FlightGear wiki - User contributions [en]

FlightGear Newsletter February 2012

2012-02-27T20:50:26Z

Fgphotoscenery:

{{draft|newsletter|Feel free to contribute! Or [[FlightGear Newsletter January 2012|read the latest edition]].}}
{{newsletter}}
{{TOC_right|limit=2}}

''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.''

== FlightGear 2.6.0 released ==
Following our [[release plan]], version 2.6.0 of our simulator has been released. Please check the [[changelog 2.6.0]] for what has changed since our last release 6 months ago.

== Development news ==

=== Heads up: Project Rembrandt ===
As many of you may have heard already, Fred is currently making huge progress on adding shadows to FlightGear in [[Project Rembrandt]]. Now, F-JJTH ported the P92 to use the new system and posted a youtube video demonstrating [[Project Rembrandt]] at work. To provide feedback, please check out the the [http://flightgear.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=47&t=14883 forum thread].

{|
|{{#ev:youtube|v02phoOqWHE|400|Project Rembrandt at work}}
|[[File:Project-rembrandt-cockpit-lighting.png|600px|Cockpit lighting in Project Rembrandt at work (by F-JJTH)]]
|}

== Interview with a contributor (Christian Schmitt) ==
''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?
Acording to my mail correspondence it must have been in 2007/2008 when I became an active part. I was unsatisfied with the state of EDDF in the FG scenery (no buildings, lightpoles everywhere), so I teamed up with a guy who had already started some work there. I ended up creating all of the terminal buildings and improving the airport layout. In those days, noone was flying there. This changed in the months afterwards, which was a big boost of motivation, too.
* What are your major interests in FlightGear?
My main interest is clearly the scenery and technology connected with it, like GIS. I started to create some custom scenery, like Helgoland, and after I was granted direct access to the mapserver database, I was able to proxy-commit other peoples work, which followed. IMHO, the best FDM or aircraft models are useless if you don't have a nice place to fly, takeoff and land :) So this area is what motivates me the most.
* 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 [http://code.google.com/p/flightgear-bugs/ 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 [http://flightgear.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=10488&p=144233&hilit=snapshot#p144233 at the forum].

== 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 [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0ApzphjA4w05ndF94Y2F0bzJTbHQ5QTJXZXJRcUVRbWc&hl=en_US 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.

=== A new instrument: Vertical Situation Display ===
[[File:Omega95-vsd-instrument.jpeg|200px|thumb|Omega95's VSD instrument]]
Omega95 has created an entirely new instrument type for FlightGear, a so called Vertical Situation Display (VSD).

This was done entirely in scripting space using Nasal and XML animations. He's basically proven everbody wrong who ever claimed that complex instruments couldn't yet be created in scripting space. Apparently, he managed to create this instrument in less than 24 hrs. His first question related to this was about accessing trigonometric functions from Nasal, shortly thereafter he posted screen shots depicting his VSD.

To read up on the whole discussion, please see [http://flightgear.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=15200 the forum topic]. There's work ongoing to turn his project into a new tutorial for the wiki on creating complex instruments in scripting space: [[Howto: Implement a Vertical Situation Display in Nasal]].

=== Glider winch launching ropes ===
[[File:DG-101G_winch_launch_with_rope.png|thumb|200px|A DG-101G during a winch launch.]]
Before now, FlightGear never showed ropes during winch launching. However, now, you will no longer have to fly gliders while being pulled by some invisible connection between you and the winch.

[[User:Gijs|Gijs]] started working on an animated 3D rope, attached to the glider and winch. The cable exist of the following parts:

* '''Strop''' (3 m) attached to the glider with a ring.
* '''Weak link assembly''' designed to break apart before the cable or any other equipment fails.
* '''Trace''' (17 m)
* '''Parachute''' so the cable doesn't drop too quickly after releasing.
* '''Launch cable''' the longest part; all the way to the winch.

=== New aircraft ===
==== Hawker Siddeley Harrier GR.1 ====
[[File:Harrier-GR1 Splash.png|thumb|200px|Harrier GR.1 splash screen]]
[[Hawker Siddeley Harrier GR1]] is a private project by pjedvaj, it was not intended to replace or update the existing [[British Aerospace Harrier]]. It has a detailed 3D model complete with a cockpit, animations and RAF livery. Instruments and HUD are also fairly authentic. The aircraft has working ADEN guns and basic fuel and weight control. The FDM is adapted from the original BAe Harrier, but internal and external fuel tank capacities are modified to match the GR.1 version.

==== Boeing-Sikorsky RAH-66 Commanche ====
[[File:RAH-66 splash.png|thumb|200px|RAH-66 splash screen]]
[[Boeing-Sikorsky RAH-66 Commanche]] was started as a [[Bounty/RAH-66 Comanche|bounty]] by sgofferj and developed by pjedvaj but I later withdraw from the bounty. This was my first helicopter project and FDM development is curently in stub (RAH-66 is using adapted FDM from Tatsuhiro Nishioka's [[Kawasaki OH-1]]). It has a detailed 3D model, animations and two liveries used to present different variants of RAH-66. Helicopter has a working XM301 cannon controled by joystick and basic weight control for armament in internal bays. AFCS includes SAS, CAS and Auto Hover. You're free to continue the development to fully claim the bounty.

=== Updated aircraft ===
==== Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner ====
[[File:boeing-787-8-splash.png|thumb|200px|The Boeing 787-8 Splash Screen]]
The Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner has already been there in FlightGear for a very long time -it has been in the FG official hangar since version 1.0.
However, it was created while the 787 was still a prototype aircraft; it did not correctly show many of the 787's actual features like a realistic glass cockpit and accurate instruments.

The new/updated Boeing 787-8 is a community project that features new JSBSim flight dynamics, Vertical Navigation, a realistic 787 glass cockpit, new CDUs, Electronic Flight Bags, TCAS, advanced Nav Displays, [[Howto:_Implement_a_Vertical_Situation_Display_in_Nasal|Vertical Situation Display]], [[Howto:_Implement_a_Fly-By-Wire_System_for_Airliners|Fly-by-wire]] and a lot of other neat features. It has not exactly been completed and the project is still running.

You can find out more about the Boeing 787-8 Project HERE or wait for a while till a wiki page is created for it. One of the really good points of this project is how most of our findings and resources have been converted into Wiki HowTos for other aircraft developers to use for their projects.

==== Cessna 337G Skymaster ====
[[File:Cessna337-cockpit.png|thumb|200px|General view of the new Cessna 337G Skymaster cockpit]]
The [[Cessna 337G Skymaster]] from the Spain-Latinamerica "Vive FlightGear" factory have received a major update.

The new cockpit is now totally modelled, almost buttons and knobs are functional, animated, and properly labeled for easy identification.

New custom sounds, lights, controls, a Bendix/King avionics pack capable of full IFR and night navigation, 2 new HQ liveries and the first FlightGear's working [[ELT]] (Emergency Locator Transmitter) are part of this great improvement on a FlightGear aircraft.

=== Liveries ===

== Scenery corner ==
=== 3D-Model contributors: please read ===
A (long) time ago, specific instructions were given on how to contribute with 3D-models designing withing FG. That is: I want to create nice 3D models for my airport, submit them to the central database, and have them shipped back through Terrasync.
However, it appears that quite a lot of users are still not aware of those guidelines, and sometimes learn about their existence after having created their models.
So please, take some time to (re)read them, and inform the people around you who would like to contribute about the existence of those guidelines. This will save you extra time (and your models will be quickly inserted within the database) and this will also save the (precious) times of the poor guy(s) validating all the models at the other end.
So, here they are: http://scenemodels.flightgear.org/contribute.php .
We also remind you that, to add, edit or delete shared model positions (apart from mass import (that is if you have more than let's say 10 lines to add), you should use our webtools at http://scenemodels.flightgear.org/submission/ .

=== Object-masking and improved materials ===
For a long time, FlightGear has had the ability to place random objects on the scenery. Previously, these objects were placed completely randomly based on a specific density for the material, defined in materials.xml. This didn't look particularly realistic as the placement never matched the underlying texture. Now object and trees can be placed using a "mask", so buildings will only appear where the texture shows buildings, and trees only in green spaces. Additionally, placement is controlled so that random buildings won't overlap with other random buildings, and buildings don't overlap onto adjacent piece of scenery. This makes the random objects appear more realistic, and moves FG one step closer to the auto-gen scenery of MSFS and X-Plane. Further details can be found in fgdata/Docs/README.materials.

In addition to this, the materials.xml and materials-dds.xml files have been restructured to make them more maintainable, fixing a number of bugs in the process.

