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Welcome to the FlightGear Newsletter!
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Enjoy reading the latest edition!


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 news or projects such as for example updated scenery or aircraft, please do feel invited to add such news to the newsletter. Core developers are encouraged to add news about their latest work to the newsletter's development section and the changelog of the upcoming release.

Development news

Note to all contributors: Please also copy your newsletter additions to the changelog of the upcoming release: Changelog_3.0.0.

Atmospheric Light Scattering

The atmospheric light scattering rendering framework received a major overhaul. Snow is now generated procedurally, which improves the performance if no snow is in the scene, but also allows the user to control the thickness of the snow layer - the shader can do a very light snow cover like in the winter textures all the way to a closed, thick snow layer.

A new runway effect shader, similar to the one in the default rendering scheme, shows a hires bumpmap for runway closeups and displays also snow drifts in high resolution on the runway if the terrain at this altiude is snow-covered. This is complemented by a high resolution grass texture for the green around the runway.

Major changes have been done to the ambient lighting of terrain and clouds in low light - the previous ambient light curve has been replaced by a light curve measured from a large set of photographs of sunsets. As a result, the color balance of cloud shadows in low sunlight is now much more realistic, and the effect of clouds casting a shadow on other clouds is now also effectively accounted for.

In the course of these changes, the framework is now also able to render moonlit scenes at night, however this is not currently integrated to be done automatically.

     

Combined and fully integrated with Advanced Weather, Atmospheric Light Scattering is now able to render highly realistic lighting and high-quality scenery texturing, rivaling the visual quality of FSX.

Random Buildings

Project Rembrandt

Canvas System

High Level Architecture

FlightGear an Android

Usability Improvements

Mailing list digest

(by far the easiest option to populate the newsletter with contents is copying/pasting stuff from the forum and the mailing list or the git logs)

Forum digest

Git digest

Getting involved as a programmer

Please see Howto:Start core development

Release ChangeLog

This section lists changes committed this month that will be available in the next release, these will be copied to the release changelog shortly before a release (for each month), so that we hopefully get a comprehensive list of new features.

Interview with a contributor (NAME)

In each edition we have an interview with a contributor. Suggestions for possible questions are available on interview questions, you are invited to come up with new questions and interview ideas obviously! Anyone is free to write an interview (with him-/herself or others) for next month's newsletter! If you'd like to help interview a contributor or get interviewed, please do consider adding yourself to the list of interview volunteers! To keep this going and less awkward, we are currently trying to come up with the convention that former interviewees become next month's interviewers.

  • How long have you been involved in FlightGear?
  • What are your major interests in FlightGear?
  • What project are you working on right now?
  • What do you plan on doing in the future?
  • Are you happy with the way the FlightGear project is going?
  • What do you enjoy most about developing for FlightGear?
  • Are there any "hidden features" you have worked on in FlightGear that new users may miss?
  • What advice can you give to new developers who want to get started on their first aircraft/new feature/Nasal script?

More questions are being collected here: Interview questions.

Stay tuned for next month's interview, featuring FlightGear contributor XXXXXXXX

Snapshot releases

Every now and then, easy-to-install development snapshots are created (usually, twice montlhy). These snapshos depict a recent state of the development version of FlightGear. By using them users can test out features that will be included in the upcoming release. Testers are encouraged to file bugs at the issue tracker.

The snapshot can be download via the links at the bottom of this page: http://www.flightgear.org/download/. Updates and feedback can be found at the forum.

Translators required

  The FlightGear Wiki still needs help for translating it into various languages. If you are interested in making the FlightGear Wiki multi-language then start at Help:Translate.
  Das FlightGear Wiki benötigt immer noch Hilfe bei der Übersetzung in verschiedene Sprachen. Wenn Du Interesse daran hast, das FlightGear Wiki Mehrsprachig zu machen, dann fang doch mit Help:Übersetzen an.
  De FlightGear Wiki kan nog steed hulp gebruiken bij het vertalen van artikelen. Als je interesse hebt om de wiki meertalig te maken, raden we je aan om een kijkje te nemen bij Help:Vertalen.
  La FlightGear wiki todavía necesita ayuda para traducirla a varios lenguajes. Si estás interesado en hacer la FlightGear wiki multilingüe, entonces comienza en Help:Traducir.

