FlightGear
Thursday, 22 October 2009 22:32 | 
Written by Anatoly Starikov | 
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FlightGear is a free, multi-platform, open source flight simulator.
It has various functions for weather, time of day, and lighting effects as well as the ability to have the user choose the exact starting location, direction and altitude. Numerous airports have been added to its library for various landing and takeoff operations. FlightGear comes included with a wide array of airplanes ready for simulation. Everything from Cessna’s and Sopwith’s, to P-51’s and F-16’s can be flown in FlightGear’s catalog. Even the up and coming B787 Dreamliner. The real advantage of FlightGear though is the ability to fly an airplane of your design. This makes FlightGear an exceptional tool throughout various research and academic environments.
Through the implementation of Datcom+ and the calculated stability derivatives, these aerodynamics files can be directly converted to the JSBSim-ML format (the XML file format). This is the format that the flight dynamics model JSBSim reads. FlightGear simulates the control and dynamics of the vehicle to a considerably accurate degree using this file.
FlightGear has been around since 1997 and is capable of working on various operating systems including Microsoft Windows (Win 32), Mac OS X, Linux, IRIX, and Solaris.
FlightGear can be downloaded for free under the Downloads tab.
Screenshot of the T-38 in flight
Last Updated (Wednesday, 30 December 2009 22:03)