=== Shanghai Skylines: FG's New (not-so-)Hidden Gem ===
Shanghai is one of the biggest city in China and is among the cities with the most number of skyscrapers -this is now also true for FlightGear.
21 models were created over the past few months by JVC, who also modeled the Akashi-Kaikyo Bridge in Japan and the United Nations building in New York.
{|
|[[File:SH fgfs-screen-001.png|250px|thumb|A view of the Shanghai skyline]]
|[[File:Shanghai003.png|250px|thumb|Another view of Shanghai]]
|[[File:Shanghai007.png|250px|thumb|A closer view from near the Shanghai Stock Exchange]]
|}

=== New textures for container ship and freighter AI models ===
Starting from a hi-res panorama that he made, user Cristian Marchi (aka penta) provided new skins for the two AI ships that populates seas in flightgear. More info on the [http://www.flightgear.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=14856 forum thread].
{|
|[[File:Ships-comparison.png|200px|thumb|left|Comparison between untextured and textured AI ships (by Cristian Marchi)]]
|}

=== Photographic scenery ===
Photographic scenery for selected places in the US is now available at http://fgphotoscenery.square7.ch . The covered regions currently include San Francisco Bay, Yosemite NP, Grand Canyon NP, Lake Powell, Sedona, Miami, Everglades NP and Key Largo. The scenery has been created from the public domain imagery courtesy of the [http://www.usgs.org U.S. Geological Survey], has a resolution of about 3m/pixel (10ft/pixel) and is released under the GNU General Public Licence (GPL). In total, more than 1.3GB of imagery are ready for download. Videos of UFO flights through the photographic senery are available in the [http://fgphotoscenery.square7.ch#gallery gallery].

In order to be able to load the photographic scenery into flightgear, the program has to be compiled from source and the patch developed by Benoît Laniel for the Brest photographic scenery has to be applied. Step-by-step [http://fgphotoscenery.square7.ch#installation installation instructions] for this process are provided.

Discussions about fgphotoscenery take place this [http://www.flightgear.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=15174 forum thread].

[[File:fgphotoscenery_gallery.jpg]]

=== Airports ===

== Aircraft of the month ==
== Airport of the month ==
[[File:LFRJ.png|800px]]

[[Landivisiau Naval Air Base|Base d'aéronautique navale de Landivisiau]] (LFRJ) is set in the middle of some amazing scenery. Anyone that wants to try [[VFR]] flight should start here in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bretagne Bretagne], France. Memorise the scenery, the churches, the power lines, map them and find your way back easy. It's amazing here. The airfield is home to aircraft that belong on the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Naval_Aviation seas] that is why you will see two arresting cables over the runway, don't trip over them. The airfield also holds a EH101 Merlin helicopter (or is it a Westland Lynx?), a perfect modelled tower, the warehouses and all the shelters to protect the Rafale and the SEM attack aircraft.

== Screenshot of the month ==

[[File: Lightfield-1.1-14.jpg | 800px]]

A P-51D flying at 20.000 ft over Juneau (Alaska) at dawn using lightfield shaders to render the sunrise (see [http://www.flightgear.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=47&t=14755 here] for the shader package for download).

== Suggested flights ==
===Copacabana to San Rafael over Lake Titicaca===
Bolivia to Peru. This trip will lead you over one of the highest and deepest lakes in the world towards the highest airfield in the world. It a demonstration of a [[IFR]] flight towards a fix and a demonstration how accurate FlightGear simulates air density and the effects it has on aircraft.
[[File:Slcc-sprf.jpg|thumb|200px|left|Flight and fix SLCC to SPRF]]
Place your aircraft on the airfield [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copacabana,_Bolivia SLCC, Copacabana], with an [[elevation]] of 12,592 feet. FlightGear will show snow all around you but that is not very realistic so let's clean up. View=> Rendering Options=> Snow line=> Set to max. (5,000M).

We will fly towards and land at SPRF. If you would enter SLCC and SPRF in [[Kelpie]] planner you probably would not be able to find SPRF. To find SPRF I am adding an additional VOR-DME station and for a good fix give you another VOR-DME. Try Kelpie planner to plan this route and compare with this suggestion.

Equipment preparation. Set [[NAV1]] to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juliaca Juliaca] VOR-DME on 155.55 with a radial of 311° (magnetic). Set [[NAV2]] to Arequipa VOR-DME on 113.7 with a radial of 212°. During our flight we will fly with [[true altitude]] as set with [[QNH]], keep QNH updated. Arm the autopilot with the [[heading bug]] at 311° and an initial altitude of 13,500 feet.

Take off and if you took the wrong RW pull up hard. Take a small tour over [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titicaca lake Titicaca], see the floating islands and try to find the lost golden treasure. Intercept the nearest radial on NAV1 towards Juliaca (about 311°).

Just before Juliaca is a hill so while on lake Titicaca increase altitude to 14,200 feet, the [[VFR]] part of this trip is over. After passing Juliaca set the radial of NAV1 to 352° and set the altitude to 17,422 feet. We will fly from NAV1 and slowly increase altitude.

At a distance of about 60 NM set the heading bug on the current course. Monitor the distance to NAV1, the radial of NAV2 and the distance to NAV2. At a distance of 74.5 NM to NAV1, a distance of 140.7 NM and at the '''radial''' intercept of NAV2 should be the runway. So, from 60 NM onwards, look outside the window, then at NAV1 and then NAV2 etc.

If you are at 80NM to NAV1 you have missed the airfield but you still won't hit any hills (unless you bank left). Bank right and set the heading bug to 172°. Fly back towards NAV1 and intercept the radial 352° at about 50NM again to repeat the search.

The runway SPRF, San Rafael, has a elevation of 14,422 feet and a heading of 297°/ 117°. Our initial altitude has been set 3,000NM above the RW elevation. That should give sufficient room for navigation.

After you have seen the airfield set the radial of NAV1 to 297°, the heading of the runway (not the course to the runway) as a visual aid. Land on RW 30 (and not on RW 12 unless you are a show-off). Oh, there is a small hill in front of RW 30, just so you know.

Decreasing speed at this altitude can be a bit tricky. The air is thin and does not give much resistance. Next to that, the difference between [[indicated airspeed]] and [[ground speed]] is very noticeable. The ground speed is much higher as the indicated airspeed.

After a successful landing, try to discover the [[Suggested_Flights#Origin_of_the_Amazon_River | origin of the Amazon river]] since we are now at the starting point of that trip.

*More places you can visit can be found at [[Suggested Flights]].

== Aircraft reviews ==

== Wiki updates ==
=== Categorizing images ===
[[User:Johan G|Johan G]] did a great job starting to categorise all images. The sub-categories are listed under [[:Category:Images]].

Please keep the following things in mind when uploading images:
* Give the file a descriptive name. That'll make it easier for others to find your file and use it in articles.
* Categorize your image right when you upload it. That saves others from digging up uncatigorized images later on. Placing your image in a category is as simple as adding the following line to the "description" field:
: <code><nowiki>[[Category:Name of the category]]</nowiki></code>
: A list of available categories can be found under [[:Category:Images]].

=== Documentating templates ===
[[User:Gijs|Gijs]] documentated most [[:Category:Templates|templates]], making use of a global [[Template:Informative template|documentation template]]. The documentation tells you what the template does and how to use it.

=== Feature icons ===
Michat has designed small logos for Aircraft of the Month, [[Dual Control]], [[Bombable]], [[Soaring]], [[Howto:_Do_aerotow_over_the_net|Aerotow]] and [[:Category:Aerospace|Aerospace]] aircraft, allowing you to see at a glance which aircraft has some of those interesting features.

[[File:Dualcontrolready2.png|Dual_control]] [[File:BombableReady.png|Bombable]] [[File:Aerotowready.png|Doing aerotow over the net]] [[File:Thermalready.png|Soaring]] [[File:Spacetripready.png|Aerospace]]
[[File:Aircraftofthemonth.png|IAR80]].

===New articles===
<DynamicArticleList>
type=new
count=10
</DynamicArticleList>
===New aircraft articles===
<DynamicArticleList>
type=new
count=10
categoryRoot=Aircraft
</DynamicArticleList>
===Most popular newsletters===
<DynamicArticleList>
type=hot
count=5
categoryRoot=FlightGear Newsletter
</DynamicArticleList>

== Community news ==
=== FlightGear on FSBreak ===
Two of FlightGear's developers, Stuart and Curt were interviewed on one of this month's episodes of [http://www.fsbreak.net FSBreak], recorded on 25th February. FSBreak is a flight simulator podcast that discusses recent flight sim developments and reviews. The hosts, Eric and Brendan, spent almost an hour taking about the project with Curt and Stuart. While most of the content won't be new to readers of this newsletter, it was a great way to promote FlightGear 2.6.0 to the wider flight simulation community.

