Connecting Shirley to X-Plane 12.1

Connect to X-Plane to give Shirley a window seat on your flight!

Note: With the release of X-Plane 12.1.1, websocket support ships ON by default. This means you do not need to download a beta version of X-Plane, and you do not need to send it special launch arguments to connect with Shirley.

About X-Plane 12

X-Plane 12 is the world’s best flight simulator due to its accurate flight model and extensive community. FlyShirley.com supports X-Plane 12.1 directly from the browser.

You can download a demo here:

https://www.x-plane.com/desktop/try-it/

Once X-Plane 12.1.1 is officially released, none of this will be necessary :-)

Getting X-Plane 12.1.1+

First, you need to make sure you’re on at least X-Plane 12.1, ideally 12.1.1 and newer.

As of July 9, 2024, you no longer need to use a Beta version of X-Plane.

You’ll want to see that it’s 12.1.1 or greater in Settings → General → About X-Plane.

If not, run the X-Plane updater that should exist in your X-Plane folder, or follow any pop-ups in X-Plane itself.

Launching X-Plane with Websockets

This walks you through the X-Plane article on how to use command line arguments:
https://www.x-plane.com/kb/using-command-line-options/

And this next part is true until early July when the X-Plane 12.1.1 comes out

As of July 17, 2024, you no longer need to launch X-Plane in a special way:
Websockets are now enabled by default.

If you’re still using < 12.1.1, we switched to X-Plane’s default websocket port `8086`.

Windows:

It’s pretty easy to do this on Windows. The easiest way is to create a shortcut.

This can be done from the desktop by right clicking anywhere → new → shortcut [Microsoft Support Article].

Add these arguments to the Target field:

The other option is to follow the X-Plane command line instructions.

Mac OS-X:

You’ll need to open Terminal for this one:

~/Applications/X-Plane\ 12/X-Plane.app/Contents/MacOS/X-Plane --web_server --web_server_port=8086

Ready to Connect!

Now you should be able to connect to Shirley at https://airplane.team/fly:

Debugging:

If you’re having issues, you may need to restart X-Plane and fully start a flight before connecting.