Free FlightGear flight simulator
Conclusions
FlightGear is an impressive simulation game that allows computer pilots to experience the feeling of flying over a beautiful landscape. Many technical features, such as VOR navigation or – in commercial aircraft – even an instrument-based approach, can captivate geeks for hours. But you should not expect models, especially jets, to feel exactly like they do in reality, since the flight dynamics model is obviously too simple for that. The commercial X-Plane [7] flight simulator, which is also available for Linux, offers an alternative for this purpose.
Joystick
For FlightGear, we recommend a three-axis stick, whose lever can not only be tilted, but also rotated around a third axis. In this way you can control the elevator, aileron, and rudder. In addition, the joystick should have a slider for thrust; push buttons for other aircraft functions are usually available anyway. A joystick like this is okay for convenient control, even if it does not realistically reproduce the aircraft yoke and rudder pedals. In the Joystick Configuration dialog, you will ideally want to assign axes 0 to 2 to the elevator, aileron, and rudder, and axis 3 to the thrust controller. In addition, you will want to have the Elevator Trim and Rudder Trim easily available; this is the zero position correction to compensate for air currents. For the Cessna, the remaining two pairs of keys are used to adjust the fuel mixture and flaps.
Infos
- FlightGear: http://flightgear.org
- GSHHG database: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GSHHG
- Manual scenery download: http://ns334561.ip-5-196-65.eu/~fgscenery/WS2.0/scenery-2.0.1.html
- FlightGear manual: http://flightgear.sourceforge.net/getstart-en/getstart-en.html
- Bendix King autopilot: http://wiki.FlightGear.org/Bendix/King_KAP140_Autopilot
- Boeing 777 in the FlightGear wiki: http://wiki.flightgear.org/Boeing_777
- X-Plane: https://www.x-plane.com
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