#Flightgear detailed scenery software#

FlightGear uses a variety of internally written and imported flight model projects. Weather effects include 3D clouds, lighting effects, and time of day.įlight Dynamics Models (FDM) are how the flight for an aircraft is simulated in the program. Currently only one terrain engine is used, TerraGear. The FlightGear aircraft in general use one of two main flight data models JSBSim and YAsim. These aircraft models have been contributed by many different people. This customizability of FlightGear is illustrated by the wide range of aircraft models that are available in FlightGear, from gliders to Helicopters, and from airliners to fighter jets. It is used both as an end-user application and in academic and research environments, for the development and pursuit of flight simulation ideas. The simulation engine in FlightGear is called SimGear. In 2008, version 1.9.0 of FlightGear included a major change from PLIB to OSG, which caused the temporarily loss of some features like 3D clouds and shadows, while newly added features, such as particles, imparted another degree of realism to the simulation. 2007 marked a formal transition out of beta development with the release of version 1.0.0, ten years after FlightGear's first release in 1997.ģD Cockpit panel for A-10 in version 1.0.0 in 2008

#Flightgear detailed scenery software#

By 2001, the team was releasing new beta versions regularly, and by 2005, the maturity of software lead to more widespread reviews, and increased popularity.

Enthusiastic development of newer versions for several years resulted in progressively more stable and advanced versions. The first working binaries, using OpenGL for 3D graphic code, came out in 1997. Many people have contributed to the project in the years since its inception.įlightGear incorporated other open-source resources, including the LaRCsim flight model from NASA, and freely available elevation data. Development of an OpenGL based version was spearheaded by Curtis Olson starting in 1997. See FlightGear History for the main article about this subject.įlightGear development started with an online proposal in 1996, using custom 3D graphics code.