We catch up with Philipp, as we glimpse behind-the-scenes juggling between developing X-Plane, and family life!
44 Procedures, Kid-Tested
Sometimes the most effective testing environments are also the most chaotic.
Recently, Philipp Ringler (Head of Systems) set out to stress-test X-Plane’s FMS and autopilot behaviour against a collection of particularly “challenging” instrument procedures circulating within the community. These procedures push the limits of ARINC 424 leg combinations—exactly the sort of edge cases that reveal whether a navigation system handles the real world’s more creative procedure designs.
The twist? The testing schedule was dictated not by engineering timelines but by the rhythm of life with a newborn.
Between feeding the baby, changing diapers, starting laundry, walking the dog, and a steady rotation of household duties, Philipp slipped in procedure after procedure—letting X-Plane fly each one with the autopilot in NAV mode active above 50 ft AGL. One procedure at a time, squeezed into the small windows of opportunity that appear between bottles, burping, and bedtime.
By the end of the exercise, Philipp had flown 44 different procedures designed to stress unusual leg combinations and navigation logic. To illustrate the results, Philipp captured screenshots of each procedure flown and compiled them into a page showing the full set. While screenshots show general aviation equipment, the same autopilot and lateral navigation code runs in all default aircraft, including the Citation X and the Airbus A330. While the A330 is too big and heavy to serve many of these airports, its FMGS is capable of flying all of them.
So, behold: 44 procedures — kid-tested, daddy approved.
Standard Instrument Departures
These SIDs and IAPs were collected by the community on Discord for their unique characteristics, shapes and unusual sequences. For the test, each procedure was flown with the autopilot engaged in NAV mode at 50ft AGL to assess its ability to adhere to the route, even if coupling at such a low altitude is not allowed for some or all procedures. Some of them were flown with real weather downloaded, to randomize the testing a bit.
EGPF (Glasgow, UK) RW23 PTH4A Departure
EGPH (Edinburgh, UK) RW24 GRICE3C Departure
KEWR (Newark, NJ) RW04L NEWARK FIVE Depature
KOTH (North Bend, OR) RW05 NORTH BEND SEVEN Departure
KPSP (Palm Springs, CA) RW31L CATHEDRAL ONE Departure
KSFO (San Francisco, CA) RW01L OFFSHORE TWO Departure (has since been withdrawn, no longer available)
KSFO (San Francisco, CA) RW01L SSTIK5 RNAV Departure (replaces Offshore 2)
LDDU (Dubrovnik, Croatia) RW11 MADOS 1W RNAV Departure
LDDU (Dubrovnik, Croatia) RW11 MOKUN 1W RNAV Departure
LDSP (Split, Croatia) RW05 KENEM 8H Departure
LGAV (Athens, Greece) RW03L VELOP 2K Departure
LGKR (Kerkira, Greece) RW16 OLGAT 2D Departure
LGRP (Rodos, Greece) RW24 CODIC 2N Departure
LGSK (Skiathos, Greece) RW01 IBIDI 1B Departure (replaces TSL1B):
LGTS (Thessaloniki, Greece) RW28 LEKPO 1E Departure
LGTS (Thessaloniki, Greece) RW34 EDASI 1A Departure
LIMJ (Genoa, Italy) RW10 GEN9K Departure
LIMJ (Genoa, Italy) RW28 GEN9K Departure
LJLJ (Ljubljana, Slovenia), RW30 GIMIX 1Z RNAV Departure (replaces GIMIX 1W)
LOWI (Innsbruck, Austria) RW08 KOGOL 3J Departure
LOWI (Innsbruck, Austria) RW26 RTT 1R RNAV Departure
LPAZ (Santa Maria, Azores) RW18 ETROX 4S Departure
LSGG (Geneva, Switzerland) RW22 MEDAM 1A RNAV Departure (replaces MEDA5A)
LTBS (Dalaman, Turkey) RW01 KEKIT 1T Departure
LTFD (Edremit, Turkey) RW05 DUGLA 1A Departure
LZIB (Bratislava, Slovakia) RW22 TOVKA 3B Departure
LZIB (Bratislava, Slovakia) RW31 TOVKA 3A Departure
LZTT (Poprad, Slovakia) RW27 UMARY 1G Departure
MKJS (Montego Bay, Jamaica) RW07 BOSOM 7 Departure
MKJS (Montego Bay, Jamaica) RW25 BOSOM 7 Departure
OSAP (Aleppo, Syria) RW09 November 1E Departure
RJTT (Tokio Haneda, Japan) RW16R OPPAR4 Departure
RJTT (Tokio Haneda, Japan) RW34R OPPAR4 Departure
SCCF (Calama, Chile) RW10 VUREL 3K Departure
Instrument Approaches
KPSP (Palm Springs, CA) RNAV (RNP) Z RW13R via FERNN
KTRK (Truckee, CA) RNAV (GPS) RW11 via TRUCK
KTTN (Trenton, NJ) RNAV (RNP) RW06 via HILOG
LGKR (Kerkira, Greece) VOR Y RW34 via BEDEX (TIGRA2J Arrival)
LPMA (Funchal, Madeira) RNP (AR) Z RW05
LSGS (Sion, Switzerland) RNP (AR) 25
LSZG (Grenchen, Switzerland) RNP 24
NZQN (Queenstown, NZ) RNAV (RNP) Z RWY23
VQPR (Paro, Bhutan) RNAV (RNP) Z RW15
Results
Out of all forty-four, only two exposed issues: one procedure that failed to draw correctly, and another that generated invalid waypoint positions due to coordinates showing as NaN (not a number). Both problems were relatively minor and have been fixed in X-Plane 12.4.1, meaning you can now fly all of these procedures hands-off on autopilot.
