Plane-Maker:

What Plane-Maker Does:

A program called Plane-Maker comes with X-Plane that lets you enter
your own aircraft design... any design you can imagine! Then, once
you have entered all the physical specs of the airplane (weight, wing
span, control deflections, engine power, airfoil sections, the works) XPlane will predict how that plane will fly! Simply save the airplane in
Plane-Maker like you would save a word-processing file and then open
it in X-Plane to fly it! You can compress the airplane package and
distribute it on the net for others to fly, or download planes that others
have made as well. www.X-Plane.org is currently a good place to
upload and download these planes.
What You Can Do With Planes You Make:
ANYTHING YOU WANT!
The EULA of X-Plane is pretty simple. It starts: "You can use X-Plane
for anything you want!" One excellent use of Plane-Maker is to make
the airplane of your dreams, fly it in X-Plane, and then upload it to the
net for others to fly! Or, if your COMPANY has an exciting airplane,
enter it into Plane-Maker, be sure it flies properly in X-Plane, and then
put the .acf file on your web-site for customers or potential customers
to download! Anyone that has X-Plane will be able grab the virtual
version of your airplane and fly it in X-Plane! This is great because it
will teach more people to fly your airplane (new customers?) and
improve the currency of those that already fly it (safer customers?). Of
course, you can also just use Plane-Maker to enter some plane that
you already have and fly every day, simply for the purpose of keeping
up your and stick-n-rudder and instrument skills.

Anyway, this chapter will give you the basics of entering an airplane in
Plane-Maker, customizing it, and then releasing it on the net (either
www.X-Plane.org or your own web site), for others to enjoy, possibly
for the purpose of marketing your companies' design.

Using Plane-Maker to Make a Plane:

We may, at some point, write the 200-page book needed to explain
every detail of entering your own design in Plane-Maker, but here are
the basics, with a good explanation on some of the common stickingpoints, which is enough to get you started and working on your own.
First, run Plane-Maker by double-clicking on it. Once it is running, go
to the FILE menu and select OPEN AIRCRAFT. Select the
INSTRUCTIONS folder and then select one of the EXAMPLE PLANE
airplanes. (One of them has a 2-D instrument panel which is easiest to
customize, and one of them has a 3-D cockpit which is harder to
customize but gives you a 3-D virtual cockpit if you decide to make
one). Once you have opened an airplane in Plane-Maker, simply go to
every menu item in Plane-Maker, noting the hundreds of parameters of
the airplane that you can change. Change any of these parameters
that you like. (Want to try flying with twice the power? Twice the
weight? Half the wing-area? Try it!)
Once you have changed a few parameters, it is time to save the plane
and fly it. To do this, go to the FILE menu and select SAVE
AIRCRAFT.
Now, launch X-Plane and select FILE:OPEN AIRCRAFT. Select the
airplane you just saved in Plane-Maker and voila! You are flying your
newly-modified airplane! This is the process for creating your own

aircraft and flying them in X-Plane.

Common Points Where help Is Needed:
OK let's say you just opened an airplane and you want to check it for
accuracy or modify it to be YOUR plane. Go to the STANDARD menu,
VIEWPOINT item. Run down all the speed on the left and check them
all against the POH (Pilot's Operating Handbook). These speeds are
only used for marking up the airspeed indicator, NOT determining
performance. You DO need to enter a valid Vne (Never Exceed
speed)... and the more you enter accurately, the better, because while
X-Plane does NOT use these speeds for PERFORMANCE prediction,
it may use them for niceties like the STARTING speed for you when
you select approaches and the like.
The Viewpoint location in the upper sort-of-left is the location of the
pilot's viewpoint with respect to the reference-point on the craft. The
reference point can be anything you like, just make sure you use that
one point to measure ALL the locations on the plane. Long arm is feet
aft of reference, lat arm is feet right of reference, and vert arm is feet
above reference. Again: Choose any reference-point you like, as long
as you use it to reference EVERYTHING on the plane.
Go to the PANEL-2D menu item. This is where you will design the 2-D
panel for X-Plane, which is all you will use until you are really expert.
Drag any instrument in that you want, and then click on the instrument
to select it. Check the little box called 'COPILOT-SIDE SELECTION'
for any instrument that you want to apply to the copilot panel. These
instruments will drive on the second electrical bus, powered by the
second battery and generator, and be given information by the second
pitot-static system as well. This lets you have pilot-side-only or copilot-

side-only failures.
NOTE: The plane will have one battery for every battery BUTTON you
drag onto the panel. Drag in buttons appropriately.
NOTE: The plane will have one generator for every generator
BUTTON you drag onto the panel. Drag in buttons appropriately.
OK now got to the SYSTEMS item. Enter the voltage of the LAST
battery. Huh? Well, the last battery might have a different voltage than
the others. This could be the case if you have a 28-V battery on the
left bus, and only a 24-V battery on the right (essentials) bus.
Note that you can set a hanful of different hydraulic-pressure sources
(engine-driven pumps, electric pump, ram-air-turbines) and what
systems are powered by those systems, if any (flight controls, flaps,
gear, etc).
Now go to the LIMITS-1 tab and LIMITS-2 tab. This is where you enter
the operational and limiting oil temperatures, pressures, battery and
generator voltages and amperages, etc. Enter all these numbers
carefully, and check them all against the POH.. this is what will make
the plane be accurate in X-Plane!
Now go to the BUS tab. This lists a bunch of electrical systems, and
the amperage they each draw, and the bus they each live on. If the
bus that powers any of these guys goes down in X-Plane (battery and
generator for that bus off, cross-tie off, no APU running for that bus)
then you will lose that system. As well, your generator loads will be
effected by the bus you attach each system to, and the amperage you

