XPlaneConnectX

In light of issues that the original XPlaneConnect seems to have with X-Plane 12 (especially on Ubuntu and macOS), this UDP-based script provides a similar interface to X-Plane as the original XPlaneConnect, but does not rely on a plugin (and also does not share any code with XPlaneConnect).

At the moment, we provide implementations in Python 3 and Julia. The code was developed using Python 3.10, Julia 1.10, and X-Plane 12.1. We tested our code on Ubuntu 22.04, macOS Sonoma, and Windows 11. While we haven't tested the compatibility for any X-Plane versions <12.1, we suspect compatiblity at least with X-Plane 11 since the UDP interface does not seem to have changed signifcantly.

Note: You DO NOT need to install a pre-compiled plugin (i.e., an .xpl file you copy to the plugins directory of your X-Plane installation) for XPlaneConnectX as we use the built-in UDP feature of X-Plane.

Quick Start

Instead of turning our code into packages, we decided to leave them as standalone files that only rely on each language's standard library to facilitate the extension of the code for individual research needs. Furthermore, we use as much of the original synthax of XPlaneConenct as possible to allow for an easy transition of legacy users of XPlaneConnect. Differences to the functionality of XPlaneConnect is documented in the API for each function.

The following functions are currently supported (the links take you to the language-specific documentation):

• subscribeDREFs [Py]/[Jl]
• getDREF [Py]/[Jl]
• sendDREF [Py]/[Jl]
• sendCMND [Py]/[Jl]
• getPOSI [Py]/[Jl]
• sendPOSI [Py]/[Jl]
• sendCTRL [Py]/[Jl]
• pauseSIM [Py]/[Jl]

Before your start: Ensure that X-Plane accepts incoming connections. For X-Plane 12, this seems to be disabled by default, but can be changed at the bottom of the network settings menu in X-Plane.

The following minimalistic example shows how to fully extend the flaps.

In Python:

from XPlaneConnectX import XPlaneConnectX # assumes you have XPlaneConnectX.py in same directory

xpc = XPlaneConnectX()  # equivalent to XPlaneConnectX(ip='127.0.0.1',port=49000)

xpc.sendCTRL(lat_control=0.0,       # yoke rotation neutral
             lon_control=0.0,       # yoke forward/backward neutral
             rudder_control=0.0,    # rudder neutral
             throttle=0.0,          # throttle 0
             gear=1,                # landing gear down
             flaps=1.0,             # flaps fully extended
             speedbrakes=0.0,       # no speedbrakes
             park_break=1.0)        # parking brake set

In Julia:

include("XPlaneConnectX.jl") # assumes you have XPlaneConnectX.jl in same directory

xpc = XPlaneConnectX()  # equivalent to XPlaneConnectX(ip='127.0.0.1',port=49000)

sendCTRL(xpc,                   # XPlaneConnectX struct
         lat_control=0.0,       # yoke rotation neutral
         lon_control=0.0,       # yoke forward/backward neutral
         rudder_control=0.0,    # rudder neutral
         throttle=0.0,          # throttle 0
         gear=1,                # landing gear down
         flaps=1.0,             # flaps fully extended
         speedbrakes=0.0,       # no speedbrakes
         park_break=1.0)        # parking brake set

The resulting output:

In addition, please also see the full example in Python and Julia demonstrating more functions.

Detailed Guides

There is a detailed guide for the Python and the Julia version in the respective sub-directories:

• Python Guide
• Julia Guide

Contributing and Feature Requests

Contributions are always welcome! If you have any improvements or new features, feel free to make a pull request. If you have an idea for a useful new feature/functionality, please create an issue and label it with the feature request label.

Citation

If you enjoy using XPlaneConnectX, please leave a star. If you use our software for your research, please use the following citation:

@misc{XPlaneConnectX,
  author       = {Marc R. Schlichting},
  title        = {XPlaneConnectX},
  year         = {2024},
  url          = {https://github.com/sisl/XPlaneConnectX},
  note         = {Accessed: YYYY-MM-DD}
}