FlightGear Newsletter November 2009

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Revision as of 22:37, 17 November 2009 by Liam (talk | contribs) (→‎In the hangar)
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Welcome to the FlightGear Newsletter!
Please help us write the next edition!
Enjoy reading the latest edition!


This is the draft of the next edition of the FlightGear Newsletter. Please feel free to edit and add your contribution.

What's new in CVS

In the hangar

Airbus A340-600

767-300

The Airbus A340-600 has just started early development by Liam, its the longest civil airliner in the world, making it of key interest to the flightgear community. For more information on this recent but rapidly improving project, click [[A340-600]here] to access the A340-600 page.

Boeing 767-300

767-300

The boeing 767-300 is still under development by Liam and Prestes, and is currently undergoing animation by asdf. The airliner is starting to look brilliant thanks to the original model by veteran modeler from the 3DWarehouse, WilliamT, and with its new default livery by Liam (Thomsonfly.com), it certainly is starting to look beautiful. Since this snapshot was taken, there have been many significant improvements still. Preste also wants to create the whole 767 family from this model (767-200/ER 767-300/ER 767-400/ER 767F) These will be mostly based around the original 767-300 model, by editing the specifications and detail of the planes to give them the correct FDM and accuracy, shape and length. The freight version will be modelled by removing the cut windows and modifying other specifications for the plane. Animation should be fairly replicate for all of the models and creating the whole group should be a fairly rewarding project. As always, help is welcome from all who are interested- but it is certainly well gaining progress.

Scenery Corner

Airport Layouts in the Scenery Database

As many readers will know, Martin Spott and Ralf Gerlich maintain the World Custom Scenery Project, which generates the FlightGear scenery. However, the airport layout information (in apt.dat) was shared with X-Plane and maintained separately by Robin Peel. X-Plane has now moved to a new format that FG cannot currently use, and Robin is no-longer accepting layout updates in the old format (as supported by TaxiDraw). This makes including updated runway layouts in our scenery difficult.

To resolve this, Martin is now including airport layouts as part of the custom scenery. This is great news, as many of the smaller airports around the world do not have accurate taxiways, and updating the layout using TaxiDraw is straightforward.

If you have an updated layout to submit, please contact Martin Spott via the Forums or email. Note that the same restrictions on only using GPL-compatible data to generate the layouts applies - so tracing the layout on Google Earth/Maps isn't allowed.

Dutch airports

Updated taxiways at Schiphol.

Gijs de Rooy has redrawn the airport layouts for some of the Netherlands' most prominent airports, including Amsterdam Airport Schiphol (EHAM), Lelystad Airport (EHLE) and Volkel Air Base (EHVK). Taxiways and tarmacs are now correctly placed and up to date. A significant improvement over the previous airport layout is the use of shoulders (concrete borders around taxiways), just as you would encounter at the real airports. The groundnetworks for these airports have been updated or created as well.

Spending a couple of hours placing the taxiways and AI routes in TaxiDraw, Gijs was able to turn some gaunted airports into a living world!

Community News

FSWeekend

We will write a (short) report about the event and add some pictures.

Virtual Airline News

Addons

Useful links

And finally....

UK Flight Experience Bursaries

The Royal Aero Club Trust is a UK charity that, amongst other things, provides annual bursaries for flight simulator enthusiasts to gain their first experience of real flying. The bursaries are open to UK residents aged 16 to 21. This is a really great opportunity to try flying for real (and for free). Details can be found here, and the closing date is 31st March 2010.