From the (fully-intact) Hindenburg, to a B-2 Bomber, to the Space Shuttle and Burt Rutan’s X Prize-winning SpaceShip One — X-Plane lets you fly these aircraft and nearly everything in between. The application includes about 40 different aircraft, but you can download most anything else you can fly from a variety of community sites, such as X-Plane.org.

But be sure to check with the weatherman first. X-Plane lets you download and fly through actual weather conditions — even more fun and challenging, because X-Plane includes a sophisticated turbulence model and a full 3D weather matrix.

And if you don’t see what you want, just make your own. X-Plane gives you tools to build or modify your own simulated aircraft and create your own world scenery. Want to improve on the Wright Brothers original design? Try moving the center of gravity forward, put the steering mechanism in the back, and changing the shape of the propellers. “Yeah, you can absolutely modify the design of an airplane in the simulator to see what would make it fly better, for sure,” says Meyer.

Typical of Meyer’s passion for making X-Plane better and better, he’s included dozens of notable new features in version 8.0. For instance, if you used a Power Mac G5 to run X-Plane 7.62, you’ll find that version 8.0 runs 80% faster. Meyer has improved the scenery engine for more realistic surroundings that map to actual road data. And if you make your own planes, the customizable plane generator includes a lot more parts, wings, and bodies to choose from.

Manual re-entry. Pilot the Space Shuttle orbiter from de-orbit burn through a perfect landing roll-out.

Take Me To the Pilot. Under the watchful eye of the CarterCopter prototype, test pilots fly without even leaving the hangar.

• X-Plane
• The X-Plane Flight Simulator Community
• The House of X-Plane
• AIR.C74.NET Xplane Aircraft
• Carter Aviation Technologies
• Austin Meyer on How to Fly on Mars
• Austin Meyer on How to Fly the Space Shuttle
• Blade Element Theory

Partly cloudy. A Beech King Air manuevers through scattered clouds. SImulate any weather conditions, or use actual weather data for incredible realism.