get it to draw.
If you are actually to do the airplane right, then you will need to
research the current draw on each system in your plane, and the bus
that each system lives on.
Now go to the FUSELAGE screen, SECTION tab.
Enter the "fuselage body coefficient of drag" here.
What do you enter?
Ideally, the results of wind-tunnel testing or CFD.
Don't got it? Try 0.025 for a decently-sleek plane.
Make the number bigger, to add drag, if you are matching a known
plane and find that your model is going too fast, and vide-versa.
If you enter 0.00, then your fuselage has ZERO drag.
If you enter 1.00, then your fuselage has the same drag as a
theoretical big flat piece of plywood of the exact same frontal area as
the frontal area of your plane. (No plane that draggy has ever been
made.. thus the 0.025 starting-point).
Now go to the CONTROLS window.
Check all those chord ratios (fraction of the total chord of the wing
taken up by the control-surface) and deflections (how much do the
controls deflect in the real plane?)
Once you enter your flap chord in fraction of total (what fraction of the
total wing chord is taken up by the flaps) and type of flap, X-Plane will
make a decent guess at the coefficient of lift, drag, and moment of the
flaps.
If you find that the REAL plane slows down more than X-Plane

predicts when flaps are lowered, then maybe you need to increase the
flap drag coefficient a bit. (Increase Flap Cd from maybe 0.07 to 0.08).
If you find that the REAL plane gives a lower stall speed than X-Plane
predicts when flaps are lowered, then maybe you need to increase the
flap lift coefficient a bit. (Increase Flap Cl from maybe 0.4 to 0.5).
If you find that the REAL plane does not pitch up or down like X-Plane
does when the flaps are lowered, then maybe you need to increase or
decrease the coefficient of moment. (Change Flap Cm from maybe
-0.1 to -0.2 to pitch down more, or not pitch up as much, as the case
may be).
Note the 'Flap Def Time, seconds'. This is critical to getting proper
pitch-characteristics when the flaps are lowered. Measure off the real
plane to get it right in the sim.
Now go to the TRIM SPEED tab. The 'trim up and down, relative to full
elevator deflection'. If the elevator goes up and down 30 degrees, and
trim can run the elevator up and down 10 degrees, then you would
enter 0.33 here. For "trim speed-ratio", you enter how fast the trim
moves. For "trim tab adjust", you enter the controls deflection, in
fraction of maximum, when the yoke is centered. This is, effectively,
the built-in twist of the wing, or trim-tab on the airplane to get it to not
roll or yaw in cruise.
Go to the LANDING GEAR item, GEAR DATA tab.
Here, you will see something called "additional gear flat-plate area". XPlane already looks at the frontal area of the struts and tires when the
landing gear is extended and adds drag appropriately. But X-Plane

does not really know how much drag to add from the gear doors
opening and disrupting the airflow over the no-longer-streamlied
aircraft body. Enter that number here. Enter 0.00 if the gear doors
close up once the gear is extended, and 1.00 if the additional drag
from the gear doors opening is equivalent to putting a 1-square foot
piece of plywood out there blocking the wind.
Now go to the Weight and Balance screen, TANKS tab.
However many tanks you have, specify the ratio of fuel that each tank
contains, and it's physical location. You better get the physical location
of the tank right, because X-Plane needs to know who is on the left
and right sides to get the fuel-tank-selection right when you twiddle the
fuel-tank-selection to left or right, and also X-Plane considers the
inertial properties of slinging around fuel at various moment-arms from
the CG, so be sure to get the fuel tank locations correct so that the
airplane handles correctly!

Adding Airfoils to Your Plane in Plane-Maker:

OK it should be pretty self-explanitory how to enter all the data into
Plane-Maker... all the buttons are clearly labeled, but one question that
comes up a lot is: How do I attach various AIRFOILS to my aircraft?
Particularly at various DIFFERENT Reynolds numbers?
Well, like everything in X-Plane, this is pretty easy once you get the
basics, and here they are:
First of all, X-Plane does =>NOT<= look at the =>SHAPE<= of the
wing and then decide how much lift, drag, etc the foil will put out. XPlane is NOT a computational fluid dynamics program. Instead, X-

Plane uses pre-defined airfoils that list the PERFORMANCE of any

airfoil (lift, drag, moment) to predict how the plane will fly with that foil.
So, how do you enter that performance? Pretty easy. Read the chapter
in this manual on Airfoil-Maker, as it shows you how to enter the lift,
drag, and moment of any given airfoil at any given Reynolds numbers.
Now, let's say that you have just create TWO foils in Airfoil-Maker, one
for a NACA-2412 at Re=3 million, and one at Re=9 million. You might
save the foils with names like "NACA 2412-Re3.afl" and "NACA
2412-Re9.afl". The Airfoil-Maker manual explains how to do this.
Now once you have done this, launch Plane-Maker and open your
airplane. Then go to the "Expert" menu and then to the "Airfoils" item.
Once in that window, tab over to the area containing the various
different wings that your particular airplane has. Let's take the "Wings"
tab, for example. You will notice that there are 4 airfoils listed for the
"Wing 1" box. How could ONE wing have FOUR airfoils? Easy! You
could have one type of wing at the tip, another at the root, with linear
interpolation in between! You could also have one airfoil file for LO
Reynolds numbers, and another for HIGH Reynolds numbers, with XPlane interpolating in between! So that is FOUR airfoil files: Two
Reynolds numbers at the ROOT (on the left) and two Reynolds
numbers at the TIP (at the right). The lower Reynolds numbers go at
the TOP of the box, the higher Reynolds numbers go at the BOTTOM.
Just hold the mouse over the gray box to the left of each airfoil name
to get a reminder of this if needed.
Now, for an example of your hypothetical plane, you would select (by
clicking on the little gray box to the left of the airfoil names)
"NACA 2412-Re3.afl" for the upper left, and

