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Exploring Flight Gear 0.910 Legacy - A documentation project

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Exploring Flight Gear 0.910 Legacy - A documentation project

Postby openflight » Sun Nov 24, 2013 1:34 am

Exploring Flight Gear - Legacy Version

This project is listed here because ultimately this is a documentation project: albeit with an older version.

How to install, how to do variuos customizations - menus, create / modify aircraft etc, however I have chosen an earlier version of FG since the dowload / install and cycle times (test/modify/retest) times are greater in later versions, and I cannot afford to spend time just waiting for FG to start. Hopefully lessons learned in this version can be tried out and applied to later versins which I will eventually install (1.9.1) is an obvious candidate, which I have already installed in Linux Previously.

I hope to test and install aircraft specific for that version. I have come across versions where the default aircraft (0.98, BO105) does not load.

Earlier versions do have the advantage of running on older hardware, mine is a 2004 Pentium M/1GB/8GB USB installed version running with no swap partition with 32MB shared RAM. Those who still run version 1.0 or so can benefit from the information generated here.

Much of the information is found in the FG Wiki, however, this is a simpler and more natural alternative to finding out how to use FG.

So on to installation: I have chosen 0.910 due to the shadows feature which I did not find worked in 0.98. It is not as compact as the FG 0.98 version, weighing in at around 138 MB vs 80 MB but considering the feature of shadows, well worth it.

The first step, to recap, is to download the Flight Gear 9.10 Windows installer. I am installing on WINE , however his need not concern many users since I will be including some notes on WINE in the text


1) Finding Flight Gear: search for Flight Gear, it brings up the home page:

http://www.flightgear.org/

Select download Flight Gear > Download Central from menu ( older versions for Linux are available under "Download Program" menu, could not help notice:)

Scroll down and select Mirror 1

Download Older Versions of FlightGear

* Windows FlightGear:[Mirror 1] [Mirror 2] [Mirror 3]

Several files are listed:

Setup FlightGear 2.4.0.exe 20:30 27-05-13 430701662
[F] Setup FlightGear 2.6.0.1.exe 20:30 27-05-13 551669026
[F] Setup FlightGear 2.6.0.exe 20:30 27-05-13 551668971
[F] Setup FlightGear 2.8.0.5.exe 20:30 27-05-13 671069047
[F] Setup FlightGear 2.10.0.3.exe 20:30 27-05-13 740601866
[F] Setup FlightGear 2.12.0.exe 04:16 20-09-13 966632410
[F] fgsetup-0.9.8a.exe 20:30 27-05-13 71536967
[F] fgsetup-0.9.9.exe 20:30 27-05-13 89891905
[F] fgsetup-0.9.10.exe 20:30 27-05-13 138839510
[F] fgsetup-1.0.0.exe 20:30 27-05-13 180558783
[F] fgsetup-1.9.0.exe 20:30 27-05-13 236207545
[F] fgsetup-1.9.1b.exe 20:30 27-05-13 236243137
[F] fgsetup-2.0.0.exe 20:30 27-05-13 305844247
[F] fgsetup64-2.0.0.exe 20:30 27-05-13 15128427

I have downloaded and installed FG 0.910

Under "Download Main Program" I see older versions are listed for Linux


“The Attic” (Older ‘unmaintained’ packages):
Linux

* Slackware: Download Slackware packages courtesy of Jon Stockill. Packages are available for Slackware 12.2 and the 32 bit and 64 bit versions of Slackware 13.37. (Updated for v2.4.0)
* Ubuntu (option 3): Here are directions for compiling FlightGear v2.4 on Ubuntu 10.4
* Download pre-built Debian packages courtesy of Ove Kaaven. (v1.0.0)
* Download pre-built Fedora Core [2,3,4] packages courtesy of Steve Hosgood. (v0.9.10)[Mirror 1] [Mirror 2] [Mirror 3]
* Download pre-built Pardus binary packages. (v0.9.10)
1. Program executable.
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Re: Exploring Flight Gear 0.910 Legacy - A documentation pro

Postby openflight » Mon Nov 25, 2013 6:32 am

With 9.10 up and running, I am seeking to add new aircraft to the sim.

