FlightGear 0.9.10

[BWF89]

I saw the Microsoft Flight Simulator X ads on TV and thought it looked like a lot of fun. I later found a replacement program in Free Software Magazine. The graphics aren't as good as FSX and it's probably not as polished but If your into airplanes you should get this and learn how to fly. You can fly anything from Cessna's, jetliners, helicopters, military aircraft, even the Wright Brothers plane.

Official website (http://www.flightgear.org/)
FlightGear reviewed in Free Software Magazine (http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/articles/flightgear)
Wikipedia page and other links (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flightgear)
An excellent tutorial (http://www.4p8.com/eric.brasseur/flight_simulator_tutorial.html) (read before flying)

[Tomosaur]

Yeah, it's pretty popular actually, although I've never managed to get it running that well. Apparantly it's very good if you can iron out the stability/performance problems.

[nalmeth]

Yeah, flightgear is in the repos too.
It works well, a lot of planes are included with the game.
try:
cd /usr/games
./fgfs --aircraft=ufo

There is very little terrain included though, you have to add it yourself.

[mips]

I would love to try out X-Plane http://www.x-plane.com/

I've tried flightgear before and it's not that polished as you said but still good.

[shining]

Check this:
http://pigeond.net/flightgear/fg_server_map.html

[BWF89]

I would love to try out X-Plane http://www.x-plane.com/. I've tried flightgear before and it's not that polished as you said but still good.
That looks really good. Than I realized it wasn't free :(. I saw they have a demo version of it, it disables your control after 6 minutes but it looks interesting. I'll have to try it out sometime.

Check this:
http://pigeond.net/flightgear/fg_server_map.html
I saw that before. Once I get better at flying I'll figure out how to log onto the server and play online.

There is very little terrain included though, you have to add it yourself.
I noticed when I was playing. I don't have the disk space (8GB free) to download the whole earth but I might download a section or two around the San Fransisco Intl airport tonight.

[mips]

That looks really good. Than I realized it wasn't free :(. I saw they have a demo version of it, it disables your control after 6 minutes but it looks interesting. I'll have to try it out sometime.


Apparently it is the most realistic flight sim out there based on it's physics modeling and whatever else. Read a few reviews on it. It's more of a realistict flight sim than a game.

I would love to get my hands on the full DVD set with the entire earth scenery.

[BWF89]

Apparently it is the most realistic flight sim out there based on it's physics modeling and whatever else. Read a few reviews on it. It's more of a realistict flight sim than a game. I would love to get my hands on the full DVD set with the entire earth scenery.
I didn't know that. You'd think if it was the most realistic sim out there I would have heard of it before you posted about it today. But even if you have the most realistic flight sim in the world it won't it wouldn't matter if you were still using a keyboard & mouse to control your plane. You'd need a setup similar to this (http://store.x-plane.com/cart.php?m=product_detail&p=47) to take full advantage of it. Which would probably be a huge pain to setup with Linux.

[xtacocorex]

Apparently it is the most realistic flight sim out there based on it's physics modeling and whatever else. Read a few reviews on it. It's more of a realistict flight sim than a game.

I would love to get my hands on the full DVD set with the entire earth scenery.
I just started playing X-Plane yesterday and being an Aerospace Engineer, I can vouch for it being very accurate. The program solves the aerodynamic forces on the fly, which is pretty awesome.

I have tried Flight Gear and I couldn't get the joystick to work properly, but it did seem cool. It's more like MS Flight Sim than X-Plane.

[bodycoach2]

I've loaded Flightgear on my Dapper install. No link to it in the application folder, so I go in command line, type "fgfs", it starts to load, then quits after a few seconds. Never really loads all the way.

Any ideas what's up with that?
Flightsim in one of the few reasons I still boot to WindowsXP. I'd like to remover that reason.


I saw the Microsoft Flight Simulator X ads on TV and thought it looked like a lot of fun. I later found a replacement program in Free Software Magazine. The graphics aren't as good as FSX and it's probably not as polished but If your into airplanes you should get this and learn how to fly. You can fly anything from Cessna's, jetliners, helicopters, military aircraft, even the Wright Brothers plane.