"NACA 2412-Re9.afl" for the lower left, if your wing uses a NACA
2412 at it's root, and you want X-Plane to give you accurate
performance at Reynolds numbers of 3 and 9 million, with linear
interpolation in between.
Ditto that, of course, for the wing TIP, and all the other foils on the
plane.
How to Tune the Autopilot
OK, let's say that the autopilot in X-Plane is just not really doing
exactly what you want. Maybe it is sort of wandering down the
localizer, or wandering around in pitch when you want it to hold
altitude. Maybe it is wandering around in heading, or perhaps
flickering it's wings left and right madly as it tries TOO HARD to hold
heading. Whatever the problem, you should be able to adjust the
autopilot constants to get the plane to hold it's desired path more
tightly.
How do you do this? By adjusting the autopilot constants in
Plane-Maker. How do you do this? Read on!
First, load an airplane in Plane-Maker you want to adjust.
Go to the EXPERT menu, ARTIFICIAL STABILITY screen.
Go to the AUTOPILOT tab.
Check the button called 'USE CUSTOM AUTOPILOT CONSTANTS'.
When you do this, a set of numbers come up that specify the autopilot
constants for your airplane. Here is what they mean, and how to adjust
them!

First, let's talk about HEADING. Look at the SECOND screen down.

ROLL ERROR FOR FULL AILERON:

When you fly a REAL plane, you decide on a roll angle to make a
turn, yes? You then decide to deflect the ailerons a certain amount to
ACHIVE the bank angle you want, right? Question: Let's say that you
WANT 45 degrees of bank, and the plane is currently at 0 degrees of
bank. Do you put in ALMOST NO AILERON AT ALL? NO WAY! You
put in a GOOD HEALTHY DOSE of aileron! Why? Because you are a
big fat 45 degrees away from your desired roll angle! Conversely, if
you are at 29 degrees of roll, and you WANT 30 degrees of roll, so you
only need ONE MORE DEGREE OF ROLL, do you put in FULL
AILERON to get to 30 degrees? NO WAY! YOU WOULD
OVERSHOOT FOR SURE! You look at the controls and say 'gee, I am
only a LITTLE off of my desired bank angle, so I will only put in a
LITTLE BIT of aileron. Now, how many degrees off of your desired
bank angle do you have to be to put in FULL aileron? 1? 10? 100?
However many degrees you must be off from your DESIRED roll angle
to put in FULL aileron, THAT is the number you should enter in the 'roll
error for full aileron' button. If you put in a really SMALL number, then
the autopilot will put in FULL aileron for even the TINIEST of roll
errors! This is no good! This will cause the plane to over-control and
flutter madly left and right like an over-caffineted pilot! On the other
hand, if you enter a really HUGE number here, like 100 degrees, then
the autopilot will hardly put in any aileron input at all! In that case, the
plane will always wander along off course a bit, because it will never
care enough to GET BACK ON COURSE. Now, any smart pilot might

say: "I WOULD NEVER ENTER FULL AILERON, EVER". Fair

enough. But realize that the autopilot WILL be limited to about 50%
travel or so, and will AUTOMATICALLY back OFF of the controls as
the airplane speeds up, just like you would. So what you are really
entering here is how aggressive the ailerons are. If you find the plane
really does NOT steer aggressively to the command bars, then you
probably need a SMALLER number here, because you are telling the
autopilot: "You should only require a SMALLER deflection to really
crank in the ailerons!" Conversely, if the plane flutters left and right like
a plastic bag in a 50-knot wind, then you need to tell the autopilot to
NOT crank in so much aileron! To do that, enter a LARGER number
here, so the autopilot waits for a LARGER error to develop before
responding with so much force. 30 degrees might be a decent number
to enter here. It says that if the roll angle is off by 10 degrees, the
plane will apply one-third aileron to correct when at low speed. Not a
bad idea.
ROLL PREDICTION:
When YOU fly, you look INTO THE FUTURE to decide when to
add, and back off, of the flight controls. This is simply anticipation.
How far into the future should the autopilot anticipate? If the plane is
wandering left and right slowly, always behind the game, overshooting
and then wandering slowly off in the wrong direction like a tired drunk
driver, then clearly it is NOT anticipating enough. In that case, you
need to INCREASE the the roll prediction, so that the autopilot
ANTICIPATES more. If, however, the airplane starts flopping back and
forth hysterically every frame, then you have clearly told it to anticipate
TOO much! You need to enter a SMALLER roll prediction! 1 second is
a decent roll prediction... after all, when I fly a plane, I would say I

really enter my controls based on WHERE THE PLANE WILL BE IN

ONE SECOND, not where it is right now.
ROLL TUNE TIME:
In the real plane, you TRIM OUT any loads with trim if you have
it. How long do you take to run the trim? Probably more than just a few
seconds! But, if you let the autopilot wait TOO long to trim out the
loads, then it is often kind of slow and late to give you what you want.
Enter maybe 5 seconds here.
LOCALIZER CDI GAIN:
OK this should seem familiar. Let's say that you are ONE
DEGREE off the localizer as you fly an ILS. How many degrees of
HEADING CORRECTION are called for to correct for that? If you
correct only ONE degree, then you will just be flying right towards the
airport, never intercepting the localizer until you get to the transmitter
on the ground! If you see a ONE DEGREE error in your localize (what
is that, one dot on the CDI?), then I would enter about 10 degrees of
heading correction to go ahead and nail that HSI NOW. So, enter a
number here that is the number of degrees of heading change that
you want the autopilot to pull for each degree of error on the localizer
(which is the same as saying for each dot of CDI deflection). I think
that 10 works fine.
LOCALIZER CDI PREDICTION:
If you are a good pilot, you do NOT fly an ILS based on where
the CDI IS. When pilots fly so lamely as that, they wander around in Sturns all the way down the localizer! We see it all the time. If you are

