XPlane is, IMHO, the best flight simulator on the planet! It is an incredibly accurate and beautiful piece of software.  Be sure to check out the secret weapon :-) Austin Meyer and his team (and me too!) use to keep ahead of the competition.

Also be sure to check out my new Area51 scenery package for XPlane v6.5+...

Below are some of my favorite screenshots that show just how gorgeous this sim is:

I've recently put together a set of java classes and a small Java application that demonstrates receiving data from XPlane on the same or another computer.

I have 2 Mac powerbooks, and recently used the internet output option to put the cockpit on one machine and a full-screen view on the other.

My little trivial application is called JXPFrameRate, and simply displays XPlane's frame rate in a small window.

Please see the readme file for instructions on setting up XPlane to send out this data.

If you have Java 2 installed on your system, you can start JXPFrameRate using WebStart (see my WebStart tutorial first!) by clicking on the above image or using this link:

You can download JXPFrameRate from here.  The zip file includes an executable JAR file, so you must have Java 2 installed on your system, which you can get from here.

I'm hoping to build an XPlane flight/adventure recording and playback system using the data I/O that would enable XPlane users to capture and playback exciting and scenic flights.

Check back for more information, links, and more as I get time to put things online.