Faa simulator

Hi, im going to build a simulator. A had expirience last week in a simulator and there was a error in the system. There was nobody other than my instructor and me so i tried to fix it and i did. I saw that it was a x plane 8. Im a student pilot and if a faa approved simulator will give me some hours why dont build one. So my questions are which sim is better fsx or xplane 8 or 9 ( for realism not graphics. My pc is with processor amd athlon x2 5800+, 4gb ram kingston and video card amd radeon hd 4830 512 mb gddr3) If i get a faa approved version of x plane 8 can i build hours without hardware or can i build my own hardware( i think to make an a320 and i have already collected the information needed to be build).


Thank you if you are going to build an a320 sim contact me i have some files templates and etc.

Interesting plan...

While I don't want to discourage you, I want to make sure you understand the process of getting a simulator certified by the FAA in order to log hours. First to answer your question: both X Plane 8 and 9 are very realistic and use almost identical flight modeling algorithms (Blade-Element Theory) to simulate aircraft behavior. The difference is mostly just the graphics and the way they are presented.

I also would like to point out the requirements for building a certifiable FTD. In order to get a certification for a simulator, you either need to have bought the console/sim from a company such as Precision Flight Controls, or have built an EXTREMELY high fidelity cockpit. And that's only a small, single engine aircraft which I am referring to. For a larger aircraft, such as the A320 you mentioned, you would need to have a company such as Flight Deck Solutions produce it for you. Even if you were to build an A320 cockpit and get it certified, you would not be able to log time in it until you had the necessary licenses to be operating or training on an A320 in real life.

In short, the A320 would be a fun cockpit to have and to fly, but probably not economical nor realistic to get certified.

Steve

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Originally Posted by GPreddy

Interesting plan...

While I don't want to discourage you, I want to make sure you understand the process of getting a simulator certified by the FAA in order to log hours. First to answer your question: both X Plane 8 and 9 are very realistic and use almost identical flight modeling algorithms (Blade-Element Theory) to simulate aircraft behavior. The difference is mostly just the graphics and the way they are presented.

I also would like to point out the requirements for building a certifiable FTD. In order to get a certification for a simulator, you either need to have bought the console/sim from a company such as Precision Flight Controls, or have built an EXTREMELY high fidelity cockpit. And that's only a small, single engine aircraft which I am referring to. For a larger aircraft, such as the A320 you mentioned, you would need to have a company such as Flight Deck Solutions produce it for you. Even if you were to build an A320 cockpit and get it certified, you would not be able to log time in it until you had the necessary licenses to be operating or training on an A320 in real life.

In short, the A320 would be a fun cockpit to have and to fly, but probably not economical nor realistic to get certified.

Steve

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Hi. Thank you for the reply. I also tough that you need a type rating to log hours into your a320 sim.

At the beginning of my training, I also looked at getting a certified sim to log time in, but decided it would just be easier to keep on flying in real life and maintain my hobby separately. Good luck with both your training and your Airbus cockpit, and keep us posted!

About which sim is more realistic, there are a lot of misconceptions about this. Some will say that X-Plane is better for physics because the physics are based off aircraft geometry. However, that means that the flight physics are limited by X-Plane itself. In FSX, how realistic the flight model is is based on how well the developer programs them. This means that while flight physics in X-Plane are guaranteed to be good, the flight physics in FSX are POTENTIALLY even more realistic. To add to that, FSX is much better for systems than X-Plane. Good physics are important, but FSX's XML/C++ based systems programming cannot be beat. Of course, that doesn't mean that X-Plane is not good for Home Cockpits. It's all about preference. In my personal opinion, FSX is better for airliner cockpits.

Note that while X-Plane and FSX are good, they're only ever going to see PC-ATD certifications and even then, only with specific, tested hardware configurations.

Getting a FTD certification is a very, very expensive and lengthy process.

There's documentation on the FAA website that covers the certification requirements for each level of certification that is offered. I suggest you read that. It makes for great project goals as a private builder, but unless you've got a LOT of money (millions) it isn't worth chasing as a hobby.

g.