Author: Curt O.

FlightGear 2016.1 Released

The FlightGear development team is delighted to announce the v2016.1 “San Francisco” release of FlightGear, the free, open-source flight simulator. This new version contains many exciting new features, enhancements and bugfixes. Highlights in this release include an integrated launcher that includes the ability to download aircraft, a reduction in the installation package size, performance improvements and many rendering improvements.
Founded in 1997, FlightGear is developed by a worldwide group of volunteers, brought together by a shared ambition to create the most realistic flight simulator possible that is free to use, modify and distribute. FlightGear is used all over the world …
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The FlightGear development team is delighted to announce the v2016.1 “San Francisco” release of FlightGear, the free, open-source flight simulator. This new version contains many exciting new features, enhancements and bugfixes. Highlights in this release include an integrated launcher that includes the ability to download aircraft, a reduction in the installation package size, performance improvements and many rendering improvements.
Founded in 1997, FlightGear is developed by a worldwide group of volunteers, brought together by a shared ambition to create the most realistic flight simulator possible that is free to use, modify and distribute. FlightGear is used all over the world by desktop flight simulator enthusiasts, for research in universities and for interactive exhibits in museums.

Qt_launcher_for_FlightGear_3.5_on_Windows_7

FlightGear features more than 500 aircraft, a worldwide scenery database, a multiplayer environment, detailed sky and weather modelling, a flexible and open aircraft modelling system, varied networking options, multiple display support, a powerful scripting language and an open architecture. Best of all, being open-source, the simulator is owned by the community and everyone is encouraged to contribute.

Download FlightGear v2016.1 for free from FlightGear.org/download

FlightGear – Fly Free!

Please continue to our wiki article for all the specific details and new features in the release.

FlightGear v3.4 Released

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The FlightGear development team is delighted to announce the v3.4 release of FlightGear, the free, open-source flight simulator. This new version contains many exciting new features, enhancements and bugfixes. Highlights in this release include frame-rate improvements on some systems, reduced memory usage and enhancements to the built-in web server.

Founded in 1997, FlightGear is developed by a worldwide group of volunteers, brought together by a shared ambition to create the most realistic flight simulator possible that is free to use, modify and distribute. FlightGear is used all over the world by desktop flight simulator enthusiasts, for research in universities and

…
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av9DBjV

The FlightGear development team is delighted to announce the v3.4 release of FlightGear, the free, open-source flight simulator. This new version contains many exciting new features, enhancements and bugfixes. Highlights in this release include frame-rate improvements on some systems, reduced memory usage and enhancements to the built-in web server.

Founded in 1997, FlightGear is developed by a worldwide group of volunteers, brought together by a shared ambition to create the most realistic flight simulator possible that is free to use, modify and distribute. FlightGear is used all over the world by desktop flight simulator enthusiasts, for research in universities and for interactive exhibits in museums.

FlightGear features more than 400 aircraft, a worldwide scenery database, a multi-player environment, detailed sky modelling, a flexible and open aircraft modelling system, varied networking options, multiple display support, a powerful scripting language and an open architecture. Best of all, being open-source, the simulator is owned by the community and everyone is encouraged to contribute.

Download FlightGear v3.4 for free from FlightGear.org

FlightGear – Fly Free!

Major enhancements in this release

Performance

  • Improved frame-rates on some systems from more efficient use of Uniforms
  • Reduced memory occupancy for scenery tiles
  • AI models are now rendered based on display size rather than range
  • AI/MP models may now define objects as being part of the interior, which will not be rendered at large distances

Usability

  • Built-in web server now includes a moving map, a screenshot grabber, and supports SVG-based panels
  • In-application launcher for Mac, based on Qt5

Graphics

  • Improved rendering of runway and other lights under ALS
  • Landing and spotlight support for ALS

Scenery

  • Improved materials XML format making customer material definition easier
  • Procedural rock material definition

JSBSim

  • Synchronization with latest JSBSim

Highlighted new and improved aircraft

  • Extra EA-500
  • North American P-51D Mustang
  • Cessna Citation II
  • F-14b

Other

  • Firewall exceptions are automatically added during setup on Windows systems
  • Aircraft moved to a SVN repository.