Wish list for aircraft: (backports of latest 3D files and some work in reconfiguring flight model etc)
1) Cessna 172
2) Cessna 182
3) Piper Meredian
4) ATR 72
5) ATR 42
6) DHC-8-200
7) Fokker F-50
8) DHC-6 not cool , 8 )
9) Socata-ST10
10) YAK- 18T
11) Mirage 2000

I have already loaded a model of a 2011 DHC-6 into FG910. No textures, though, have to add through a 3D editor like WIngs3D


This converter may be useful

http://www.greentoken.de/onlineconv/index.php
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Re: Exploring Flight Gear 0.910 Legacy - A documentation pro

Postby Johan G » Mon Nov 25, 2013 9:30 am

openflight wrote in Mon Nov 25, 2013 6:32 am:With 9.10 up and running...

I thought you were documenting the previous versions, most people are still stuck with 2.12... :wink: :twisted:
Low-level flying — It's all fun and games till someone looses an engine. (Paraphrased from a YouTube video)
Improving the Dassault Mirage F1 (Wiki, Forum, GitLab. Work in slow progress)
Some YouTube videos
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Re: Exploring Flight Gear 0.910 Legacy - A documentation pro

Postby openflight » Mon Nov 25, 2013 11:10 am

Missed a decimal point. Flight Gear 0.910 :)

What version are most people using? I tried to do a survey some time back...

viewtopic.php?f=42&t=17521
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Re: Exploring Flight Gear 0.910 Legacy - A documentation pro

Postby AndersG » Mon Nov 25, 2013 8:22 pm

If you absolutely must use a severely obsolete version, why not 1.0.0 - the last of the plib scene graph based FlightGear versions?
The version you chose is more properly 0.9.10 btw.

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Re: Exploring Flight Gear 0.910 Legacy - A documentation pro

Postby openflight » Tue Nov 26, 2013 10:39 am

Ah yes 0.9.10 it is.

Why not use version 1.0? Because it is bigger, and takes longer to start up. I already have the Win32 setup files and have already installed in (on Ubuntu 10.04 using WINE 1.2 ) .

Trying to get an aircraft working, for example, as I am now doing with the Cessna 182RG requires many PCDA cycles, and having to start up FG several times using FGRUN is time consuming. Once I get the basics right I can then move on to 1.0 which is nicer and has a wider range of aircraft.

I believe in using less resources : or more to the point, seeing how far I can get with lower resources: my 2004 Pentium M 1.6 G / 1 GB machine with the famed Nvidia GE Force 4 on board card is a case in point. The results for me are very satisfying, getting a flight sim that is 80 - 134 MB in size when the latest FG is 700+ MB gives me a lot of satisfaction.

This also means that many more users can do what I am doing and use cheaper machines and save on download time. Lets face it the planet is out of resources at the moment, save the trees etc.

I did think of writing a flight sim myself, however I just cannot imagine ending up wth anything near FGFS 0.98 or 0.9.10 in terms of cababilty and size. I am better off customizing the existing software the way I like it : for example:

-Add the latest planes I like
-Correcting the patchwork scenery
-Adding thousands of trees ( what will happen to the frame rates?)
-Documenting everything
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Re: Exploring Flight Gear 0.910 Legacy - A documentation pro

Postby openflight » Tue Nov 26, 2013 10:57 am

I am not sure I agree with the notion of obsolescence - just the other day I watched some kids playing sprite-based games (ie Mario brothers etc) that were first written in the 1980s. There is a place of each game.

See YSFLIGHT which is even more basic than earlier versions of FG. The aircraft can be quite detailled though. It's a great way to try out air combat tactics.

http://www.ysflight.com/

Is anything really obsolete?

http://www.newdream.org/blog/is-anythin ... y-obsolete

http://www.amazon.com/Made-Break-Techno ... roduct_top

It's what you want, and FG caters to a wide range of users, each version has its own advantages.

