xp-flight-review
Side project, started September 2026
Every flight sim tool grades your landing. None of them tells you whether the approach that got you there was stable, which is the thing real airlines actually check. So I built my own operations department.
What it does
You plan in SimBrief like always and fly in X-Plane 12 like always. The tool records the flight ten times a second and compares it with the plan. At the end you get the report an airline would write about your flight: was the approach stabilized at the 1,000 ft gate, how hard and how far down the runway you touched, fuel against plan, and whether you flew the route and cruise level you filed.
There's also a live panel that watches the approach while you fly, so you can still fix it.
Engineering notes
The simulator only sends what changed
X-Plane's web API pushes updates at 10 Hz but only for values that changed, so I rebuild a full snapshot of the aircraft at every tick.
Memory nearly killed it
Storing each sample as an object made a two hour flight cost 2.1 GB, and a long haul would have crashed. Storing the session in columns instead fixed it.
Only grade what's fair
SimBrief's altitudes during climb and descent are estimates that the aircraft's computer recalculates, so only the cruise level gets graded.
Shipping without the Apple fee
The macOS and Windows security warnings come from how the browser tags downloaded files, not from the binary. Installing with a one line command that checks the file's SHA-256 avoids both, with no developer certificate needed.
Flown so far
| Route | Aircraft |
|---|---|
| KBOS to KJFK | Boeing 737-800 |
| KJFK to KBOS | Boeing 737-800 |
| SBGR to SBPA | Airbus A321 |
| MMUN to KMIA | Boeing 777-300ER |
| EGLL to EDDF | Boeing 777-300ER |
| LPPT to LEBL | Airbus A320neo |
What's next
A shareable card for each flight, and a desktop app with accounts and flight history in the cloud, so other simmers can use it without touching a terminal.
TypeScript, Bun, SQLite and WebSocket. Runs on macOS, Windows and Linux.