Anhang

Fachbegriffe & Abkürzungen FlightGear Befehls-Optionen Flugzeuge und andere Modelle Allgemeine Optionen Features (Funktionen) HUD Optionen (Head­Up­Display) Audio Flugmodell (FDM) “Einfrieren” (freeze) Anfangsposition und Ausrichtung Rendering / Wiedergabe Optionen Zeitangaben Netzwerk Optionen Input/Output Radios Properties Fehler- und Test-Optionen Umwelt / Wetter Navigationsgerät Eingaben Epilog

Eine "DHC3F-Otter" in der Livery der "RACF-rescue"

Fachbegriffe & Abkürzungen

FlightGear Befehls-Optionen

Flugzeuge und andere Modelle

Allgemeine Optionen

Features (Funktionen)

HUD Optionen (Head­Up­Display)

Audio

Flugmodell (FDM)

“Einfrieren” (freeze)

Anfangsposition und Ausrichtung

Rendering / Wiedergabe Optionen

Zeitangaben

• “gmt” ist die Standard -Weltzeit (Greenwich Mean-Time)
• “lat” ist die Zeit auf dem Längengrad (in etwa die Zeit wo geflogen wird)
• “sys” ist Deine Sytemzeit

Netzwerk Optionen

Input/Output

Radios

Properties

Fehler- und Test-Optionen

Umwelt / Wetter

Navigationsgerät Eingaben

EPILOG

• The_History_of_FlightGear
• Scenery
• Aircraft
• Environment
• User Interface
• Those who did the work
• What remains to be done
• Acknowledgements
  

The History of FlightGear

Scenery

• Texture support was added by Curt Olson in spring 1998. This marked a significant improvement in terms of reality. Some high-quality textures were submitted by Eric Mitchell for the FlightGear project. Another set of highquality textures was added by Erik Hofman ever since.

• After improving the scenery and texture support frame rate dropped down to a point where FlightGear became unflyable in spring 1998. This issue was resolved by exploiting hardware OpenGL support, which became available at that time, and implementing view frustrum culling (a rendering technique that ignores the part of the scenery not visible in a scene), done by Curt Olson. With respect to frame rate one should keep in mind that the code, at present, is in no way optimized, which leaves room for further improve ments.
  

• In September 1998 Curt Olson succeeded in creating a complete terrain model for the U.S. The scenery is available worldwide now, via a clickable map at:
  

http://www.flightgear.org/Downloads/world-scenery.html.

• Scenery was further improved by adding geographic features including lakes, rivers,and coastlines later, an effort still going on. Textured runways were added by Dave Cornish in spring 2001. Light textures add to the visual impression at night. To cope with the constant growth of scenery data, a binary scenery format was introduced in spring 2001. Runway lighting was introduced by Curt Olson in spring 2001. Finally, a completely new set of scenery files for the whole world was created by William Riley based on preparatorydocumentation by David Megginson in summer 2002. This is based on a data set called VMap0 as an alternative to the GSHHS data used so far. This scenery is a big improvement as it has world wide coverage of main streets, rivers, etc., while it’s downside are much less accurate coast lines. FlightGear’s base scenery is based on these new scenery files since summer 2002.
  

• There was support added for static objects to the scenery in 2001, which permits placing buildings, static planes, trees and so on in the scenery. However, despite a few proofs of concept systematic inclusion of these landmarks is still missing.
  

• The world is populated with random ground objects with appropriate type and density for the local ground cover type since summer 2002. This marks a mayor improvement of reality and is mainly thanks to work by D. Megginson.
  

Aircraft

• A HUD (head up display) was added based on code provided by Michele America and Charlie Hotchkiss in the fall of 1997 and was improved later by Norman Vine. While not generally available for real Cessna 172, the HUD conveniently reports the actual flight performance of the simulation and may be of further use in military jets later.
  

• A rudimentary autopilot implementing heading hold was contributed by Jeff Goeke-Smith in April 1998. It was improved by the addition of an altitude hold and a terrain following switch in October 1998 and further developed by Norman Vine later.
  

• Friedemann Reinhard developed early instrument panel code, which was added in June 1998. Unfortunately, development of that panel slowed down later. Finally, David Megginson decided to rebuild the panel code from scratch in January 2000. This led to a rapid addition of new instruments and features to the panel, resulting in nearly all main instruments being included until spring 2001. A handy minipanel was added in summer 2001.
  

