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X-PLANE V8 (Mac) | 
 enlarge | From: Graphics Simulations Corporation
Category: Video Games
Buy New: $79.95
New (1) Used (6) from $53.99
Rating:  8 reviews
Sales Rank: 15314
Format: Cd-rom
Platforms: Macintosh, Mac Os X
Genre: Simulation Games
ESRB: Everyone
Media: CD-ROM
Batteries Included: No
Age: 5 - 20 years
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5.4 x 1.5
MPN: GRAFGR155DVD
UPC: 740569000393
EAN: 0740569000393
ASIN: B0006I7GLW
Release Date: November 30, 2004
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Features:
| • | Comprehensive and powerful flight simulator | | • | 29 aircraft spanning the aviation industry and history | | • | Scenery spans the globe; easily customize your own airplanes | | • | Variable weather; fly actual current conditions with Internet downloads | | • | 35 systems can be failed manually or randomly |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
X-Plane 8.0 is the ultimate in general aviation simulators. With a wide range of airplanes, all-new helicopters, dynamic speech synthesis and full-planet terrain-mapped scenery will keep your eyes popping out for hours!
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| Customer Reviews: Read 3 more reviews...
 It's not really a "game"... October 14, 2007
Canon User (Naples, FL, USA)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
... it's a flight simulator, plain and simple. I've always dreamed of obtaining a Private Pilot Certificate, but one thing has always kept me from achieving this goal. You guessed it, CASH! The one thing that steadily increases the amount you have to pay for flight lessons is the need to keep doing things over and over until your instructor is satisfied that you can perform any given procedure satisfactorly. X-Plane allows you to practice these procedures in the comfort of your own home until you have them down cold.
I've read the other reviews and I'm convinced they are dealing with an X-Plane evil twin or something. I've had no such problems with my modest computer setup. Here's the breakdown; I run X-Plane 8.6 (it is now Universal Binary) on a MacBook Pro that comes with the standard ATI Radeon 1600 256 MB graphics card. 100 MB hard drive and 2GB DDR2 SDRAM. OS is X version 10.4.10. I run X-Plane off and external fire wire 800 1 TB 7200 RPM drive. Finally my controls are the CH Products USB Flight Sim Yoke and Rudder Pedals. Everything is calibrated for maximum realism. Of course, all my rendering settings aren't maxed out, everything is pretty much middle of the road (the X-Plane webite has very detailed instructions on how to get the best performance out of you machine.
When I fly the simulator I average between 50 and 60 frames per second - smooth, smooth, smooth.
I haven't had one single glitch or system crash.
All the procedures I practice are straight out of Sporty's Private Pilot Course (about 200 bucks). The actions of X-Plane emulate the procedures described in the course to a T.
Now think about it, how much further you'll be ahead of the game if you practice the maneuvers, learn the instrumentation and handle your X-Plane aircraft with a high degree of proficiency when you first walk into your local civilian airport and sign-up for your Private Pilot Certification course as opposed to the person that walks in the door cold and requests flying lessons? I'm sure your training will take much less time than that of the complete novice. And as you know, time is money. With X-Plane under your belt, it's like you've done all your homework before even stepping into a class.
If you really want a super trainer to fly, just Google Jason Chandler. He has created some of the most beatiful and accurate planes for X-Plane on a payware basis. I purchased his Cessna 172S SP for about $10 and absolutely love it. It's far better than the Cessna 172 that comes preloaded in X-Plane.
As for instructions on using the various pieces of equipment in X-Plane, do a little searching on the web in terms of actual equipment used on the planes, checlists, airpot directories etc... With a little bit of common sense diligence, you'll find everything you need.
Someday (in the not too distant future I hope), I will sign up for those flight lessons and will be thorougly prepared to pass the course requirments thanks in large part to X-Plane!
P.S. Over the years I've tried Microsoft Flight simulator and Fly! on a PC. They are over-hyped and just plan suck!
But if your running X-Plane 8.6 on a new Intell DuoCore Mac, you are in for treat. This is the best consumer-grade flight simlator on the planet. Period.
Many thanks to Austin Meyer and his team for their phenominal work!
 XPlane Review - by a pilot January 13, 2007
J. Alderman (USA)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Have used this product for two weeks now, with CH Products Yoke and Rudder Pedals, and have found it erratic in operation. Constant need to recalibrate controls (often while in the middle of a flight), the ILS instructions will inexplicably change to another airport, often hundreds of miles away, the online charts are cluttered, some control knobs can be difficult to discern (and I am on a 20" Imac), the fixed window size (about 60% of my usuable screen area) seems unreasonably small, and ATC instructions will sometimes seem illogical and contradictory. This product appears to be seriously flawed, but that probably has as much to do with the complexity as anything else. It seems to try to do a lot of things, and accomplishes this poorly, instead of doing a few things really well. Just my opinion, and admittedly there might be "workarounds" for these items. If so, I haven't found them.
 Buyer Beware! December 29, 2006
B. Komanetsky (Tracy, Ca United States)
X-Plane customer service is horrible. Contrary to their web site, the free lifetime customer support is support with an attitude. No one there wants to talk to you, no one wants to believe that their product might have problems, basically, they don't care about the customers. Beware customer - Beware!
You need a supercomputer to run this sim November 29, 2006
Miller (Tennessee USA)
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
This program is just too much work to be fun. Unless you have a ultra high end computer with a massive amount of RAM and a massive amount of video RAM save your money. I have an iMac Dual Core with 2GB RAM and 256MB of Video RAM and had trouble getting this program to run with any of the high end scenery and graphics touted on the box. I returned this program as well as the joystick I bought. I wanted to have fun and enjoy some flying. I already have a full time job. I don't want to have to change all of the settings on my computer every time I want to run this sim. Nothing on the outside of the box gives the user any warning about the troubles of achieving the great graphics it touts. I feel just plain misled. It is very promising but the computers necessary to run it properly are just not all that common. In the end I am very disappointed.
Too Complicated -- When you just want a simple flight sim... May 20, 2006
C. Tibbs (Blue Ridge Mountains of VA)
12 out of 14 found this review helpful
Conclusion!!!! There is no good flight sim for Mac --IF YOU JUST WANT TO FLY A PLANE ON YOUR COMPUTER. X-Plane is a great software if by next year you hope to be earning your living flying. This is a very complicated program and there is no way to just fly and enjoy. I have a G5 dual core Mac with the large 20" display -- and you can only use a protion of the screen to get the right display to see the entire cockpit etc.
The developers are great people and will assist you in anyway -- but you will spend more time gathering information and "fixing" things than flying. ABSOLUTELY GREAT SOFTWARE FOR A PERSON WANTING TO REALLY LEARN TO FLY -- but I want to sit at my computer and just have a simple take off and landing experience. Thinking of buying a PC again just to get back to Microsoft Flight Sim. -- And Fly II? I bought it twice over the years and didn't take me long to throw them in the trash.
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