've completed a flight. These may come in a patch, and if they do, Fly!, with its range of aircraft from a simple four-place, fixed-gear trainer through a Bell 407 helicopter to the Hawker 800 jet (with fully functional EFIS, FMS and other avionics) should be a real contender. Like Flight Simulator, Fly! features "open architecture" that allows third parties to produce aircraft and scenery. As with Flight Simulator, these add-ons can easily be found on the Web at http://www .godgames.com/main .php?section=games&game=fly2.

X-plane

Laminar Research

X-plane modestly claims to be "the world's most comprehensive and powerful flight simulator with the most realistic flight model available for personal computers." X-plane's designer, Austin Meyers, backs up these words with a stunning product. It's all the more remarkable because he programmed the product almost entirely on his own. He uses exactly the same software methodology as is used by major aircraft manufacturers and NASA to model aircraft performance, and you can buy the whole thing, including the programs to build your own aircraft and scenery areas, for the princely sum of $39.95!

X-plane's flight model uses a technique called Finite Element Analysis to determine how an aircraft's individual parts (airfoils) will react to the atmosphere (corrected for speed, altitude, temperature, etc.). It then sums these parts (each of which may be subdivided into eight smaller parts) to figure out how the aircraft as a whole will react; it does all of this at least 15 times per second. Because it uses actual engineering calculations instead of values from a table, X-plane can handle almost any kind of aircraft in almost any situation. It is no wonder that between Austin and his many admirers worldwide, there are, by now, probably 1,000 aircraft available for X-plane on the Web. And what aircraft! Everything from ultralights to gliders to all kinds of helicopters (even a couple of autogyros as well as the Osprey tilt-rotor), to the X-15 and the space shuttle. Even a couple of planes designed to fly in the atmosphere of Mars are available (as well, of course, as a Martian terrain to fly over). Every copy of X-plane comes with other programs, such as PartMaker (to design airfoils), PlaneMaker (to put them together into whole aircraft), WorldMaker (to design scenery if you're not satisfied with what's already there) and WeatherBriefer (to import real-time weather from the Web). New aircraft become available at the rate of several per week. The graphics are on a par with the best, and despite the flight model's heavy computing load, Austin has managed to refine both it and its graphics routines. The frame rates remain very good. Obviously, the program runs optimally when using a fast processor, a good graphics card and lots of RAM.