FlightGear Announcements

Februar 25, 2010 - FlightGear v2.0.0 released.
Version 2.0.0 is now available for download.
This is primarily a bug fix release. (Requires SimGear-2.0.0 if compiling from source.)
Download FlightGear here.

January 25, 2009 - FlightGear v1.9.1 released.
Version 1.9.1 is now available for download.
This is primarily a bug fix release. (Requires SimGear-1.9.1 if compiling from source.)
Download FlightGear here.

December 21, 2008 - FlightGear v1.9.0 released.
Version 1.9.0 is now available for download.
An updated set of aircraft are also available on the aircraft downloads page. (Requires SimGear-1.9.0 if compiling from source.)
Download FlightGear here.

October 27, 2008 - World Scenery v1.0.1 released.
The World Scenery is made in preparation for the FlightGear 1.9.0 release, but from a technical point is should also work with the previous v1.0 version of FlightGear

In addition to the bugfix the release contains some very fine bits of custom scenery work, namely:

  • 6 Caribbean islands plus Helgoland (John Holden, Christian Schmitt)
  • Revised ParisV2 scenario from http://helijah.free.fr/flightgear/scenery/ParisV2/ParisV2.htm (cleanup and import by Jon Stockill)
  • Taxiway signs at 6 airfields: KSFO, KBWI, KLVK, KRHV, TFFF, TJSJ
  • Major progress in crowding the Scenery with 3D models - by Alexis Bory, Gijs de Rooy, Alex Park, Christian Schmitt, Hugo Devon , Paolo Savini .... just to name a few of the many involved contributors;

Acknowledgements:

The scenery was built on a quad-processor machine in San Diego with access provided to us by John Graham of Telascience.

Jon Stockill and Martin Spott maintain the static scenery objects database at http://scenemodels.flightgear.org/ and provided the adjustments of the elevations in the objects DB.

Curt Olson provided us with valuable hints as a long-time scenery builder and TerraGear development.

Special thanks go to John Holden and Christian Schmitt, who by their work on manual digitizing of Landsat imagery in the Caribbeans and at Helgoland have helped us pushing the envelope of custom scenery in the official scenery release. We sincerely hope that by this newfound experience more people will go this way of improving the data in the landcover database.

Base data:

The scenery was generated with terragear-cs, the Custom Scenery version of TerraGear, available at http://mapserver.flightgear.org/git.

Except for the obvious cases listed above the following base data was used:

  • landcover and line data: VMAP0, as available on http://mapserver.flightgear.org/
  • airport data (apt.dat): as included in FlightGear Release 1.0
  • elevation data: SRTM v2 3arcsec and 30arcsec data
  • static objects: current status of the FlightGear Static Scenery Database (http://scenemodels.flightgear.org/) as of 29th of October 2008

As apt.dat is distributed with the base package instead of the scenery itself we were unable to use up-to-date airport data. This scenery release is intended to serve as official scenery for the current FlightGear release and therefore its contents must be synchronized with the contents of the released base package.

March 4, 2008 - World Scenery v1.0.0 released.
The World Scenery is made for FlightGear 1.0.0, but from a technical point is should also work with the previous v0.9.8 - v0.9.10 versions of FlightGear. The scenery is based on the following data sources:

  • landcover/landmass data provided from the FlightGear MapServer, identical with VMap0 data
  • elevation data: SRTM3 version 2, SRTM30/GTOPO30 version 2 (both from ftp://e0srp01u.ecs.nasa.gov/srtm/version2/)
  • airport data: apt.dat as released with the V1.0 base package
  • Most objects and models from the Scenery Objects Database
The main changes relative to the old world scenery are:
  • points previously classified as "town", but not having much in common with settlements at all, have been removed
  • airport layouts updated
  • objects from the Scenery Objects Database updated
In addition, the order of taxiways from the airport database is now used as specified in the apt.dat-file - in contrast to being sorted by size as in previous scenery builds. Many taxidraw users have been using the sorting of the taxiways to achieve specific visual effects, which are visible now in the scenery.

December 17, 2007 - FlightGear v1.0.0 released.
Version 1.0.0 is now available for download.
An updated set of aircraft are also available on the aircraft downloads page. (Requires SimGear-1.0.0 to compile from source.)
Download FlightGear here.

May 26, 2007 - FlightGear review on FlightSim.com.
FlightSim.com has a new review of FlightGear by Chris Hodge. Chris made some wice screen shots and said many kind things. FlightSim.com is a very high profile flight simming web site.

May 16, 2007 - FlightGear review on Sourcetrunk.
Sourcetrunk has a very nice podcast style review of FlightGear by Dimitri Larmuseau. Dimitri clearly understands FlightGear, covers the most important features, and is very entertaining. Definitely worth a listen.

May 14, 2007 - FlightGear v0.9.11-pre1 released.
Version 0.9.11-pre1 is available for download (source code only.)
(requires SimGear-0.3.11-pre1)

October 30, 2006 - Atlas-0.3.1 released.
Atlas is a real time moving map (and background bitmap generator) designed to work with FlightGear. The latest version can fetch background images from a wms server and includes several bug fixes.

October 9, 2006 - Trevor Campell announces the latest version of his FlightGear Flight Planner is available for download. This is a Java/SWT based Gui flight planner which uses the airport and navaid databases of Flightgear, allowing the user to search for airports and navigation aids and plan flights between them.

