X-Plane has an incredible community of developers and hobbyists who create extensions for the simulator. There are tons of paid options out there of course, but the folks who do it for free are really what makes this community special. It offers the opportunity to create custom aircraft, scenery, utility plugins, and functionality. In this post, I'll review some of my favorite aircraft, plugins and scenery extensions that I've found and actively use.
Aircraft:
Aircraft can make or break the experience you have in the simulator. Don't get me wrong, Laminar has some beautiful default aircraft â the C172 and B737, among others, are extremely well-made. But if you're going to spend hours and hours in the simulator, you should invest in a few high-fidelity aircraft.
Zibo B737-800X
The Zibo Mod for the Laminar 737-800 is one of the best (if not the best) freeware aircraft I've ever seen. It's based on the Laminar Research default 737-8, but adds a whole layer of realism that the default aircraft simply don't have. Included is a re-texture of the cockpit, upgrades to the FMC, much better sounds, and more. It also includes tons of datarefs and commands for home cockpit builders, if that's your thing. Here's the link if you're interested. I highly recommend this to anyone getting started in X-Plane 11 or 12.
Dash 8 Q400 (Q4XP)
The other study-level aircraft in my fleet at the moment is the Dash 8 Q400. It's a fun little propeller plane that I intend to use for shorter regional flights. I haven't had a ton of time to fly it yet, but I'm looking forward to it when I make the time. The plane is very well-made and the attention to detail is excellent. You can find out more about the Q4XP here, it's available for $79.95.
Plugins:
Plugins can make your experience in the simulator more pleasurable and save you lots of time and effort. Whether it's automating pushback, adding more realistic sounds and effects, or connecting to external software, there's a ton of little tweaks you can make to improve your experience.
Better Pushback
I don't know what I'd do without this plugin. To be honest, I think I used to just start the sim with engines running and use thrust reversers out of the gate area. This one is a no-brainer. It allows you to draw a pushback path from your aircraft's current position and set multiple checkpoints along the way. You can then call the tug whenever you're ready. It automatically chooses the appropriate size tug based on your aircraft. Best of all, it's free. Check it out here.
SimCoders HeadShake
Another free plugin that adds a ton of realism to the simulator. This is a massive improvement over the default camera. Different physical situations can affect how the camera moves, including piston-engine revolutions, tilting your camera left or right when taxiing, and G-Force effects when flying. This plugin really makes it feel like you're "part" of the aircraft. Get it from SimCoders.
X-Camera
X-Camera is a massive improvement over the default camera system in X-Plane. It allows you to set infinite views and save them to certain IDs. These IDs can then be bound in the X-Plane keyboard settings. I have 5 or 6 cameras set up for each aircraft and bound to buttons on my joystick. This way I can jump between the Captain's view, FMC, Tablet, Overhead, and Lower Pedestal. It also integrates with Headshake and XPRealistic, and allows these plugins to be disabled for certain camera views. Get it from Stick and Rudder Studios. It's free for a limited version or $18 for the complete plugin.
XPRealistic
XPRealistic v2 is a paid plugin that includes numerous sound and physical effects to increase the immersion of the simulator. It can simulate damage in an overspeed condition, includes improved sounds for different aircraft systems, and more. It even has a feature that will cause you to sneeze randomly, though I disabled that after testing it out. A great plugin that installs easily, gets out of the way and adds to the quality of your simulation. You can get it on X-Plane.org for $34.99.
XChecklist
Another gem from the community, XChecklist helps you follow the correct procedure for starting, taxiing, taking off, cruising, descending, landing, and more in any aircraft. It includes a speaking "copilot" that instructs you to complete certain tasks and listens for those tasks to be completed using datarefs. I love using this in the Zibo 737 especially on departure to make sure I complete each task on the checklist. There are tons of community-made checklists out there for this plugin for any aircraft you might need. After all, this plugin has been around since before v10. You can download it for free from X-Plane.org.
X-RAAS
X-RAAS is a plugin that simulates the Honeywell Runway Awareness and Advisory System. It creates visual and audio cues when approaching runways both on the ground and in the air, lining up on a runway, handling a rejected takeoff, passing the transition altitude, entering the transition altitude, and more. This adds another layer of realism to the simulation as pilots in certain aircraft will have this system available to them. Due to some compatibility issues in X-Plane 12, I had to install a modified version of this plugin. You can download it for free from GitHub. Thanks to "Olivier" for putting in the work on this.
Landing Rate
A simple, free, informative plugin for X-Plane. Landing rate displays a popup on-screen after you complete a landing with a rating. It takes various values like descent rate at touchdown, nose gear rotation rate, and more into account. Not much more to this one. Check it out on X-Plane.org for free.
Little XPConnect
Pretty straightforward. I have a program on my laptop called Little Navmap that I can use to view flight progress, create flight plans, and more. It's compirable to Navigraph but it's free, so it's a decent option if you're not looking to pay $10/month. This plugin connects to Little Navconnect which communicates with Little Navmap over a LAN connection. Little XPConnect â Little Navmap â Little Navconnect
STKPConnector
This plugin is used to communicate with SimToolKitPro. More on this later, here's the download.
WebFMC
This is a neat little tool to provide a web UI for interacting with your aircraft's FMC. I have used it on my iPad a few times to get the FMC set up for a flight while reading out my SimBrief OFP. It's free and it can't hurt, check it out here.
AutoDGS:
AutoDGS adds a marshaller or VDGS to gates at airports, which can make it much easier to gauge where to stop when parking your aircraft. Pretty simple plugin but extremely helpful. Here's the link.