any GOOD, then you fly the plane based on where the HSI CDI WILL
BE IN THE NEAR FUTURE! How far in the future? Well, a few
seconds at least. The MORE you want the autopilot to ANTICIPATE,
the BIGGER the number you enter here, since this is the CDI
anticipation. If your plane is wandering back and forth slowly across
the localizer, always S-turning, then I bet that you need to enter a
bigger number here! More anticipation to prevent endless S-turning
from always being behind the game! But, if you enter TOO big a
number, then the plane might NEVER JOIN THE LOCALIZER,
because it is anticipating SO FAR AHEAD that it turns away from the
localizer AS SOON AS THE NEEDLES COME ALIVE, since it is
shying away to avoid an over-shoot.. that is TOO MUCH
ANTICIPATION! About 2 or 4 seconds should be reasonable numbers
here.
So, in summary, enter the number of degrees of bank error that
should give very strong aileron response in the ROLL ERROR FOR
FULL AILERON. Enter the number of seconds the system should
anticipate in the ROLL PREDICTION, the number of seconds required
to trim out the load in the ROLL TUNE TIME, the number of degrees
of heading change per degree localizer error in the LOCALIZER CDI
GAIN, and the number of seconds of anticipation of HSI CDI deflection
in the localizer CDI prediction.
FIRST, FORGET ABOUT THE ILS AND JUST SEE IF YOU CAN
GET THE THING TO PERFECTLY HOLD HEADING. Tweak the
ROLL ERROR FOR FULL AILERON to give as strong a response as
you like, and the ROLL PREDICTION to give the anticipation that you
want. Fly the plane around IN HEADING MODE, snapping your
heading bug left and right and tweaking those constants until the

plane follows the heading bug PERFECTLY. THEN, AFTER THE

HEADING MODE IS PERFECT, adjust the localizer values while flying
ILS's to get the localizer down. If you get S-turns across the localizer,
you need MORE localizer prediction. If the thing never even grabs the
localizer, always turning away from it, then you need LESS localizer
prediction. The thing is clearly over-anticipating.
OK Now let's talk about PITCH. This discussion will be exactly
the same as roll, really.
PITCH ERROR FOR FULL ELEVATOR:
Well, you can guess what this is. This is how much error
between desired and actual pitch is required for full elevator deflection.
Now, remember that the autopilot will automatically reduce the control
deflections as the plane speeds up, and will limit to maybe 50%
control deflection, so you do not need to worry about the system
REALLY going to FULL deflection. Now, FORGET ABOUT THE ILS
FOR A MINUTE and JUST FLY VERTICAL SPEED OR PITCH-SYNC
MODE. If the plane is really sloppy about getting the nose up to track
a new vertical speed and just takes too long to get there, then you
need to enter a SMALLER 'pitch error for full elevator', so the plane
will be more aggressive with the elevator. But, of course, if the plane
starts flapping about madly, then you need to enter a LARGER 'pitch
error for full elevator', so you are telling the plane 'do NOT deflect the
elevator so much unless you have a LARGER error between the
actual and desired pitch'. You should put the autopilot in PITCH SYNC
MODE and then hold the CWS button down and quickly pitch the nose
and then let go of the CWS button. How quickly does the autopilot
work to hold that new pitch? If it is slow and sloppy, then you need to

enter a smaller number here to make the thing more aggressive, and
the reverse is true as well.
PITCH PREDICTION:
Now, if you are a good pilot, then you will PREDICT where the
plane WILL BE SOON and enter flight control accordingly. Maybe 1
second of anticipation is good. Try that. If the plane is always
wandering up and down when trying to hold a given vertical speed,
always a few steps behind the game, then more anticipation is clearly
called for, (a larger number) and if the plane is always afraid to GET
where it needs to be, always resisting motion towards the desired
pitch, then it is probably anticipating TOO much, and a smaller number
is called for! You really need to tune these numbers in pitch and roll
modes, or maybe heading and vertical speed modes, to get them all
perfect, with nice, snappy, precise autopilot response, BEFORE you
take the thing down the ILS. One second might be an OK value to
enter here.
PITCH TUNE TIME:
This is the time require to trim, clearly.
5 seconds may be fine.
If you enter too SMALL a number here, then the plane will
constantly be wandering up and down as it plays with the trim,
because it will always be TOO QUICK TO HIT THAT TRIM! In the real
plane, you wait until you are SURE before you roll in the trim. So enter
a pretty large number here, like 5 or 10 seconds.

GLIDESLOPE CDI GAIN:

For each degree of glideslope error, correct with this much
change in pitch. If you enter 5 here (a reasonable value) then the
autopilot will pitch up 5 degrees for each degree it is low on the
glideslope. The greater the number you enter here, the more the
command bars will move to grab that glideslope!

GLIDESLOPE CDI PREDICTION:

If you are a good pilot, then you anticipate where the glideslope
WILL BE IN THE NEAR FUTURE as you make your pitch commands.
If you do NOT anticipate enough, then you will always be going up and
down all the way down the glideslope. If you anticipate TOO much,
then you will never GET to the glideslope, because you will always be
shying away from it as soon as the needle starts to close in. 8 seconds
might be a decent prediction.
PITCH DEGREES PER KNOT:
In flight level change mode, if your plane is 1 knot slow, how
much will you pitch down to get that knot back? Enter that number
here. I use 0.2.

SUMMARY:
OK here is the summary. Remember that there are 2 distinct
things here: The amount you MOVE THE COMMANDS BARS, and

the amount you MOVE THE CONTROLS TO CAPTURE THOSE

COMMAND BARS. So, if you see the COMMAND BARS are not being
too smart, you can see what variables to set below.
But, on the other hand, if you see that the COMMAND BARS are just
fine, but the AIRPLANE JUST ISN'T TRACKING THE BARS, then you
need to set the variables listed below to grab the bars. Just remember
that there are 2 steps:
Step 1: Decide how to move the bars (CDI gain, CDI prediction)
Step 2: Decide how to move the controls (pitch & roll error,
prediction)
And remember that there is one number that controls how HARD
we try to GET to our target (CDI gain, roll and pitch error for full
deflection... think of it as a SPRING CONSTANT) and one number that
controls our ANTICIPATION (CDI prediction, roll and pitch prediction...
think of it as a damping constant).
OK here is the little table:
AMOUNT TO MOVE THE COMMAND BARS ON THE ILS:
localizer CDI gain, glideslope CDI gain
AMOUNT TO ANTICIPATE THE COMMAND BARS ON THE
ILS:
localizer CDI prediction, glideslope CDI prediction
AMOUNT TO MOVE THE CONTROLS TO GRAB THE BARS:
roll error for full aileron, pitch error for full aileron
AMOUNT TO ANTICIPATE THE ATTITUDE TO GRAB THE