=== FlightGear on YouTube ===
* [http://youtu.be/hBEaOMzBq6E KSFO Thermal Demo] by MD-BFC Going on their way for Bocian certification
* [http://youtu.be/-yI5PzC5RE8 Sukhoi 37 'The russian dream'] by Águilas de FlightGear performing "Balalaika amok" master tune by Aleksei Arkhipovsky.

=== New tutorials and screencasts ===
=== Forum news ===
Triggered by the new release, we've had more [http://flightgear.org/forums forum] visitors then ever before in the week of 19-25 February! 17,123 people visited the forum in these seven days to be precise. When looking at "unique visitors", only 13-19 February 2011 was a bussier week (9548 against 9076 visitors) (a possible reason for the high number might be that people expected 2.2.0 to be released, which was canceled).

=== Multiplayer ===
=== 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]].

=== Call for volunteers ===
* The [[OpenRadar]] project is looking for a new maintainer.
* The [[FGFSPM]] (FlightGear Package Manager) is looking for a new maintainer.

=== Did you know ===
...that you can use expressions to create complex animations of objects in your 3d models or even drive them from multiple properties?
Usually, an animation looks like this
<syntaxhighlight lang="xml">
<animation>
<type>translate</type>
<property>foo/bar</property>
[..]more elements[..]
</animation>
</syntaxhighlight>
You can add a scaling factor or an offset to it, but that's basically all you can do that way.
If you want to animate your object following a complex function, most people create complex Nasal scripts to compute the driving properties, probably not knowing that there is another way to achieve the goal: Expressions.
Here is an example for a translate animation depending on two properties and the cosine function
<syntaxhighlight lang="xml">
<animation>
<type>translate</type>
<expression>
<product>
<property>/my/factor-property</property>
<cos>
<deg2rad>
<property>/my/angular-property</property>
</deg2rad>
</cos>
</product>
</expression>
[..]more elements[..]
</animation>
</syntaxhighlight>
A rich set of predefined functions is available, including almost all those you have on your scientific pocket calculator.

[[Category:FlightGear Newsletter|2012 02]]

FlightGear Newsletter February 2012

2012-02-27T20:48:30Z

Fgphotoscenery: /* New textures for container ship and freighter AI models */

{{draft|newsletter|Feel free to contribute! Or [[FlightGear Newsletter January 2012|read the latest edition]].}}
{{newsletter}}
{{TOC_right|limit=2}}

''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.''

== FlightGear 2.6.0 released ==
Following our [[release plan]], version 2.6.0 of our simulator has been released. Please check the [[changelog 2.6.0]] for what has changed since our last release 6 months ago.

== Development news ==

=== Heads up: Project Rembrandt ===
As many of you may have heard already, Fred is currently making huge progress on adding shadows to FlightGear in [[Project Rembrandt]]. Now, F-JJTH ported the P92 to use the new system and posted a youtube video demonstrating [[Project Rembrandt]] at work. To provide feedback, please check out the the [http://flightgear.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=47&t=14883 forum thread].

{|
|{{#ev:youtube|v02phoOqWHE|400|Project Rembrandt at work}}
|[[File:Project-rembrandt-cockpit-lighting.png|600px|Cockpit lighting in Project Rembrandt at work (by F-JJTH)]]
|}

== Interview with a contributor (Christian Schmitt) ==
''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?
Acording to my mail correspondence it must have been in 2007/2008 when I became an active part. I was unsatisfied with the state of EDDF in the FG scenery (no buildings, lightpoles everywhere), so I teamed up with a guy who had already started some work there. I ended up creating all of the terminal buildings and improving the airport layout. In those days, noone was flying there. This changed in the months afterwards, which was a big boost of motivation, too.
* What are your major interests in FlightGear?
My main interest is clearly the scenery and technology connected with it, like GIS. I started to create some custom scenery, like Helgoland, and after I was granted direct access to the mapserver database, I was able to proxy-commit other peoples work, which followed. IMHO, the best FDM or aircraft models are useless if you don't have a nice place to fly, takeoff and land :) So this area is what motivates me the most.
* 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 [http://code.google.com/p/flightgear-bugs/ 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 [http://flightgear.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=10488&p=144233&hilit=snapshot#p144233 at the forum].

== 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 [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0ApzphjA4w05ndF94Y2F0bzJTbHQ5QTJXZXJRcUVRbWc&hl=en_US 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.

=== A new instrument: Vertical Situation Display ===
[[File:Omega95-vsd-instrument.jpeg|200px|thumb|Omega95's VSD instrument]]
Omega95 has created an entirely new instrument type for FlightGear, a so called Vertical Situation Display (VSD).

This was done entirely in scripting space using Nasal and XML animations. He's basically proven everbody wrong who ever claimed that complex instruments couldn't yet be created in scripting space. Apparently, he managed to create this instrument in less than 24 hrs. His first question related to this was about accessing trigonometric functions from Nasal, shortly thereafter he posted screen shots depicting his VSD.

To read up on the whole discussion, please see [http://flightgear.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=15200 the forum topic]. There's work ongoing to turn his project into a new tutorial for the wiki on creating complex instruments in scripting space: [[Howto: Implement a Vertical Situation Display in Nasal]].

=== Glider winch launching ropes ===
[[File:DG-101G_winch_launch_with_rope.png|thumb|200px|A DG-101G during a winch launch.]]
Before now, FlightGear never showed ropes during winch launching. However, now, you will no longer have to fly gliders while being pulled by some invisible connection between you and the winch.

[[User:Gijs|Gijs]] started working on an animated 3D rope, attached to the glider and winch. The cable exist of the following parts:

* '''Strop''' (3 m) attached to the glider with a ring.
* '''Weak link assembly''' designed to break apart before the cable or any other equipment fails.
* '''Trace''' (17 m)
* '''Parachute''' so the cable doesn't drop too quickly after releasing.
* '''Launch cable''' the longest part; all the way to the winch.

=== New aircraft ===
==== Hawker Siddeley Harrier GR.1 ====
[[File:Harrier-GR1 Splash.png|thumb|200px|Harrier GR.1 splash screen]]
[[Hawker Siddeley Harrier GR1]] is a private project by pjedvaj, it was not intended to replace or update the existing [[British Aerospace Harrier]]. It has a detailed 3D model complete with a cockpit, animations and RAF livery. Instruments and HUD are also fairly authentic. The aircraft has working ADEN guns and basic fuel and weight control. The FDM is adapted from the original BAe Harrier, but internal and external fuel tank capacities are modified to match the GR.1 version.

==== Boeing-Sikorsky RAH-66 Commanche ====
[[File:RAH-66 splash.png|thumb|200px|RAH-66 splash screen]]
[[Boeing-Sikorsky RAH-66 Commanche]] was started as a [[Bounty/RAH-66 Comanche|bounty]] by sgofferj and developed by pjedvaj but I later withdraw from the bounty. This was my first helicopter project and FDM development is curently in stub (RAH-66 is using adapted FDM from Tatsuhiro Nishioka's [[Kawasaki OH-1]]). It has a detailed 3D model, animations and two liveries used to present different variants of RAH-66. Helicopter has a working XM301 cannon controled by joystick and basic weight control for armament in internal bays. AFCS includes SAS, CAS and Auto Hover. You're free to continue the development to fully claim the bounty.

=== Updated aircraft ===
==== Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner ====
[[File:boeing-787-8-splash.png|thumb|200px|The Boeing 787-8 Splash Screen]]
The Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner has already been there in FlightGear for a very long time -it has been in the FG official hangar since version 1.0.
However, it was created while the 787 was still a prototype aircraft; it did not correctly show many of the 787's actual features like a realistic glass cockpit and accurate instruments.

The new/updated Boeing 787-8 is a community project that features new JSBSim flight dynamics, Vertical Navigation, a realistic 787 glass cockpit, new CDUs, Electronic Flight Bags, TCAS, advanced Nav Displays, [[Howto:_Implement_a_Vertical_Situation_Display_in_Nasal|Vertical Situation Display]], [[Howto:_Implement_a_Fly-By-Wire_System_for_Airliners|Fly-by-wire]] and a lot of other neat features. It has not exactly been completed and the project is still running.

You can find out more about the Boeing 787-8 Project HERE or wait for a while till a wiki page is created for it. One of the really good points of this project is how most of our findings and resources have been converted into Wiki HowTos for other aircraft developers to use for their projects.

==== Cessna 337G Skymaster ====
[[File:Cessna337-cockpit.png|thumb|200px|General view of the new Cessna 337G Skymaster cockpit]]
The [[Cessna 337G Skymaster]] from the Spain-Latinamerica "Vive FlightGear" factory have received a major update.

The new cockpit is now totally modelled, almost buttons and knobs are functional, animated, and properly labeled for easy identification.

New custom sounds, lights, controls, a Bendix/King avionics pack capable of full IFR and night navigation, 2 new HQ liveries and the first FlightGear's working [[ELT]] (Emergency Locator Transmitter) are part of this great improvement on a FlightGear aircraft.

