chapter 2

2: Installing X-Plane

2: Installing X-Plane

System Requirements

Given the incredible capabilities and accuracy that X-Plane provides, it is not possible to run a current release of X-Plane on a really old computer. A good rule of thumb is that any machine built in the last 18 to 24 months will probably be able to run the simulator acceptably. Computers up to about 36 months old may be just fine if they were top-of-the-line machines when manufactured, or X-Plane may still be able to run with its rendering options turned down.

X-Plane 9 requires a computer with at least the following specifications:

-1.5 GHz processor.-1.0 GB RAM (physical memory).-32 MB VRAM (video memory on your video card).

So, how do you tell what your computer has? Mac users can easily find everything in the Apple Menu: About this Mac. For Windows users, it is a bit more awkward, but still pretty easy. Go to the START menu and select MY COMPUTER. A window will come up with VIEW SYSTEM INFORMATION in the left sidebar. Select it, than select the GENERAL tab. Near the bottom of the screen you will see the CPU speed (like 2.0 GHz, which is 2 gigahertz). You will also see memory (like 1.0 GB of RAM, which is 1 gigabyte of RAM)

Display Requirements and System Architecture

X-Plane can display on any screen ranging from 1,024 X 768 pixels to 9,999 X 9,999 pixels. Many of the monitors and screens available today are wide-aspect ratio screens, with a 16:9 ratio. While X-Plane can easily fill a screen with these options, most aircraft have only been set up with cockpits that can be stretched in a 3:4 ratio. Thus, on wider screens, you will find that the cockpit image is flanked on each side of your screen with scenery, immediately adjacent to your cockpit image. To avoid this, set your X-Plane image. (Settings -> Rendering Options; Screen Resolution field) to a 3:4 ratio. Note that you will need to shut X-Plane down and the change will take effect on the next launch).

With one computer it is possible to draw any view you like and, assuming that your video card has dual video heads, an Instructor's Operating Station (IOS). The IOS (also available via a different computer if you like, either local or via a LAN or internet connection) provides the ability to alter the weather, relocate the aircraft, and fail multitudes of different systems and components. You can pretty much do anything to the aircraft you can imagine, including probably 98% of the failures simulated at Flight Safety and the other simulator-based flight training companies.

X-Plane allows the use of any number of screens to depict anything you like. You can use multiple computers to drive multiple monitors and thereby network up to about 20 screens showing any combination of views you can imagine. If your computer is especially powerful, you can also use a video splitter (check out the 'Triple Head to Go' splitter, made by Matrix) to drive three forward visuals with one machine. You can than use a second machine to drive your cockpit screen and IOS.

Installing X-Plane

Windows PC

1. Insert the X-Plane DVD into your DVD-ROM drive and wait for it to spin up.

2. Open 'My Computer' and navigate to the DVD drive which contains the DVD 'XPLANE9' (this is usually drive D: but may be different on your system).

3. Locate the Windows Installer and double-click on it to launch the X-Plane installation. BE SURE to click on DESTINATION and select where you would like to install X-Plane to before clicking on INSTALL. We recommend installing on the root directory (that is on the first level of your hard drive, NOT inside of My Programs or Applications or Owner's Documents or anything like that).

4. Click on INSTALL to begin installation. The installer will display its progress and will normally take about 30 to 45 minutes to install X-Plane. Note - if you can not see the buttons on the bottom, labeled DESTINATION and INSTALL and EXIT than you are probably running at some minimal resolution, like 600 X 800 or something. Running at this state will not allow your computer to display the bottom of our screen and you will need to force-quit the installer and change your Screen Resolution in your operating system to be at least 1,024 X 768 or higher.

5. Remove the X-Plane master disk from your DVD drive.

6. Insert any of the X-Plane scenery disks you like and run the Windows installer on that disk, as before. Note that each scenery disk has an image of the part of the Earth that is contained on that disk. Thus, to install the US scenery, insert the disk with the picture of the United States on it.

