Air Race Plugin 20220524 v1.11 -

really love it, adds a real challange to X-Plane

Air Race Plugin Beta 3.2 Review Updated for 3.3

Thanks for adding the new 3.3 features and tracks! Awesome! 

At first glance, my impression was cool plugin but with only a couple tracks to hold my interest. Then I discovered you can create your own track files with a little time and effort. If you get bored flying the same track, create your own and share it. (more on this later)

I’ve been using this plugin over the past month since some recent updates with about 30+ hours flying courses and creating some tracks. If you are interested in air racing, or something that challenges and improves your stick and rudder response skills, you will really enjoy this plugin. No plugin performance problems, a nice light plugin and a whole lot of fun.

Using the tracks designed after the real-world air race tracks; you can use real world reference videos found on YouTube and watch how the pilots perform on these tracks. Watching the pilots helps improve timing on snapping the wings level to get through horizontal gates in tight turn.

Pros:

• Fun and challenging for sharpening your skills.
• Displays Race Time with penalties applied to measure improvements.
• Penalties applied for pylon hits, exceeding start speed, exceeding max g-load, incorrect level flying through the gates, etc.
• Replay options (more below)
• Can manually setup your own tracks

NOTE: More tracks needed – (see the AirRacePlugin page and support forum for more tracks)

Below is a lot of info that's already in the readme file with some of my comments. I hope this helps get some folks to try out this plugin. Truly a lot of fun!

Basic Options and Features:

1. Training Mode – Practice and learn how to fly the track course at your own pace. You are scored based on your performance without being disqualified. (Training is the Default menu setting)
2. Normal Mode (Racing) – Fly the track course using the strict rules of scoring including disqualifying; DNF (Did Not Finish). (Turn off Training Mode in the menu settings.)
3. Penalties –9 penalties descriptions are listed for training and normal mode. (Details below)
4. Replay Mode – replay options for pausing at gates, flight paths, etc. so you can analyze the air race performance. (See menu options.)

Create, fly, and share your air race tracks – there is no info on this in the readme file other than proper naming of the file, just the data references described in the brackets located in the track .txt files; but you can use this info to setup your own tracks.

USING AIR RACE PLUGIN

Installing the plugin:

• X-Plane 11/Resources/plugins/AirRacePlugin

Installing Air Race Tracks:                                                                                                                   

• X-Plane 11/Custom Scenery/AirRaceTracks (place your tracks in this folder)
• Edit the scenery_packs.ini file using notepad – Copy and paste the following path at the bottom of the scenery_packs.ini file and save.
• SCENERY_PACK Custom Scenery/AirRaceTracks/

Installing Custom Scenery:

• See scenery readme files for install instructions.

Quickest set for testing the plugin is to just install the plugin and AirRaceTracks folder and drop in the XPAirRace_track_2018RB-AbuDhabi-ADRB-OMAD.txt. Take off form OMAD and fly to the course. No need to install custom scenery. If it runs well for you, then install the custom scenery.

Disabling the plugin when you’re not air racing

• Air Race Plugin is enabled and running when you start X-Plane. If you are not racing, you will need to disable the plugin using X-Pane plugin admin from the plugin menu. Open the widget and uncheck the box for Air Race Plugin to disable, then close the widget. Or temporarily remove the plugin folder from X-Plane when not racing. 

Choosing an aircraft

• Aerobatic aircrafts should be used for flying the air race.
• Extra 330SC by Vertigo or any comparable plane compatible with X-Plane 11.
• New aircraft you can check the wing clearance through the pylons – Use Draw A/C dimensions from the Air race plugin menu - The dimensions of the aircraft used for pylon collision detection are drawn.

Joystick Function Setup – Look to next gate

• AirRace / Look / Look at gate - See readme file for setup
• Before racing you can define a joystick button for look-to-next-gate functionality.
• When you press this button, the view changes to virtual cockpit and the pilot's head is rotated to look directly to the next gate. This helps to get some orientation during the race.

Selecting the airport for your track

• Make sure you take note of which airport you need to take off from before you start X-Plane. You can add the airport ID to your track file as a reference if it doesn’t have one, I find this helpful.