=== Liveries ===

== Scenery corner ==
=== 3D-Model contributors: please read ===
A (long) time ago, specific instructions were given on how to contribute with 3D-models designing withing FG. That is: I want to create nice 3D models for my airport, submit them to the central database, and have them shipped back through Terrasync.
However, it appears that quite a lot of users are still not aware of those guidelines, and sometimes learn about their existence after having created their models.
So please, take some time to (re)read them, and inform the people around you who would like to contribute about the existence of those guidelines. This will save you extra time (and your models will be quickly inserted within the database) and this will also save the (precious) times of the poor guy(s) validating all the models at the other end.
So, here they are: http://scenemodels.flightgear.org/contribute.php .
We also remind you that, to add, edit or delete shared model positions (apart from mass import (that is if you have more than let's say 10 lines to add), you should use our webtools at http://scenemodels.flightgear.org/submission/ .

=== Object-masking and improved materials ===
For a long time, FlightGear has had the ability to place random objects on the scenery. Previously, these objects were placed completely randomly based on a specific density for the material, defined in materials.xml. This didn't look particularly realistic as the placement never matched the underlying texture. Now object and trees can be placed using a "mask", so buildings will only appear where the texture shows buildings, and trees only in green spaces. Additionally, placement is controlled so that random buildings won't overlap with other random buildings, and buildings don't overlap onto adjacent piece of scenery. This makes the random objects appear more realistic, and moves FG one step closer to the auto-gen scenery of MSFS and X-Plane. Further details can be found in fgdata/Docs/README.materials.

In addition to this, the materials.xml and materials-dds.xml files have been restructured to make them more maintainable, fixing a number of bugs in the process.

=== Shanghai Skylines: FG's New (not-so-)Hidden Gem ===
Shanghai is one of the biggest city in China and is among the cities with the most number of skyscrapers -this is now also true for FlightGear.
21 models were created over the past few months by JVC, who also modeled the Akashi-Kaikyo Bridge in Japan and the United Nations building in New York.
{|
|[[File:SH fgfs-screen-001.png|250px|thumb|A view of the Shanghai skyline]]
|[[File:Shanghai003.png|250px|thumb|Another view of Shanghai]]
|[[File:Shanghai007.png|250px|thumb|A closer view from near the Shanghai Stock Exchange]]
|}

=== New textures for container ship and freighter AI models ===
Starting from a hi-res panorama that he made, user Cristian Marchi (aka penta) provided new skins for the two AI ships that populates seas in flightgear. More info on the [http://www.flightgear.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=14856 forum thread].
[[File:Ships-comparison.png|200px|thumb|left|Comparison between untextured and textured AI ships (by Cristian Marchi)]]

=== Photographic scenery ===
Photographic scenery for selected places in the US is now available at http://fgphotoscenery.square7.ch . The covered regions currently include San Francisco Bay, Yosemite NP, Grand Canyon NP, Lake Powell, Sedona, Miami, Everglades NP and Key Largo. The scenery has been created from the public domain imagery courtesy of the [http://www.usgs.org U.S. Geological Survey], has a resolution of about 3m/pixel (10ft/pixel) and is released under the GNU General Public Licence (GPL). In total, more than 1.3GB of imagery are ready for download. Videos of UFO flights through the photographic senery are available in the [http://fgphotoscenery.square7.ch#gallery gallery].

In order to be able to load the photographic scenery into flightgear, the program has to be compiled from source and the patch developed by Benoît Laniel for the Brest photographic scenery has to be applied. Step-by-step [http://fgphotoscenery.square7.ch#installation installation instructions] for this process are provided.

Discussions about fgphotoscenery take place this [http://www.flightgear.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=15174 forum thread].

[[File:fgphotoscenery_gallery.jpg]]

=== Airports ===

== Aircraft of the month ==
== Airport of the month ==
[[File:LFRJ.png|800px]]

[[Landivisiau Naval Air Base|Base d'aéronautique navale de Landivisiau]] (LFRJ) is set in the middle of some amazing scenery. Anyone that wants to try [[VFR]] flight should start here in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bretagne Bretagne], France. Memorise the scenery, the churches, the power lines, map them and find your way back easy. It's amazing here. The airfield is home to aircraft that belong on the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Naval_Aviation seas] that is why you will see two arresting cables over the runway, don't trip over them. The airfield also holds a EH101 Merlin helicopter (or is it a Westland Lynx?), a perfect modelled tower, the warehouses and all the shelters to protect the Rafale and the SEM attack aircraft.

== Screenshot of the month ==

[[File: Lightfield-1.1-14.jpg | 800px]]

A P-51D flying at 20.000 ft over Juneau (Alaska) at dawn using lightfield shaders to render the sunrise (see [http://www.flightgear.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=47&t=14755 here] for the shader package for download).

== Suggested flights ==
===Copacabana to San Rafael over Lake Titicaca===
Bolivia to Peru. This trip will lead you over one of the highest and deepest lakes in the world towards the highest airfield in the world. It a demonstration of a [[IFR]] flight towards a fix and a demonstration how accurate FlightGear simulates air density and the effects it has on aircraft.
[[File:Slcc-sprf.jpg|thumb|200px|left|Flight and fix SLCC to SPRF]]
Place your aircraft on the airfield [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copacabana,_Bolivia SLCC, Copacabana], with an [[elevation]] of 12,592 feet. FlightGear will show snow all around you but that is not very realistic so let's clean up. View=> Rendering Options=> Snow line=> Set to max. (5,000M).

We will fly towards and land at SPRF. If you would enter SLCC and SPRF in [[Kelpie]] planner you probably would not be able to find SPRF. To find SPRF I am adding an additional VOR-DME station and for a good fix give you another VOR-DME. Try Kelpie planner to plan this route and compare with this suggestion.

Equipment preparation. Set [[NAV1]] to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juliaca Juliaca] VOR-DME on 155.55 with a radial of 311° (magnetic). Set [[NAV2]] to Arequipa VOR-DME on 113.7 with a radial of 212°. During our flight we will fly with [[true altitude]] as set with [[QNH]], keep QNH updated. Arm the autopilot with the [[heading bug]] at 311° and an initial altitude of 13,500 feet.

Take off and if you took the wrong RW pull up hard. Take a small tour over [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titicaca lake Titicaca], see the floating islands and try to find the lost golden treasure. Intercept the nearest radial on NAV1 towards Juliaca (about 311°).

Just before Juliaca is a hill so while on lake Titicaca increase altitude to 14,200 feet, the [[VFR]] part of this trip is over. After passing Juliaca set the radial of NAV1 to 352° and set the altitude to 17,422 feet. We will fly from NAV1 and slowly increase altitude.

At a distance of about 60 NM set the heading bug on the current course. Monitor the distance to NAV1, the radial of NAV2 and the distance to NAV2. At a distance of 74.5 NM to NAV1, a distance of 140.7 NM and at the '''radial''' intercept of NAV2 should be the runway. So, from 60 NM onwards, look outside the window, then at NAV1 and then NAV2 etc.

If you are at 80NM to NAV1 you have missed the airfield but you still won't hit any hills (unless you bank left). Bank right and set the heading bug to 172°. Fly back towards NAV1 and intercept the radial 352° at about 50NM again to repeat the search.

The runway SPRF, San Rafael, has a elevation of 14,422 feet and a heading of 297°/ 117°. Our initial altitude has been set 3,000NM above the RW elevation. That should give sufficient room for navigation.

After you have seen the airfield set the radial of NAV1 to 297°, the heading of the runway (not the course to the runway) as a visual aid. Land on RW 30 (and not on RW 12 unless you are a show-off). Oh, there is a small hill in front of RW 30, just so you know.

Decreasing speed at this altitude can be a bit tricky. The air is thin and does not give much resistance. Next to that, the difference between [[indicated airspeed]] and [[ground speed]] is very noticeable. The ground speed is much higher as the indicated airspeed.

After a successful landing, try to discover the [[Suggested_Flights#Origin_of_the_Amazon_River | origin of the Amazon river]] since we are now at the starting point of that trip.

*More places you can visit can be found at [[Suggested Flights]].

== Aircraft reviews ==

== Wiki updates ==
=== Categorizing images ===
[[User:Johan G|Johan G]] did a great job starting to categorise all images. The sub-categories are listed under [[:Category:Images]].

Please keep the following things in mind when uploading images:
* Give the file a descriptive name. That'll make it easier for others to find your file and use it in articles.
* Categorize your image right when you upload it. That saves others from digging up uncatigorized images later on. Placing your image in a category is as simple as adding the following line to the "description" field:
: <code><nowiki>[[Category:Name of the category]]</nowiki></code>
: A list of available categories can be found under [[:Category:Images]].