7. Click on DESTINATION and point the installer at your partially installed copy of X-Plane. Do this by navigating to your 'X-Plane' folder installed in step 4. Than click once on the X-Plane folder to highlight it and click CHOOSE or OK or THIS IS MY X-PLANE DESTINATION, as the case may be.

8. Click on INSTALL to begin installation. The installer will display its progress and will normally take about 45 to 60 minutes to install each scenery disk.

Macintosh


2. Launch the Macintosh Finder and navigate to the DVD drive which contains the DVD 'XPLANE9'.

3. Locate the application named 'Installer Macintosh' and double-click on it to launch the X-Plane installation. BE SURE to click on DESTINATION and select where you would like to install X-Plane to before clicking on INSTALL. We recommend installing on the root directory (that is on the first level of your hard drive, NOT inside of My Programs or Applications or Owner's Documents or anything like that).

4. Browse the selected location on your hard disk and choose 'Install' to begin installation. The installer will display the current progress and will normally take about 30 to 45 minutes to install X-Plane. Note - if you can not see the buttons on the bottom, labeled DESTINATION and INSTALL and EXIT than you are probably running at some minimal resolution, like 600 X 800 or something. Running at this state will not allow your computer to display the bottom of our screen and you will need to force-quit the installer and change your Screen Resolution in your operating system to be at least 1,024 X 768 or higher.



7. Click on DESTINATION and point the installer at your partially installed copy of X-Plane. Do this by navigating to your 'X-Plane' folder installed in step 4. Than click once on the X-Plane folder to highlight it and click CHOOSE.


Linux


2. Navigate to the DVD drive which contains the DVD 'XPLANE9'.

3. Locate the application named 'Installer Macintosh' and double-click on it to launch the X-Plane installation. BE SURE to click on DESTINATION and select where you would like to install X-Plane to before clicking on INSTALL. We recommend installing on the root directory (that is on the first level of your hard drive, NOT inside of My Programs or Applications or Owner's Documents or anything like that).

4. Browse the selected location on your hard disk and choose 'Install' to begin installation. The installer will display the current progress and will normally take about 30 to 45 minutes to install X-Plane. Note - if you can not see the buttons on the bottom, labeled DESTINATION and INSTALL and EXIT than you are probably running at some minimal resolution, like 600 X 800 or something. Running at this state will not allow your computer to display the bottom of our screen and you will need to force-quit the installer and change your Screen Resolution in your operating system to be at least 1,024 X 768 or higher.



7. Click on DESTINATION and point the installer at your partially installed copy of X-Plane. Do this by navigating to your 'X-Plane' folder installed in step 4. Than click once on the X-Plane folder to highlight it and click CHOOSE.


Installing X-Plane - Considerations for Windows Users

OpenGL Graphics and video drivers

IMPORTANT: X-Plane is a hardware-accelerated program and requires a graphics card (also known as a video card), which supports OpenGL. Your video card requires a special graphics driver, which can make use of the OpenGL graphics commands that X-Plane uses. Without these drivers, X-Plane will perform poorly on your system, or not at all.

On most systems the required drivers will already be installed. However, it may be necessary to update your drivers to the latest ones available from the manufacturer of your video card. You can check for the latest driver and Open GL library versions and download them via the Internet. For ATI video cards go to http://www.ati.com and for NVIDIA video cards go to http://www.nvidia.com.

First - We suggest installing and launching X-Plane and seeing how it runs. If you end up with a screen consisting of splashes of color or random images of various pieces of the airplane or instrument panel or you get horizontal or vertical bars running through your screen it is VERY likely that your video drivers and graphics libraries need to be updated. Also, if you get an error referring to a corrupt or missing '.dll', that is also a key indicator that your drivers need to be replaced.

A high percentage of Windows operating systems are operating with drivers that are out-of-date or that do not currently support Open GL. To ensure that your machine will be ready to run X-Plane, follow these instructions:

-Assuming you have Windows XP and a 3-D video card capable of running Open GL, you need to correctly install the latest drivers.

-First, go to the web page of your video card manufacturer and download the latest drivers, being sure that they include OPEN GL drivers (NOT just the mini-Open GL). They will be delivered in an executable that you will double-click to activate.

