Flight Gear: v2.0: (292Mb basic simulation plus 12Gb of scenery and approx 8Gb of aircraft models)
Flight Gear was updated last year. I’d forgotten to check until now. There have been a number of improvements to the last version, which I posted way back in week 17 of the project over two years ago. (Wow is it so long ago). You can find my original posting for Flight Gear v1.9 HERE.
Video:
A lot of these videos have innappropriate music playing that IMO really spoils the effect. Though the first couple fit the mood of the game well. Turn down your volume if you don't want your ear drums blasted. As with the images these videos cover most of the versions of Flight Gear. I couldn't find one that was labelled for the latest version, so what you see may not be what you are getting now, tohugh generally they look like the game I've just experienced. If you like this game I would consider getting Microsofts Flight Sim X, which, despite being nearly 5 years old now looks superb, especially with the add-on scenery packs. There are also some fantastic flight sims such as Wings of Prey which has ground scenery that looks real, or the recently released A10- Warthog.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8KnuT1lHnw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2wwkeGrvD4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-a4D64rCXQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLZW1mKRI_0 (I think this one is Microsofts Flight Sim X
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1taKWZoMCkY&NR=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScnWzRT_6xk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRDN9JRjQew (info Video)
The latest update is 67Mb larger than it’s counterpart and that’s just the basic game. There’s also over 280 Aircraft Models to add from HERE that include a massive range of aircraft, plus some children’s versions and even a flying Santa and reindeers. There’s also a massive scenery collection that covers the world and will fill three DVD’s that’s around 12Gb; thankfully you can download the scenery in bite sized chunks as and when you want to explore that part of the world. You’ll find the downloads for the scenery HERE. Some of the images below are from earlier versions of Flight Gear and don't reflect the scenery or the aircraft as you'll see it now.
The Game
Flight gear is a free open source flight simulator. It has been designed to be easy to add new aircraft and scenery. This latest version (v2.0) has been almost completely re-written from the original release. Improvements include better graphics and computer controlled aircraft to fly with. A full list of improvements is available on the Flightgear website. There are loads of downloadable extras to add to the basic package, including loads of extra aircraft and a large proportion of the world scenery. I’ve just downloaded most of Europe, North Africa, The Himalayas and Thailand which comes to over 6Gb of downloads and I’ve hardly touched Asia and not downloaded any of N & S America. Australia and both the Antarctic and Arctic areas. This is a must have for any flight sim fanatic. There is quite a learning curve, but I bet there are forums where you can ask questions if you come up against any problems.
Reference accessed [urhttp://www.flightgear.org/version.html]HERE May 2011-05-19
Just some of the scenery maps that you can explore in this fantastic game
Main Features:
• Extra aircraft are always being added to the list and range from large airliners to military aircraft and helicopters. (nearly 300)• There are 20,000 real world airports with correct runway markings and approach lights.
• Scenery packs for the whole world. Areas are downloaded individually. A graphical interface makes it easy to select the correct area to download.
• A manual is supplied with Flightgear but it is still work in progress and only the basic information at the beginning is finished.
Just a small selection of the 280 plus aircraft models you can install into the game
Here are more features of "FlightGear" (You’ll find some of this more for those interested in modding the game)
• High degree of Freedom (This means you can see the world in game virtually as a 360 degrees world using the keypad. For example you can look behind you, to the sides and up and down. Pity the TrackIR isn’t supported, that would be brilliant.• FlightGear is an open-source project. This means as long as you abide by the terms of the GPL license you may freely download and copy FlightGear. Anyway can have easy and open access to the latest development source code. Being an open-source project, the file formats are open and easily accessible. Standard 3d model formats are supported and much of the simulator configuration is controlled through xml based ascii files. Writing 3rd party extensions for FlightGear (or even directly modifying the FlightGear source code) is straightforward and doesn't require a large amount of reverse engineering. This makes FlightGear an attractive option for use in private, commercial, research, or hobby projects.
• FlightGear is known to run on Windows, Linux, Mac OS-X, FreeBSD, Solaris, and IRIX platforms allowing the user run on their platform of preference. Flight Dynamics Models
• With FlightGear it is possible to choose between three primary Flight Dynamics Models. It is possible to add new dynamics models or even interface to external "proprietary" flight dynamics models
[quote]1. JSBSim: JSBSim is a generic, 6DoF flight dynamics model for simulating the motion of flight vehicles. It is written in C++. JSBSim can be run in a standalone mode for batch runs, or it can be the driver for a larger simulation program that includes a visuals subsystem (such as FlightGear.) In both cases, aircraft are modeled in an XML configuration file, where the mass properties, aerodynamic and flight control properties are all defined.
2. YASim: This FDM is an integrated part of FlightGear and uses a different approach than JSBSim by simulating the effect of the airflow on the different parts of an aircraft. The advantage of this approach is that it is possible to perform the simulation based on geometry and mass information combined with more commonly available performance numbers for an aircraft. This allows for quickly constructing a plausibly behaving aircraft that matches published performance numbers without requiring all the traditional aerodynamic test data.
3. UIUC: This FDM is based on LaRCsim originally written by the NASA. UIUC extends the code by allowing aircraft configuration files instead and by adding code for simulation of aircraft under icing conditions. • UIUC (like JSBSim) uses lookup tables to retrieve the component aerodynamic force and moment coefficients for an aircraft... and then uses these coefficients to calculate the sum of the forces and moments acting on the aircraft. Extensive and Accurate World Scenery Data Base • Over 20,000 real world airports included in the full scenery set. • Correct runway markings and placement, correct runway and approach lighting.
