X-Plane Developer Blog
developer.x-plane.com · Company blog · on HN since 2014
The developer team behind the X-Plane flight simulator posts updates on its flight model, releases, graphics APIs, and engineering choices.
What HN saysCommenters link it for details on X-Plane 12's flight model, such as the F-4 Phantom, and for release and early access information.
15HN people shared it
7linked it in comments
9stories submitted
310story points
2 years agolast shared
2014people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1Have You Heard the Good News About Elixir?4 people · 21 points · first shared 2021 · discussion on HN
- 2X-Plane 12 Flight Model Update – Supersonic Transition, Delta Wings and Mass3 people · 275 points · first shared 2022 · 126 comments on HN
- 3X plane 12 development update may 19 20222 people · first shared 2022
- 4Why Apple Before Android?1 people · 6 points · first shared 2014 · discussion on HN
- 5X-Plane 11.50 Is Here1 people · 3 points · first shared 2020 · discussion on HN
- 6X-Plane 11.50 Public Beta 1: Vulkan and Metal Are Here1 people · 3 points · first shared 2020 · discussion on HN
- 7X-Plane 12 Flight Model Report1 people · 2 points · first shared 2022 · discussion on HN
- 8Planemaker1 people · first shared 2023
- 9Blog1 people · first shared 2021
- 10Better fuselages through science1 people · first shared 2022
What HN people wrote when they linked it
asciimike · 2022-09-13
Here's a great example of why the flight model is... lacking: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GX9lTvKuqU
It's perfectly fine for most things, but _really_ bad with things that could actually kill you.
Meanwhile, in X-Plane land: https://developer.x-plane.com/2022/02/x-plane-12-flight-model-update-s…
boricj · 2025-02-19
I'm not knowledgeable enough to tell if there are answers there, but some of these questions might be addressed in the deep dive of the F-4 Phantom modelization.
https://developer.x-plane.com/2022/02/x-plane-12-flight-model-update-s…
daviding · 2022-09-13
Hmm odd, not sure then. I'll take it, if it's not being used ;)
I had a look on where I read about the X-Plane 11 keys during the beta, it's here - https://developer.x-plane.com/2022/05/x-plane-12-development-update-ma…
mastazi · 2022-06-22
At some point X-Plane 12 will go on sale in early access, and Laminar said it will include an X-Plane 11 license (because 12 might be still pretty broken while in EA, so in the meantime you can enjoy 11) - source https://developer.x-plane.com/2022/05/x-plane-12-development-update-ma…
So if you wait for Early Access you will get both 12 and 11 for the price of one.
After that, all minor 12.x updates will be free (they always have been) which means free updates for years to come (XP 11 was out for about 5 years for example)
avereveard · 2022-06-21
https://developer.x-plane.com/2018/05/better-fuselages-through-science… his take on fuselage
s3cur3 · 2021-07-29
This post on our dev blog gives some detail on the language decision here:
https://developer.x-plane.com/2021/01/have-you-heard-the-good-news-abo…
westurner · 2023-11-13
Could it output drones for existing sims?
X-Plane Plane Maker: https://developer.x-plane.com/manuals/planemaker/
Juno: New Origins (and also Hello Engineer)
MS Flight Simulator cockpits are built with MSFS Avionics Framework which is React-based:
https://docs.flightsimulator.com/html/Introduction/SDK_Overview.htm
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37619564 :
> [Multi-objective gym + MuJoCo] for drone simulation
> Idea: Generate code like BlenderGPT to generate drone rover sim scenarios and environments like the Moon and Mars
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36052833 :
> awesome finite element analysis https://www.google.com/search?q=awesome+finite+element+analysis+site%3…
Also: awesome-cfd
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31049608 :
> Numerical methods in fluid mechanics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numerical_methods_in_fluid_mechanics