-Download the executable file (with the '.exe' appendix) and double-click on it to blow it up into a folder. NOTE -- Remember where you extract the folder to! We suggest creating a folder called 'Drivers' and extracting the files to that folder. Often, people extract the files and have no idea where their machine extracted them to, assuming that the drivers will be automatically installed. This will not happen and then these users have no idea where the files are or how to access them.

- Go to MY COMPUTER located on your desk top or in your START menu.

- Go to the SYSTEM icon inside of that.

- Go to the DEVICE MANAGER tab inside of that.

- Go to the video adapters tab and click on it to expand it.

- Now REMOVE the adapters inside there by highlighting them and hitting the 'Delete' button. This will remove your old drivers, which you need to do before installing new ones. Now restart your machine.

If your computer says it detects new hardware and allows you to select the location of the new drivers, then select the location of the new drivers by selecting the folder you just extracted the drivers to. (Note: if there is a file called setup.exe or something like that in the drivers folder, then you can run that file and it may install drivers automatically. You will have to re-start and you should be in business.)

If you think you made a mistake and want to install the new drivers again, then go back to the device manager like you did to remove the drivers (open up the video adapter section again) but this time click "update driver" or similar and then when asked by windows to choose a location, select the folder that you extracted the drivers into. This will cause windows to actually use the new drivers that you have extracted. Getting the latest drivers this way will hopefully get you in business. Getting the latest driver correctly installed is frequently needed by X-Plane, and is a common necessity in Microsoft Windows.

If your card does not support open GL, then I highly recommend any modern, upper end Nvidia GeForce card (www.Nvidia.com) or ATI card (www.ati.com).

Note to Windows Users:

Those wishing to use X-Plane on a Microsoft Windows operating system will also need to have Microsoft Direct X 9.0c (or later) installed for X-Plane to use audio and joystick features. Download a free copy from www.microsoft.com. When you get to the Microsoft website, search for Direct X in the search box in the upper right corner and Microsoft will guide you to the download site.

Uninstalling X-Plane

The X-Plane installer does not infest a hard drive or create multiple subdirectories or shortcuts on your machine. Therefore, it is a simple matter to uninstall the program, simply delete the primary X-Plane folder, for example 'X-Plane 900' or 'X-Plane 915', as the case may be where the 900 or 915 indicates the version that you were using. As there were no shortcuts or registry entries created, this is all that is required to remove the software from your system completely.

Launching X-Plane

When the installation of X-Plane is complete, you will need to locate the X-Plane application and launch it. Note that X-Plane does NOT infest your hard drive, or create shortcuts or subdirectories for you. We don't do this because, well, we just don't think it's right. We see countless people with their desktop littered in shortcuts and they cannot tell where the shortcuts go! I have personally witnessed hundreds of hours of time wasted in frustration because people will:

1: install software and use only the shortcut to it2: get an updated version of the software in a NEW location3: keep using the shortcut to the OLD software, while THINKING they are using the NEW software... unable to figure out why nothing is working like they expected.

This is exactly the type of lack of awareness that costs people thousands of hours of lost time as they cannot figure out what is actually on their own hard drive . . . and I won't be a party to it. X-Plane does not install a shortcut that goes off into a black hole you never understand. The X-Plane installer installs a folder called X-Plane on your hard drive (at whatever path you selected in the installer - the C drive is typical), and you run X-Plane by going into that folder and double-clicking on the EXE. Make a shortcut to that EXE if you like, of course, but I have personally witnessed hundreds of hours lost by customers that don't know where their shortcuts point to, watching as they save a plane in one directory, then look for it in another, wondering why they can never keep the latest versions of their airplanes straight.

So, on Windows machines, click on Start > My Computer and then double click on your local disk (typically your C drive) and locate your X-Plane folder. Macintosh users should do the same by simply clicking on their hard drive icon. You'll note that the X-Plane program is located in the main X-Plane folder. Double-click it to launch.

