SimHQ.com - Air Combat Zone - Review: Laminar Research X-Plane 8

So how about flying the B-1 Lancer? The casual simmer will have a blast with this airplane. Certainly the cockpit isn't even close to the real thing, but X-Plane is, in large part, about the fun of flying the airplanes, not getting swamped in the minutia of exact detailing. The glass HUD is certainly fun to fly and shoot approaches with.

Setting up a nice, truly horrible and foggy day at Tinker AFB I go out and shoot some ILS approaches to minimums using the auto-pilot.

Using the instructor panel it is easy to find the ILS frequencies and vector yourself around for the approach.

One really outstanding feature of X-Plane is the transparent panel option. Hit a key and the cockpit panel becomes transparent, allowing you to see the runway at high angles of attack in aircraft that have restricted forward visibility while still retaining the information from the flight instruments. This is a great work around for not being able to crane your neck above the glare-shield and I use it quite frequently on the larger aircraft.

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