
The legendary X-Plane Flight Simulator from Laminar Research has been the only real challenge to Microsoft for
years. The dramatic difference is that X-Plane never gave up on the flight simulator genre. X-Plane runs on Mac and
Linux as well as Windows. X-Plane is packaged with several types of aircraft, global scenery, full weather modeling,
simulated system failures, an aircraft designer so you can create your own experimental x-planes, and other features.
The X-Plane simulation engine actually calculates the fluid dynamics of three-dimensional objects as they move
through the air, in other words, it's a digital wind tunnel. Commercial versions of X-Plane have been modified to power
FAA certified flight simulators for actual training and was also used as the software for Scaled Composite's
SpaceShipOne simulator.