Upgrading to a later Version of X-Plane

Before you update X-Plane, make sure that all of the scenery disks you are expecting to use have been installed. You can ONLY install the scenery disks onto a copy of X-Plane that has been installed directly from your master disk. You can NOT install X-Plane from disk, than update it and than expect to install any part of scenery as this will not work. To update X-Plane just launch the copy of X-Plane that you have been using. Once it opens, go to About > Current and Latest Version: Update. X-Plane will shut itself down, automatically download and extract the current installer, launch it, point it at the old copy of X-Plane that needs to be updated and diagnose the difference between your copy of X-Plane and our latest, most current version. Than simply click on INSTALL and accept our licensing agreement by clicking on I AGREE. Remember that if you were using a shortcut or alias to launch X-Plane it will no longer be valid after the program is updated. While the shortcut may have pointed to 'X-Plane 900' previously, the program's name has now been changed to 'X-Plane915' or something. Thus, you will need to remember to delete your shortcut and create a new one.

Compatibility between X-Plane and earlier versions of scenery, aircraft models, and plug-ins: X-Plane is designed to be backwards compatible but this is only possible to a certain extent. Any version of X-Plane will always have the ability to fly airplanes written for that version or the previous version. Thus, X-Plane 9 will be able to fly aircraft files written in Version 8 or 9 but maybe not earlier. Likewise, scenery add-on packages will be backwards compatible for at least one version, but possibly more.

Plug-ins are small programs that have been written by third parties to modify X-Plane in some way. With plugins, you can build multiplayer gaming modifications, re-program the built-in ATC, extend the cockpit, add scenery, and more. For example, XSquawkBox is a plug-in that allows players to connect X-Plane to the VATSIM or IVAO global air traffic control network. With XSquawkBox , you can fly online with hundreds of other pilots (who may be running X-Plane or Microsoft Flight Simulator), receive ATC instructions from real live people acting as air-traffic controllers over the internet via voice-over-IP, see other aircraft ahead of you on the approach and hear ATC sequencing you in. This is really approaching what real pilots experience every day. Plug-ins should NOT be affected by the update process, but it is impossible for us to keep track of all the different plug-ins that have been written for X-Plane. Thus, if you suspect that an update has created a problem for a plug-in that you're using, please contact the plug-in administrator or author for assistance.

Check out www.X-Plane.com: X-World: Links and Lists section for a listing of third party add-ons available for X-Plane. There you will find more than 1,500 additional aircraft files that can be downloaded - almost all of which are free - as well as custom scenery add-on packages. Note that all of these files were written by our customers and some are better than others. Keep in mind that, because X-Plane actually computes the forces acting on an aircraft in flight, the simulator will fly the aircraft the way it was built by the author, not the way the manufacturer built it. Thus, if the aircraft you downloaded was constructed with the wrong airfoil, camber, incidence, sweep, dihedral, chord, decollage (and the list continues!) then X-Plane will predict how that aircraft would fly if ACTUALLY BUILT THIS WAY. Thus, it's the old adage of 'Garbage In - Garbage Out. Keep this in mind when you are searching the internet for free aircraft downloads!

Flight Control Requirements

Joystick and other hardware selection:

While it is physically possible to fly X-Plane with only the mouse and keyboard, this is both cumbersome and unrealistic because no real airplanes are flown with a mouse and keyboard! While instructions for flying like this are included in the Using the Mouse Instead of a Joystick section later in this manual, it is strongly recommended that you use (at least) a joystick to get a realistic experience.

So what about joysticks? Well, every USB joystick and yoke on the market that we have seen recently will work with X-Plane, but, like most other things in life, quality comes down to a case of You get what you pay for. Therefore, be leery of joysticks advertised for $29.95 at your local retailer. Our experience has proven that the cheaper hardware typically does not last as long or work as well as more moderately priced equipment. The joysticks you can buy at X-Plane.com, though, are of very high quality.

Now, here is a quick review of other available options:

Joysticks typically provide pitch, roll, and sometimes even throttle control as well as a few buttons that can be programmed to do different things. For example, you may program one button to raise and lower the landing gear, and two additional buttons to raise the flaps and lower them. Also, some joysticks can have their handle twisted left and right to control the yaw axis. If your joystick does not offer yaw control then you will probably want a set of rudder pedals to provide realistic yaw control in your airplanes. A joystick will be best if you want to fly fighter or sport airplanes, or planes like the Airbus, Cirrus, or Lancair, because those planes, in reality, are controlled with little joysticks!