=== Documentating templates ===
[[User:Gijs|Gijs]] documentated most [[:Category:Templates|templates]], making use of a global [[Template:Informative template|documentation template]]. The documentation tells you what the template does and how to use it.

=== Feature icons ===
Michat has designed small logos for Aircraft of the Month, [[Dual Control]], [[Bombable]], [[Soaring]], [[Howto:_Do_aerotow_over_the_net|Aerotow]] and [[:Category:Aerospace|Aerospace]] aircraft, allowing you to see at a glance which aircraft has some of those interesting features.

[[File:Dualcontrolready2.png|Dual_control]] [[File:BombableReady.png|Bombable]] [[File:Aerotowready.png|Doing aerotow over the net]] [[File:Thermalready.png|Soaring]] [[File:Spacetripready.png|Aerospace]]
[[File:Aircraftofthemonth.png|IAR80]].

===New articles===
<DynamicArticleList>
type=new
count=10
</DynamicArticleList>
===New aircraft articles===
<DynamicArticleList>
type=new
count=10
categoryRoot=Aircraft
</DynamicArticleList>
===Most popular newsletters===
<DynamicArticleList>
type=hot
count=5
categoryRoot=FlightGear Newsletter
</DynamicArticleList>

== Community news ==
=== FlightGear on FSBreak ===
Two of FlightGear's developers, Stuart and Curt were interviewed on one of this month's episodes of [http://www.fsbreak.net FSBreak], recorded on 25th February. FSBreak is a flight simulator podcast that discusses recent flight sim developments and reviews. The hosts, Eric and Brendan, spent almost an hour taking about the project with Curt and Stuart. While most of the content won't be new to readers of this newsletter, it was a great way to promote FlightGear 2.6.0 to the wider flight simulation community.

=== FlightGear on YouTube ===
* [http://youtu.be/hBEaOMzBq6E KSFO Thermal Demo] by MD-BFC Going on their way for Bocian certification
* [http://youtu.be/-yI5PzC5RE8 Sukhoi 37 'The russian dream'] by Águilas de FlightGear performing "Balalaika amok" master tune by Aleksei Arkhipovsky.

=== New tutorials and screencasts ===
=== Forum news ===
Triggered by the new release, we've had more [http://flightgear.org/forums forum] visitors then ever before in the week of 19-25 February! 17,123 people visited the forum in these seven days to be precise. When looking at "unique visitors", only 13-19 February 2011 was a bussier week (9548 against 9076 visitors) (a possible reason for the high number might be that people expected 2.2.0 to be released, which was canceled).

=== Multiplayer ===
=== 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]].

=== Call for volunteers ===
* The [[OpenRadar]] project is looking for a new maintainer.
* The [[FGFSPM]] (FlightGear Package Manager) is looking for a new maintainer.

=== Did you know ===
...that you can use expressions to create complex animations of objects in your 3d models or even drive them from multiple properties?
Usually, an animation looks like this
<syntaxhighlight lang="xml">
<animation>
<type>translate</type>
<property>foo/bar</property>
[..]more elements[..]
</animation>
</syntaxhighlight>
You can add a scaling factor or an offset to it, but that's basically all you can do that way.
If you want to animate your object following a complex function, most people create complex Nasal scripts to compute the driving properties, probably not knowing that there is another way to achieve the goal: Expressions.
Here is an example for a translate animation depending on two properties and the cosine function
<syntaxhighlight lang="xml">
<animation>
<type>translate</type>
<expression>
<product>
<property>/my/factor-property</property>
<cos>
<deg2rad>
<property>/my/angular-property</property>
</deg2rad>
</cos>
</product>
</expression>
[..]more elements[..]
</animation>
</syntaxhighlight>
A rich set of predefined functions is available, including almost all those you have on your scientific pocket calculator.

[[Category:FlightGear Newsletter|2012 02]]

FlightGear Newsletter February 2012

2012-02-27T20:47:46Z

Fgphotoscenery: /* Photographic scenery */

{{draft|newsletter|Feel free to contribute! Or [[FlightGear Newsletter January 2012|read the latest edition]].}}
{{newsletter}}
{{TOC_right|limit=2}}

''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.''

== FlightGear 2.6.0 released ==
Following our [[release plan]], version 2.6.0 of our simulator has been released. Please check the [[changelog 2.6.0]] for what has changed since our last release 6 months ago.

== Development news ==

=== Heads up: Project Rembrandt ===
As many of you may have heard already, Fred is currently making huge progress on adding shadows to FlightGear in [[Project Rembrandt]]. Now, F-JJTH ported the P92 to use the new system and posted a youtube video demonstrating [[Project Rembrandt]] at work. To provide feedback, please check out the the [http://flightgear.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=47&t=14883 forum thread].

{|
|{{#ev:youtube|v02phoOqWHE|400|Project Rembrandt at work}}
|[[File:Project-rembrandt-cockpit-lighting.png|600px|Cockpit lighting in Project Rembrandt at work (by F-JJTH)]]
|}

== Interview with a contributor (Christian Schmitt) ==
''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?
Acording to my mail correspondence it must have been in 2007/2008 when I became an active part. I was unsatisfied with the state of EDDF in the FG scenery (no buildings, lightpoles everywhere), so I teamed up with a guy who had already started some work there. I ended up creating all of the terminal buildings and improving the airport layout. In those days, noone was flying there. This changed in the months afterwards, which was a big boost of motivation, too.
* What are your major interests in FlightGear?
My main interest is clearly the scenery and technology connected with it, like GIS. I started to create some custom scenery, like Helgoland, and after I was granted direct access to the mapserver database, I was able to proxy-commit other peoples work, which followed. IMHO, the best FDM or aircraft models are useless if you don't have a nice place to fly, takeoff and land :) So this area is what motivates me the most.
* 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 [http://code.google.com/p/flightgear-bugs/ 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 [http://flightgear.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=10488&p=144233&hilit=snapshot#p144233 at the forum].

== 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 [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0ApzphjA4w05ndF94Y2F0bzJTbHQ5QTJXZXJRcUVRbWc&hl=en_US 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.

=== A new instrument: Vertical Situation Display ===
[[File:Omega95-vsd-instrument.jpeg|200px|thumb|Omega95's VSD instrument]]
Omega95 has created an entirely new instrument type for FlightGear, a so called Vertical Situation Display (VSD).

This was done entirely in scripting space using Nasal and XML animations. He's basically proven everbody wrong who ever claimed that complex instruments couldn't yet be created in scripting space. Apparently, he managed to create this instrument in less than 24 hrs. His first question related to this was about accessing trigonometric functions from Nasal, shortly thereafter he posted screen shots depicting his VSD.

To read up on the whole discussion, please see [http://flightgear.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=15200 the forum topic]. There's work ongoing to turn his project into a new tutorial for the wiki on creating complex instruments in scripting space: [[Howto: Implement a Vertical Situation Display in Nasal]].

=== Glider winch launching ropes ===
[[File:DG-101G_winch_launch_with_rope.png|thumb|200px|A DG-101G during a winch launch.]]
Before now, FlightGear never showed ropes during winch launching. However, now, you will no longer have to fly gliders while being pulled by some invisible connection between you and the winch.

[[User:Gijs|Gijs]] started working on an animated 3D rope, attached to the glider and winch. The cable exist of the following parts:

* '''Strop''' (3 m) attached to the glider with a ring.
* '''Weak link assembly''' designed to break apart before the cable or any other equipment fails.
* '''Trace''' (17 m)
* '''Parachute''' so the cable doesn't drop too quickly after releasing.
* '''Launch cable''' the longest part; all the way to the winch.

=== New aircraft ===
==== Hawker Siddeley Harrier GR.1 ====
[[File:Harrier-GR1 Splash.png|thumb|200px|Harrier GR.1 splash screen]]
[[Hawker Siddeley Harrier GR1]] is a private project by pjedvaj, it was not intended to replace or update the existing [[British Aerospace Harrier]]. It has a detailed 3D model complete with a cockpit, animations and RAF livery. Instruments and HUD are also fairly authentic. The aircraft has working ADEN guns and basic fuel and weight control. The FDM is adapted from the original BAe Harrier, but internal and external fuel tank capacities are modified to match the GR.1 version.

==== Boeing-Sikorsky RAH-66 Commanche ====
[[File:RAH-66 splash.png|thumb|200px|RAH-66 splash screen]]
[[Boeing-Sikorsky RAH-66 Commanche]] was started as a [[Bounty/RAH-66 Comanche|bounty]] by sgofferj and developed by pjedvaj but I later withdraw from the bounty. This was my first helicopter project and FDM development is curently in stub (RAH-66 is using adapted FDM from Tatsuhiro Nishioka's [[Kawasaki OH-1]]). It has a detailed 3D model, animations and two liveries used to present different variants of RAH-66. Helicopter has a working XM301 cannon controled by joystick and basic weight control for armament in internal bays. AFCS includes SAS, CAS and Auto Hover. You're free to continue the development to fully claim the bounty.

