Changelog 3.6

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This changelog is a draft.

This changelog is currently being written for the FlightGear v3.6 release. Feel free to help! If you are aware of any FlightGear related changes, please add them to the changelog.


Cquote1.png As many people have noticed, the v3.6 release has been slightly delayed. The main reason is that too many key developers have been out of town for work or holiday this month. We are currently hoping for a mid-September release. We will post further updates once our release manager returns and we can regroup from all the end of the summer (northern hemisphere) :-) activities. Thank you, Curt.
— Curtis Olson (Aug 26th, 2015). [Flightgear-devel] Release v3.6 update.
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The FlightGear development team is delighted to announce the v3.6 release of FlightGear, the free, open-source flight simulator. This new version contains many exciting new features, enhancements and bugfixes. Highlights in this release include a reduced base installation size, improvements to the built-in Web UI, cockpit shadows without Rembrandt, and a massively improved default aircraft - the Cessna 172P.

Founded in 1997, FlightGear is developed by a worldwide group of volunteers, brought together by a shared ambition to create the most realistic flight simulator possible that is free to use, modify and distribute. FlightGear is used all over the world by desktop flight simulator enthusiasts, for research in universities and for interactive exhibits in museums.

FlightGear features more than 400 aircraft, a worldwide scenery database, a multiplayer environment, detailed sky modelling, a flexible and open aircraft modelling system, varied networking options, multiple display support, a powerful scripting language and an open architecture. Best of all, being open-source, the simulator is owned by the community and everyone is encouraged to contribute.

Download FlightGear v3.6 for free from FlightGear.org

FlightGear - Fly Free!

Major enhancements in this release

Project Organization

Core

  • Numerous improvements to Phi, the built in web interface.
  • Interactive traffic system re-enabled, having been disabled by mistake some releases previously.
  • Various security improvements, including the disabling of system.fgfsrc,

Launcher

The aircraft page of the Qt launcher for FlightGear 3.5 as rendered on Windows 7.

The built-in Qt launcher, developed by James Turner shipped by default with the Mac version of FlightGear 3.4, will be used for other OSes[1]. In addition, FGRun will be dropped in favor of this.

Note In future FlightGear releases, there will be an additional HTML5-based version (Phi, developed by Torsten D), and the Qt launcher, based on well-supported libraries, will be used as the main launcher (replacing FGRun). This parallel development is intentional[2], and it is likely that both will use a common service layer to provide the necessary data[3].

To learn more, see Integrated Qt5 Launcher

Aircraft Modeling

  • Tooltips can now be positioned at a specific place on-screen.
  • Nasal wing flex module added
  • Bug-fixes and improvements to the Failure Manager.
  • <variant-of> tag in the *-set.xml file has been added. See FlightGear Newsletter March 2015.
  • Automatic checklist execution, e.g. for autostart
  • 8.33 kHz spacing is now supported on comms radios.

JSBSim

  • Sync with latest version of JSBSim
  • The Pitot angle can now be tweaked with the <pitot_angle> tag in the <metrics> block.
  • The refuel rate is now configurable with the <refuel-rate> tag in the <propulsion> block.

Atmospheric Light Scattering

  • The addition of volumetric grass to the random vegetation system.
  • Interior cockpit shadows.
  • Interior glass reflections and shadows.

Environment Rendering

  • Improved rendering of the sun, particularly in space.

Usability

  • Many improvements to Phi - the built-in web interface
  • GUI cleanup to improve support for multiple GUI styles

Scenery

  • Regional texture definitions for Florida, Brazil, Latin America, Africa, Middle East and South Asia.
  • stgmerge tool added to merge objects in a scenery tile into a small number of meshes

Canvas System

  • Improvements to Canvas/MapStructure and NavDisplay
  • Canvas failure manager GUI dialog

Highlighted new and improved aircraft

  • Complete refresh of the default c172p, including engine options, various tire sizes and floats.
  • Major enhancements to the Shuttle. Shuttle can be flown as per the Crew Operations manual from launch to touchdown.
  • The following aircraft have received significant updates: 787-8, F-15, B-1B, JA37, Citation II, Lockheed1049h, 737-300, Mirage 2000-5

Misc/Uncategorized

  • Improved support for KDI572-574 DME equipment
  • Update the World Magnetic Model to 2015.0

Bug fixes

  • See our bugtracker for an extensive, yet incomplete, list of the bugs fixed in this release.
References