Select and Load the first track

• [F8] only opens the “Select Track File widget” the first time you press [F8]

Reloading the same track

• [F8] then reloads the track currently loaded.

Select and load a different track

• Go to the plugin menu in X-Plane – AirRacePlugin Menu –
• Choose – Select Track File – This opens the widget to choose a new track course.

Training Mode | Normal Race Mode | Casual Flight around the Pylons

• Training Mode - By default, you are in Training mode, I recommend flying in this mode the first time until you’re comfortable flying the track.
• Normal Mode - Turning off Training mode applies disqualifications - DNF (Did not finish) and stops the race so you must start over if disqualified.

NOTE:

• Casual Flight around the pylons.
• You can turn off the yellow Next Gate Arrow and just fly around the pylons if you choose not to race.
• You cannot hide the race info in the lower left corner while the track is loaded.
• You can only hide the air race info in the lower left corner by disabling the plugin.

Starting a race

• Once you have loaded a track course.
• Flying through the first gate will start the race.
• Press [F8] to reload the current loaded track and restart the race as needed.

Replay Mode

•  [F9] Toggle Replay
• See plugin menu options for replay

Penalties 2018

• DNF – did not finish
• When not using training mode; receiving a DNF instantly stops the race. So, make sure you can get through the track course without a DNF.

Air Plugin Menu Options

NOTE:

[F8] – only opens the “Select Track File widget” the first time you press [F8] to select and load track.

[F8] – then reloads the track currently loaded.

AirRacePlugin menu can be reached from X-Plane's menu following: Plugins à Air Race Plugin.

Track Course

1. [F8] Read Race and Start Course - Same functionality as F8, Race track is loaded.

Training

2. Training Mode – [DEFAULT ENABLED] Training mode can be enabled or disabled.

(I only turn this off after I’m comfortable with the track.)

3. Pause at Gates - When set X-Plane is paused every time a gate is crossed.

Gates, Arrows, and Dimensions

4. Draw gates OpenGL - Boundaries of the gates and the area to cross it are drawn from the plugin.

5. Draw next arrow - Enable/disable drawing of arrow at next gate

(Once you’re familiar with the track, turn off the next arrow so you are more focused on the pylons.)

 

6. Draw all arrows - Enable/disable drawing of arrows at all gates

(This is great for designing tracks or flying around a track the first time giving an overview of the track direction.)

 

7. Draw A/C dimensions - The dimensions of the aircraft used for pylon collision detection are drawn.

(Look closely and you can see the thin red, green, blue lines at the wing tips and tail.)

 

8. Draw line to next gate - Enables/disables drawing of a red line from the aircraft to next gate.

(Comes in handy when flying to a track course for the first time and you’re not exactly sure of it’s placement. You may need to use an exterior view to see the thin red line.)

 

Draw Flight Paths

9. Draw current flight path during race - Enables/disables drawing of current flight path during race in red and green.

10. Draw fastest flight path during race - Enables/disables drawing of fastest flight path during race in red and green with yellow edges.

11. Draw all recorded flight paths during race - Enables/disables drawing of all paths in red and green during race, fastest with yellow edges.

(Experiment with enabling and disabling, I find it a little difficult using the paths while flying the course since there not completely transparent.)

 

Replay Options

12. Draw current flight path during replay - Enables/disables drawing of current (i.e. last) flight path during replay in red and green.

13. Draw fastest flight path during replay – [DEFAULT ENABLED] Enables/disables drawing of fastest flight path during replay in red and green with yellow edges.

14. Draw all recorded flight paths during replay – [DEFAULT ENABLED] Enables/disables drawing of all paths in red and green during replay, fastest with yellow edges.

(Experiment with enabling and disabling, to see what best fits your needs.)

 

15. Toggle Replay – [F9] - Can be used instead of F9 to toggle replay mode.

(Use this replay instead of the default X-Plane replay to maintain the race info. Using X-Plane replay gives mixed results, more experimenting needed.)

16.   Show replay widget - Shows and hides replay widget during replay mode.

Track Course

17. Select track file - Opens widget to select and load track

(After you loaded your first track using [F8] you need this to load any different tracks until the next time you start X-Plane.)

 

 

Edited August 20, 20186 yr by DKFlight