Looking to the future, though, we will all be playing the same version of Flight Gear online or with Autosynchronization off line, with zero start up times and GUIs for choosing what specks of paint we want on the wings. Maybe by 2020? Maybe there will be a feauture to switch between versions of FG on the fly for comparison -to make people like me happy :)
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Adding new aircraft

Postby openflight » Tue Nov 26, 2013 12:44 pm

One of the first things that users would want to do on running the flight simulator is to add new aircraft. For the version used here, we will have to access some of the older sites for aircraft:

First some history:

http://wiki.flightgear.org/FlightGear_History
The use of version numbers slowed dramatically after the late 2002 release of version 0.9.0. Versions 0.9.9 (2005) and 0.9.10 (2006) had about 8 all-new or redone aircraft adding to a total of 70-90 aircraft. FlightGear 0.9.10 won Softpedia's "Pick" award (5 out of 5 stars) on June 3, 2006 as well as the "100% CLEAN" Softpedia award.


So 0.9.10 was launched in 2008. On to our archives of aircraft:

http://www.flightgear.org/download/
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Re: Exploring Flight Gear 0.910 Legacy - A documentation pro

Postby Gijs » Tue Nov 26, 2013 12:51 pm

2006 even, she's really prehistoric ;-)
Airports: EHAM, EHLE, KSFO
Aircraft: 747-400
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Adding Aircraft - Exploring Flight Gear 0.910 Legacy project

Postby openflight » Tue Nov 26, 2013 4:17 pm

2006.

But I digress. Now for some dino-- I mean aircraft:

http://ftp.igh.cnrs.fr/pub/flightgear/ftp/Aircraft/

http://ftp.riken.jp/FreeBSD/distfiles/f ... aircrafts/

Including aircraft from the 2.8 aircraft page:

http://www.flightgear.org/download/aircraft-v2-8/

Several c182rg here. But will they load into the 9.1.0?
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Re: Exploring Flight Gear 0.910 Legacy - A documentation pro

Postby openflight » Tue Nov 26, 2013 4:38 pm

The 182 model does not load, it shows an ugly yellow and blue thing, although the FGRUN shows a fully textured model.

So- copy the c182rg.ac file and textures into a working plane folder, say the Piper Pa 28.

Then edit the file inside the models folder :

<!-- <path>pa28-161.ac</path> -->

<path>c182rg.ac</path>

And it loads! No animations, though

I want to add images.. how do I do this? OK I see it - upload the image elsewhere and refer to it here:

http://www.flightgear.org/thumbs/v2.8/c182.jpg

Image
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Re: Exploring Flight Gear 0.910 Legacy - A documentation pro

Postby openflight » Wed Nov 27, 2013 12:56 am

Documentation of aircraft files

As we have seen, sometimes a model does not load into the FG program, either a substitute aircraft appears or we are left with an invisible aircraft.

To test out the loading of the 3D model, the following step could be useful:

1. Copy a working model into a separate folder, for example the pa-28-161 entire folder

2.Rename the copied folder : eg testac for test-aircraft

3.Inside the folder testac the settings file pa-28-16-set.xml can be found.

4. Rename the pa-28-16-set.xml file as testac-set.xml

5. Rename the pa-28-16.xml file as testac-fdm. This is because this file is actually the flight dynamics model file, the fdm, and to avoid confusion I think it best to rename the file with the -fdm tag at the end.

6. Navigate to the models folder and rename the file pa-128-161.xml as testac-3dmdl.xml. This is to prevent confusion as the flight dynamics model had the same file name.

7.Open the test-ac-set file.

Edit these two lines: change the

<aero archive="y">testac-fdm</aero>

<model>
<path archive="y">Aircraft/testac/Models/testac-3dmdl.xml</path>
</model>

Do not rename anything else in the files. Now the PA 28 should load. In order to distinguish between the original, edit the testac-set.xml file:

<description>Test Aircraft Based on Piper Warrior27112013 </description>

This description should appear in fgrun

Why is this useful? Sometimes a model will not load, so with the above procedure, a folder structure is created where we can simply replace the 3d model file with the model file of the new aircraft, edit the testac-3dmdl file and troubleshoot the loading of the aircraft.