BARS:
roll prediction, pitch prediction
TIME TO TRIM THE FORCES:
pitch tune time, roll tune time
OK, so now that you see what each number DOES, let's show
you how to set these things up quickly. First, launch X-Plane. Now
open your plane. Now go to the SPECIAL menu. Now go to the SET
AUTOPILOT CONSTANTS menu item. You will notice that a window
comes up with (you guessed it) all the numbers we just talked about!
Now here is where it gets really fun: You can change these numbers
AS YOU FLY to get the autopilot constants just right for each individual
plane. Just be ware: These numbers will be LOST the second you exit
X-Plane or open some different plane! These numbers are for
experimentation only! Once you have the numbers you want, you
better write them down on a piece of paper and enter them into PlaneMaker where you can actually SAVE them!
Another note: You might enter a really aggressive autopilot
system that has HUGE anticipation and HUGE gains and TINY
maximum pitch and roll errors for full deflections. That would be a very
strong, very aggressive autopilot that may SEEM to work perfectly. But
here is the problem: As soon as you start flying with a LOW FRAME
RATE, the plane will start shaking violently on autopilot because that
autopilot is not running FAST ENOUGH to see the very-rapid
RESULTS of it's overly-strong inputs! SO, if you want the autopilot to
actually work ALL THE TIME, you need to load up the scenery or
weather to really slow the machine down to it's minimum frame-rate
while you tune the autopilot! Only then can you enter constants that

will ALWAYS work, because the EXTRA frame-rate people may get
later could never hurt. I recommend just setting 3 broken layers of
clouds and plenty of buildings in the rendering options screen to get a
low frame-rate.

How to Design an Artificial Stability System

Let's say you are doing a VTOL or fighter that needs an artificial
stability system. You can design a simple such system in Plane-Maker
pretty easily. How? Read on!
Load an airplane in Plane-Maker.
Go to the EXPERT menu, ARTIFICIAL STABILITY screen.
This is where you can enter control-system constants to make your
plane feel stable even though, in reality, it isn't.
This is especially common in fighter jets and helicopters... fighters are
most maneuverable if unstable, and heilos just have nothing to
naturally MAKE them stable!
So we design control systems to MAKE THEM SEEM STABLE.
These control systems typically do this by ADDING SOME INPUT IN
ADDITION TO YOUR STICK INPUT to make the plane do what you
want. A common case of this in the civilian world is the yaw damper...
your feet still move the rudders, there's no doubt about that, but the
yaw-damper system ADDS SOME ADDITIONAL RUDDER
DEFLECTION FOR YOU TO DMAP OUT THE ROATION RATES OF

THE PLANE. How much rudder does it add? Well, that is a decision
made be the controls-system engineer... in this case known as: "YOU".
Let's imagine a yaw damper. The goal is to add some rudder
deflection to whatever the pilot hammers in with his feet to stop aircraft
rotation... this is seen in high-end Mooneys and most jets. So ask
yourself this: How much rudder do you WANT to add to stop rotation?
FULL rudder? Just 1/10 of the max rudder deflection? Obviously, if the
plane is only wagging its little booty a LITTLE BIT, you only want to
add a LITTLE rudder to stop it. But, if the plane is shaking at a high
rate, then you better put in a LOT of rudder to put a stop to it NOW. So
how do we decide how much rudder to put in? Well, there are plenty of
ways, but in X-Plane, we say that we enter some fraction of the rudder
input PER DEGREE PER SECOND OF ROTATION RATE. So,
imagine the plane is wagging its little tail (from turbulence, varying
crosswind, the pilot stepping on the rudder, WHATEVER) at 90
degrees per second. (Now let's THINK about that for a second!!!!!
HOLD YOUR HAND IN FRONT OF YOUR FACE AND PRETEND IT
IS AN AIRPLANE. NOW ROTATE YOUR HAND THRU 90 DEGREES
OF HEADING CHANGE IN 1 SECOND. THAT IS 90 DEGREES PER
SECOND. As you see, it is a moderate rotation rate, but not a really
huge rotation rate. However, when you are in the real airplane, 90
degrees per second of tail-wagging will feel like a LOT. (Kicking the
rudders a bit in a Cessna 172, for example, will shake its little booty at
about 35 degrees per second). So, lets say that 90 degrees per
second is so much rotation rate that we are willing for the controlsystem to put in FULL RUDDER to oppose it. That means that if the
plane is rotating at 90 degrees per second, we want to put in FULL
rudder to oppose that motion, and at 45 degrees per second we want
to put in HALF rudder to oppose that motion, and at a measly 9
degrees per second we want to only put in 1/10 rudder to oppose that