Bug fixes

  • See our bugtracker for an extensive, yet incomplete, list of the bugs fixed in this release.

FlightGear v3.2 Released

The FlightGear development team is delighted to announce the v3.2 release of FlightGear, the free, open-source flight simulator. This new version contains many exciting new features, enhancements and bugfixes. Highlights in this release include an experimental aircraft manager allowing users to download and load aircraft in-sim, a very capable built-in HTTP server, built-in voice synthesizer for ATIS messages, and many improvements to the Canvas rendering framework.

Founded in 1997, FlightGear is developed by a worldwide group of volunteers, brought together by a shared ambition to create the most realistic flight simulator possible that is free to use, modify and distribute.

…
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The FlightGear development team is delighted to announce the v3.2 release of FlightGear, the free, open-source flight simulator. This new version contains many exciting new features, enhancements and bugfixes. Highlights in this release include an experimental aircraft manager allowing users to download and load aircraft in-sim, a very capable built-in HTTP server, built-in voice synthesizer for ATIS messages, and many improvements to the Canvas rendering framework.

Founded in 1997, FlightGear is developed by a worldwide group of volunteers, brought together by a shared ambition to create the most realistic flight simulator possible that is free to use, modify and distribute. FlightGear is used all over the world by desktop flight simulator enthusiasts, for research in universities and for interactive exhibits in museums.

FlightGear features more than 400 aircraft, a worldwide scenery database, a multi-player environment, detailed sky modelling, a flexible and open aircraft modelling system, varied networking options, multiple display support, a powerful scripting language and an open architecture. Best of all, being open-source, the simulator is owned by the community and everyone is encouraged to contribute.

Download FlightGear v3.2 for free from FlightGear.org.

FlightGear – Fly Free!

Major enhancements in this release

Aircraft Modeling

  • A Failure Management Framework for FlightGear has been added
  • The JSBSim flight dynamics model now has support for ground effects like bumpiness, solid-ground detection and adjusting of friction factors. Additionally, bogey type contact points sink in non-solid surfaces, making it no longer possible to ride on water.
  • YASim now has versioning support. The YASim FDM now checks a version tag in it’s configuration file to allow improvements to the YASim FDM without risking breaking older aircraft.
  • Additional aircraft have started adopting the Canvas navigation display that was introduced with FlightGear 3.0.

Graphics

  • Improved rendering of VASI, PAPI, runway and taxiway lights.
  • Orbital rendering using textures from the NASA Visible Earth project
  • Additions to the Atmospheric Light Scattering (ALS) rendering include:
    • an experimental framework to render cloud shadows on the ground (requires Advanced Weather)
    • a substantial extension of cloud layer visibility using impostor techniques to 150 km
    • a new agriculture effect allowing to render fields without tiling artifacts
    • a new forest effect to simulate managed forest, varying tree size by patch
    • sparkle and fog effect on runway lights
    • much improved visual appearance of rock faces

Usability

  • An experimental aircraft package manager allows the download of new aircraft, and changing the current aircraft in-sim.
  • A new internal web server (aka httpd) based on mongoose httpd has been added. It supports various AJAX requests, a screenshot server, a property tree browser, and a web-based moving map and much more.
  • The integrated Map dialog now uses an azimuthal equidistant projection, for better representation in polar regions and across the International Date Line.
  • Windows users are now able to use the scroll wheel in dialog lists

Canvas System

Improvements to Canvas, FlightGear’s scriptable 2D rendering system include

  • Better performance
  • MapStructure-based layers can now be customized and styled
  • Support for mouse button and modifiers
  • CanvasImage now supports the http:// protocol for dynamically retrieving raster images.
  • An experimental Map dialog using Canvas is available under the Equipment menu.
  • Canvas Layout Engine

Nasal Scripting

  • A new fully-interactive Nasal GUI console based on Canvas has been added: Interactive Nasal Console
  • the hard-coded flight path history subsystem which samples aircraft position is now exposed via Nasal.

