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60 CHAPTER 5. FLIGHT IN X-PLANE
5.11.2 Using the Built-In Replay
You can replay your flight, from the last time you loaded an aircraft or a location up to your
current location, by toggling the replay mode on. This can be done either by pressing Ctrl + ‘r’ or
by opening the Aircraft menu and clicking Toggle Replay Mode. In the top of the window, you will
see shuttle controls to (listed left to right):
• stop playback,
• play backward faster than real-time,
• play backward at real-time speed,
• play backward slower than real-time,
• pause playback,
• play forward slower than real-time,
• play forward at real-time speed,
• play forward faster than real-time, and
• stop playback.
Additionally, you can click the shuttle slider and drag it to quickly jump around in the playback.
To return to the flight, either press Alt + ‘,’ or open the Aircraft menu and click Toggle Replay
Mode once again.
5.11.3 Replaying a Flight from a Flight Data Recorder (FDR)
The final method of visualizing a flight is to load a information from a flight data recorder (FDR).
This is useful primarily in accident investigation and re-creation. In that case, you would need to
take the data from the “black box” of the aircraft you’re interested in and put it in a format that
X-Plane can read. That format is the Flight Data Recorder (or .fdr) format. This is plain text file
formatted in a particular way, which means that you can make your own FDR files relatively easily
from the data you have and then re-create the flight in X-Plane.
The FDR file specification can be found in X-Plane by moving the mouse to the top of the
screen, click on the File menu, and clicking Load Flight Data Recorder File. The lower half of this
dialog box lists both the preceding data values (file version, aircraft, tail number, and so on) that
are required, as well as each of the 100 or so data values that each instant in the flight data can
have. These include the time stamp of that instant, the aircraft’s location (in latitude, longitude,
and altitude), the indicated airspeed, and more.
You can use the scroll bar above the file specification box to look through all the data values,
and you can mouse over individual values to get a description of them. Note that even if your
instantaneous “snapshots” of the aircraft do not use a given parameter (such as the engine pressure
ratio, perhaps), your data file must use a dummy value as a placeholder.
After formatting your data for X-Plane as an FDR file, you can load it using the Load Flight
Data Recorder File dialog box. Click the silver square labeled “Flight Data Recorder file,” navigate
to your file, and double click on. Then, when you close the dialog box, you will be greeted with the
standard replay shuttle buttons with which you can replay the flight.
5.12 Viewing the Behind-the-Scenes Flight Model
X-Plane models flight by breaking an aircraft down into a number of little pieces and finding the
forces acting on each piece. By clicking the Show Flight Model option from the Special menu (or