=== Updated aircraft ===
==== Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner ====
[[File:boeing-787-8-splash.png|thumb|200px|The Boeing 787-8 Splash Screen]]
The Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner has already been there in FlightGear for a very long time -it has been in the FG official hangar since version 1.0.
However, it was created while the 787 was still a prototype aircraft; it did not correctly show many of the 787's actual features like a realistic glass cockpit and accurate instruments.

The new/updated Boeing 787-8 is a community project that features new JSBSim flight dynamics, Vertical Navigation, a realistic 787 glass cockpit, new CDUs, Electronic Flight Bags, TCAS, advanced Nav Displays, [[Howto:_Implement_a_Vertical_Situation_Display_in_Nasal|Vertical Situation Display]], [[Howto:_Implement_a_Fly-By-Wire_System_for_Airliners|Fly-by-wire]] and a lot of other neat features. It has not exactly been completed and the project is still running.

You can find out more about the Boeing 787-8 Project HERE or wait for a while till a wiki page is created for it. One of the really good points of this project is how most of our findings and resources have been converted into Wiki HowTos for other aircraft developers to use for their projects.

==== Cessna 337G Skymaster ====
[[File:Cessna337-cockpit.png|thumb|200px|General view of the new Cessna 337G Skymaster cockpit]]
The [[Cessna 337G Skymaster]] from the Spain-Latinamerica "Vive FlightGear" factory have received a major update.

The new cockpit is now totally modelled, almost buttons and knobs are functional, animated, and properly labeled for easy identification.

New custom sounds, lights, controls, a Bendix/King avionics pack capable of full IFR and night navigation, 2 new HQ liveries and the first FlightGear's working [[ELT]] (Emergency Locator Transmitter) are part of this great improvement on a FlightGear aircraft.

=== Liveries ===

== Scenery corner ==
=== 3D-Model contributors: please read ===
A (long) time ago, specific instructions were given on how to contribute with 3D-models designing withing FG. That is: I want to create nice 3D models for my airport, submit them to the central database, and have them shipped back through Terrasync.
However, it appears that quite a lot of users are still not aware of those guidelines, and sometimes learn about their existence after having created their models.
So please, take some time to (re)read them, and inform the people around you who would like to contribute about the existence of those guidelines. This will save you extra time (and your models will be quickly inserted within the database) and this will also save the (precious) times of the poor guy(s) validating all the models at the other end.
So, here they are: http://scenemodels.flightgear.org/contribute.php .
We also remind you that, to add, edit or delete shared model positions (apart from mass import (that is if you have more than let's say 10 lines to add), you should use our webtools at http://scenemodels.flightgear.org/submission/ .

=== Object-masking and improved materials ===
For a long time, FlightGear has had the ability to place random objects on the scenery. Previously, these objects were placed completely randomly based on a specific density for the material, defined in materials.xml. This didn't look particularly realistic as the placement never matched the underlying texture. Now object and trees can be placed using a "mask", so buildings will only appear where the texture shows buildings, and trees only in green spaces. Additionally, placement is controlled so that random buildings won't overlap with other random buildings, and buildings don't overlap onto adjacent piece of scenery. This makes the random objects appear more realistic, and moves FG one step closer to the auto-gen scenery of MSFS and X-Plane. Further details can be found in fgdata/Docs/README.materials.

In addition to this, the materials.xml and materials-dds.xml files have been restructured to make them more maintainable, fixing a number of bugs in the process.

=== Shanghai Skylines: FG's New (not-so-)Hidden Gem ===
Shanghai is one of the biggest city in China and is among the cities with the most number of skyscrapers -this is now also true for FlightGear.
21 models were created over the past few months by JVC, who also modeled the Akashi-Kaikyo Bridge in Japan and the United Nations building in New York.
{|
|[[File:SH fgfs-screen-001.png|250px|thumb|A view of the Shanghai skyline]]
|[[File:Shanghai003.png|250px|thumb|Another view of Shanghai]]
|[[File:Shanghai007.png|250px|thumb|A closer view from near the Shanghai Stock Exchange]]
|}

=== New textures for container ship and freighter AI models ===
[[File:Ships-comparison.png|200px|thumb|right|Comparison between untextured and textured AI ships (by Cristian Marchi)]]
Starting from a hi-res panorama that he made, user Cristian Marchi (aka penta) provided new skins for the two AI ships that populates seas in flightgear. More info on the [http://www.flightgear.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=14856 forum thread].

=== Photographic scenery ===
Photographic scenery for selected places in the US is now available at http://fgphotoscenery.square7.ch . The covered regions currently include San Francisco Bay, Yosemite NP, Grand Canyon NP, Lake Powell, Sedona, Miami, Everglades NP and Key Largo. The scenery has been created from the public domain imagery courtesy of the [http://www.usgs.org U.S. Geological Survey], has a resolution of about 3m/pixel (10ft/pixel) and is released under the GNU General Public Licence (GPL). In total, more than 1.3GB of imagery are ready for download. Videos of UFO flights through the photographic senery are available in the [http://fgphotoscenery.square7.ch#gallery gallery].

In order to be able to load the photographic scenery into flightgear, the program has to be compiled from source and the patch developed by Benoît Laniel for the Brest photographic scenery has to be applied. Step-by-step [http://fgphotoscenery.square7.ch#installation installation instructions] for this process are provided.

Discussions about fgphotoscenery take place this [http://www.flightgear.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=15174 forum thread].

[[File:fgphotoscenery_gallery.jpg]]

=== Airports ===

== Aircraft of the month ==
== Airport of the month ==
[[File:LFRJ.png|800px]]

[[Landivisiau Naval Air Base|Base d'aéronautique navale de Landivisiau]] (LFRJ) is set in the middle of some amazing scenery. Anyone that wants to try [[VFR]] flight should start here in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bretagne Bretagne], France. Memorise the scenery, the churches, the power lines, map them and find your way back easy. It's amazing here. The airfield is home to aircraft that belong on the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Naval_Aviation seas] that is why you will see two arresting cables over the runway, don't trip over them. The airfield also holds a EH101 Merlin helicopter (or is it a Westland Lynx?), a perfect modelled tower, the warehouses and all the shelters to protect the Rafale and the SEM attack aircraft.

== Screenshot of the month ==

[[File: Lightfield-1.1-14.jpg | 800px]]

A P-51D flying at 20.000 ft over Juneau (Alaska) at dawn using lightfield shaders to render the sunrise (see [http://www.flightgear.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=47&t=14755 here] for the shader package for download).

== Suggested flights ==
===Copacabana to San Rafael over Lake Titicaca===
Bolivia to Peru. This trip will lead you over one of the highest and deepest lakes in the world towards the highest airfield in the world. It a demonstration of a [[IFR]] flight towards a fix and a demonstration how accurate FlightGear simulates air density and the effects it has on aircraft.
[[File:Slcc-sprf.jpg|thumb|200px|left|Flight and fix SLCC to SPRF]]
Place your aircraft on the airfield [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copacabana,_Bolivia SLCC, Copacabana], with an [[elevation]] of 12,592 feet. FlightGear will show snow all around you but that is not very realistic so let's clean up. View=> Rendering Options=> Snow line=> Set to max. (5,000M).

We will fly towards and land at SPRF. If you would enter SLCC and SPRF in [[Kelpie]] planner you probably would not be able to find SPRF. To find SPRF I am adding an additional VOR-DME station and for a good fix give you another VOR-DME. Try Kelpie planner to plan this route and compare with this suggestion.

Equipment preparation. Set [[NAV1]] to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juliaca Juliaca] VOR-DME on 155.55 with a radial of 311° (magnetic). Set [[NAV2]] to Arequipa VOR-DME on 113.7 with a radial of 212°. During our flight we will fly with [[true altitude]] as set with [[QNH]], keep QNH updated. Arm the autopilot with the [[heading bug]] at 311° and an initial altitude of 13,500 feet.

Take off and if you took the wrong RW pull up hard. Take a small tour over [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titicaca lake Titicaca], see the floating islands and try to find the lost golden treasure. Intercept the nearest radial on NAV1 towards Juliaca (about 311°).

Just before Juliaca is a hill so while on lake Titicaca increase altitude to 14,200 feet, the [[VFR]] part of this trip is over. After passing Juliaca set the radial of NAV1 to 352° and set the altitude to 17,422 feet. We will fly from NAV1 and slowly increase altitude.

At a distance of about 60 NM set the heading bug on the current course. Monitor the distance to NAV1, the radial of NAV2 and the distance to NAV2. At a distance of 74.5 NM to NAV1, a distance of 140.7 NM and at the '''radial''' intercept of NAV2 should be the runway. So, from 60 NM onwards, look outside the window, then at NAV1 and then NAV2 etc.

