Over the weekend of 15-16 March, a team of FlightGear developers travelled to Lelystad Airport (EHLE) in the Netherlands to represent FlightGear at the annual international FlightSimWeekend. Over the course of two days, the Aviodrome aviation museum welcomed over 4500 visitors, ranging from young families to seasoned flightsim veterans. Many visitors tried out one of our setups for a first-hand experience of open source flying.

Left to right: Durk, Isaak, Stuart, James, Gijs, János, Torsten, Fernando (icecode), Rick (vanosten) and Henning (jsb).

The island of Corsica served as this year’s backdrop in the form of a specially created build of World Scenery 3.0 with OpenStreetMap-derived objects and roads. Visitors casually cruised around in the Cessna 182S and Piper Seneca II for a bit of sightseeing. Meanwhile, the Boeing 777’s startup and take-off procedures proved to be quite a puzzle in the home-built cockpit with its many overhead panel switches.

In true FlightGear spirit, some last-minute live coding and debugging was done before the venue opened to visitors. Quieter moments were also taken advantage of, as being face-to-face with other FlightGear developers is a huge productivity boost. It has been instrumental in many developments over the years.

Apart from the recently released version 2024.1, we showed a preview of the next FlightGear release, featuring high-dynamic range (HDR) and physically-based rendering (PBR). A special version of the MiG-15bis fighter jet amazed many visitors when they were told it was all free to use. The overall impression was that FlightGear approaches or even equals many of the commercial sims and add-ons on display. The jet proved to be an excellent attraction for young pilots eager to show off their flying skills.

As well as promoting FlightGear to users, FSWeekend acts as a meeting place for dozens of hardware and software developers. While most focus on commercial sims, some have expressed interest in opening up their products for (better) FlightGear integration. These initiatives will hopefully come to fruition later in the year.

Finally, on the fringes of the event, our excitement for the future was sparked by some early trials of flying in virtual reality (VR). VR is currently being offered as an experimental feature in 2024.1 for you to try.

We can hardly wait for next year’s FSWeekend, scheduled for 21-22 March 2026! Given that the first proposal for FlightGear was published on April 9, 1996, we plan to take the opportunity to celebrate our 30th birthday! Mark your calendar, as we hope to see you there.