What is X-Plane?
X-Plane is the world’s most comprehensive and powerful flight simulator for personal computers, and it offers the most realistic flight model available.

X-Plane is not a game, but an engineering tool that can be used to predict the flying qualities of fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft with incredible accuracy.

Because X-Plane predicts the performance and handling of almost any aircraft, it is a great tool for pilots to keep up their currency in a simulator that flies like the real plane, for engineers to predict how a new airplane will fly, and for aviation enthusiasts to explore the world of aircraft flight dynamics.

Welcome to the world of props, jets, single- and multi-engine airplanes, as well as gliders, helicopters and VTOLs. X-Plane contains subsonic and supersonic flight dynamics, allowing users to predict the flight characteristics of the slowest aircraft or the fastest. X-Plane also includes more than 30 aircraft in the default installation, spanning the aviation industry and its history. Aircraft included range from the Bell 206 JetRanger and Cessna 172 to the Space Shuttle and the B-2 Bomber. Additionally, more than 1,400 additional aircraft models can be downloaded from the Internet (X-Plane.org, the X-Plane.com Links page, and Google are good places to start looking), many of which are completely free. If those aren’t enough, users can design their own airplanes and test-fly them!

The full X-Plane scenery package covers the Earth in stunning resolution from 74° north to 60° south latitude. On Earth, users can land at any of over 33,000 airports or test their mettle on aircraft carriers, oil rigs, frigates (which pitch and roll with the waves), or helipads atop buildings. They can also realistically model the flight of remote-controlled model aircraft, perform an air-launch in an X-15 or Space Ship One from the mother ship, fly re-entries into Earth’s atmosphere in the Space Shuttle, fly with friends over the Internet or a LAN, drop water on forest fires, or shoot approaches to aircraft carriers at night in stormy weather and rough water conditions in a damaged F-4. The situations that can be simulated are unbelievably diverse!

Weather in X-Plane is variable from clear skies and high visibility to thunderstorms with controllable wind, wind shear, turbulence, and micro bursts. Rain, snow, and clouds are available for an instrument flying challenge, and thermals are available for the gliders. Actual weather conditions can be downloaded from the Internet, allowing users to fly in the weather that really exists at their current location!

X-Plane has detailed failure modeling, with multitudes of systems that can either be failed manually at an instructor’s command, or randomly when users least expect it! Users can fail instruments, engines, flight controls, control cables, antennae, landing gear, or any of dozens of other systems at any moment. They can also have a friend or flight instructor (locally or via the Internet, working from an Instructor’s Operating Station) fail components on the aircraft without the pilot’s knowledge. The instructor can alter the time of day, weather conditions, and failure status of hundreds of aircraft systems and components. Additionally, the instructor can relocate the aircraft to a location of his or her choice at any time.

Aircraft models are also extremely flexible, allowing users to easily create paint jobs, sounds, and instrument panels to modify any airplane you choose. Custom airplane or helicopter designs can even be created and flown using X-Plane and the included Plane Maker software.

X-Plane’s accuracy (in flight model), scope (in aircraft and terrain coverage), versatility (in aircraft type and weather conditions), add-on programs (in aircraft and scenery editors), customizability, downloadable aircraft, and downloadable scenery make it the ultimate flight simulation experience for Macintosh, Windows, and Linux platforms.

Included on the X-Plane DVD:
Plane Maker (to make your own planes and helicopters, if desired)
Airfoil Maker (to make airfoils for your custom aircraft)
X-Plane (the actual flight simulator)

The following aircraft are included on the X-Plane 10 installation discs:
Cirrus Vision SF50
X-15 and X-30 X-Planes
Beechcraft Baron 58
Great Planes PT-60 RC plane
Cessna 172SP
McDonnell Douglas KC-10 Extender
Piaggo P.180 Avanti
Boeing 747-400 and 747-100
Stinson L-5 Sentinel
Bell-Boeing V-22 Osprey
ASK-21 glider
Boeing B-52G Stratofortress
Bell 47 helicopter
Van’s RV-3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10
Beechcraft King Air C90B
Rockwell B-1B Lancer
F-22 Raptor
Viggen JA37
Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird
F-4 Phantom II
Bombardier Canadair CL-415
Bell 206 helicopter
Boeing 777-200
Boeing AV-8B Harrier II
Piper PA-46 Malibu
Sikorsky S-61 helicopter
Northrop B-2 Spirit
Space Shuttle Orbiter
Robinson R22 Beta helicopter
Thunder Tiger Raptor 30 v2 RC helicopter

What’s new in version 10?
The most important additions to X-Plane 10 are:
many high-quality aircraft models with detailed 3-D cockpits,
a brand new system for auto-generating plausible scenery for the entire world,
a new, highly-detailed cloud and weather rendering system,
a flight model with improved accuracy and even greater power,
a completely redone ATC and AI Aircraft system, and
the ability to more fully utilize multi-core CPUs for enhanced realism.
To read about each specific improvement, see the X-Plane Wiki.

X-Plane will take advantage of as many cores or distinct processors as you can afford. Having 16 cores split among 4 CPUs is not required by any means, but Version 10 would be able to use every one. No more than 4 GB of RAM is necessary, but the more VRAM you have, the better–X-Plane 10 can easily use 1.5 GB of VRAM at the maximum settings