The Cessna 172 is surely an introductory model familiar to beginners. As one of the aircraft provided for free with X-Plane, it has accompanied me through countless hours. Upon learning that a Cessna 172 dedicated for flight schools was available on the official website, I immediately downloaded it to give it a try.

Download Link: http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?app=downloads&showfile=12634

Installation is very simple. Just extract the downloaded archive to generate the “X-PPL Cessna 172SP” directory, and copy the entire directory to Aircraft/General Aviation/ in your main directory.

Let’s take off immediately to test it out. Whoa, the livery of this airframe is actually quite pretty.

What is that large painting of “X-Plane flight school .org” on the fuselage? “X-Plane flight school” (abbreviated as X-PPL) is actually a set of flight tutorials provided on the official website. The URL is http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?showforum=90. Its content covers courses ranging from the simplest takeoff and landing to instrument navigation, and it is constantly being updated. Friends who are comfortable with English should definitely check it out.

Getting back to the topic of this training Cessna, my feeling is that it is more stable to fly than the one provided in the DVD. The response during control is slightly slower, but it feels safer when flying in the air because it won’t drastically change the aircraft’s Attitude due to a small movement. I have decided to use this aircraft for practice for a while.