motion. At the 35 degree-per-second tail-wag of a 172, the control

system would put in as much as about 35% rudder deflection to
oppose tail-wagging and yaw-stabilize the plane. This does not sound
like an unreasonable constant. So what do you enter in Plane-Maker
to make it happen? Well, for the "heading: target sideslip" you might
just enter "0" (the plane always tries to stabilize at 0 sideslip) and for
"fraction deflection per degree difference" simply enter "0" (the system
is not trying to achieve a desired sideslip, only DAMP OUT the tailwagging by opposing ROTATION RATES) and for "fraction deflection
per degree per second" enter "0.0111". Why 0.0111? Well, take that
0.0111 and multiply it by 90 (the rotation rate that we would apply
FULL rudder at) and you get 1.00.. or, translated: "FULL rudder
deflection". Put another way, if you want full rudder at 90 degrees per
second yaw rate, simply take 1.0/max yaw rate and you will get 1/90 or
0.011. This is a reasonable yaw-damper constant. Try entering it for
the 172, save the plane in Plane-Maker, load it again in X-Plane, and
pop the rudders left and right: you should see the plane damps out
faster, as would a real one if such a yaw damper were installed in
reality.
Now, maybe you want even MORE stabilization... try entering 0.1
in the "fraction deflection per degree per second". Now, THINK about
what that means. That means that if the plane is rotating thru 10
degrees per second, the rudder will move fully to oppose it. (10
degrees per second times 0.1 control per degree per second = 1.00,
which is FULL DEFLECTION. Move your hand at a rotation rate of 10
degrees per second. This means it should take 9 seconds to move
your hand thru 90 degrees. That is a SLOW rotation rate. Yes, with a
constant of 0.1, even this SLOW rotation rate will be opposed by FULL
rudder. YIKES!!!!!!!!! If you just BREATHE on this airplane now it will

kick FULL rudder to oppose it! Yikes! This is scary, because IF YOU
TAKE THIS THING INTO TURBULENCE I GUARANTEE THE AIR
WILL KICK YOU AROUND AT WELL OVER 10 DEGREES PER
SECOND ROATION RATES, SO I GUARANTEE YOU WILL SEE
=>FULL<= RUDDER DEFLECTION FIRST ONE WAY, AND THEN
THE OTHER, AS THE PLANE WAY OVER-REACTS TO EACH
ANGULAR ROTATION INDUCED BY THE TURBULENCE BY
KICKING FULL RUDDER TRYING TO OPPOSE THAT ROTATION!
So, as you can see, a constant of 0.1 is really pretty high. Now, to give
you an idea of how bad it can get, I have actually seen a plane where
someone entered a constant of 3.0. THIRTY TIMES HIGHER than this
hypothetical case. Think about what this means: For a rotation rate of
1/3 degree per second (in other words, it takes 270 seconds (4.5
minutes) to move thru 90 degrees of heading, an EXTREMELY LOW
ROTATION RATE, the system would put in FULL OPPOSITE
RUDDER! HOLY COW! That means that the plane has even the
tiniest, slowest-imaginable HINT of rotation in a given direction, THE
RUDDER SLAMS HARD OVER TO THE STOP TO COUNTER IT.
Needless to say, any time this plane entered even the slightest hint of
turbulence, the rudder would slam from one stop to the other in a
wildly exaggerated effort to counter the turbulence. Ugh! If you must
kill a fly buzzing around you in a china-shop, don't go after it with a
chainsaw. The results won't be pretty. This particular plane handled
OK if there was no turbulence: Since nothing ever came along to
ROTATE the plane, the flight controls never had to move to OPPOSE
THAT ROTATION, but as soon as the slightest imperfection came
along to move the plane (in this case turbulence, though it could easily
be the pilot kicking a flight control, a bird-strike, an engine-failure, a
bumpy landing, flying into changing winds.. ANYTHING. One thing
that you can ONLY learn by actually getting your pilots license and

getting your butt in the sky is that it is a VERY IMPERFECT WORLD

UP THERE. The plane is constantly barraged by all manner of
imperfections, perturbations, and external winds and forces, and this
must be EXPECTED and anticipated in the design much like with a
BOAT.
Now let's apply what we have learned to PITCH stability: Say
your plane is not very stable in pitch and you want to lock it down a bit.
(First of all, in X-Plane 8.30 RC-2 and later you can slide the "control
addition" sliders in the "Joystick" screen second tab to the right a bit to
add some artificial stability to help stabilize the plane a bit. This simply
engages a system that I designed for you to help stabilize the plane).
But let's say you DON'T want to use my system to stabilize the plane,
but really design your own to mimic the one actually installed in the
real plane! Well, enter maybe 20 degrees for the target angles of
attack (enough to stall the plane) enter 0.1 for the fraction deflection
per degree difference (if the angle of attack is 10 degrees off, then the
plane applies full elevator to capture the desired angle of attack.. a
very aggressive but not insane constant) and enter 0.05 for the
"fraction deflection per degree per second" (if the nose is coming up at
20 degrees per second, then the system will apply full elevator to stop
it). These are some pretty aggressive constants (a lot of elevator is
brought in to counteract a small amount of motion) but I have my
reasons:
1: The plane needs to have lower rates in pitch than in yaw.
Why? Because if you yaw a plane a bit, not that much will change: the
vertical stabilizer, which is being broadcast to the air, is small! But, if
you PITCH the plane a bit, then the WHOLE WING AND
HORIZONTAL STAB is shown to the air... the effect will be a lot greater

than in yaw where only the vertical stab is offset, because the wing is
so much bigger!!!! So, we got a lot more effect for each degree of
angle of attack than we do of sideslip, so we need lower pitch rates
than yaw rates to keep within comfortable (safe) G-loads, so we enter
HIGHER constants in pitch than yaw to really work hard to counter
those pitch rates. Also, there is another reason we can enter higher
constants than you think:
2: I cheat. X-Plane will automatically REDUCE THE
CONSTANTS as you speed up, because it knows that at high speed it
is better to enter smaller control deflections to keep from busting
anything! So the constants you enter here are only fully applied down
near the stall where control authority is mushy. The controls relax and
phase out as the indicated airspeed (air pressure on the controls)
builds up.
Now, are you ready to see this scheme in practice? Open up my
VTOL in Plane-Maker ("File" menu, "Open Aircraft", "Austin's
Designs : Austin's Personal VTOL" and look in the "Expert" menu :
"Artificial Stability" screen. Notice that I have only LOW-SPEED
constants here, designed to phase out rotation rates to make the thing
easy to fly. Look at the rotations I shoot for with full-scale stick
deflections in hover: Max of 30 degrees pitch, 45 degrees roll, and 45
degrees PER SECOND ROATION RATE in yaw. And now you know
what the 0.02 and 0.01 do as well. Now get into X-Plane and load up
this little bird (it starts off with thrust vector at 90 degrees, straight up).
Add power and rise up off the ground and work on your hovering. Slide
left and right. Fore and aft. Up and down. Do it with small control
deflections.
Now, see that little switch on the panel called "ART STAB"?

