Introduction to Plane Maker

Plane Maker is a program bundled with X-Plane that lets users design their own aircraft. Using this software, nearly any aircraft imaginable can be built! Once all the physical specifications of the airplane have been entered (e.g., weight, wing span, control deflections, engine power, airfoil sections, etc.), the X-Plane simulator will predict how that plane will fly—it will model the aircraft’s performance just like it does for X-Plane’s built-in aircraft.

Airplanes are saved in Plane Maker just as one would save a word processing document. These files are then opened and flown in the X-Plane simulator. Users can create a .zip file of all the components of the airplane and distribute that ZIP on the Internet for others to fly. Planes created by others can also be downloaded and used in the simulator. X-Plane.org’s "Download Manager" page is a good place both to upload and download these planes.

Note that information on how to add aircraft to X-Plane can be found in Chapter 7: Expanding X-Plane of the X-Plane Desktop manual.

Licensing of Aircraft Created in Plane Maker
Users are free to do whatever they like with planes they have created.

The end-user license agreement (EULA) of X-Plane is pretty simple. It begins, "You can use X-Plane for anything you want!" One excellent use for Plane Maker is to create the airplane of one’s dreams, fly it in X-Plane, and then upload it to the Internet for others to fly! Even better, if a company has an exciting airplane, it can be built in Plane Maker, test flown in X-Plane, and then put on the company’s web-site for customers or potential customers to download! Anyone that has X-Plane (or even the free demo) will be able to download the virtual version of the aircraft and fly it in X-Plane. This is great because it will first teach more people to fly the airplane (creating potential customers) and then improve the currency of those that already fly it (creating safer customers). Of course, Plane Maker can also be used to model an aircraft that users already have and fly every day, allowing pilots to keep up on their stick-and-rudder and instrument skills.

An Overview of the Plane Maker Workflow
There are a thousand different ways to go about working in Plane Maker. The following steps serve as a good workflow model to start from when creating an aircraft in Plane Maker:
 * 1) Decide on a design
 * 2) Create the fuselage, wings, and tail of the aircraft
 * 3) Create secondary objects, such as landing gears and engine nacelles
 * 4) Set up the internal specifications, such as engines, electrical systems, weight and balance, and viewpoints
 * 5) Set up any additional features of the aircraft, such as added weapons or special controls.
 * 6) Create a 2-D instrument panel
 * 7) Test-fly the aircraft in X-Plane and fine-tune the features of the aircraft created in steps 1-6 as needed
 * 8) Add textures, 3-D objects, extra liveries, etc.

Steps 2-8 above will be covered in this manual; for Step 1, you’re on your own!