• Taxiways available for many larger airports (even including the green center line lights when appropriate.)
• Sloping runways (runways change elevation like they usually do in real life.)
• Directional airport lighting that smoothly changes intensity as your relative view direction changes.
• World scenery fits on 3 DVD's. (I'm not sure that's a feature or a problem!) But it means that detailed coverage of the entire world has been accomplished.
• Accurate terrain worldwide, based on the most recently released SRTM terrain data.) 3 arc second resolution (about 90m post spacing) for North and South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia.
• Scenery includes all vmap0 lakes, rivers, roads, railroads, cities, towns, land cover, etc. • Nice scenery night lighting with ground lighting concentrated in urban areas (based on real maps) and headlights visible on major highways. This allows for realistic night VFR flying with the ability to spot towns and cities and follow roads.
• Scenery tiles are paged (loaded/unloaded) in a separate thread to minimize the frame rate hit when you need to load new areas.
• Accurate and Detailed Sky Model (see image above)
• FlightGear implements extremely accurate time of day modelling with correctly placed sun, moon, stars, and planets for the specified time and date. FlightGear can track the current computer clock time in order to correctly place the sun, moon, stars, etc. in their current and proper place relative to the earth. If it's dawn in Sydney right now, it's dawn in the simulation right now when you locate yourself in virtual Sydney. The sun, moon, stars, and planets all follow their correct courses through the sky. This modelling also correctly takes into account seasonal effects so you have 24 hour days north of the Arctic Circle in the summer, etc. We also illuminate the correctly placed moon with the correctly placed sun to get the correct phase of the moon for the current time/date, just like in real life.
• Flexible and Open Aircraft Modelling System • FlightGear has the ability to model a wide variety of aircraft. Currently you can fly the 1903 Wright Flyer, strange flapping wing "ornithopters", a 747 and A320, various military jets, and several light singles. FlightGear has the ability to model those aircraft and just about everything in between.
• FlightGear has extremely smooth and fluid instrument animation that updates at the same rate as your out-the-window view updates (i.e. as fast as your computer can crank, and not artificially limited and chunky like in some sims.)
• FlightGear has the infrastructure to allow aircraft designers to build fully animated, fully operational, fully interactive 3d cockpits (which even update and display correctly from external chase plane views.)
• FlightGear realistically models real world instrument behaviour. Instruments that lag in real life, lag correctly in FlightGear, gyro drift is modelled correctly, the magnetic compass is subject to aircraft body forces -- all those things that make real world flying a challenge.
• FlightGear also accurately models many instrument and system failures. If the vacuum system fails, the HSI gyros spin down slowly with a corresponding degradation in response as well as a slowly increasing bias/error. Moderate Hardware Requirements
• The intention of FlightGear is to look nice, but not at the expense of other aspects of a realistic simulator. Our focus is not on competing in the "game" market and not on the ultra-flashy graphic tricks.
• The result is a simulator with moderate hardware requirements to run at smooth frame rates.
• That said, the more hardware you throw at FlightGear, the better it looks and runs.
• FlightGear allows users and aircraft designers access to a very large number of internal state variables via numerous internal and external access mechanisms. These state variables are organized into a convenient hierarchal "property" tree.
• Using the properties tree it is possible to monitor just about any internal state variable in FlightGear. It's possible to remotely control FlightGear from an external script. You can create model animations, sound effects, instrument animations and network protocols for about any situation imaginable just by editing a small number of human readable configuration files. This is a powerful system that makes FlightGear immensely flexible, configurable, and adaptable. Networking options
• A number of networking options allow FlightGear to communicate with other instances of FlightGear, GPS receivers, external flight dynamics modules, external autopilot or control modules, as well as other software such as the Open Glass Cockpit project and the Atlas mapping utility.
• A generic input/output option allows for a user defined output protocol to a file, serial port or network client.
• A multi player protocol is available for using FlightGear on a local network in a multi aircraft environment, for example to practice formation flight or for tower simulation purposes.
• The powerful network options make it possible to synchronize several instances of FlightGear allowing for a multi-display, or even a cave environment. If all instances are running at the same frame rate consistently, it is possible to get extremely good and tight synchronization between displays.[/quote]
Reference accessed HERE
Download Link:
You can download the latest version (v2.0) of Flight Gear HERE. This is only the basic game. There's much more to download that includes Aircraft models from ornithopter to a Santa with reindeer as well as Commercial Aircraft such as the Boeing 737 to Military Aircraft both WWI and WWII propellor and more modern jets as well as a whole load of civilian aircraft and some novelty models as well. Then theres around 12Gb of scenery packs to download.
Download Link for Real World Scenery:
Real world scenery for the whole world can be downloaded HERE When you get to the download page you’re presented with a map of the world which has a grid overlay. Each square of the grid represents a part of the world that you can download scenery for, and each of these (apart from those with a large proportion of sea) range from 30Mb to 80Mb in size. The more mountainous regions seem to have larger files. The red squares represent no download for that area:
Download link for Aircraft models:
You can get over 280 Aircraft models for Flight Gear HERE
Additional software associated with Flight Gear includes Taxidraw, a software that enables you to edit runways and taxiway. You can find a tutorial HERE and a download link http://taxidraw.sourceforge.net/">HERE