Turn it OFF to fly WITHOUT stability augmentation.

VIVA LA DIFFERENCE! (for a more extreme case, try turning off the
art stab in my "Death Trap" at 300 knots)

Finishing the Plane: Custom Cockpits, Paint, and

Sounds:
OK, you now know that you can create, modify, upload, and download
airplanes for X-Plane, but once you make an airplane in Plane-Maker,
you will notice that the instruments are all X-Plane standard, the
sounds are all X-Plane standard, and the airplane is simply grey.
What do you do to take your plane to the net level of customization,
with custom paint, instruments, and sounds?
Well, it's pretty easy!
Exit X-Plane.
Now, in your operating system, go into the INSTRUCTIONS folder and
find the EXAMPLE PLANE folders.
Open the 'Example plane 3-D' folder. We will look in there to see what
sorts of things you can customize on your custom plane.
First you see the EXAMPLE.ACF... that is the actual aircraft file that
contains all the data that defines the airplane. You can email this file to
friends or whatever for them to try flying your design. This is what you
save in Plane-Maker.

Custom Paint for Your Plane:

But now let's take it to the next level: Look at the various _paint.bmp
files. These are the paint-jobs for the plane. Simply paint them any
way you like in Photoshop to make them perfect for your particular
design. You may save the files as either BMP or PNG. Notice
the_prop.png file. You should be able to guess what that is when you
open it up and look at it. Of course you can modify that as well. For
any plane you make, simply follow the naming convention you see
here in the instructions folder: name your paint-jobs xxxx_paint.bmp
and xxxx_paint2.bmp, where 'xxxx' is clearly the name of your aircraft.
Each bitmap may currently be up to 1024x1024 in size. All bitmaps
must be powers of 2 in size. (2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024).
To control what part of the plane lives in what bitmap 9siunce you
have up to 2 bitmaps), go to the EXPERT menu in Plane-Maker,
TEXTURE REGION SELECTOR window.
Custom Panels and Instruments for Your Plane:
Now look in the INSTRUCTIONS:EXAMPLE PLANE-BASIC:COCKPIT
folder. In there you have just a few custom panel and altimeter files.
Needless to say, these particular custom files are just the tip of the
iceberg. Look in the RESOURCES:BITMAPS:COCKPIT folder to see
the approx 750 instruments you can customize for your airplane. Each
of the instruments you see there may be copied to your aircraft folder
and customized just like the few sample cases you see in the
EXAMPLE PLANE 3D folder! If you fly X-Plane and open this aircraft,
you will see the instrument panel and altimeter are stunningly ugly...
that is just to make it obvious at a glance they are custom, nonstandard instruments. So, simply follow the model you see here, but
using the instrument names and folders in
RESOURCES:BITMAPS:COCKPIT, and you can customize ALL of X-

Plane's instruments for your plane! Easy!

Now, let's do an example. Let's say you have a plane and you are not
happy with the autopilot annunciator on your airplane. Maybe it is too
small, or does not have quite the right look and feel, or maybe you
have an aircraft with an older annunciator panel that does not look the
way you want. In this case, you must start off by copying the
instrument you want to modify from the X-Plane default instruments
over to your aircraft. To do this, look for the following files in the
following folders:
"resources:bitmaps:cockpit:autopilot:console_filled_GA.png" and
"resources:bitmaps:cockpit:autopilot:console_filled_GA-1.png". Those
are the autopilot annunciator consoles. You can open the PNG files in
Photoshop to look at them. Now, make a folder called
"cockpit:autopilot:" in your own aircraft folder, just like we did for the
Example airplane in the instructions folder. Now, in your operating
system, copy the files "console_filled_GA.png" and
"console_filled_GA-1.png" from "resources:bitmaps:cockpit:autopilot:"
to "cockpit:autopilot:" in the aircraft folder.
Do you see what you are doing? X-Plane will now see these files in
the aircraft folder, and use THEM INSTEAD of the default instruments
whenever it tries to draw an autopilot annunciator panel for general
aviation airplanes. Now, you can simply modify these files in
photoshop (the ones in the "cockpit:autopilot:" in the aircraft folder!) to
make the autopilot annunciator look however you like. If you have
photos or other images of the REAL instruments, you could copy and
paste them from your reference image files right into the
"console_filled_GA.png" and "console_filled_GA-1.png" files. Of
course, you may have to scale and tweak and drag to get the

reference image files you have of the instruments to fit the .png files
you are editing for X-Plane.
Now let's do a more complex example. Let's say you want to do a new
EFIS system. First, in Plane-Maker, drag the EFIS artificial horizon,
HSI, VVI indicator, localizer-deflection-indicator, glideslope-deflectionindicator, DME-indicators if desired, Mach-number indicators, and any
other little instruments into place in Plane-Maker to form the EFIS
system that you want to simulate. It won't look exactly like the EFIS
you want to simulate, but it should be a pretty decent idea. Fly it in XPlane to see if it works about right. Now, take note of the exact name
of each instrument you selected by clicking it in the panel-editor in
Plane-Maker. Now exit Plane-Maker and, in your operating system,
copy all the instruments you just dragged into your EFIS into the
custom instruments folder you created for your airplane, following the
steps listed above, and the example shown in the
'instructions:Example-Plane-Basic:cockpit' folder in your copy of XPlane. Once you have copied in all those files into your own aircraft
folder (with all the folder hierarchies maintained, of course, just like
with the sample plane!) then you can edit each of those files as you
see fit with Photoshop or any other program... copying in images from
photos or other graphics programs as well, if you like. Just be sure, of
course, to:
->keep all the proportions the same, even if the total image size
changes
->save as PNG or BMP, which are the formats X-Plane uses.

