X-Plane 8

Influence

The flight model and supplied design tools of X-Plane 8 are used in visualisation, aircraft model testing and feasibility studies for real life aircraft. A library of standard NACA airfoils has been included. There are a number of companies that use X-Plane, such as NASA, CarterCopter (helicopter), and Terrafugia (Transition - street legal aircraft). While other companies such as C74 offer design services for aircraft builders and DARPA. People from all walks of life (engineers, aviation enthusiasts, pilots, lawyers) have offered their design to major registries such as x-plane.org, and avsim.com. The X-Plane aircraft and scenery collections total over 1,500 submissions and updates.

Some of these X-Plane versions have been certified by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for authorised flight instruction such as Flight Level Aviation and Simtrain. These implementation can be equipped with motion platforms which are controlled by X-Plane.