Flight Sims revisited a.k.a. FSX vs. X-Plane

For flight sim'ers, the argument of Microsoft's Flight Simulator X versus X-plane is like high-wing vs. low wing for pilots or vi vs. emacs for Unix geeks. If this were some popular blog with hundreds of readers, the comments section on the previous flight sim post would start out with a few well meaning corrections, then laundry lists of the advantages of one over the other, eventually descending to acrimonious discussions of the ancestry and sexual proclivities of opposing posters.

Since it's just me, the things I read and people I talk to, you don't get the encyclopedic lists of features, but I like to think the signal to noise ratio is higher and much less chance of a Jerry Springer-like devolution.

A more accurate metaphor of FSX vs. X-Plane is CD versus vinyl record. FSX is CD's -- ubiquitous, easy to use and pretty darn good. X-Plane is vinyl records -- better fidelity at the cost of a more complex setup and not nearly as easy to use. To extend the metaphor to nearly it's breaking point, the various ipod mp3 players would equate to the Google Earth Flight Simulator.

The X-Plane flyers will generally have more money in equipment, like yokes, multiple monitors and rudder controls instead of tube amplifiers and sub woofers. But here's the hidden truth to the metaphor: the people who are really serious audiophiles will have that turntable AND a CD player. Similarly there is nothing wrong with having FSX and X-Plane installed at the same time. The extra equipment will work on both unless you want run both programs at the same time*. Getting the other flight sim is a cost of about how much it costs to rent a plane for a half hour.

Assuming your airfoils are correct, X-plane will automatically figure out how the craft will fly taking into account Angle-of-attack, air density, and other factors. If you're looking to learn to fly a specific airplane, be it a 747 or the RV-6 you're building in the garage, X-plane is your baby. Your control is far more granular, and you can even have is display critical values on the screen in mid-flight so you can see where the breaking point is that the lift drops off rapidly.

FSX keeps the model design and flight characteristics separate -- it's fairly easy to modify a 747 to give it the flight characteristics of a sailplane. On the other hand, if you're working procedures, FSX gives you a much better interface for practicing the missed approach and talking to ATC or learning how to fly a WAAS approach using the G1000. The simulated planes don't always respond exactly like a real one will in flight and the instruments don' t update as smoothly as X-Plane, but you can actually use the glass-cockpit interface to enter a flight plan and fly it while talking to ATC. If you looking at getting your Instrument rating or higher and are a good VFR pilot, FSX will probably give you more.

FSX is also often dismissed as being all about the pretty graphics, but we are visual creatures. I'll admit animated water fountains on the Las Vegas Strip are simply fluff; however, the terminal buildings at Burlington airport (BTV) are an important visual queue for telling which side is the commercial terminal and FBO and which side has the ANG and all those F-16's and guys with assault rifles who aren't keen on trespassers. In most cases, FSX aircraft are more detailed and polished, including those little switches, knobs and levers in the cockpit actually doing something and are legibly labeled.

To be fair though, I took screen shots of the cockpit of the most basic, common craft I could think of, the Cessna 172 in both programs running at 1280x1024. While as expected, FSX had the better exterior scenery, the graphics of the cockpit interior had bigger instruments but not nearly as sharp as in X-Plane. It turns out that a standard radio in FSX runs 235x90, while X-Plane manages it in 172x56.

If you want to get really serious about using an accurate G1000, GNS 430 or 530, Reality XP offers packages that promise to integrate the official training simulators from Garmin with either X-Plane or FSX. Since the Garmin software simulators are free, there are other, free solutions, which are both kludgey and get complicated, like running the Garmin simulator on another computer.

If you'd got a spare PC or display, there is a big advantage to running it on another screen. The displays just aren't big enough yet to see the whole panel at once and outside. The graphics cards are getting closer all the time, but the screens themselves just aren't getting bigger and denser to allow a sim player to really see the detail needed for operating a GPS without fudging the size up quite a bit. I would guess you're looking at a 36" inch screen (which they make now) and something like 4000x2250 resolution (which is till a ways off).

The GNS 430w has a 3"w x 2"h display that has 240x128 pixels. The 530 is 4"w x 3"h (exactly twice as big) and 320x240 pixels. I mentioned that there are free simulators from Garmin for the 530 and 430. I checked and the "screen sizes" in the simulations are exactly the same sizes.
Here are "life-sized**" captures of the 530 and 430:


Here's the 530 reduced to fit the FSX cockpit:

And even smaller for X-plane:

[For those who are curious, here are the links to see the 530's pasted into the cockpit captures for FSX and X-Plane.]

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* - Now I'm going to have to try that since X-Plane starts in a window instead of full-screen, I'll start of with my C 172 on the ground at my home airport and see if I can take off simultaneously in both programs and how far and fast they drift apart.

** - Actual size depends on the dpi of your screen, but the display on the screen captures have the same number of dots as the actual instrument does in real life. I suspect the proportions of the 530's frame and buttons was fudged out a little bit in the simulator to make it easier to hit the right buttons and turn the right knobs since both the 530 and the 430 are exactly the same width for the whole unit.