September 28, 2006 - WidowPC in partnership with FlightGear.org is now offering FlightGear PC's that are based on their insanely fast hardware and include FlightGear preloaded and optimized for maximum peformance. If you are thinking of upgrading your hardware anyway, why not check out the best and fastest possible option.

June 8, 2006 - Updates to "The FlightGear Manual". Updates include improved instructions for carrier operations, instructions for the multiplayer system, a discussion of the tutorial system, and a new chapter on Air-to-Air-refuelling: FlightGear documentation page.

June 3, 2006 - FlightGear-v0.9.10 wins Softpedia's "Pick" award with 5 out of 5 stars. Softpedia labs has independently tested our latest release and have granted it with the "100% CLEAN" Softpedia award.

May 28, 2006 - New FlightGear wiki site. We have a newer, better, updated FlightGear wiki site setup at http://wiki.flightgear.org

May 5, 2006 - FGLive, FlightGear Live-CD 0.1 LinuxTag edition
First 'official' FlightGear Live-CD is available for download via BitTorrent or FTP, including South-Germany and Wiesbaden Scenery. You are invited to have a look at the README.
Please verify the MD5 checksum.

January 17, 2006 - World Scenery v0.9.10 released.
A brand new scenery release is now available. I am calling this v0.9.10 because it was created after the v0.9.9 source code release, but it should work with FlightGear-v0.9.8, v0.9.9 and the current cvs code.
New in this build is: the latest airport and taxiway updates from Robin Peel, SRTM2 based terrain, the latest objects from Jon Stockill's world object database, updated airport surfaces, and 2d data from the new shapefile database at http://www.custom-scenery.org/ Also included are a myriad of little bug fixes and glitch-be-gones.

January 8, 2006 - The Paraisoft Team has begun translating the FlightGear web pages into Spanish.

December 20, 2005 - All FlightGear mailing lists moved to SourceForge.net.
In order to reduce local server load and bandwidth consumption I have moved all the FG mailing lists to SF. All existing subscriptions will be migrated to the new lists automatically. The only thing you will need to do is post to the new list addresses. These are detailed on our SF project page.

November 17, 2005 - FlightGear v0.9.9 released.
Version 0.9.9 is available for download (initially only source code available.)
(requires SimGear-0.3.9)

September 19, 2005 - OV-10 Bronco Association Museum Simulator Project.
Dave Culp, a former USAF Bronco pilot, constructed a FlightGear-based OV-10 Bronco flight simulator for the OV-10 Bronco Association at Meacham Field, Fort Worth Texas. More details ...

August 16, 2005 - TaxiDraw-0.3.2 released.
The next version of TaxiDraw is available at http://taxidraw.sf.net/
This is new version has been moved to SourceForge. It supports X-Plane v810 file formats, includes a few bug fixes, build system improvements, and new features.

August 10, 2005 - Atlas-0.3.0 released.
Atlas is a real time moving map (and background bitmap generator) designed to work with FlightGear. The latest version can display ILS approaches and has several other improvements and bug fixes.

July 11, 2005 - The MathWorks Announces Aerospace Blockset 2.

New FlightGear Flight Simulator Interface Brings Vehicle Modeling, Simulation, and Visualization Capabilities to the Desktop.

NATICK, Mass. - (BUSINESS WIRE) - July 11, 2005 The MathWorks today announced the availability of the Aerospace Blockset 2, which builds on the foundation of Simulink(R) and Model-Based Design for aerospace vehicle modeling, simulation, and visualization. New features bring high-quality flight simulation graphics to the desktop, where modeling and simulation is more accessible and economical than design and test conducted in a lab. Additionally, the new version provides off-the-shelf, drag-and-drop representations of aerospace components using standards-based reference models. Consequently, engineers can use the Aerospace Blockset 2 to optimize vehicle subsystem configurations and rapidly perform subsequent tradeoff studies earlier in the design stage.

Interfacing with FlightGear flight simulator software, new animation blocks in the Aerospace Blockset 2 enable users to visualize vehicle dynamics in a sophisticated 3-D simulation framework. Engineers can now quickly evaluate and verify complex flight dynamics before committing to a final design by using Simulink for multidomain simulation and Model-Based Design.

Contact: The MathWorks, Inc. Dave Smith, 508-647-7427.

Click here for the full text of the announcement.

March 24, 2005 - TaxiDraw-0.3.1 released.
The next version of TaxiDraw is available at http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/~eazdluf/taxidraw.html
This is primarily a bug-fix release - a couple of X-Plane format writing bugs are fixed so all users should upgrade.

January 25, 2005 - New Aircraft.
We have just added a new Boeing 314 Seaplane, the Concorde has been updated to v2.0, and several updates have been made to the B-52F Stratofortress. These can all be downloaded from the aircraft download page. (Note some mirror sites may lag ...)

January 18, 2005 - FlightGear v0.9.8 released.
Version 0.9.8 is available for download.
Download a ready to run version for your platform (as they become available.)
You can also download additional aircraft, scenery, and the entire source code. (requires SimGear-0.3.8)

January 18, 2005 - SimGear v0.3.8 released.
Version 0.3.8 (source code) is available for download.
Download source code.

Older news ...


Curtis L. Olson