As well, if you like the autopilot annunciator of some OTHER aircraft

you have, then of course you can simply copy the autopilot
annunciator folders and images from the airplane you LIKE into the

one that you would LIKE to have the custom annunciators. In other
words, if you have a BARON that has an autopilot annunciator that you
like, and KingAir that has one that you don't, then simply look inside
the "cockpit:autopilot:" folder in each aircraft, and copy the
"console_filled_GA.png" and "console_filled_GA-1.png" files from the
baron to the KingAir... and then voila! You have the new autopilot
annunciators in the KingAir, if you select that instrument for
somewhere in the panel of the KingAir. Using this technique, you can
copy custom instruments from one plane to another easily.
So, now you see how you can easily modify and any instrument for
any airplane in X-Plane, and copy modified instruments around
between airplanes.

Custom Sounds for Your Plane:

Look in the EXAMPLE PLANE 3D:SOUNDS folder to see some
custom SOUNDS this plane has. As you can see, all you need to do is
make your own WAV file and name it as the airplane name plus "
engn1.wav" for the left engine, for example, drop it into the
SOUNDS:ENGINE folder and you are ready to fly with a custom
engine sound! Do you want to see a complete list of ALL the sounds
your can customize? OK! Look in the RESOURCES:SOUNDS folder.
Just like the RESOURCES:BITMAPS:COCKPIT folder is a list of all
the INSTRUMENTS you can customize, the RESOURCES:SOUNDS
folder contains a list of all the SOUNDS you can customize by putting
them in your aircraft folder! Follow these simple conventions and you
can have all the custom sounds you like, different for each plane!
Custom Weapons and Slung Loads for Your Plane:

Want to make your own missiles and bombs for your plane? No
problem! Run Plane-Maker and go the WEAPONS window in the
EXPERT menu and make and save a weapon. You will be saving a
.wpn file that should go in the WEAPONS folder. Now look in the
EXAMPLE PLANE 3D:WEAPONS folder. This is where you can save
your own weapons... the .bmp file is simply the paint that goes on the
weapon. You can have a good handful of weapons on your plane.
You can do the same for slung loads (a Jeep carried by a Black-Hawk,
for example). Look at Example_slung_load.obj. This is an object that
can be selected as a slung payload in the SETTINGS:WEIGHT AND
BALANCE window in X-Plane. These objects can be saved in the 3-D
editor AC3D. Now look at the EXAMPLE_SLUNG_LOAD.PNG... that
is the custom texture for any slung load you might carry, which is
specified in the OBJ file.

Custom 3-D Cockpits and Bodies for Your Plane:

OK now we kick it up to the top level: Making custom 3-D cockpit and
bodies for your airplane with a 3-D editor. This takes us beyond the
basic 2-D cockpits and simple shapes of the standard airplanes and
up into the level of total customization and accuracy.
Look at EXAMPLE PLANE 3D:EXAMPLE_COCKPIT.OBJ. This is the
3-D virtual cockpit, if you want your plane to have one. Hit control-O in
X-Plane (or whatever key you have decided to use in the
INSTRUCTIONS:KEYS folder) to go into virtual-3-D-cockpit mode in
X-Plane, and use the a-s-d-w-r-f-arrow keys and mouse to move
around in the 3-D cockpit. Look at EXAMPLE PLANE
3D:EXAMPLE_COCKPIT_TEXTURE.PNG. This is the texture that will

be used in the (totally optional) 3-D virtual cockpit, if you decide to

make one.
The next question is: How do you create OBJ files? Well, OBJ files are
3-d objects that X-Plane can draw. As such, you need an editor that
can create 3-D objects and save them in the OBJ format. AC3D is
such an editor, and you can get that at www.ac3d.org.
So, how do you do this? Well, check out scenery.x-plane.com for full
documentation, but here it is in brief:
X-Plane uses the OBJ file-format, which can be saved in AC3D.
(www.ac3d.org)
There is a plug-in that saves AC3D files in the OBJ format, so you can
simply make your objects in AC3D, then save them as X-Plane object
files and they will be ready to fly!
Now, let's say that you want to use LightWave rather than AC3D.
This is a little bit of a problem, because LightWave can use MORE
than one texture per object (for speed, X-Plane uses only ONE texture
per object!) and LightWave can NOT save in the OBJ format.
But never fear! You can do all your work on the OBJ in LightWave,
then save the file in 3ds format.
Then, open the 3ds file in AC3D and apply the (SINGLE!) texture to
the object... once you do that, simply save the file as an OBJ and that
file is ready to be read as a custom cockpit object, miscellaneous
object, object for scenery, or the like.
Distribution:
OK, now that you have your airplane done, it's time to get it out there!

Go to www.X-Plane.org and create a free account... it takes 5

seconds.
Now, make a single folder that holds your airplane, and a folder within
that folder that holds any custom airfoils you may have made, if you
have not already. People often upload airplanes BUT FORGET TO
UPLOAD THEIR AIRFOILS. DON'T DO THAT. IT DOESN'T WORK.
So, be sure to configure the acf file inside a folder with a recognizable
name, put any custom airfoils you made inside a folder called 'airfoils',
which lives inside the main folder for the airplane, and zip the whole
thing in a zip file. Windows users can use WinZip, mac users can
option-click on the folder and chose "Create Archive" and the job is
done. Now, just upload your plane! Cool! This is a great way to let
others see your design, especially for commercial purposes, like
letting the world test-fly your companies plane virtually... at zero cost
to you!
Summary:
OK, you now see how to make, modify, upload, and download custom
airplanes to fly in X-Plane.
You know how to customize the paint, instruments, sounds, weapons,
slung-loads, and even 3-D cockpits in X-Plane.
NOW GET TO WORK!!!!!!