Now, instead of using a joystick, you may choose to use a YOKE. A yoke consists of a steering-wheel-like control that rotates left and right and also slides back and forth. This apparatus is typically clamped to your desk and more faithfully replicates the controls found in aircraft ranging from some private airplanes to Boeing airliners. Yokes may also have a throttle quadrant, which will allow you to independently control the propeller, throttle, and mixture controls for a single propeller engine. Yokes do not offer control of the yaw axis (you can twist some joysticks left and right for yaw control, but not a yoke), so you will need a set of rudder pedals to provide realistic yaw-control of your airplane if you want to be able to control your airplane in the yaw axis. A yoke will be best if you want to fly older-style general aviation airplanes, business jets, and non-Airbus airliners, since those planes are flown with yokes in reality.

The CH-Products Multi-Engine Throttle Quadrant offers independent and variable control of six different functions. Normally, this would be set up to control the throttle, propeller, and mixture controls for each engine on a twin-engine airplane. This controller can also be used to control throttle and condition (fuel cutoff) for jet engines, allowing independent control of jet powered aircraft with up to three engines. A multi-engine throttle quadrant is recommended if you're interested in realistically flying airplanes with more than one engine.

Now about those rudder pedals: Rudder Pedals allow you to realistically control the airplane's yaw by pushing the left or right pedal to turn. Rudder pedals control the rudder in flight, and steering on the ground. The pedals also control the brakes to help the airplane stop or turn sharply while on the ground. (Push the TOPS of the left or right pedal to activate the brakes on that side of the plane). Actively controlling the rudder is needed to realistically steer the airplane on the ground, track the runway centerline when taking off and landing, slip the airplane, take off or land in a crosswind, or recover from stalls and spins.

Now, if you do NOT have a set of rudder pedals, then X-Plane DOES automatically slew the rudder to try and keep the airplane flying true (if there are no axis assignments made to yaw . . . see the Joystick and Equipment Set Up section of this manual), but this auto-rudder function is not smart enough to take off or land properly in a crosswind, slip, or do various other things you might want done with the rudders. For that reason, rudder pedals (or at least a twisting joystick) are highly recommended.

You can buy joysticks and other equipment at www.X-Plane.com in the orders section. Also, feel free to call or e-mail customer support with any additional questions you have. Contact information can be found at the Contact Us section of X-Plane.com.

Joystick Configuration and Calibration

Note: If you are using a joystick or other hardware, it will need to be plugged in before you start X-Plane or X-Plane will not see your input devices. Earlier, we reviewed the various types of input devices that you may want to consider. The most common type of input device is a joystick. More elaborate input devices such as flight yokes, multi-engine throttle quadrants and rudder pedals can also be configured with X-Plane. Note that X-Plane can only listen to USB-format devices. This configuration has become the industry standard and is probably what you already have, assuming your hardware isn't excessively old. The first thing that you must do to use a joystick (or other input device) with X-Plane is to properly calibrate it within X-Plane.

A few notes before we get started:

- If you don't have a joystick or other input device, you can still control X-Plane by using the mouse and keyboard... just click the middle of the windshield with your mouse to take over flight control.

- A joystick or yoke of some kind is recommended as a minimum flight control device as this will be much more realistic and provide a better environment for you to use the software.

Axis Assignment

Once X-Plane is running, go to Settings > Joystick and Equipment. This will bring up the screens that will allow you to configure and calibrate your joystick hardware. To start, click on the Axis tab at the top of this screen.

To setup and calibrate your joystick, move your controls around to see how the axes are mapped into X-Plane. When you do this, you'll see one of the green bars move for each input you actuate. Thus, when you roll your stick or yoke left and right only one green bar will move. If you push it back and forth another bar will move. Select from the drop down box to the left of each green bar the desired function in X-Plane. The normal configuration is as follows:

1: The axis that moves when you move the stick / yoke left and right should be assigned to ROLL.

