I’ve been giving X-Plane a miss for a while recently as I had grown a bit frustrated with my world tour as I was discovering that so much of the X-Plane scenery was quite drab and my performance was just not at a level that I wanted to see it at either. But the draw to fly some general aviation aircraft was gnawing at me and with a little extra time as I have these days… I decided to give it another go and to the rescue comes Orbx and their TrueEarth Series. Oh… and some mods!
Flying the Pacific North West
I started my X-Plane journey in the Pacific North West near Seattle. In-fact, the X-Plane demo starts you off there anyways so when I went to start my cross country journey I ended up going for that area too and ultimately flew my way up into Canada and then across country stopping in Saskatoon and Winnipeg before flying to Chicago and then to Toronto. Finally I made it to New York and then stopped.
It was fun but I had stopped enjoying the experience so I put my touring on hiatus.
Some folks love to fly the airliners including the Zibo 737 which seems to be a combination of the cheapest (it’s free) and seemingly most detailed airliner in X-Plane as well. Here a little Ortho imagery and lots of cloud cover will obscure most of the lack of detail in most of the X-Plane world. For folks who want a little more or primarily like to fly the more General Aviation minded aircraft or who just want a little more there are some options. One of the best known is Orbx and their TrueEarth series that seem to be coming to the rescue with the most complete package.
Taking advantage of their up to 50% off sale, I downloaded the 38.3GB file (this is the HD version) for TE Washington and the few hundred megabytes for Skagit and I was on my way in my trusty Aerobask Robin Dr401.
Scenery and plug-ins required
I waffled on which scenery package to buy but I ended up going with Orbx TrueEarth Washington State with its connection to my early X-Plane flying as well as the beautiful scenery of the Pacific North West. Along my journey over the last few days I also downloaded ReShade for X-Plane 11 and UniqueClouds Variety pack. The other cloud mods I’d tried ended up with all kinds of weird and ultimately unpleasant issues (default X-Plane clouds are actually not the worst… just boring).
Put Orbx’s TrueEarth together with these modifications and a little tweaking and I think I’m finally a point where I’m happy with general aviation flying in X-Plane taking the washed out colour pallet and giving it some punch (thanks to ReShade) and adding in a ton of scenery and detail.
Before I was done with this venture I also purchased KBVS Skagit Regional Airport giving me a hub to fly out of with long enough runways to handle the types of aircraft I like to fly and an ideal position to fly to lots of different places along the way. Before I’m done I may end up with another airport too as they add so much flavour and character – but only if it’s something I want to regularly fly in and out of.
The results are magnificent
I’m pretty happy with how things look. Compare these two scenes taken in roughly the same place at the same time of day with the same weather conditions (or as close as I could make it).
No reshade and no TE Washington 
TE Washington and ReShade on
While the first image is somewhat dull and undetailed, the second image is punchy with lots of contrast, details in the water and all kinds of landmarks to look at. Some of you may like the first image in some ways and that’s fine but for me I prefer lots of colour (it may come with being a photographer in one of my other lives, I’m not sure) and contrast.
Although loading times were a couple of minutes, once running, TrueEarth Washington seems to run fine on my system. This is X-Plane mind you so fine is a consistent 30fps but I was managing to do that just fine despite the massive increase in object count and the satellite photo imagery all on display.
Why bother when MSFS is coming?
That is the question I’m now seeking to answer. Although I am very excited about Microsoft Flight Simulator, it’s also true that it’s still many months away likely. When it does arrive it’s going to be an interesting time for the flight sim community and for X-Plane fans. Does everyone jump ship to the new title, will the new title have some growing pains, and will X-Plane still be relevant after?
Even more interesting for me will be comparing the details and the overall experience from one to another. Will MSFS be able to match Orbx TrueEarth series when all is said and done? It might and it may even exceed but now I have the opportunity to really compare and contrast and see for myself up close.
More exploring to come
I’m looking forward to doing a lot more exploring in the days and weeks ahead and I’ll be sure to report back as I do. For now, I hope you enjoy some screenshots.
Stormbirds 
I have a hard time thinking the add-on sales for X-Plane and FSX/Prepar3d will survive unless they drastically(!) lower their prices. To buy Prepar3d and load up the global ORBX products alone, for example, costs several hundred dollars. In the face of impending FS2020, it will be a small group indeed who chose to stay that route.
I can see some developers being “stubborn”, and not lowering prices even after FS2020 comes out. They wanted $75 for Product X yesterday and still want it today and would rather sell none than drop it to $20 so it does sell.
But maybe I’m just being negative. Time for coffee.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I recently did the same Shamrock and purchased the Washington HD scenery. I ended up loving it so much I also purchased Oregon and N California. I’ve been touring these areas in my Cessna 185, the best GA plane in XP as far as I’m concerned. I’m mainly active on IL2 WOL but this has been a nice diversion. I highly recommend it to those that fly in VR as I’m afraid we will be waiting a while for VR support in the new MSFS 2020.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hey Robert, great to hear! Is that the Carenado C185 Skywagon? There’s so many X-Plane types out there I’m still learning about all of them!
LikeLike
That’s the one, beautiful model. I got the bush plane expansion with the Tundra tires and love it. It cruises easily at 140+kts burning 8gals/hr and can land at 45kts full flaps. It can do everything.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Coming for DCS, just be aware that Carenado products are usually more about looks and ease of use than in-depth systems and 100% flight model accuracy, at least it was so when I was still into X-Plane and P3D. I’m not saying it’s the case for all their products, but it’s always worth checking first (I have no idea about the C185!).
And of course, there’s nothing wrong with it, if the purpose is to chill out, that’s perfect 🙂
SimCoders have some interesting products if you like a lot of realism, persistence/wear-and-tear and possible failures. They have a Marchetti SF 260 that tempted me, but I have already many unattended aircraft so I decided to be reasonable… at least just this once! 😀
TrueEarth must be awesome, have fun with it! With that and Plan-G or any map, you can prepare your trips and do some VFR navigation training, for ex., to give some purpose when exploring isn’t enough anymore.
LikeLiked by 1 person