Documentation

  • Nasal documentation is now included,

Highlighted new and improved aircraft

Other

  • A text-to-speech system based on flite+hts_engine has been implemented, which is used for ATIS and other messages.
  • Improved loading behaviour for AI/MP aircraft

Bug fixes

  • A serious bug was found late in the release causing large numbers of crashes. Fixing this delayed he release, but had a nice side-effect of improving performance on some systems that were previously CPU-limited.
  • See our bugtracker for an extensive, yet incomplete, list of the bugs fixed in this release.

FlightGear v3.0 Released

February 17, 2014 – FlightGear v3.0 is Released!

The FlightGear development team is happy to announce the v3.0 release of FlightGear, the free, open-source flight simulator. This new version contains many exciting new features, enhancements and bug fixes. Highlights in this release include integration of the FGCom voice communications client within the simulator, improved terrain rendering, faster scenery loading, and improved usability. This release also coincides with the release of FlightGear World Scenery 2.0 – massively improved scenery data covering the entirety of the planet and incorporating OpenStreetMap roads and detailed terrain information from a variety of sources.

A list …
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February 17, 2014 – FlightGear v3.0 is Released!

The FlightGear development team is happy to announce the v3.0 release of FlightGear, the free, open-source flight simulator. This new version contains many exciting new features, enhancements and bug fixes. Highlights in this release include integration of the FGCom voice communications client within the simulator, improved terrain rendering, faster scenery loading, and improved usability. This release also coincides with the release of FlightGear World Scenery 2.0 – massively improved scenery data covering the entirety of the planet and incorporating OpenStreetMap roads and detailed terrain information from a variety of sources.

A list of major changes can be found at: http://wiki.flightgear.org/Changelog_3.0.

Founded in 1997, FlightGear is developed by a worldwide group of volunteers, brought together by a shared ambition to create the most realistic flight simulator possible that is free to use, modify and distribute. FlightGear is used all over the world by desktop flight simulator enthusiasts, for research in universities and for interactive exhibits in museums.

FlightGear features more than 400 aircraft, a worldwide scenery database, a multi-player environment, detailed sky modelling, a flexible and open aircraft modelling system, varied networking options, multiple display support, a powerful scripting language and an open architecture. Best of all, being open-source, the simulator is owned by the community and everyone is encouraged to contribute.

Download FlightGear v3.0 from FlightGear.org and “Fly Free!”

FlightGear – Fly Free!

Web Site Updates

December 30, 2014:

  • Upgraded to wordpress 4.1
  • Testing a new theme that is a bit less “bloggy”
  • Added a big fat “download now” button on the front page.
  • Fixed layout for small screens (like smart phones in portrait mode.)

January 24, 2014:

  • v3.0.0 release candidates are available for download and testing.  The official v3.0.0 release is scheduled for 17 Feb.
  • Upgraded to WordPress 3.8.1

December 20, 2013:

Upgraded to WordPress 3.8 and the Twenty Fourteen theme.

November 25, 2013:

FlightGear v2.12.1 (bug fix release) is now available for download.

October 3, 2013:

Upgraded to WordPress 3.6.1 and new TwentyThirteen theme.  …
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December 30, 2014:

  • Upgraded to wordpress 4.1
  • Testing a new theme that is a bit less “bloggy”
  • Added a big fat “download now” button on the front page.
  • Fixed layout for small screens (like smart phones in portrait mode.)

January 24, 2014:

  • v3.0.0 release candidates are available for download and testing.  The official v3.0.0 release is scheduled for 17 Feb.
  • Upgraded to WordPress 3.8.1

December 20, 2013:

Upgraded to WordPress 3.8 and the Twenty Fourteen theme.

November 25, 2013:

FlightGear v2.12.1 (bug fix release) is now available for download.

October 3, 2013:

Upgraded to WordPress 3.6.1 and new TwentyThirteen theme.  The FlightGear web site server hardware has been relocated to a newer larger building.  And v2.12 has just been released!