2: The axis that moves when you move the stick fore and aft should be assigned to PITCH.

3: The axis that moves when you move the throttle should be assigned to THROTTLE (NOT 'throttle 1' or 'throttle 2' unless you're flying a multiple engine aircraft and are using a multi-engine throttle quadrant.)

4: The axis that moves when you move the rudder pedals left and right should be assigned to YAW.

5: The THROTTLE axis should probably have the REVERSE box checked.

If you have additional input devices, you can program them within X-Plane in the same way.

Note: Any green bar which is not actively controlled by your hardware needs to be set to 'none'.

Calibrating Joystick Hardware

This is a step of vital importance that often gets left out. Keep in mind that X-Plane is capable of interfacing with most modern joysticks and pedals and such-forth. Some devices may send a signal from 0 to 1,000 when you move a given control from one limit to the opposite and another may send a signal (given the same movement of your hand or foot) from -6,000 to 3,992 or something. How is X-Plane to know what the limits are that your joystick will create? Easy! You tell it. You do this by clicking the button labeled "Calibrate Joystick Hardware" on this window. This tells X-Plane that you are next going to give it your full range of signals for every possible input you have. To do this, just move every one of your variable controls (that is, your sliders) through their full and complete range of motion. You can do this quite rapidly as X-Plane can log and remember all the different inputs at once. So, after you click the button labeled "Calibrate Joystick Hardware" move your stick or yoke from full right to full left deflection, from full back to full forwards. Do the same thing for any engine controls you may have, like throttles or propellers.

Button Assignment

Now click on the Buttons tab at the top of the screen. The buttons and switches on your joystick and other input device(s) can be assigned a function within X-Plane, for example to actuate the flaps or landing gear. As you operate the buttons and switches you will see various 'Joy' indicators change from light gray to dark gray, This is an indication that X-Plane has received your input. To change a button or switch assignment, simply operate the applicable button or switch on your joystick or other input device, then select the required function within X-Plane by clicking on the small circular button to the right of the 'Joy' indicators. Repeat this operation for as many buttons and switches as you wish to assign the functions. Close the dialog and your settings will be saved. Note: You must press the required button or switch to select it prior to assigning it a function. If you do not, you will overwrite the assignment of the previous button or switch you programmed.

Setting Null Zones

Null zones determine how much you have to move the joystick before X-Plane actually starts to take action. You may set a null zone for each joystick axis to finely tune how responsive your control surface inputs are, but this function is typically used to prevent your hardware from 'creeping' in flight or to ignore the constant 'jittering' that many older controllers will send to X-Plane. To do this, click on the CENTER tab.

Now operate each axis on your controller and hold them at the point at which you want the control to begin operating while in flight. Close the dialog and these axis positions will be saved. Any movement inside the 'dead range' you just set will not affect the aircraft's controls.

The third tab in the 'Joystick and Equipment' screen, EQUIPMENT, is used to setup special equipment for use in X-Plane. This special equipment section is generally used on multi-computer X-Plane configurations on professional/FAA certified simulators or to tie in various GPS navigators, for example a real Garmin 96/296/396 or 430 or 530 GPS radio. If you have some of this equipment, connect it to your computer, set it up per the manufacturer's recommendations and than check off on the Equipment screen (Settings > Joystick and Equipment: Equipment) that you have connected this to X-Plane.

Controlling Joystick Sensitivity and Aircraft Stability

Now go to the CENTER tab at the top of the joystick screen. The top-left sliders are the sensitivity curves which control the responsiveness of your input device. If these sliders are set all the way to the LEFT, then the response will be completely linear meaning that a 50% deflection of your joystick will deflect the flight controls 50% of their travel. As you move these sliders to the right the response becomes non-linear. In this case, the first 50% deflection of your joystick or yoke may only deflect the aircraft's controls by 10%. This will dampen any aircraft movements and desensitize your controls but keep in mind that the remaining 90% of the control surface deflection must take place in the last 50% of joystick travel, in this case. Thus, your controls will be very dampened for the first half or so of their travel and then become hyper-sensitive for the remainder of their throw. This gives you plenty of fine-tune control near the center of the flight-control envelope to hold altitude and roll precisely, but still lets you get full control authority at the extremes. Try flying with the sliders in various different positions to see what setting works best for you.

