FlightGear Newsletter December 2010
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We would like to emphasize that the monthly newsletter can not live without the contributions of FlightGear users and developers. Everyone with a wiki account (free to register) can edit the newsletter and every contribution is welcome. So if you know about any FlightGear related projects such as for example updated scenery or aircraft, please do feel invited to add such news to the newsletter.
FlightGear events
Call for volunteers
The OpenRadar project is looking for a new maintainer.
The TerraGear GUI project is looking for programmers to help create a GUI frontend for TerraGear [1].
The FGFSPM (FlightGear Package Manager) is looking for a new maintainer.
Development news
Nasal for newbies
New software tools and projects
FlightGear addons and mods
In the hangar
New aircraft
Bell AH-1 Cobra
The Developers at Alpha-J's Hangar have started making the Bell AH-1 Cobra. Development is going well and can be tracked here. The Bell AH-1 Cobra is a two-bladed, single engine attack helicopter manufactured by Bell Helicopter. It shares a common engine, transmission and rotor system with the older UH-1 Iroquois. The AH-1 is also referred to as the HueyCobra or Snake.
Updated aircraft
Liveries
Scenery corner
Detailed scenery is under development for the E20N40 area, with the following countries partly or fully covered:
- Albania
- Bulgaria
- Hungary
- Kosovo
- FYR Macedonia
- Poland
- Romania
- Serbia
- Slovakia
- Turkey
The scenery is using Corine land classification data, road and railroad data from OpenStreetMap and SRTM v4 elevation data from CGIAR.
Airports
I am currently working on making a new airport for FlightGear! It is Charlottesville Albemarle Airport (KCHO). I must say that I am new to Blender and FlightGear, but I am excited to be a part of it. I hope that my creation will eventually sprout into a beautiful product as time goes by. I have no set date on when this should be completed, but I hope that I can make it as soon as possible.
I am not just making the airport building. I'm hoping to eventually add in the parking lot and other various objects.
Thank you for making contributing so easy.
Aircraft of the month
Airport of the month
Screenshot of the month
Suggested flights
Aircraft reviews
Wiki updates
Video tutorials
Over the past year, more and more Video Tutorials have been produced for FlightGear, so that it seemed sensible to set up a special wiki site for them, sorted by categories. Feel free to 1) make more video tutorials and 2) add them to the list. When making a video tutorial, please try to keep a certain standard: Video tutorials should have a good video resolution so that users can see what's happening on the screen, and they should have text or voice comment so that users understand what's being done.
Instrument glass reflection tutorial
Horacio has written an excellent short tutorial to show how to add glass reflection effect to instruments, using graphic tools, so that the reflection effect is already contained in the main instrument image, and not depending on shaders meaning less CPU load. The result is widely satisfactory and very realistic.
Howto: Glass reflection effect for instruments
Helipad category
We have a new wiki category for helipads, as a sub-category of the airports category. So far, only the oil platforms can be found there, but others could be added, like hospital helipads or ANWB/ADAC/ÖAMTC heliports.
New articles
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New aircraft articles
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Most popular newsletters
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Community news
FlightGear on youtube
New tutorials and screencasts
Check out Zexe's video Tips and Tricks for Flightgear. Tips include how to Target-track, overlay instrument numbers, and so on. Link http://flightgear.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=9811
Forum news
Multiplayer
Virtual airlines
Useful links
And finally ...
Contributing
One of the regular thoughts expressed on the FlightGear forums is "I'd like to contribute but I don't know how to program, and I don't have the time". Unfortunately, there is a common mis-conception that contributing requires programming and lots of free time. In fact, there are a huge range of ways to contribute to the project without needing to write code or spending days working on something.
For ideas on starting to contribute to FlightGear, you may want to check out: Volunteer.
Reminder: Google's Summer of Code 2011
We would like to remind all readers that the FlightGear project is planning to participate in GSoC 2011. However, doing that really requires a fair amount of work, planning and organizing. This is not something that can be done by a single person. It really needs a coordinated team effort, or otherwise FlightGear won't be able to apply/participate at all.
So all users are invited to help us progress further with our preparations for GSoC 2011. If you have any questions or other feedback, please use the forum to get in touch.