If you are at 80NM to NAV1 you have missed the airfield but you still won't hit any hills (unless you bank left). Bank right and set the heading bug to 172°. Fly back towards NAV1 and intercept the radial 352° at about 50NM again to repeat the search.

The runway SPRF, San Rafael, has a elevation of 14,422 feet and a heading of 297°/ 117°. Our initial altitude has been set 3,000NM above the RW elevation. That should give sufficient room for navigation.

After you have seen the airfield set the radial of NAV1 to 297°, the heading of the runway (not the course to the runway) as a visual aid. Land on RW 30 (and not on RW 12 unless you are a show-off). Oh, there is a small hill in front of RW 30, just so you know.

Decreasing speed at this altitude can be a bit tricky. The air is thin and does not give much resistance. Next to that, the difference between [[indicated airspeed]] and [[ground speed]] is very noticeable. The ground speed is much higher as the indicated airspeed.

After a successful landing, try to discover the [[Suggested_Flights#Origin_of_the_Amazon_River | origin of the Amazon river]] since we are now at the starting point of that trip.

*More places you can visit can be found at [[Suggested Flights]].

== Aircraft reviews ==

== Wiki updates ==
=== Categorizing images ===
[[User:Johan G|Johan G]] did a great job starting to categorise all images. The sub-categories are listed under [[:Category:Images]].

Please keep the following things in mind when uploading images:
* Give the file a descriptive name. That'll make it easier for others to find your file and use it in articles.
* Categorize your image right when you upload it. That saves others from digging up uncatigorized images later on. Placing your image in a category is as simple as adding the following line to the "description" field:
: <code><nowiki>[[Category:Name of the category]]</nowiki></code>
: A list of available categories can be found under [[:Category:Images]].

=== Documentating templates ===
[[User:Gijs|Gijs]] documentated most [[:Category:Templates|templates]], making use of a global [[Template:Informative template|documentation template]]. The documentation tells you what the template does and how to use it.

=== Feature icons ===
Michat has designed small logos for Aircraft of the Month, [[Dual Control]], [[Bombable]], [[Soaring]], [[Howto:_Do_aerotow_over_the_net|Aerotow]] and [[:Category:Aerospace|Aerospace]] aircraft, allowing you to see at a glance which aircraft has some of those interesting features.

[[File:Dualcontrolready2.png|Dual_control]] [[File:BombableReady.png|Bombable]] [[File:Aerotowready.png|Doing aerotow over the net]] [[File:Thermalready.png|Soaring]] [[File:Spacetripready.png|Aerospace]]
[[File:Aircraftofthemonth.png|IAR80]].

===New articles===
<DynamicArticleList>
type=new
count=10
</DynamicArticleList>
===New aircraft articles===
<DynamicArticleList>
type=new
count=10
categoryRoot=Aircraft
</DynamicArticleList>
===Most popular newsletters===
<DynamicArticleList>
type=hot
count=5
categoryRoot=FlightGear Newsletter
</DynamicArticleList>

== Community news ==
=== FlightGear on FSBreak ===
Two of FlightGear's developers, Stuart and Curt were interviewed on one of this month's episodes of [http://www.fsbreak.net FSBreak], recorded on 25th February. FSBreak is a flight simulator podcast that discusses recent flight sim developments and reviews. The hosts, Eric and Brendan, spent almost an hour taking about the project with Curt and Stuart. While most of the content won't be new to readers of this newsletter, it was a great way to promote FlightGear 2.6.0 to the wider flight simulation community.

=== FlightGear on YouTube ===
* [http://youtu.be/hBEaOMzBq6E KSFO Thermal Demo] by MD-BFC Going on their way for Bocian certification
* [http://youtu.be/-yI5PzC5RE8 Sukhoi 37 'The russian dream'] by Águilas de FlightGear performing "Balalaika amok" master tune by Aleksei Arkhipovsky.

=== New tutorials and screencasts ===
=== Forum news ===
Triggered by the new release, we've had more [http://flightgear.org/forums forum] visitors then ever before in the week of 19-25 February! 17,123 people visited the forum in these seven days to be precise. When looking at "unique visitors", only 13-19 February 2011 was a bussier week (9548 against 9076 visitors) (a possible reason for the high number might be that people expected 2.2.0 to be released, which was canceled).

=== Multiplayer ===
=== 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]].

=== Call for volunteers ===
* The [[OpenRadar]] project is looking for a new maintainer.
* The [[FGFSPM]] (FlightGear Package Manager) is looking for a new maintainer.

=== Did you know ===
...that you can use expressions to create complex animations of objects in your 3d models or even drive them from multiple properties?
Usually, an animation looks like this
<syntaxhighlight lang="xml">
<animation>
<type>translate</type>
<property>foo/bar</property>
[..]more elements[..]
</animation>
</syntaxhighlight>
You can add a scaling factor or an offset to it, but that's basically all you can do that way.
If you want to animate your object following a complex function, most people create complex Nasal scripts to compute the driving properties, probably not knowing that there is another way to achieve the goal: Expressions.
Here is an example for a translate animation depending on two properties and the cosine function
<syntaxhighlight lang="xml">
<animation>
<type>translate</type>
<expression>
<product>
<property>/my/factor-property</property>
<cos>
<deg2rad>
<property>/my/angular-property</property>
</deg2rad>
</cos>
</product>
</expression>
[..]more elements[..]
</animation>
</syntaxhighlight>
A rich set of predefined functions is available, including almost all those you have on your scientific pocket calculator.

[[Category:FlightGear Newsletter|2012 02]]

FlightGear Newsletter February 2012

2012-02-27T20:39:01Z

Fgphotoscenery: /* Photographic scenery */

{{draft|newsletter|Feel free to contribute! Or [[FlightGear Newsletter January 2012|read the latest edition]].}}
{{newsletter}}
{{TOC_right|limit=2}}

''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.''

== FlightGear 2.6.0 released ==
Following our [[release plan]], version 2.6.0 of our simulator has been released. Please check the [[changelog 2.6.0]] for what has changed since our last release 6 months ago.

== Development news ==

=== Heads up: Project Rembrandt ===
As many of you may have heard already, Fred is currently making huge progress on adding shadows to FlightGear in [[Project Rembrandt]]. Now, F-JJTH ported the P92 to use the new system and posted a youtube video demonstrating [[Project Rembrandt]] at work. To provide feedback, please check out the the [http://flightgear.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=47&t=14883 forum thread].

{|
|{{#ev:youtube|v02phoOqWHE|400|Project Rembrandt at work}}
|[[File:Project-rembrandt-cockpit-lighting.png|600px|Cockpit lighting in Project Rembrandt at work (by F-JJTH)]]
|}

== Interview with a contributor (Christian Schmitt) ==
''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?
Acording to my mail correspondence it must have been in 2007/2008 when I became an active part. I was unsatisfied with the state of EDDF in the FG scenery (no buildings, lightpoles everywhere), so I teamed up with a guy who had already started some work there. I ended up creating all of the terminal buildings and improving the airport layout. In those days, noone was flying there. This changed in the months afterwards, which was a big boost of motivation, too.
* What are your major interests in FlightGear?
My main interest is clearly the scenery and technology connected with it, like GIS. I started to create some custom scenery, like Helgoland, and after I was granted direct access to the mapserver database, I was able to proxy-commit other peoples work, which followed. IMHO, the best FDM or aircraft models are useless if you don't have a nice place to fly, takeoff and land :) So this area is what motivates me the most.
* 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 [http://code.google.com/p/flightgear-bugs/ 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 [http://flightgear.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=10488&p=144233&hilit=snapshot#p144233 at the forum].

== 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 [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0ApzphjA4w05ndF94Y2F0bzJTbHQ5QTJXZXJRcUVRbWc&hl=en_US 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.

=== A new instrument: Vertical Situation Display ===
[[File:Omega95-vsd-instrument.jpeg|200px|thumb|Omega95's VSD instrument]]
Omega95 has created an entirely new instrument type for FlightGear, a so called Vertical Situation Display (VSD).

This was done entirely in scripting space using Nasal and XML animations. He's basically proven everbody wrong who ever claimed that complex instruments couldn't yet be created in scripting space. Apparently, he managed to create this instrument in less than 24 hrs. His first question related to this was about accessing trigonometric functions from Nasal, shortly thereafter he posted screen shots depicting his VSD.

To read up on the whole discussion, please see [http://flightgear.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=15200 the forum topic]. There's work ongoing to turn his project into a new tutorial for the wiki on creating complex instruments in scripting space: [[Howto: Implement a Vertical Situation Display in Nasal]].

