Archived from https://groups.google.com/g/rec.aviation.simulators/c/ny8HFBE5_T8/m/OdtIiGNGJc8J
An introduction to the project
An idea entered my head on Monday, April 8, 1996. “‘Why wait around for some large company to make what WE want? Why not do it ourselves’”. Think about it — there’s certainly not a lack creativty, ingenuity, or desire among our tight-knit group of about 1 000.
What have we been posting to newsgroups for months, even years? Wish lists. We forward them to webmasters at Microsoft, Sierra, SubLogic, whomever, only to have the e-mails dumped in the “recycling bin”.
Let’s examine what we have out there — what has been done already with what huge corporations like Microsoft have given us.
- We have dissected the file structure of nearly EVERYTHING to some extent with MS Flight Simulator 5.x.
- Maurizio Gavoli (please excuse my spelling) and someone else whose name escapes me at the moment have created two excellent aircraft for MSFS5 - without the need of any add-on programs!
- Chuck Dome, who “reverse-engineered” the .AIRcraft files and came up with AIRMOD, an excellent utility used to modify flight and color characteristics of default (and the two Simula FlightWare planes) aircraft for FS5. Thanks, Chuck for a utility that certainly tided us over until the release of Flight Shop.
- Curt Olson’s Real-Wx, which allows the user to download real, current weather for a multitude of US and Canadian cities and automatically import that data directly into FS5!
- The creators of FSASM, SCASM, BGLCOMP, BGLGEN, Airport, and countless other scenery creation utilities that have undone the .bgl files and made the format publicly available, besides giving us excellent tools to make our own, even photo-realitic, scenery!
… and countless other, excellent contributions by generous simmers! (Sorry guys, I don’t have the space or time to list you all, but you know who you are!)
What does this have to do with Flight Gear, you ask? Well, I’m sitting here, wondering, “With all this creativeness, WHY wouldn’t be possible to make our own simulator?”. It only makes sense - it’s the next logical progression. Isn’t it?
So, now that you know where I’m coming from, let’s get to some of the specifics of the program.
Overview of main features and specs
Here is a condensed list of things we DEFINATELY need in this program:
- Interactive, “smart” ATC that SPEAKS when there is a sound card present
- ATP-level or better graphics
- Acceptable frame rate on a 486SX/25
- Possible minimum setup: 2/386DX/20 with 4 megs of RAM, 512K VRAM, 12MB of harddrive space?, etc.
- Compatible with MSFS5 default (maybe FSFS?) aircraft files and textures
- Compatible with MSFS5 scenery files
- Compatible with MSFS5 panel files
- Additional, proprietory format for a/c, scenery, and panels to be implemented in v2.0.
NOTE: is there any copyright violations in making our sim compatible with MSFS5? Code violations. Rings a bell with SubLogic - or was this just over flight dynamics code?
- Accurate, flyable flight models
- Accurate, but non-processor intensive graphics (good frame rate)
- Simple on-board radar system with GPS “moving map” display
- Default planes include Cessna SkyLane RG, Beechcraft Bonanza, a hot air balloon, Boeing 777, maybe a float plane?
- Written in C and assembly for controlled, robust, fast code for optimum performance
- RUNS UNDER DOS 5.0 OR ABOVE! NO CD’s AND NO WINDOWS 95! YAY!
- FREE! Flight Gear MUST be FREEWARE and easily accessible via the Internet, AOL, Prodigy, CompuServe, Wow!, etc.
- Tech support by e-mail.
Anything you’d like to add? Please let me know — my e-mail address is: dm…@pen.k12.va.us. Oh, BTW, supplemental info will be available at: http://users.aol.com/fsnews/flightgear/.
So, who’s gonna put this thing together?
Good question. Here is a list of people I HOPE to get on our team. Keep in mind that I haven’t contacted any of them yet, so…
- Maurizio Gavioli and Chuck Dome - implementation of aircraft
- Curt Olson - STN and wx development, C aide
- ? - Panel Conversion
- Enno Borgsteede and the SCASM/FSASM development teams - scenery
- Mark Stotzer - project consultant/supervisor
- Mike Vidal - flight modeling
… and others. These people seem to be experts in the particular field I have placed them in, so…
Got any kind of release date yet?
Yeah, right. Next question!
Miscellaneous
Got any input for this project? THEN PLEASE e-mail me at dm…@pen.k12.va.us! Sorry to take up all this bandwidth, but I felt this was something that most would be interested in.
Regards,
David Murr
Editor - FSNews