A native X-Plane 12 plugin for macOS (ARM + Intel), Linux and Windows that combines two quality-of-life features for general aviation and jet simulation:
- Flight Logger — records every flight and generates an HTML logbook with route maps and landing analysis
- Auto QNH — automatically keeps the altimeter in sync with actual sea-level pressure
- Your data stays on your machine. Flights, landings, and reports are plain JSON and HTML files in your X-Plane folder. No cloud, no server, no account — nothing to shut down, nothing to leak.
- No login, no subscription, no telemetry. Install it and it works. You own your logbook.
- First-class native builds for macOS, Linux and Windows. Universal binary on Apple Silicon and Intel Macs — a platform most X-Plane tools treat as an afterthought.
- Flight recording runs offline. No internet needed while flying. Only the map tiles in the HTML reports are fetched from OpenStreetMap when you open a report.
- External volume support on macOS — flight logs and HTML reports now write correctly when X-Plane is installed on an external disk under
/Volumes/. Previous versions silently dropped the volume mount prefix and tried to write to the read-only system root.
Records a complete flight from engine start to shutdown and saves it as JSON plus an HTML report.
- Detects takeoff, airborne phase, landing, and shutdown automatically via a state machine
- Samples track points every 10 seconds (lat/lon, altitude, speed, vertical speed)
- Captures landing data at touchdown: descent rate (fpm), G-force, pitch, float time, flare quality, wind (headwind/crosswind)
- Rates each landing: BUTTER! / GREAT LANDING! / ACCEPTABLE / HARD LANDING! / WASTED!
- Bounce detection — counts bounced touchdowns and rates the landing by the hardest impact, not the cushioned final settle. A low-altitude rebound (AGL < 5 ft) counts as a bounce; a higher climb still triggers a separate Touch-and-Go.
- Thresholds are profile-based per aircraft category (see Aircraft Profiles)
- HTML reports include a mini route map and charts; an
index.htmllists all flights - Reports are stored next to the plugin:
data/flights/anddata/reports/
- Monitors the difference between actual QNH and the pilot's altimeter setting
- Shows an on-screen warning when the drift exceeds ~1.7 hPa
- Optional auto mode (toggle via menu) silently syncs both pilot and copilot baro to actual QNH
- Shows a second warning if pilot and copilot altimeters disagree by more than 0.01 inHg
| Command | Description |
|---|---|
xp_pilot/qnh/set_qnh |
One-shot: set both baros to current QNH |
xp_pilot/qnh/set_flightlevel |
One-shot: set both baros to 29.92 inHg |
Earlier versions of xp_pilot tried to hide X-Plane's 3D rain particles at high speed — the so-called "Star Wars" streaks. We've now removed this feature, because it never actually worked reliably from a plugin, on any operating system.
The reason is that X-Plane's rain system is an internal setting that Laminar Research does not expose to regular plugins. The popular Lua script that many pilots use for this effect only works because FlyWithLua (Complete Edition) has special permission to reach into those internal settings. A normal X-Plane plugin like xp_pilot does not — our attempts to switch the rain off were silently ignored by the sim.
If you want the effect, install FlyWithLua NG (Complete Edition) and drop a copy of no_starwars_rain.lua into its scripts folder. We'd rather ship something that works than ship a placebo.
Download the ZIP from the releases page and copy the xp_pilot folder into your X-Plane 12 plugins directory:
X-Plane 12/Resources/plugins/xp_pilot/
├── mac_x64/xp_pilot.xpl ← macOS (ARM + Intel universal binary)
├── lin_x64/xp_pilot.xpl ← Linux (x86_64)
├── win_x64/xp_pilot.xpl ← Windows
└── data/
└── flight_logger_profiles.json
Flight records and HTML reports are stored next to the plugin at runtime:
data/
├── flights/ ← JSON flight records
└── reports/ ← HTML reports + index.html
No FlyWithLua required. No license needed for OpenStreetMap usage in reports.
Prerequisites: CMake 3.21+, Xcode Command Line Tools (macOS), GCC/Clang + libGL-dev (Linux) or MSVC (Windows)
make setup # Download X-Plane SDK, Dear ImGui, nlohmann/json
make build # Build the plugin (universal binary on macOS)
make install # Install + code-sign to X-Plane (macOS only)Under Plugins → xp_pilot:
| Item | Description |
|---|---|
| Open / Close Logbook | Open the in-sim flight logbook window (contains all settings) |
All feature toggles live in the Settings tab of the Logbook window. Changes are saved immediately to settings.json and persist across sessions.
| Setting | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Write flight logs to disk | on | When off, no JSON flight file and no HTML report are written. Flight tracking and on-screen messages still work. |
| Auto QNH | off | Silently syncs pilot and copilot altimeter to the actual sea-level pressure (skipped on standard 29.92). |
| Show QNH warning messages | on | Gates the on-screen CHECK ALTIMETER and ALTIMETER DISAGREE warnings. Independent of Auto QNH. |
| Show flight logger status messages | on | Gates the on-screen overlays (DEP cached, REC Flight recording started, Touch-and-Go, Flight saved, etc.). |
| Show landing rating popup | on | Gates the post-touchdown popup with landing quality (BUTTER! / GREAT / ACCEPTABLE / HARD / WASTED) and metrics. Independent of the log-writing toggle. |
Each toggle is independent, so combinations like "no disk logs but still show the landing rating" are supported for pilots who use external flight-reporting tools.
Landing quality thresholds are configured per aircraft category in data/flight_logger_profiles.json. The plugin matches the aircraft's ICAO type code against the match strings in order.
| Profile | Butter | Great | Acceptable | Hard |
|---|---|---|---|---|
ultra_light |
< 75 fpm | < 150 fpm | < 250 fpm | < 400 fpm |
light_ga |
< 100 fpm | < 200 fpm | < 300 fpm | < 500 fpm |
medium_ga |
< 125 fpm | < 250 fpm | < 350 fpm | < 600 fpm |
turboprop |
< 150 fpm | < 275 fpm | < 400 fpm | < 650 fpm |
vlj |
< 200 fpm | < 350 fpm | < 500 fpm | < 750 fpm |
heavy_jet |
< 250 fpm | < 400 fpm | < 600 fpm | < 850 fpm |
The shutdown_trigger setting controls when a flight is finalised: engine (all engines off), beacon (beacon light off), or nav_light (nav lights off). Default is engine; can be overridden per aircraft entry.
Dev builds (make build) embed SNAPSHOT as the version string. Only release builds show the real version number from VERSION.txt.
- Ensure all changes are committed and pushed to
main - Run the release command:
This will:
make release VERSION=1.3.0
- Write the version to
VERSION.txt - Create a commit (
release 1.3.0) - Create an annotated git tag (
v1.3.0) - Push the tag to origin
- Write the version to
- On GitHub, create a release from the pushed tag
- The CI pipeline detects the
releaseevent and builds all three platforms with the real version number - The resulting
xp_pilot.zip(containing macOS, Linux, and Windows binaries) is automatically attached to the GitHub release
To build locally with the real version (e.g. for testing before release):
make release-buildsrc/
├── main.cpp Plugin entry points, draw callback, menu
├── flight_logger.* State machine, data acquisition, JSON save
├── html_report.* HTML/index generation, JSON parsing
├── logbook_ui.* Dear ImGui logbook window
└── auto_qnh.* Altimeter monitoring and auto-sync
sdk/ and vendor/ are populated by make setup and are not committed to the repository.
macOS 12+ (arm64 + x86_64 universal binary) · Linux (x86_64) · Windows · X-Plane 12