Amazing... Just, amazing.

[TrueNorthist]

Sorry for taking up valuable space here, but I just returned to FG after some time away (lots) and all I can say is -- wow. You folks are simply amazing. I feel ashamed that I have little of use to contribute in return for all this magnificent work. I am definitely not worthy of such a fine simulator. I really, really like the aircraft manager and the new start-up UI etc, etc, and I can see things are about to get a quantum leap better, and all for precisely zero dollars and zero cents out of my pocket! Rain on the freaking windsheild! You have got to be kidding me! I am speechless...

I am also extremely grateful to you all.

[elgaton]

You're welcome - and rest assured your post does not "take up valuable space" at all.

[erik]

See, that's nice to hear (read). And I completely agree: FlightGear has come a long way and it is incredible what had been achieved already.

Erik

[someguy]

Have you flown your C172P in a thunderstorm yet? Select it from the weather dialog, and crank up your speakers.

[MIG29pilot]

http://forum.flightgear.org/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=27814&start=75

[TrueNorthist]

Have you flown your C172P in a thunderstorm yet? Select it from the weather dialog, and crank up your speakers.

I will do that today. I did fly out of YVR in a heavy downpour and was almost moved to tears. But I will dial up a doozy in the weather and crank the sub-woofer.

edit: the hoary creature has arisen from it's depths! I expect there will be so very much more of this soon.

[TrueNorthist]

I read in another post that thunder had been added, but alas I get none. I get the lightning bolts but no audio thunder. I am assuming it is being actively worked on and has been temporarily depricated? Regardless, the weather modelling is becoming really quite outstanding. The wind-shear, updraught pulses and rotation are simply diabolical and if I am not mistaken there are even signs of micro-bursts? I zipped in and out of active weather in a 337G today and had a heck of a time avoiding getting thrown to the ground or stalling under full power. C'est magnifique!

[legoboyvdlp]

It certainly is!
If you download the very latest from http://www.github.com/Juanvvc/c172p-detailed, you will get thunder. It is VERY scary.

[someguy]

Unfortunately, environmental sounds like thunder are not global, but specific to an aircraft. You gotta use the new C172P.

[Hooray]

I feel ashamed that I have little of use to contribute in return for all this magnificent work. I am definitely not worthy of such a fine simulator.
[...] Regardless, the weather modelling is becoming really quite outstanding. The wind-shear, updraught pulses and rotation are simply diabolical and if I am not mistaken there are even signs of micro-bursts? I zipped in and out of active weather in a 337G today and had a heck of a time avoiding getting thrown to the ground or stalling under full power. C'est magnifique!

I would not undererstimate what you can do:

depending on your hardware/system specs, you may want to capture a corresponding video and put it on youtube, so that we can reuse that on the wiki (newsletter/weather docs), which should also come in handy for promoting fg (changelog/release announcement): http://wiki.flightgear.org/Howto:Creati ... omo_Videos

That's a pretty good way to "give back" without having to be overly active on the forum/wiki, let alone aircraft/core development - i.e. you would keep on using fg "as is", and simply capture your flights and allow us to reuse your videos on the wiki

[TrueNorthist]

That's an interesting point Hooray, thanks. I will see what I can do. I do like to fly in challenging weather and it might make for some good scenes. I'll head over to the howto and start working on some vids. If I manage to come up with something decent I will drop a note at the wiki.

And I will download the new 172 from that link. I was using the one included with the nightly build but maybe that is an "old" version?

[TrueNorthist]

Nope. I have fiddled with just about everything and still no thunder. It really isn't a big deal.

[wkitty42]

what sound files do you have in your Sounds directory included with the c172p?

[someguy]

You ain't seen nuthin' yet...

[Hooray]

That's an interesting point Hooray, thanks. I will see what I can do.

Others, like omega95, have come up with annotated youtube videos to serve as tutorials for certain fg related tasks, e.g. configuration, using the built-in GUI, or editing some files. Usually, you can pick a popular tutorial from the wiki (e.g. multiplayer stuff) and turn that into an annotated video tutorial for end users.

And to be honest, this is a great way for people to give back - because it can help lower our workload on the forum, i.e. instead of spending 10 hrs a week providing end-user support, we can simply post links to tutorials in the form of youtube videos that cover everything.

If more people were doing this, that will basically translate directly into more time for other contributors that they can allocate elsewhere (aircraft/scenery/core development).

That is also the primary reason why I try to answer "common" questions by creating new wiki articles from scratch (which are usually just stubs with quotes) and try to refine/populate those over time.

It is great seeing that people like Red Leader and Johan have now also started creating dedicated wiki articles in response to community discussion, and this will help grow a library of useful articles, while decreasing the amount of time that we need to spend discussing/debating certain things on the forum.

And people like you, can of course help us improve/maintain such articles, even if just by proof-reading (no FG knowledge needed) or by creating/adding a few screen shots/youtube videos every once in a while.

In the long term, this can greatly help improve the end user experience, while also making sure that people whose primary skills/interests lie elsewhere (e.g. development) don't need to spend much time in the support forum.