Notice that there is an additional set of sliders on the upper right portion of this screen. These control the X-Planes stability augmentation mode by dampening the predicted forces acting on the aircraft flight control surfaces. If these sliders are all the way to the LEFT, then there is no stability augmentation of your aircraft. Now let's say you drag the sliders to the right a bit . . . this means that X-Plane will automatically add some stability augmentation to your aircraft, adding some elevator input to level the nose, some aileron input to minimize the roll rate, and some rudder input to counter any aircraft yaw rates. In other words, the simulator will try to make the plane easier to fly by adding control inputs for you. Try dragging the sliders all the way to the right and flying the airplane . . . now it is a lot easier to fly, right? Notice that the aircraft also becomes less responsive and heavier on the controls.

Go ahead and play with the two sets of sliders to custom tailor the feel of X-Plane to be comfortable to you.

If It Still Does Not Do What You Want

Now, let's say that you THINK you have done everything above, but you still do not get the desired control response.NOW what do you do?Well, you need to find out if the X-Plane, and the computer is reading your joystick properly.How?Pretty easy.Go to the SETTINGS menu.Then DATA OUTPUT screen.Then select the RIGHT-MOST box next to JOYSTICK AIL/ELV/RUD in the left-most column.Close the window.You will see the ELEV, AILRN, RUDDR (elevator, aileron, rudder) commands from the joystick.

CENTER your stick and pedals. Do all the axis indicate zero, or near-zero? It should!MOVE the stick full LEFT. Does the AILRN indicate -1.000, or near -1.000? It should!MOVE the stick full RIGHT. Does the AILRN indicate 1.000, or near 1.000? It should!MOVE the stick full AFT. Does the AILRN indicate 1.000, or near 1.000? It should!MOVE the stick full FORWARDS. Does the AILRN indicate -1.000, or near -1.000? It should!MOVE the rudder full LEFT. Does the RUDDR indicate -1.000, or near -1.000? It should!MOVE the rudder full RIGHT. Does the RUDDR indicate 1.000, or near 1.000? It should!

By moving the stick and pedals, and seeing what values they are turning into X-Plane, you can see if X-Plane is getting proper stick input.

If you are NOT getting the values you should according to the tests above, then the issue is with your hardware calibration in WINDOWS, or your hardware is JUST PLAIN BROKEN! If you ARE getting the value you should according to the tests above, then your hardware is working fine!

Getting Help.

X-Plane is subject to a continuous development and improvement program; therefore, the version supplied on your DVD may already have been superseded by a later version. Check for updates after you get your software installed by going to About > Current and Latest Version: Update from within X-Plane.

Newer versions of X-Plane often contain feature enhancements, bug fixes, stability improvements, updated aircraft and resources, flight model improvements, and even totally new features or options.

Now that you have purchased the X-Plane master DVD, you are entitled to free updates through that full X-Plane version run. This does not mean that you get free updates for the rest of your life, only for the version you purchased the master disk for. Of course you do not have to take advantage of these updates, but it is recommended that you do so. To update just launch X-Plane, than go to your ABOUT menu and click on UPDATE.

These updates are the full version of X-Plane and will act as time-limited demonstrations if you do not have an X-Plane master DVD. As with the X-Plane version supplied on your DVD, you'll need to have the DVD inserted into your system to use these updated versions - X-Plane uses this as a 'key' to unlock the software. Be sure to have the X-Plane master disk spinning in the DVD drive prior to starting up X-Plane for X-Plane to find it!

Help is available through X-Plane customer support. Current contact information for Laminar Research is shown at X-Plane.com. If you purchased X-Plane on a store shelf somewhere, or through an on-line store like www.amazon.com or similar - then contact Graphic Simulations directly at www.graphsim.com. Appropriate contact information is shown on their website.