Official website (http://www.flightgear.org/)
FlightGear reviewed in Free Software Magazine (http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/articles/flightgear)
Wikipedia page and other links (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flightgear)
An excellent tutorial (http://www.4p8.com/eric.brasseur/flight_simulator_tutorial.html) (read before flying)

[mips]

I didn't know that. You'd think if it was the most realistic sim out there I would have heard of it before you posted about it today. But even if you have the most realistic flight sim in the world it won't it wouldn't matter if you were still using a keyboard & mouse to control your plane. You'd need a setup similar to this (http://store.x-plane.com/cart.php?m=product_detail&p=47) to take full advantage of it. Which would probably be a huge pain to setup with Linux.


I first heard about it 2 years ago.Not many do and me as a non-pilot / aviation engineer probably would not realise it either. But you give it to a pilot and he/she will know it. Besides the controls it's all about how the plane behaves/reacts in various conditions, how it interacts with the forces of nature and the physics behind it all. If you can do it in X-plane it can be done in real live & vice versa.

Dunno how hard it would be to get the controls working in linux but have heard of guys having the yoke/stick & pedals working in linux. I think the DVD contains all three versions (Win/Mac/Linux) if I'm not mistaken but I stand to be corrected.

Have you seen the nutters that take this to the extreme ? They will actually take a real cockpit or build a mock-up of the real thing with real gauges, switches etc. Wire it to something like an EPIC board which then connects to a PC to interact with the flight sim software. http://www.mikesflightdeck.com/simpit_links.htm

Have you seen the FAA & other approvals X-Plane has, http://x-plane.com/FTD.html

A nice 3 part review, http://www.simhq.com/_air4/air_140a.html
http://www.simhq.com/_air/air.html#reviews

X-plane is the way to go if you want a real simulator.

[sultanoswing]

I've loaded Flightgear on my Dapper install. No link to it in the application folder, so I go in command line, type "fgfs", it starts to load, then quits after a few seconds. Never really loads all the way.

Any ideas what's up with that?


Yeah - it was unstable for me too (on Fedora 5)...I was getting a segmentation fault, I think due to a new version of FreeGLUT which FG didn't like. Tried a bunch of stuff, even compiling, but no dice, so gave up on it...not quite ready for prime time, sadly!

[TheRingmaster]

I am going to revive this thread by saying that there is a livecd version of it. Does anybody know what is included with that. I am going to try it out now!

EDIT: no one has any info on the livecd??

[mips]

I am going to revive this thread by saying that there is a livecd version of it. Does anybody know what is included with that. I am going to try it out now!

EDIT: no one has any info on the livecd??

0.9.10-2 is in the repositories, why not install it instead of looking for a entire livecd ?

[TheRingmaster]

0.9.10-2 is in the repositories, why not install it instead of looking for a entire livecd ?


I always have problems with the installed version. I don't know why (EDIT: I just remembered that I used to get "segmentation error" all the time). But that was with dapper. I will try it now with edgy. Is that version the latest available?

I already downloaded and tried out the livecd. Didn't spend too much time with it. (bed time)

[TheRingmaster]

yes I still am getting errors with the installed version. The livecd has all I need.


petey@petey-desktop:~$ fgfs
Error reading properties:
Failed to open file
at /home/petey/.fgfs/autosave.xml
(reported by SimGear XML Parser)
Model Author: Unknown
Creation Date: 2002-01-01
Version: $Id: c172p.xml,v 1.17 2006-03-13 15:27:14 ehofman Exp $
Description: Cessna C-172
Segmentation fault (core dumped)
petey@petey-desktop:~$

[Jengle]

FlightGear is a package in Edgy! All you have to do is type: sudo apt-get install flightgear

Optionally, you can also install "fgrun" which is the launch wizard. Much easier than command line.

Go to viciouslime and it is already compiled: http://www.viciouslime.co.uk/index.php?option=com_docman&task=cat_view&gid=2&Itemid=2

I would like to give credit to the person who created it, but I forgot his name.

I have not used M$ FSX, but I can say for the price FlightGear is pretty good.:)

[slimdog360]

wow, only a year late. BTW flight gear ver 1.0 is out.

[Jengle]

Have you loaded it on Ubuntu? I played it on Windows, but not Linux yet.