The FlightGear Manual

About this Manual

The Parts of the Manual

For the most Impatient

Further Reading

External Literature

About FlightGear

A Boeing 747-400 taking off from KSFO, San Francisco, California, USA

Developed by:
Michael Basler, Martin Spott,
Stuart Buchanan, Jon Berndt,
Bernhard Buckel, Cameron Moore,
Curt Olson, Dave Perry,
Michael Selig, Darrell Walisser,
and others

Revised by Jörg Emmerich
September 2011, for FlightGearVersion 2.4.0

FlightGear is a free Flight Simulator developed cooperatively over the Internet by a group of flight simulation and programming enthusiasts. "The FlightGear Manual" is meant to give beginners a guide in getting FlightGear up and running, and themselves into the air. It is not intended to provide complete documentation of all the features and add-ons of FlightGear but, instead, aims to give a new user the best start to exploring what FlightGear has to offer.

There is little, if any, material in this Guide that is presented here exclusively. You could even say with Montaigne that we “merely gathered here a big bunch of other men’s flowers, having furnished nothing of my own but the strip to hold them together”. Most (but fortunately not all) of the information herein can also be obtained from the FlightGear web site located at http://www.flightgear.org/

This version of the document was written for FlightGear version 2.4.0. Users of earlier versions of FlightGear will still find this document useful, but some of the features described may not be present.

We kindly ask you to help us refine this document by submitting corrections, improvements, and suggestions. All users are invited to contribute descriptions of alternative setups (graphics cards, operating systems etc.). We will be more than happy to include those in future versions of The FlightGear Manual (of course not without giving credit to the authors).

About This Manual

FlightGear may be used like any other plaything to move with some kind of modeled-aircraft from one location to another and just having fun -- while actually it is a very detailed Flight-Gear-Flight-Simulator (FGFS) in which you can simulate the whole complex environment of

flying aircrafts of all types behaving like real aircrafts
in 3D-sceneries of the whole world
under actual weather and daytime restrictions
within the surrounding activities of a big, worldwide avionic operation
controlled by Air-Traffic-Controllers and Ground Operations
which strives to become a FAA-approved flight training device for certified pilots.

Covering this very large area requires a whole lot of learning - which often is not really wanted and/or required for the first steps into this Simulation Environment. So we try to offer a guide which covers everything - but is structured also as a reference, that allows you to start with a minimum of reading and offers step by step enhancements. So

The "Parts" of the Manual

You navigate through the Manual by mouse-clicking into one of the tabs in the top-menu-bar. Those are introducing more and more "KnowHow", going from left to right. On top of each "Part" you find a "Table of Contents" that brings you to the chapter of your interest - of course it is suggested to first browse through it from top to bottom, just to see what is covered. Within all chapters you will find lots of "Links" that references other parts of the Handbook and/or to external references. You can always return from those by clicking your browsers "page back/forth" icons.

The first Tab "Exit" always brings you back to the page from where you called the Manual

Further down this part "Start" you find some more general hints and a short explanation of "why and what" is FlightGear.

You need to understand the Part "Installation" if you want to extend your installation, and thus need to know where is what, and what are the dependencies. For a first trail you can just install the very minimums from the FlightGear HomePage http://www.flightgear.org/Downloads/binary.shtml.

If you are new to piloting, you should see the part "Briefing". That one explains how to

how to start FlightGear with different Options in different environments
explains what the basic instruments in the cockpit are for
how you control your model by keyboard and/or mouse and/or joystick etc.
and all the options that are offered by the FlightGear menu-bar.

If you never have piloted before you definitely should start flying with the "Solo Flight" to learn how to use the controls

The part "KnowHow" introduces some fundamentals about flying and how to improve your skills

"VFR X-Country" is for the "getting serious" pilots! You learn how to perform a real "Cross Country" flight, just navigating by visual landmarks basic instrumentation - and a good flight planning!

"RNAV" introduces you to the world of Radio-Navigation (Communication, VOR, ILS, NDB, Autopilot, etc.), it also shows you lots of detailed examples

Based on the parts "VFR X-Country" and "Radio-NAV" we will plan and perform an "IFR X-Country", i.e. now with will fly the X-Country without seeing anything outside the plane!

Finally "Features" gives you some hints to additional, charge free programs which will enlarge the usability and opportunities of FlightGear, especially in the area of "Multiplayer"

At the end the "Appendix" will explain the used "technical terminology", list ALL the "command Options" and some infos about the past and future of FlightGear

For the most Impatient

We know, that there are many who do not like to read big books full of theories, prior to being able to "Start Flying". Thus we try to offer you a "short-cut" by first start and then be able to learn more and more and/or revisit what you did! Thus you may try:

Todays standard PC's, Notebooks, etc. all have more resources than are required for FlightGear. If you are in doubt check the "System Requirements" in the "Installation" (see above tab).

If the Program is running far to slow, check especially the requirements on the Graphic-Card.

For the very beginning you may

just download and install the program according to the descriptions on http://www.flightgear.org/Downloads/binary.shtml
and start with the standard Icons and/or Procedures defined by your Operating-System for standard Programs

Then, in order to learn the basics about how to control the model by mouse, keyboard, joystick etc.

see/print the short leaflet in your FlightGear directory: $FG_ROOT/Docs/FGShortRef.pdf
and/or see the complete description about that in the part "Briefing"
if you are new to flying-procedures you should exercise the part "Solo Flight" for your first "real flying" attempts

If you run into problems or want to install more then just the Basic-Program (e.g. more models, scenery, features, etc.), you should look through the whole Part "Installation" for the basic prerequisites, structures, and conventions.

