Howto:Install aircraft

The latest official aircraft can be downloaded at FlightGear.org Aircraft, which then usually require unzipping software to extract from a compressed file format. Then these must be manually installed in a FlightGear software installation to use. The details depend on the method of download, operating system, and user setup. Alternatively if you are using the nightly builds or a version controlled copy of FlightGear, or you wish to manage your aircraft collection using version control tools, the aircraft can be obtained directly from the official FlightGear aircraft repository - FGAddon.

Installation process

Linux

(Ubuntu 12.04)

1. Download the aircraft
2. Create a directory to store your aircraft if you have not already done so. Make sure this directory is outside /usr/share/games/flightgear/. For example, use /home/{YourUserName}/FlightGear/Aircraft.
3. Extract your aircraft file into the folder (the one you created above)

   unzip XXXXX.zip

4. Start up FlightGear. Append the root aircraft folder (/home/{YourUserName}/FlightGear/Aircraft in our example) to the $FG_AIRCRAFT list on the first page (previous to aircraft selection) of the launcher. Your aircraft should now show up in the list.

Macintosh OS X

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1. Open GUI Launcher for FlightGear Mac
2. Click on "Others" tab at middle right of launcher
3. Click "Install Add-On Data" link at bottom of launcher
4. Select aircraft folder from menu, and click "Open"
5. Click OK on pop-up box.

Please note: For Mac users, the above will not work if you have not installed FG to the applications folder. If you do not want to put your version of FG in your applications folder, you can place it in a separate folder of your own creation. That will allow the above aircraft (& scenery) installation method to work correctly/

Windows

1. Download an aircraft and save it on your desktop.
2. Unzip the file using a file archiver, for example the open source file archiver 7-Zip.
3. Create a directory to store your aircraft if you have not already done so. Make sure this directory is outside your $FG_ROOT directory. For example, use C:\Users\{YourUserName}\Documents\FlightGear\Aircraft.
4. Move the unzipped folder (usually the aircraft's name) to your that aircraft directory.
5. Start up FlightGear. Append the root aircraft folder (C:\Users\{YourUserName}\Documents\FlightGear\Aircraft in our example) to the $FG_AIRCRAFT list on the first page (previous to aircraft selection) of the launcher. Your aircraft should now show up in the list.

When installing an aircraft fails

Rename Aircraft Folder

If FlightGear fails to start with the new aircraft you have installed, or if it starts but the aircraft is invisible you might have to rename the folder where the aircraft files are. This issue is most often encountered when downloading a .zip file from some online git repository. In those cases you will most likely end up with a folder name of the following form MyZippedRepo-[branch]. In this case you should rename the folder to be just MyZippedRepo.

If the above doesn't work, or for other cases, check for a readme file and have a look there for instructions.

Otherwise open the aircraft-set.xml file and search in it for paths containing Aircraft/AircraftFolderName. The name of the folder should match AircraftFolderName.

For instance if in the imaginary-set.xml you would find an instance like this:

 <splash-texture>Aircraft/MyCreation/splash1.png</splash-texture>

that means that you should rename the folder where imaginary-set.xml is to MyCreation.

XML files with wrong encoding

If you start FlightGear with the new plane you installed and there is no cockpit or exterior, this may be because the XML files are in the wrong encoding.

To fix this on Linux try this:

$ cd path/to/aircraft/directory/
$ find . -name "*.xml" -print | xargs sed -i 's/<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>/<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>/g'

If any of the methods above do not work, ask around on the multiplayer chat, IRC or on the forum.

Choosing aircraft

If you are looking for information to decide what aircraft to download, try:

• Aircraft
• Helicopter
• Vehicle
• Table of models

External links to third party aircraft can be found at FlightGear hangars. Remember that the latest aircraft may not load with previous versions. If you happen to use an older version of FlightGear, look for older aircraft in the links section.

For developers

Help develop the FlightGear Package Manager which is intended to support automatic aircraft and scenery installation, currently in alpha development and in need of testing.

Related content

• Installing Scenery