February 13, 2013: Updated Scenery Download Path

The FlightGear scenery downloads has been updated to v2.10 in preparation for the 17 Feb v2.10 release.  The scenery content does not follow the same release schedule and has updates and improvements every few days.  Thus this is more of a name change formality, and the “v2.10” scenery will work fine with v2.8 and probably most v2.x versions of FlightGear.

January 12, 2013: New Wiki Server

The FlightGear Wiki (http://wiki.flightgear.org) has been moved from a shared hosting server to a new dedicated virtual private host.  The FlightGear wiki is *very* popular and generates a lot of traffic and server load so hopefully this will improve the performance and reliability of our wiki and at the same time help all the other services on the old shared hosting server.

The new wiki host has been donated to the FlightGear project by DigitalOcean. If you are searching for a good hosting service among an ocean of possible options, they are good guys.

December 18, 2012: WordPress 3.5 & New Theme

The FlightGear web site has been upgraded to the newest version of wordpress (3.5) and I am experimenting with a new theme.  We can always return to the old them if we decide we like that better, or we can more forward too.  The new theme has some better support for mobile devices.

December 29 update: when switching to the new 2012 theme, we ended up with comments enabled on all content pages.  This was unintentional.  The page comments were mostly support requests or the odd snarky comment.  I have removed the comments area from regular content pages, but comments are still allowed (and encouraged) for “post” pages.  However, comments will be filtered carefully for topic and usefulness.  Do they expand or clarify the conversation of the post topic?  Support questions will still be referred to the FlightGear forum.  Random positive/negative statements (like “I love flightgear” or “I hate flightgear” will generally be ignored.)  English is preferred for post comments, but exceptions have been made and probably will be made in the future.

October 24, 2012: Scenery Download Page updated

The World Scenery Download page is updated to SVN version 20579.  It may take a day or so for the updated files to flush through the mirror system.

September 7, 2012: WordPress 3.4.2

Upgraded to wordpress-3.4.2.

August 20, 2012: Updated Gallery

Featuring the winning entries of the 15th anniversary screenshot contest, we have added a new screenshot gallery to go along with the v2.8.0 release!

August 17, 2012: Version 2.8.0 Released

Yeah!  Look on the front page (or the recent posts list in the side bar) to read the official release announcement.  Better graphics, new aircraft, new visual effects, tons of new things to explore!

July 30, 2012: v2.8.0 Release Candidate “RC4” Available.

If you are interested in trying the next release of FlightGear ahead of time (and helping us sniff out any remaining bugs or packaging issues) then please take a look for download links in the release candidate section towards the bottom main download page.  Also notice that updated v2.8.0 aircraft are also available for download along with the pre-release.

June 28, 2012: WordPress 3.4.1

The FlightGear web site software has been updated to WordPress v3.4.1.

February 28, 2012: Version 2.6.0 Updates

Both Mac OS X and Windows have had small tweaks to follow up the v2.6 release.  For Mac OS X there is “r319” version of the 2.6.0 dmg which fixes a couple problems some Mac users were seeing.  For Windows there is a “Setup FlightGear 2.6.0.1.exe” which fixes one small 32bit vs. 64bit dll packaging problem some 64bit users were seeing.

February 17, 2012: Version 2.6.0 Released

There has been a large number of changes and updates to the download and information pages as part of the v2.6.0 roll-out.

Jan 29, 2012: New v2.6.0 Release Candidate Available

A complete test release for the upcoming FlightGear 2.6.0 version is available to try.  Follow this link to the FlightGear v2.6.0 Release Candidate page.

Jan 6, 2012: New Developer Snapshot Available

A new developer snapshot (v20120105) is available for download and testing.  This is a way to keep up with all the coolest new features and experimentation without needing to compile the code yourself from scratch.  You can find the download link on the main download page.

Dec 28, 2011: Contributors Section added

A new section has been added to the FlightGear web site: Contributors.  We plan to periodical add profiles of different contributors to this section.  If you’d like to be included here, or have corrections or updates to existing entries, please contact the web master!