The folder structure is now as follows:


flightgear/aircraft/testac/testac-set.xml
flightgear/aircraft/testac/testac-fdm.xml
flightgear/aircraft/testac/models/testac-3dmdl.xml

References to files are as follows:

flightgear/aircraft/testac/testac-set.xml

Refers to :
-testac-fdm
-models/testac-3dmdl.xml

flightgear/aircraft/testac/models/testac-3dmdl.xml
Refers to :
pa-28-161.ac

The 3d Model file, usually .ac but can be .3ds or other formats. In this case the pa-28-161.ac file name is left unchanged.

To test out a new 3d model, simply copy it to the models folder with its texture files and edit the -3dmdl.xml file as above.
Last edited by openflight on Wed Nov 27, 2013 5:56 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Exploring Flight Gear 0.910 Legacy - A documentation pro

Postby openflight » Wed Nov 27, 2013 1:19 am

Installing new aircraft - Cessna 182

Choosing a suitably earlier version, the 182 (non RG version) loads and runs fine:

Version: c182_20060315

Nice fast airplane. The 3D model needs a bit of work, maybe I can use the 3d file from a newer version.

Update: Screenshot:

https://sites.google.com/site/openflightfggallery/home

So: Aircraft Working with Flight Gear 0.9.10

1) c182_20060315 available at :http://ftp.riken.jp/FreeBSD/distfiles/flightgear-aircrafts/
Updated 28/11/13
2)paraglider_20060114.zip from http://ftp.igh.cnrs.fr/pub/flightgear/f ... aft-1.9.1/
Last edited by openflight on Thu Nov 28, 2013 12:39 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Exploring Flight Gear 0.910 Legacy - A documentation pro

Postby openflight » Wed Nov 27, 2013 5:54 am

Another one for the wish list

Aerostar-700_20080805.zip

Since there are very few aircraft for version 0.9.10 that work, I will have to download and re-configure some of the newer aircraft. Back-porting. I will be changing the folders structure, simplifying and documenting the process here.

Here goes: where is that wish - list

Wish list for aircraft: (backports of latest 3D files and some work in reconfiguring flight model etc)
1) Cessna 172
2) Cessna 182
3) Piper Meredian
4) ATR 72
5) ATR 42
6) DHC-8-200
7) Fokker F-50
8) DHC-6 not cool , 8 )
9) Socata-ST10
10) YAK- 18T
11) Mirage 2000

Adding : ( from http://www.flightgear.org/download/aircraft-v2-8/)

12) airwaveXtreme150
13) ATR-72-500
14) Cessna 150L
15) Version: v20120612
16) Fairchild-Metroliner
18) flash2a
19) Jaguar
20) Lancair 235
21) Piper PA-18
22) Piper PA-32
23) SE5A
24) Shorts Skyvan
25) Socata Rallye MS893E

Ok which one first? Well I have already flown the Fokker F50, so will dowload and see how to load it

fokker50_20120717.zip

I get a pink model of the aircraft in FGRUN and then fgrun crashes.
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Re: Exploring Flight Gear 0.910 Legacy - A documentation pro

Postby openflight » Thu Nov 28, 2013 6:38 am

Retried launching fokker50_20120717.zip

This time I copied all the files in the models folder, and also added a reference to the cockpit model in the 3d configuration xml file inside models.

The model shows up in my stripped down test plan set up, and appears on the runway, however frame rates are very low in the order of 1 frame per second, presumably because of the high detail in the cockpit.

Will try the older model that I tested when I was using FG 1.9.1 or 1.0 which is listed in the FG wiki:

http://wiki.flightgear.org/Fokker_50

(v20110905)

Quick note: Need to use aeromatic 1.65 for FG 0.9.9 and older:

http://jsbsim.sourceforge.net/aeromatic_start.html

Note to FlightGear users: If you are using FlightGear Version 0.9.9 or older then you need JSBSim format Version 1.65.
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