• Finally, LaRCsims Navion was replaced as the default aircraft when the Cessna 172 was stable enough in February 2000 - as move most users will welcome. There are now several flight model and airplane options to choose from at runtime. Jon Berndt has invested a lot of time in a more realistic and versatile flight model with a more powerful aircraft configuration method. JSBSim, as it has come to be called, did replace LaRCsim as the default flight dynamics model (FDM), and it is planned to include such features as fuel slosh effects, turbulence, complete flight control systems, and other features not often found all together in a flight simulator. As an alternative, Andy Ross added another flight dynamics model called YASim (Yet Another Flight Dynamics Simulator) which aims at simplicity of use and is based on fluid dynamics, by the end of 2001. This one bought us flight models for a 747, an A4, and a DC-3. Alternatively, a group around Michael Selig from the UIUC group provided another flight model along with several planes since around 2000.
  

• A fully operational radio stack and working radios were added to the panel by Curt Olson in spring 2000. A huge database of Navaids contributed by Robin Peel allows IFR navigation since then. There was basic ATC support added in fall 2001 by David Luff. This is not yet fully implemented, but displaying ATIS messages is already possible. A magneto switch with proper functions was added at the end of 2001 by John Check and David Megginson. Moreover, several panels were continually improved during 2001 and 2002 by John and others. FlightGear now allows flying ILS approaches and features a Bendix transponder.
  

• In 2002 functional multi-engine support found it’s way into FlightGear. JSBSim is now the default FDM in FlightGear.
  

• Support of ‘’true” 3D panels became stable via contributions from John Check and others in spring 2002. In addition, we got movable control surfaces like propellers etc., thanks to David Megginson.
  

Environment

• The display of sun, moon and stars have been a weak point for PC flight-simulators for a long time. It is one of the great achievements of FlightGear to include accurate modeling and display of sun, moon, and planets very early. The corresponding astronomy code was implemented in fall 1997 byDurk Talsma.
  

• Christian Mayer, together with Durk Talsma, contributed weather code in the winter of 1999. This included clouds, winds, and even thunderstorms.
  

User Interface

• The foundation for a menu system was laid based on another library, the Portable Library PLIB, in June 1998. After having been idle for a time, the first working menu entries came to life in spring 1999. PLIB underwent rapid development later. It has been distributed as a separate package by Steve Baker with a much broader range of applications in mind, since spring 1999. It has provided the basic graphics rendering engine for FlightGear since fall 1999.
  

• In 1998 there was basic audio support, i.e. an audio library and some basic background engine sound. This was later integrated into the above mentioned portable library, PLIB. This same library was extended to support joystick/yoke/rudder in October 1999, again marking a huge step in terms of realism. To adapt on different joystick, configuration options were introduced in fall 2000. Joystick support was further improved by adding a self detection feature based on xml joystick files, by David Megginson in summer 2002.
  

• Networking/multiplayer code has been integrated by Oliver Delise and Curt Olson starting fall 1999. This effort is aimed at enabling FlightGear to run concurrently on several machines over a network, either an Intranet or the Internet, coupling it to a flight planner running on a second machine, and more. There emerged several approaches for remotely controlling FlightGear over a Network during 2001. Notably there was added support for the “Atlas” moving map program. Besides, an embedded HTTP server developed by Curt Olson late in 2001 can now act a property manager for external programs.
  

• Manually changing views in a flight simulator is in a sense always “unreal” but nonetheless required in certain situations. A possible solution was supplied by Norman Vine in the winter of 1999 by implementing code for changing views using the mouse. Alternatively, you can use a hat switch for this purpose, today.
  

• A property manager was implemented by David Megginson in fall 2000. It allows parsing a file called .fgfsrc under UNIX/Linux and system.fgfsrc under Windows for input options. This plain ASCII file has proven useful in submitting the growing number of input options, and notably the joystick settings. This has shown to be a useful concept, and joystick, keyboard, and panel settings are no longer hard coded but set using *.xml files since spring 2001 thanks to work mainly by David Megginson and John Check.
  

• The base of the graphics engine is OpenGL, a platform independent graphics library.
• Based on OpenGL, the Portable Library PLIB provides
• basic rendering,
• audio,
  
• joystick etc ̇outines.
  
• Based on PLIB is SimGear, which includes all of the basic routines required for the flight simulator as well as for building scenery.
• On top of SimGear there are
1. FlightGear (the simulator itself), and
   
2. TerraGear,

which comprises the scenery building tools.

Those, who did the work

What remains to be done

Acknowledgements