Sep 27, 2011: Scenery Download Page added

A World Scenery Download page has finally been added to the new web site.  You can find the page in the main site menu.  The graphical download page has also been updated.  All the links should now point to the v2.4.0 version of the scenery (this corresponds to svn version 16700 from the terrascenery archives.)  Update: a small link error has been fixed so the download map should be working again.  Thanks to those who reported it!

Sep 27, 2011: New wiki and liveries server

The server hosting wiki.flightgear.org and liveries.flightgear.org has been upgraded and the content has been migrated over.  There shouldn’t be any problems, but of course if you spot something odd, please let us know.

FlightGear v2.12.1 Released

November 25, 2013

Update: FlightGear v2.12.1 (a bug fix release) is now available for download!

September 21, 2013 – FlightGear v2.12 is Released!

The FlightGear development team is happy to announce the v2.12 release of FlightGear, the free, open-source flight simulator. This new version contains many exciting new features, enhancements and bug fixes. Highlights in this release include improved usability, continued development of the Canvas rendering toolkit, and improved scenery rendering.

A list of major changes can be found at: http://wiki.flightgear.org/Changelog_2.12.

Founded in 1997, FlightGear is developed by a worldwide group of volunteers, brought together by a shared ambition …
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November 25, 2013

Update: FlightGear v2.12.1 (a bug fix release) is now available for download!

September 21, 2013 – FlightGear v2.12 is Released!

The FlightGear development team is happy to announce the v2.12 release of FlightGear, the free, open-source flight simulator. This new version contains many exciting new features, enhancements and bug fixes. Highlights in this release include improved usability, continued development of the Canvas rendering toolkit, and improved scenery rendering.

A list of major changes can be found at: http://wiki.flightgear.org/Changelog_2.12.

Founded in 1997, FlightGear is developed by a worldwide group of volunteers, brought together by a shared ambition to create the most realistic flight simulator possible that is free to use, modify and distribute. FlightGear is used all over the world by desktop flight simulator enthusiasts, for research in universities and for interactive exhibits in museums.

FlightGear features more than 400 aircraft, a worldwide scenery database, a multi-player environment, detailed sky modelling, a flexible and open aircraft modelling system, varied networking options, multiple display support, a powerful scripting language and an open architecture. Best of all, being open-source, the simulator is owned by the community and everyone is encouraged to contribute.

Download FlightGear v2.12 for free from FlightGear.org.

FlightGear – Fly Free!

FlightGear v2.10 Released

February 17, 2013 – FlightGear v2.10 is Released!

The FlightGear development team is happy to announce the v2.10 release of FlightGear, the free, open-source flight simulator. This new version contains many exciting new features, enhancements and bugfixes. Highlights in this release include improved usability, better terrain rendering and a fully scriptable 2D rendering system.

A list of major changes can be found at: http://wiki.flightgear.org/Changelog_2.10.

Oscar B., one of our developers made a movie to highlight some of the new features in v2.10

LukeaFG has also made an excellent promo video showing some of the new v2.10 features.

Founded in …
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February 17, 2013 – FlightGear v2.10 is Released!

The FlightGear development team is happy to announce the v2.10 release of FlightGear, the free, open-source flight simulator. This new version contains many exciting new features, enhancements and bugfixes. Highlights in this release include improved usability, better terrain rendering and a fully scriptable 2D rendering system.

A list of major changes can be found at: http://wiki.flightgear.org/Changelog_2.10.

Oscar B., one of our developers made a movie to highlight some of the new features in v2.10

LukeaFG has also made an excellent promo video showing some of the new v2.10 features.

Founded in 1997, FlightGear is developed by a worldwide group of volunteers, brought together by a shared ambition to create the most realistic flight simulator possible that is free to use, modify and distribute. FlightGear is used all over the world by desktop flight simulator enthusiasts, for research in universities and for interactive exhibits in museums.

FlightGear features more than 400 aircraft, a worldwide scenery database, a multi-player environment, detailed sky modelling, a flexible and open aircraft modelling system, varied networking options, multiple display support, a powerful scripting language and an open architecture. Best of all, being open-source, the simulator is owned by the community and everyone is encouraged to contribute.

Download FlightGear v2.10 for free from FlightGear.org.

FlightGear – Fly Free!