I've been using On Top 8 as my IFR training sim, and it's not bad, but I
have two problems with it:

1) It is terribly oversensitive in pitch (with my CH yoke at least) and
there seems to be no way around this.

2) My main machine is a dual G5 PowerMac and I'd be much happier with a
Mac sim. Unfortunately, they are few and far between.

But there's X-Plane. The flight sim junkies love it, but is it good
enough to use for IFR training? The feature set looks good. There is
even a free demo version but before I spend time with it I wanted to ask
if anybody here has experience with it. TIA.

Nevermind. I shoulda googled first. I have what I need.

Paul Folbrecht wrote:

> I've been using On Top 8 as my IFR training sim, and it's not bad, but I
> have two problems with it:
>
> 1) It is terribly oversensitive in pitch (with my CH yoke at least) and
> there seems to be no way around this.
>
> 2) My main machine is a dual G5 PowerMac and I'd be much happier with a
> Mac sim. Unfortunately, they are few and far between.
>
> But there's X-Plane. The flight sim junkies love it, but is it good
> enough to use for IFR training? The feature set looks good. There is
> even a free demo version but before I spend time with it I wanted to ask
> if anybody here has experience with it. TIA.

Paul Folbrecht > wrote:
> But there's X-Plane. The flight sim junkies love it, but is it good
> enough to use for IFR training? The feature set looks good. There is
> even a free demo version but before I spend time with it I wanted to ask
> if anybody here has experience with it. TIA.

I bought X-Plane a bunch of years ago when I was prepping for my CFI-I
ride. I hadn't flown any NDB approaches since I got my instrument
rating and was having a hard time getting them back up to snuff (read: I
was wasting a lot of money boring holes in the sky in the general
vicinity of airports with NDB approaches).

Yes, the control feel is terrible, but as a *procedures* trainer, it did
the trick for me. After a few sessions sitting at my desk at home, I
was nailing NDB approaches one after the other. Then I went back into
the plane and they were fine there too. I think I was running it on a
Mac 7100 or 7200 at the time.

These days, I havn't flown an NDB approach in years, as none of the
planes I fly have ADFs installed any more. Procedure training these
days is becoming much more of a GPS programming exercise than anything
else.

Paul Folbrecht wrote:
> I've been using On Top 8 as my IFR training sim, and it's not bad, but I
> have two problems with it:
>
> 1) It is terribly oversensitive in pitch (with my CH yoke at least) and
> there seems to be no way around this.
>
> 2) My main machine is a dual G5 PowerMac and I'd be much happier with a
> Mac sim. Unfortunately, they are few and far between.
>
> But there's X-Plane. The flight sim junkies love it, but is it good
> enough to use for IFR training? The feature set looks good. There is
> even a free demo version but before I spend time with it I wanted to ask
> if anybody here has experience with it. TIA.
I bought a Microsoft USB stick and use it with IP Trainer. It is much
more stable than the CH Pro yoke.