X-Plane on a Mac?

[Robert Shearman Jr]

Hiya's --

I'm wondering if anyone can help us.

VATSTAR has a student who is a new VATSIM member and generally new to flight simulation.  He is retired, though I don't know from what industry.  He was working toward his real-world PPL a couple decades ago but gave that up for financial reasons; he has recently decided that flight simulation is a worthwhile way to indulge his hobby.

The problem is, he's not terribly tech-savvy.  He's functional on computers, but not to the level of troubleshooting weird compatibility quirks that this hobby sometimes demands of us.  He is a Mac user flying X-Plane.  Several of the Instructors on VATSTAR's staff have experience with X-Plane but not on a Mac.

He's been trying to work toward his P2 rating but to be honest, his biggest impediment is not handling the airplane, which is what my Instructor staff are most adept at coaching on.  It's figuring out the wonderful world of simulation as a whole and all the things that one has to learn to adapt one's real-world flying experience into the world of desktop simulators.

Is there anyone out there who has experience running X-Plane on a Mac that might be interested in helping this guy out?  We have him comfortable using TeamSpeak and TeamViewer, so, that will hopefully work as a venue for communication and coordination for anyone who wants to try lending this guy a hand.

Let me know via PM or emailing me (cfi (at) vatstar (dot) com), and I'll put you in touch.  Thanks for your consideration.

[Josh Glottmann]

Hey Rob,

You might want to reffer him to the org forum. That's your go-to for any and everything X-Plane related. They should be able to help him work out some of his quirks.

I haven't used XP11 on a Mac, but I did use XP10 a few years back. What problems is he experiencing? Maybe he just needs to calibrate his hardware. Here are two good tutorials on hardware calibration, one from XPlaneOfficial (Official XP Channel), and the other from catstrator.

[Robert Shearman Jr]

I'll send him those links, Josh, but I can pretty much predict the outcome -- without someone to walk him through the troubleshooting, he'll open those links, browse around, decide it's too much trouble, and give up.

To some extent I understand we probably shouldn't enable the "someone do it for me" mentality, because if he chooses to continue in the hobby, the ability to troubleshoot technical problems will be necessary for him down the road.  I'm just trying to see if there's someone out there that can meet with him one-on-one to walk him through it this time, to (a) get the sim mostly usable, enough so that he can enjoy the network; and (b) help him see what resources are out there for when his next technical issue comes up.

If no one from the general community is willing, someone from my staff will hopefully give it a shot.  I just don't want to declare him a lost cause just yet.

Thanks for the references.

[Douglas Peterson]

If it’s still an issue, hook him up with me, Rob. I’m on the Vatstar Discord. Have several hundred hours on XPlane with Macs.

[Robert Shearman Jr]

Thanks, Doug.  We've lost touch with him for now; if he resurfaces, I'll keep your offer in mind.