Last month we reviewed how to connect X-Plane 10 flight simulator to an iPad running ForeFlight, and now we’re going to show you how to do the same thing with Microsoft Flight Simulator X (FSX). This will allow you to see your simulated position and aircraft motion on the moving maps on your iPad, allowing you to get more out of the simulation experience and practice your ForeFlight iPad skills in the comfort of your home. There are few steps involved with the installation process, though it’s not too difficult. And just like with the X-Plane setup, make sure your iPad’s wifi is turned on and connected to the same network as the computer running FSX before getting started.

Download the FSXFlight program – You’ll first need to purchase and download the FSXFlight plug-in, which costs only $4.99. Microsoft Flight Sim X does not output navigation data to an iPad by default, so you’ll need this to allow FSX to output the sim’s GPS position data. Download and install the FSUIPC Plug-in – This free add-on is widely used in the flight simulator community and allows Flight Sim X to communicate with other programs, like FSXFlight. Go to this site to download it, and then click the link that says ‘FSUIPC 4.853’ in the box at the top of the page to download the 7.5 MB zip file (or click here for a direct download link). Once it’s downloaded, unzip and right click the file ‘Install FSUIPC4’ and choose ‘Run as Administrator’–the installation process will automatically begin. When the installation is finished it will ask you about registering the product, but you can hit the cancel button here since the free version is all you need and registering is not necessary. Run the FSXFlight program – double click on the FSXFlight icon (the program you downloaded in step 1) to run the GPS interface program. A window will appear with a red status light and the message ‘Not Connected’. Run Microsoft Flight Sim X – launch Microsoft Flight Simulator now, and during the startup process you’ll have to confirm that it’s ok for the program to interface with the FSUIPC add-on. You only have to do this once, and from then on it’ll run automatically each time you start up the flight sim program.

And that’s all there is to it–you’ll now see your aircraft’s position from FSX on ForeFlight. There are few things you can look at to verify that it’s all set up properly:

There will be a green status light with the words ‘Connected to FSX’ on the FSXFlight program window, which needs to stay running in the background

Go to the More tab of ForeFlight, and in the Devices section you’ll see ‘FSXFlight’ listed in a blue box with a green ‘Connected’ checkmark

When on the Maps section of ForeFlight, change one of the bottom fields to ‘Accuracy’, and you’ll see the GPS accuracy value in green along with (FSXFlight) in small letters

The setup and installation worked for us without a hitch, though there is a support email listed on the FSXFlight home page if you have questions or come across any issues. Yes there are a few steps involved to set this up and it does cost $19.99, but after the setup steps listed above there is nothing else to do besides run the FSXFlight program each time before launching the simulator. It sure beats the $200 hardware accessories out there that do the exact same thing. Enjoy!