X-Plane 9.05 is here now! YOU SHOULD GRAB IT FOR SURE!

Two new planes added in this update: Piper Malibu and Beech King-Air!

The Malibu is pretty speedy with it's low drag, but very slow to accelerate with
it's small prop, high weight, and modest power.

The King-Air is an easier plane to fly in a sense, with it's very generous power
supply and twin large propellers. The King-Air is typically considered one of the safest,
most versatile and powerful planes around that will always get you out of any jam you get into.

As well, we have new EFIS instrument panels for some of the planes!
This is technology that we imported from X-Plane airliner.

Now for some INSTRUCTIONS!

People keep asking me for some INSTRUCTIONS for running the iPhone version of X-Plane, and a lot of these people are NOT pilots, I think, so here we go with the basics!

THE TAKEOFF

First of all, tap the BRAKES on the lower-left to turn the brakes off. Drag the FLAPS, on the RIGHT side of the screen, down to about 1/3 or 1/2 of the way down to get ready to take off. This will partially-lower the flaps to give you more lift to get you in the air quicker. (We do NOT put them ALL the way down because they would add too much drag). Then drag the throttle (on the left) all the way to the top. This will give you full power to go flying. Tilt the phone left and right to steer down the runway, holding the phone at about a 45-degree pitch (neutral-elevator). When you get to about 80 knots or so (the scrolling tape on the LEFT side of the screen) tilt the phone back towards you to raise the nose, and away you go. Tilt the phone left and right to steer, and hold the nose about 15 degrees up to climb away from the runway. Hit the GEAR button to raise the landing gear, and drag the FLAPS slider (on the right) up to the top to fully retract the flaps. Hold that nose up about 15 degrees or so as you climb out, gear and flaps UP, power to full. To fly, always stay above about 80 knots or so, at least, to avoid stalling! Add power, or lower the nose, to be sure that this happens. The altitude is the tape on the right, and the vertical speed is printed right underneath it. The MACH number (for jets, anyway) is on the left, right under the airspeed indicator.

THE MENUS

Now that you are flying, lets see the views. Tap the CENTER of the screen to see the various view menus at the top. The LEFT one is the standard cockpit view. The next one over is the external view. Hit that, and then drag your finger around on the phone to adjust your viewing angle. Now here is where it gets REALLY cool: Put TWO fingers down far apart on the screen and then drag them closer together to zoom OUT! Put your fingers on the screen close together and then drag them apart to zoom IN! This is a nice way to control the views that is not possible with a mouse-pointer, because it looks at BOTH your fingers AT ONCE! The next view-menu over is the spot view... hit that to have a stationary view you can fly by. The next one over is the linear-spot, where the camera takes a constant-speed trajectory to match your airplane's flight-path... holding formation with that camera here is just like flying formation in a real plane. Finally the next view over is the SETTINGS menu, and if you are in an external view, the final view menu shows the forces on the airplane, which is kind of nice if you want to see a little illustration of what the flight model is doing to propagate the flight.

THE SETTINGS MENUS

Once you hit the SETTINGS menu icon in the cockpit, the menus you have are quite clear: Place the craft in random locations, or on whole new random flights if you hit the RESET RANDOM FLIGHT button. Or put yourself on final or takeoff on the runway. The PLANE menu item lets you pick from any of 4 planes, the Cessna 172 being the basic airplane, the Columbia-400 being the plane that I personally own and fly, the Cirrus vision being the next-generation personal-jet that is in development now, and the Piaggo Avanti being a super-efficient Italian turboprop business-plane. The TIME, SKY, and WIND menus are obvious, and the WEIGHT menu is kind of interesting. You can scoot the center of gravity FORWARDS to give you more stability, or AFT to make the plane more maneuverable. The SET menu is kind of nice: Just hold the phone at any angle you like, hit the SET CURRENT PHONE TILIT AS CENTER button and the current attitude of the phone will be the zero-elevator entry. This lets you fly with the phone in your lap if you are sitting or standing, or held at the vertical if you are lying down.. kind of convenient!

Here is an on-line video showing how to fly X-Plane for iPhone as well!

OK, that is a nice little summary of how to fly X-Plane for iPhone... happy flying!

FLYING AN ILS OFF OF THE INSTRUMENT PANEL

Tap the center of the screen to invoke the various menus, and click on the upper-right (settings) menu. You will see a map, with the frequencies of the ILS, Localizer, and VOR of the area. Drop 2 fingers down on the map and swizzle to pan, rotate, and zoom the map. See the ILS to LOWI is on frequency 111.10, heading 260 degrees, to an airport at an elevation of 1910 ft. Now hit the LOWI FINAL 26 button. Then hit the INSTRUMENT PANEL button. The slide the panel up with your finger to see the NAV (navigation) radios. Set the left one to 111.10 (if it isn't already). Now click above or below the little knob on the lower-left of the HSI (the instrument with the compass-card in it) until the HSI us set to 260 degrees. (The yellow arrow is pointing to 260 on that compass card... 10 degrees to the left of the W for west, which is 270 degrees). At this point, the localizer CDI (or course-deflection indicator, the yellow vertical bar will wander left or right to indicate if you are left or right of the course to the runway.. aim towards the deflection to intercept the course to the runway). As well, you will see little yellow arrows to the left and right of that compass indicator indicating the glideslope to the runway. If those needles are ABOVE the center of the instrument then you will want to fly UP, and if they are below the center of the instrument then you will want to fly down to intercept the glideslope. Your goal is to fly to keep the localizer CDI centered to stay on the localizer, and the glideslope CDI's centered to stay on the glideslope. Do this until you get to 2110 feet on the altimeter (upper-right instrument) and then tap the panel and the HUD view button (upper-left button) and, if you have done everything right, then the runway will be right in front of you. As well, if you have managed things properly, then you will be at the stalling speed of the airplane +30% speed (around 90 knots in the Cirrus Jet) with the gear and flaps down (remember you can still see gear, flaps, and throttle in the panel view).

Can you do it? I can.