FlightGear IRC channel
The FlightGear IRC Network is an online system that will allow you to talk to a lot of people around the world. It consists of localised servers that are all linked up to form a seamless chat network so if you are based in England you would connect to a nearby server in England and you would see exactly the same people as someone connecting to a server in the USA.
To connect to the IRCnet network you first need a suitable client. For users of Mozilla browsers (like Firefox), the plugin ChatZilla is surely a good option. You can also use XChat (Linux and Windows), X-Chat Aqua (X Chat Mac), SilverEx (X Chat windows Free Build), Pidgin, Colloquy (for Mac), mIRC or any other client.
When you first login to the network you must pick yourself a unique nickname for the current chat session. Nicknames can be up to 9 characters in length and contain numbers and some punctuation characters. Some examples of nicknames you can use are:
- Fred
- BIG_fred
- ^Fred^
- Fred-
- ^Fred
- fred007
It doesn't matter about capital or lower case letters in the nickname since they are treated the same when people want to contact you and there are some weird and obscure rules about nicknames such as them not being able to begin with a "-" character. Most of these rules have no rhyme nor reason to them but we didn't write the software, we just have to try and tell people how to use it. Have an experiment and see what suits you best.
Once you found your personal unique nickname you may want to register it with NickServ (see below).
The FlightGear IRC (Internet Relay Chat) channel is a chat room related to everything about FlightGear. It's mostly used by developers, but it is also a good place to ask for help if you are having a question.
Official hosts
| Host | Location |
|---|---|
| nl.irc.flightgear.org | Netherlands |
| uk.irc.flightgear.org | United Kingdom |
| us.irc.flightgear.org | United States |
| de.irc.flightgear.org | Germany |
| irc.flightgear.org | currently an alias for de.irc.flightgear.org |
These servers are interconnected to form the FlightGear IRC network. Please choose the host closest to you geographically. The FlightGear IRC network has several channels, some of which are listed below. To obtain a real list, use the IRC command "/list".
| channel | |
|---|---|
| #flightgear | Main channel |
| #flightgear-blender | Blender |
| #fg_school | Flight School |
| #fgms | fgms related stuff |
| #airliners | IFR Navigation Squawk |
| #fg_cantene | Off topic chat |
| #fg-ru | Russian Flightgear Community |
| #wiki | Wiki |
| #flightgear-forum | Forum |
| #help | general help on IRC |
| #staffers | Server Admins |
| #flyingclub | Flight Gear Flying Club |
Network Services
| Service | Function |
|---|---|
| NickServ | Registration and identification of nicknames. |
| ChanServ | Registration and management of IRC channels. |
| MemoServ | Network Memo service, leave messages for other users. |
| HostServ | VirtualHost network service. |
For further help type "/msg SERVICE help" (replace SERVICE with the name of the service)
Other hosts
| Network | Channel | Description |
|---|---|---|
| irc.freenode.net | #flightgear | Only for emergencies. |
How to get in there with ChatZilla
When using ChatZilla, go to your Mozilla/Firefox browser and enter irc://mpserver12.flightgear.org. When ChatZilla has connected to the host, click "IRC" and "Join channel...". Pick the preferred channel.
To get directly to the main channel with ChatZilla, you can also enter irc://mpserver12.flightgear.org/flightgear in your browser.