Nasal for newbies

New software tools and projects

FlightGear addons and mods

In the hangar

All the way back in May 2011, we addopted a new status-rating system for aircraft. So far, only a few have actually been rated, as can be seen in the list 'hockenberry' set up at Google Docs. If you're an aircraft developer and your aircraft is/are not on the list, please consider rating their status. All you'll need to know/do is described at Formalizing Aircraft Status. If you'd just like to get started contributing to FlightGear, this would also seem like an excellent way to get started.

New aircraft

Updated aircraft

Liveries

Scenery corner

Airports

Aircraft of the month

Airport of the month

Screenshot of the month

Suggested flights

Aircraft reviews

Wiki updates

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

Forum news

Multiplayer

FGUK's Saturday Night Flights

A work in progress

 
FGUK discovers there is nothing half so much worth doing than messing about in (flying) boats
 
Fast jets of FGUK leave the British winter behind for some fine-weather flying in Hawaii

FGUK rounded off November with four more memorable outings, forsaking the bleak winter scenery of the United Kingdom for the warmer climes of South and Pacific America before returning to the Lake District for some low flying exercises within easy flying distance of our home base of Llanbedr (EGOD).

We started the month by leaving the fast jets snug in their hangars and paddling out to board seaplanes and flying boats dating from the classic age of intercontinental flight to modern day transport and fire-fighting aircraft. The additional challenge of beginning our flight from Lake Titicaca, 12000 feet up on the Andean Altiplano, set regular FGUK fliers practicing hard during the preceding week, with some of the older aircraft requiring skill and patience to even start their engines in the thin air, and all pilots adjusting to the unusual and slightly tricky experience of taking off at altitude. Their efforts paid off, forming up around Flight Leader Algernon to skim the Andes before descending steadily down with the terrain to land in a flurry of surf off the Peruvian coast. This was almost certainly a collection of aircraft never seen flying before, with a truly gargantuan Hughes H4 Hercules (the Spruce Goose) joining Canopus, the first Short S.23 'Empire' flying boat, a Bombardier 415 water-bomber, classically-beautiful Consolidated Catalina PBY and Grumman Goose among others.

Next week saw a return to a more traditional FGUK theme, with assorted fast jets hammering across somebody else's airspace. Flight Leader Neilson chose Hawaii for this flight, in order to showcase the new scenery package included in FGFS 2.8; it attracted a varied selection of fighters and ground attack aircraft including several classics from Dave Culp's hangar, which FGUK now hosts and maintains. Two F4 Phantoms, two F-15s (one C and one E) and a brace of Tornado GR4s shattered the peace of the island for two hours, at speeds high enough to require a refueling at Hilo. As is becoming standard now for all flight planners, Neilson put a good deal of preparation into this flight, with an illustrated flight plan and a downloadable Route Manager route available in advance of the event, and as always, our multimedia artists got to work during the following week to collate and shape their collected stills and video clips into galleries and movies, which are available in the FGUK media forum (see the link below).

The chance to hone some slightly rusty skills came the following week, with a theme surround a single aircraft, and one which is both famously capable and notoriously tricky to handle - the physics-defying BaE Harrier. As one of the great British aircraft of all time, the Harrier is well represented in the FGUK hangar and the pilots had several incarnations to choose from for this high-speed, low-level, cross-continental mission from Chile to Port Stanley. Planned and led by N-SCOT, the flight plan had some tricky twists, including employing the Harrier's ace card feature: its ability to operate away from traditional flight infrastructure, in this case, a beach refueling. One vertical take-off later, and the squadron was skimming the waves, headed southeast for Stanley at 200ft AGL. Reports that the first round in the Victory public house was purchased by StuartC are apparently without substance.

Virtual airlines

FlightGear events

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.

To learn more about how the project works, please see this short essay written by Thorsten.

Call for volunteers

  • The Flightgear On Android team is looking for testers
  • The Target4Today team is looking for volunteers to help improving FlightGear's combat support
  • The OpenRadar project is looking for a new maintainer.
  • The FGFSPM (FlightGear Package Manager) is looking for a new maintainer.

Did you know