Publisher review:FlightGear is an open-source, multi-platform flight simulator. The FlightGear flight simulator project is an open-source, multi-platform, cooperative flight simulator development project. Source code for the entire project is available and licensed under the GNU General Public License. The goal of the FlightGear project is to create a sophisticated flight simulator framework for use in research or academic environments, for the development and pursuit of other interesting flight simulation ideas, and as an end-user application.
It is a sophisticated, open simulation framework that can be expanded and improved upon by anyone interested in contributing.
Features:
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: - 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.
- 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.
- 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 we have pretty detailed coverage of the entire world.
- 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
FlightGear implements extremely accurate time of day modeling 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 sim right now when you locate yourself in virtual Sydney.
The sun, moon, stars, and planets all follow their correct courses through the sky. This modeling 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. Requirements: · Glut (FreeGlut) - OpenGL Utility Toolkit (GLUT) library. · OpenAL - Cross Platform 3D Audio. · plib - portability libraries and scene graph. You need plib-1.8.4 or newer · SimGear - simulation construction tools.
FlightGear 0.9.10 is a C/C++ script for Security Systems scripts design by Curtis L. Olson.
It runs on following operating system: Windows / Linux / Mac OS / BSD / Solaris.
Operating system:Windows / Linux / Mac OS / BSD / Solaris
FlightGear 0.9.10 script details 