And then just visit the Parts as lined out in the menu-bar above, whenever you are ready to learn more!

External Literature

There is an immense amount of Literature available about flying - even free in the WEB. Here we will just list a few we found helpful to extend the knowledge provided by our FlightGear Guide:

There is an excellent Tutorial with many pictures about a "formal pattern flight", written by David Megginson (one of the leading developers of FlightGear). See http://www.flightgear.org/Docs/Tutorials/circuit

The King of all is of course the official documentation of the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration in the USA). There you find all regulations and procedures in all detail. See http://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/publications/atpubs/aim/

Also very detailed and formal, but much easier to read and with many pictures is the "Flight Training Handbook", for VFR see http://avstop.com/AC/FlightTraingHandbook/.

There is a second part to it concentrating on IFR, see http://www.navfltsm.addr.com/ils.htm.

And some more interesting links:

Airplanes: How They Fly → http://www.gleim.com/aviation/ltf/howtheyfly.php?PHPSESSID=889ab9792636f430a66e3e5d70f7d346

Technology & History → http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixed-wing_aircraft

Flying the Cessna → http://www.avsim.com/mike/mickey_site/ppilot/ppilot_faq/pp_cessnas.html

And again: There are many, many more. Ask you friends: Probably everybody has some favorites from which you can choose.

About FlightGear

Did you ever want to fly an airplane yourself, but lacked the money or ability to do so?
Are you a real pilot looking to improve your skills without having to take off?
Do you want to try some dangerous maneuvers without risking your life?
Or do you just want to have fun with a more serious game without any violence?

If any of these questions apply to you, PC flight simulators are just for you. You may already have some experience in using Microsoft’s Flight Simulator or any other of the commercially available PC flight simulators. As the price tag of those is usually within the $50 range, buying one of them should not be a serious problem -- given that running any serious PC flight simulator requires PC hardware within the $1.500 range, despite dropping prices.

Yet Another Flight Simulator ???

With so many commercially available flight simulators, why would we spend thousands of hours of programming and design work to build a free flight simulator? Well, there are many reasons, but here are the major ones:

All of the commercial simulators have a serious drawback: they are made by a small group of developers defining their properties according to what is important to them and providing limited interfaces to end users. Anyone who has ever tried to contact a commercial developer would agree that getting your voice heard in that environment is a major challenge. In contrast, FlightGear is designed by the people and for the people with everything out in the open.

Commercial simulators are usually a compromise of features and usability. Most commercial developers want to be able to serve a broad segment of the population, including serious pilots, beginners, and even casual gamers. In reality the result is always a compromise due to deadlines and funding. As FlightGear is free and open, there is no need for such a compromise. We have no publisher breathing down our necks, and we’re all volunteers that make our own deadlines. We are also at liberty to support markets that no commercial developer would consider viable, like the scientific research community.

Due to their closed-source nature, commercial simulators keep developers with excellent ideas and skills from contributing to the products. With FlightGear, developers of all skill levels and ideas have the potential to make a huge impact on the project. Contributing to a project as large and complex as FlightGear is very rewarding and provides the developers with a great deal of pride in knowing that we are shaping the future of a great simulator.

Beyond everything else, it’s just plain fun! I suppose you could compare us to real pilots that build kit-planes or scratch-builds. Sure, we can go out and buy a pre-built aircraft, but there’s just something special about building one yourself. The points mentioned above form the basis of why we created FlightGear. With those motivations in mind, we have set out to create a high-quality flight simulator that aims to be a civilian, multi-platform, open, user-supported, and user-extensible platform.

Let us take a closer look at each of these characteristics:

Civilian: The project is primarily aimed at civilian flight simulation. It should be appropriate for simulating general aviation as well as civilian aircraft. Our long-term goal is to have FlightGear FAA-approved as a flight training device. To the disappointment of some users, it is currently not a combat simulator; however, these features are not explicitly excluded. We just have not had a developer that was seriously interested in systems necessary for combat simulation.

Multi-platform: The developers are attempting to keep the code as platform-independent as possible. This is based on their observation that people interested in flight simulations run quite a variety of computer hardware and operating systems (see the actual list under "Operating Systems" within "Installation"). At present, there is no other known flight simulator – commercial or free – supporting such a broad range of platforms.

Open: The project is not restricted to a static or elite cadre of developers. Anyone who feels they are able to contribute is most welcome. The code (including documentation) is copyrighted under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL).

The GPL is often misunderstood. In simple terms it states that you can copy and freely distribute the program(s) so licensed. You can modify them if you like and even charge as much money for it as you want, for the distribution of the modified or original program. However, when distributing the software you must make it available to the recipients in source code as well and it must retain the original copyrights. In short:

”You can do anything with the software - except make it non-free”

The full text of the GPL can be obtained from the FlightGear source code or from http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html.

User-supported and user-extensible: Unlike most commercial simulators, FlightGear’s scenery and aircraft formats, internal variables, APIs, and everything else are user accessible and documented from the beginning. Even without any explicit development documentation (which naturally has to be written at some point), one can always go to the source code to see how something works. It is the goal of the developers to build a basic engine to which scenery designers, panel engineers, maybe adventure or ATC routine writers, sound artists, and others can build upon. It is our hope that the project, including the developers and end users, will benefit from the creativity and ideas of the hundreds of talented “simmers” around the world.

Without doubt, the success of the Linux project, initiated by Linus Torvalds, inspired several of the developers. Not only has Linux shown that distributed development of highly sophisticated software projects over the Internet is possible, it has also proven that such an effort can surpass the level of quality of competing commercial products.