X-Plane 12.4.4 introduces ‘The Impossible Plane.’ Learn about Rightfooted Foundation and the extraordinary aircraft being brought to life…
The story behind The Impossible Airplane — coming to X-Plane 12.4.4
There are aircraft built to fly faster, higher, or further. The Impossible Airplane is being built to challenge something rather more fundamental: who an airplane can be designed for.
Beginning with X-Plane 12.4.4, pilots will be able to fly the distinctive livery of The Impossible Airplane on X-Plane’s Van’s RV-10 — bringing a remarkable real-world aviation project into the simulator.
But the story behind the blue, white and silver aircraft goes far beyond its paintwork.
The Story of Jessica and the Rightfooted Foundation
The Impossible Airplane is a project of the Rightfooted Foundation, founded by pilot and disability advocate Jessica Cox.
Born without arms, Jessica learned to operate everyday objects — and eventually an airplane — using her feet. In 2008, she became the world’s first licensed armless airplane pilot, learning to fly a 1946 Ercoupe whose interconnected aileron and rudder controls made it possible for her to control the aircraft without conventional rudder pedals.
The Ercoupe proved that Jessica could fly. The next question was whether an airplane could instead be designed around how Jessica flies.
That question became ‘The Impossible Airplane’ in 2020.
An airplane designed differently from the beginning
Rather than taking an existing aircraft and adapting controls after construction, the project follows a universal-design approach, placing Jessica’s lived experience at the heart of the engineering process from the outset. The result will be a four-seat Van’s RV-10 designed so that Jessica can operate the aircraft’s primary flight controls and essential cockpit systems entirely with her feet.
That challenge goes considerably further than simply relocating a control stick.
Pitch, roll, yaw and power must all remain smooth and precise while still allowing Jessica to interact with avionics and other cockpit systems. The team has developed solutions including an instrument panel responsive to toe input, a carbon-fibre panel providing a bracing point during turbulence and a specially developed four-point restraint system.
From the simulator to the real airplane
Laminar Research, in collaboration with XForcePC & Sim Your Plane, has supported the project with an X-Plane licence, while XForcePC previously donated the computer powering the simulator.
X-Plane has always been a simulator designed around the ethos of education and experimentation, and we couldn’t think of a better champion of those ideals than the Rightfooted Foundation. Ben Myburgh from ‘Sim Your Plane’ has worked with the project individually, assisting the team with simulator configuration and other aspects of its development.
Before experimental controls are installed in the flying aircraft, ‘The Impossible Airplane’ team can test them in a full-scale physical RV-10 cockpit simulator. Built around a separate RV-10 fuselage, the simulator combines genuine aircraft mechanisms with sensors from Sim Your Plane — and X-Plane 12 provides the simulation environment behind it.
It allows the engineering team to install prototype pitch-and-roll control systems, evaluate how they work, and iterate on their designs before committing those changes to the real aircraft.
In addition to this, the team can also exhibit public demonstrations of the simulator as part of an awareness campaign of the foundation, and the unique challenges behind adapting aircraft for disabilities.
A livery of infinite imagination
Even the aircraft’s striking appearance was designed around the philosophy of the project.
Created by Mirco Pecorari of AircraftStudioDesign, the livery began with the idea of representing something impossible. Pecorari took inspiration from the Möbius strip — the perplexing and intricate geometric form consisting of a single continuous surface — and translated its flowing geometry across the rear fuselage.
Blue, the international representative colour of disability, forms a major part of the design, while the Rightfooted Foundation identity is carried prominently on the tail. Smaller details are hidden throughout the artwork too, including a reference to Jessica’s Filipina heritage.
The result is an aircraft designed to tell part of its story before anyone even understands what makes it unique.
Supporting disabilities in aviation
The ultimate purpose of ‘The Impossible Airplane’ isn’t simply to achieve a world first, but to also re-imagine and promote the way we think about inclusivity.
For more than two decades, Jessica has mentored children and teenagers born without arms. Rightfooted Foundation works to help children develop greater independence, practical skills, confidence and connections with others who share similar experiences.
Its work ranges from mentorship and skill building to purpose-designed dressing aids and partnerships that place university engineering students directly alongside people with disabilities when developing new solutions.
Once complete, the aircraft is intended to become a travelling platform for aviation outreach, disability advocacy, engineering education and mentorship. Jessica will be able to arrive not merely to speak about independence, but as pilot of an aircraft specifically designed around capabilities that conventional aviation design rarely considers.
We hope you’ve enjoyed this story behind the Rightfooted Foundation. We’re proud to introduce this livery to X-Plane, and we would like to encourage others within the aviation community to explore the incredible work behind this foundation.
When X-Plane 12.4.4 arrives, you’ll be able to carry a small part of that message into the virtual skies yourself.