TerrainRadar:
TerrainRadar adds EGPWS capabilities to the displays in numerous aircraft. I use it in the Zibo 737-800X. This is another plugin that adds real-world capabilities to aircraft in the simulator. It's free, so give it a try: download it here.
Scenery:
World Wind Turbines
This scenery pack adds dry land and offshore wind turbines according to real-life map data. It's a pretty simple and affordable plugin to add just a little more accuracy to the simulator. It's available on X-Plane.org for $9.99.
USA VFR Cellular Towers
This is another affordable scenery pack that includes additional accurate landmark data, in this case for cell towers. It's $13.99 and can't hurt to have more accurate scenery data. Pick it up from X-Plane.org.
USA VFR Radio and TV Antennas
I am here once again to tell you about a relatively cheap plugin that adds additional landmarks to increase the realism of your simulator. There's not a whole lot more to say on this subject. You can buy it on X-Plane.org.
Airport Enhancement Package
Airport Enhancement Package includes updated textures and assets to improve all the default airports in the simulator. It replaces buildings, static objects, runway lights, vegetation, and more. It also includes regionalized assets to create uniqueness for each airport. This is a no-brainer given that while spending time doing ground operations, your simulation should be as accurate as possible.
X-World
X-World is a free scenery pack that you should install for at least the continent you primarily fly in. I've got X-World America installed since I almost exclusively fly inside the US. It improves upon building placement, style, and heights over the default X-Plane scenery. They use real-world data from Microsoft to place these buildings across the map.
The only gripe I have is that there's now a power line going through the middle of RW4/RW22 at KROC â if anyone knows how to fix this please email me. It's in the footer of this site. All in all, a great little tool. And you can't beat free. Here's the link.
AutoOrtho
AutoOrtho is awesome. It can be a bit buggy at times, but it changes the entire simulation experience once you get it working. AutoOrtho enables you to stream map data into the simulator to create Orthographic scenery based on real life. My only advice here is to check that your scenery_packs.ini is configured properly (maybe even purchase XOrganizer). You should check out AutoOrtho. You can get a lot of the benefits of Ortho4XP without sacrificing the disk space. Find out more about it here.
Software:
Little Navconnect
Little Navconnect allows X-Plane to communicate with Little Navmap on another computer. I sometimes use Little Navmap to monitor a flight's progress when I'm on autopilot. Lately, I've only been using Navigraph.
Simbrief Downloader
Simbrief Downloader automatically downloads Operational Flight Plans generated in Simbrief and saves them to your specified locations. I have it configured to save my OFPs to the X-Plane FMS plans directory. This allows me to generate a flight plan in Simbrief and immediately activate that route in the FMC in X-Plane.
Navigraph FMS Data Manager
Because I pay about $10/month to Navigraph for navigational data for my simulator, I get access to the latest AIRACs as soon as they are available. This is important to have the most accurate navigation data available. Navigraph FMS Data Manager will download the latest AIRAC and place it in the necessary folders. I have it set to update X-Plane and SimToolKitPro.
Navigraph Simlink
To connect to your simulator over the network, Navigraph Simlink must be running on your simulator computer. I have it set up to start on boot so that I never have to think about it. Then, I just open up X-Plane and open Naivgraph Charts on my iPad and everything is automatically synced up.
SimToolKitPro
SimToolKitPro is an EFB that supports numerous simulators and allows you to import OFPs from SimBrief. It also integrates with VATSIM and IVAO, which I found neat. It can help you keep track of ATC coverage while underway. It also includes a logbook of your flights and hours spent in each airframe.
XOrganizer
XOrganzier helps you manage scenery, plugins, aircraft, and your X-Plane preferences. I primarily use it to automate the maintenance of the scenery_packs.ini file. If you have things in the wrong order here, you risk certain objects missing from the simulator or possibly worse. With XOrganizer, this is one less thing you have to think about. It's a great tool, and for $15 on X-Plane.org, you really can't go wrong.
xPilot:
xPilot is a VATSIM client for X-Plane. As I get back into flight simulation and begin to take it more seriously, I intend to start flying on VATSIM. This application allows me to do so. Check it out here.
External:
Little Navmap
Little Navmap is essentially a miniature free version of Navigraph. If you don't have the money to subscribe to Navigraph, or simply don't need all of its features, check out Little Navmap. It's free, it's open-source (which I love), and it supports a lot of use cases.
Navigraph Charts
Navigraph Charts is a multifaceted app that is included in my ~$10/month Navigraph subscription. It includes up-to-date real-life navigation data from Jeppesen including departure plates, arrival plates, airport diagrams, and more. I usually create a flight plan in Simbrief and then import it into Charts to determine my departure runway and procedure, as well as my arrival runway and procedure. I also use the Navigraph Simlink application to overlay my aircraft's current location over my flight plan. I would highly recommend subscribing to Navigraph if you're looking to take IFR flying seriously in the simulator. Read more about Navigraph's products here.
SimBrief
Simbrief is a free flight planning tool that can be used for a multitude of things. It can provide a full Operational Flight Plan with weight and fuel calculations, takeoff climb and cruise calculations, route planning, and more. This is a must-have for any serious simmer. Check it out here.
Notes
This is accurate as of early December 2023. I've spent a lot of time honing in on the ultimate experience in X-Plane 12. There are additional plugins and sceneries that I am exploring, but I intend to do that at my own pace and update this article if necessary.
Things I still want to look into:
- Global Forests v2 (improved vegetation scenery)
- Mission Generator (gives you something to do)
- Better ground handling, JAR/SAM (improved ground services models)
- XFirstOfficer (abstract away some of the checklist execution)
- Getting a 757 for the simulator, I love the 737 but I also want to fly something just a little bit bigger