X Plane Plugin Setup

X-Plane Plugin Setup

The in-sim plugin is not installed automatically. It spawns/moves aircraft and speaks the pilot readbacks inside X-Plane 12 via XPPython3.

What's what: plugins/ holds the deployable files you copy into X-Plane; xplane_plugin/ is the plugin's source/development tree — see X-Plane (module reference).

Option A — scripted install (recommended)

The scripts in docs/install/ download the latest XPPython3 release, extract it into <X-Plane 12>/Resources/plugins/, and pip-install the AIrport dependencies into the simulator's bundled Python (xplane-airports, psycopg2-binary, redis, folium, networkx, matplotlib, paho-mqtt, imgui, transformers, influxdb-client).

Windows — double-click docs/install/install_dependencies.bat, or run the underlying script with a custom path (default C:\X-Plane 12):

.\docs\install\install_xppython3.ps1 -XPlanePath "D:\X-Plane 12"

macOS / Linux (default $HOME/X-Plane 12):

./docs/install/install_xppython3.sh "/path/to/X-Plane 12"

If XPPython3 is already installed the scripts ask before updating it.

Option B — manual install

1. Install XPPython3 into X-Plane 12.
2. Copy into <X-Plane 12>/Resources/plugins/PythonPlugins/:
   • plugins/PI_spawn_obj.py
   • the entire plugins/GND/ folder
3. Install the pip dependencies listed above into XPPython3's bundled Python (<X-Plane 12>/Resources/plugins/XPPython3/win_x64/pythonw.exe -s -m pip install … on Windows; mac_x64/python3 / lin_x64/python3 on macOS/Linux).

Verify

1. Launch X-Plane 12 → the plugin appears under the Plugins menu. After copying new plugin files you can also use Plugins → XPPython3 → Reload Scripts.
2. Start the backend before flying: the plugin talks to the Orchestrator on the host at port 8007 (docker compose up).
3. Fly the Quickstart — issue a taxi clearance and watch the aircraft move.

Plugin not showing up or aircraft not moving → Troubleshooting.

Related

Installation · Quickstart · X-Plane (module reference)