xp_pilot

A native X-Plane 12 plugin for macOS (ARM + Intel), Linux and Windows that combines three 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
• Rain Blocker — suppresses X-Plane's 3D rain particle effect at high speed (>120 kts)

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Features

Flight Logger

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!
• Thresholds are profile-based per aircraft category (see Aircraft Profiles)
• HTML reports include a mini route map and charts; an index.html lists all flights
• Reports are stored next to the plugin: data/flights/ and data/reports/

Auto QNH

• 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

Rain Blocker

Suppresses X-Plane's 3D rain particles above 120 kts groundspeed. Hysteresis: rain returns below 80 kts. Toggle via the plugin menu or the command xp_pilot/rain_blocker/toggle.

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Installation

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.

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Building from Source

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)

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Plugin Menu

Under Plugins → xp_pilot:

Item	Description
Auto QNH	Toggle automatic QNH sync (checkbox)
Open / Close Logbook	Open the in-sim flight logbook window
Rain Blocker	Toggle rain suppression at high speed (checkbox)

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Aircraft Profiles

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.

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Releasing

Versioning

Dev builds (make build) embed SNAPSHOT as the version string. Only release builds show the real version number from VERSION.txt.

Release process

1. Ensure all changes are committed and pushed to main
2. Run the release command:

   make release VERSION=1.3.0

   This will:
   • 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
3. On GitHub, create a release from the pushed tag
4. The CI pipeline detects the release event and builds all three platforms with the real version number
5. The resulting xp_pilot.zip (containing macOS, Linux, and Windows binaries) is automatically attached to the GitHub release

Local release build

To build locally with the real version (e.g. for testing before release):

make release-build

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Development

src/
├── 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
└── rain_blocker.*      Rain suppression at high speed

sdk/ and vendor/ are populated by make setup and are not committed to the repository.

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Platform

macOS 12+ (arm64 + x86_64 universal binary) · Linux (x86_64) · Windows · X-Plane 12