=== Glider winch launching ropes ===
[[File:DG-101G_winch_launch_with_rope.png|thumb|200px|A DG-101G during a winch launch.]]
Before now, FlightGear never showed ropes during winch launching. However, now, you will no longer have to fly gliders while being pulled by some invisible connection between you and the winch.

[[User:Gijs|Gijs]] started working on an animated 3D rope, attached to the glider and winch. The cable exist of the following parts:

* '''Strop''' (3 m) attached to the glider with a ring.
* '''Weak link assembly''' designed to break apart before the cable or any other equipment fails.
* '''Trace''' (17 m)
* '''Parachute''' so the cable doesn't drop too quickly after releasing.
* '''Launch cable''' the longest part; all the way to the winch.

=== New aircraft ===
==== Hawker Siddeley Harrier GR.1 ====
[[File:Harrier-GR1 Splash.png|thumb|200px|Harrier GR.1 splash screen]]
[[Hawker Siddeley Harrier GR1]] is a private project by pjedvaj, it was not intended to replace or update the existing [[British Aerospace Harrier]]. It has a detailed 3D model complete with a cockpit, animations and RAF livery. Instruments and HUD are also fairly authentic. The aircraft has working ADEN guns and basic fuel and weight control. The FDM is adapted from the original BAe Harrier, but internal and external fuel tank capacities are modified to match the GR.1 version.

==== Boeing-Sikorsky RAH-66 Commanche ====
[[File:RAH-66 splash.png|thumb|200px|RAH-66 splash screen]]
[[Boeing-Sikorsky RAH-66 Commanche]] was started as a [[Bounty/RAH-66 Comanche|bounty]] by sgofferj and developed by pjedvaj but I later withdraw from the bounty. This was my first helicopter project and FDM development is curently in stub (RAH-66 is using adapted FDM from Tatsuhiro Nishioka's [[Kawasaki OH-1]]). It has a detailed 3D model, animations and two liveries used to present different variants of RAH-66. Helicopter has a working XM301 cannon controled by joystick and basic weight control for armament in internal bays. AFCS includes SAS, CAS and Auto Hover. You're free to continue the development to fully claim the bounty.

=== Updated aircraft ===
==== Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner ====
[[File:boeing-787-8-splash.png|thumb|200px|The Boeing 787-8 Splash Screen]]
The Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner has already been there in FlightGear for a very long time -it has been in the FG official hangar since version 1.0.
However, it was created while the 787 was still a prototype aircraft; it did not correctly show many of the 787's actual features like a realistic glass cockpit and accurate instruments.

The new/updated Boeing 787-8 is a community project that features new JSBSim flight dynamics, Vertical Navigation, a realistic 787 glass cockpit, new CDUs, Electronic Flight Bags, TCAS, advanced Nav Displays, [[Howto:_Implement_a_Vertical_Situation_Display_in_Nasal|Vertical Situation Display]], [[Howto:_Implement_a_Fly-By-Wire_System_for_Airliners|Fly-by-wire]] and a lot of other neat features. It has not exactly been completed and the project is still running.

You can find out more about the Boeing 787-8 Project HERE or wait for a while till a wiki page is created for it. One of the really good points of this project is how most of our findings and resources have been converted into Wiki HowTos for other aircraft developers to use for their projects.

==== Cessna 337G Skymaster ====
[[File:Cessna337-cockpit.png|thumb|200px|General view of the new Cessna 337G Skymaster cockpit]]
The [[Cessna 337G Skymaster]] from the Spain-Latinamerica "Vive FlightGear" factory have received a major update.

The new cockpit is now totally modelled, almost buttons and knobs are functional, animated, and properly labeled for easy identification.

New custom sounds, lights, controls, a Bendix/King avionics pack capable of full IFR and night navigation, 2 new HQ liveries and the first FlightGear's working [[ELT]] (Emergency Locator Transmitter) are part of this great improvement on a FlightGear aircraft.

=== Liveries ===

== Scenery corner ==
=== 3D-Model contributors: please read ===
A (long) time ago, specific instructions were given on how to contribute with 3D-models designing withing FG. That is: I want to create nice 3D models for my airport, submit them to the central database, and have them shipped back through Terrasync.
However, it appears that quite a lot of users are still not aware of those guidelines, and sometimes learn about their existence after having created their models.
So please, take some time to (re)read them, and inform the people around you who would like to contribute about the existence of those guidelines. This will save you extra time (and your models will be quickly inserted within the database) and this will also save the (precious) times of the poor guy(s) validating all the models at the other end.
So, here they are: http://scenemodels.flightgear.org/contribute.php .
We also remind you that, to add, edit or delete shared model positions (apart from mass import (that is if you have more than let's say 10 lines to add), you should use our webtools at http://scenemodels.flightgear.org/submission/ .

=== Object-masking and improved materials ===
For a long time, FlightGear has had the ability to place random objects on the scenery. Previously, these objects were placed completely randomly based on a specific density for the material, defined in materials.xml. This didn't look particularly realistic as the placement never matched the underlying texture. Now object and trees can be placed using a "mask", so buildings will only appear where the texture shows buildings, and trees only in green spaces. Additionally, placement is controlled so that random buildings won't overlap with other random buildings, and buildings don't overlap onto adjacent piece of scenery. This makes the random objects appear more realistic, and moves FG one step closer to the auto-gen scenery of MSFS and X-Plane. Further details can be found in fgdata/Docs/README.materials.

In addition to this, the materials.xml and materials-dds.xml files have been restructured to make them more maintainable, fixing a number of bugs in the process.

=== Shanghai Skylines: FG's New (not-so-)Hidden Gem ===
Shanghai is one of the biggest city in China and is among the cities with the most number of skyscrapers -this is now also true for FlightGear.
21 models were created over the past few months by JVC, who also modeled the Akashi-Kaikyo Bridge in Japan and the United Nations building in New York.
{|
|[[File:SH fgfs-screen-001.png|250px|thumb|A view of the Shanghai skyline]]
|[[File:Shanghai003.png|250px|thumb|Another view of Shanghai]]
|[[File:Shanghai007.png|250px|thumb|A closer view from near the Shanghai Stock Exchange]]
|}

=== New textures for container ship and freighter AI models ===
[[File:Ships-comparison.png|200px|thumb|right|Comparison between untextured and textured AI ships (by Cristian Marchi)]]
Starting from a hi-res panorama that he made, user Cristian Marchi (aka penta) provided new skins for the two AI ships that populates seas in flightgear. More info on the [http://www.flightgear.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=14856 forum thread].

=== Photographic scenery ===
Photographic scenery for selected places in the US is now available at http://fgphotoscenery.square7.ch . The covered regions currently include San Francisco Bay, Yosemite NP, Grand Canyon NP, Lake Powell, Sedona, Miami, Everglades NP and Key Largo. The scenery has been created from the public domain imagery courtesy of the U.S. Geological Survey http://www.usgs.org, has a resolution of about 3m/pixel (10ft/pixel) and is released under the GNU General Public Licence (GPL). In total, more than 1.3GB of imagery are ready for download. Videos of UFO flights through the photographic senery are available at http://fgphotoscenery.square7.ch#gallery.

In order to be able to load the photographic scenery into flightgear, the program has to be compiled from source and a patch applied. The patch was developed by Benoît Laniel for the Brest photographic scenery. Step-by-step installation instructions can be found at http://fgphotoscenery.square7.ch#installation .

The corresponding thread in the forum is http://www.flightgear.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=15174 .

[[File:fgphotoscenery_gallery.jpg]]

=== Airports ===

== Aircraft of the month ==
== Airport of the month ==
[[File:LFRJ.png|800px]]

[[Landivisiau Naval Air Base|Base d'aéronautique navale de Landivisiau]] (LFRJ) is set in the middle of some amazing scenery. Anyone that wants to try [[VFR]] flight should start here in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bretagne Bretagne], France. Memorise the scenery, the churches, the power lines, map them and find your way back easy. It's amazing here. The airfield is home to aircraft that belong on the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Naval_Aviation seas] that is why you will see two arresting cables over the runway, don't trip over them. The airfield also holds a EH101 Merlin helicopter (or is it a Westland Lynx?), a perfect modelled tower, the warehouses and all the shelters to protect the Rafale and the SEM attack aircraft.

== Screenshot of the month ==

[[File: Lightfield-1.1-14.jpg | 800px]]

A P-51D flying at 20.000 ft over Juneau (Alaska) at dawn using lightfield shaders to render the sunrise (see [http://www.flightgear.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=47&t=14755 here] for the shader package for download).

== Suggested flights ==
===Copacabana to San Rafael over Lake Titicaca===
Bolivia to Peru. This trip will lead you over one of the highest and deepest lakes in the world towards the highest airfield in the world. It a demonstration of a [[IFR]] flight towards a fix and a demonstration how accurate FlightGear simulates air density and the effects it has on aircraft.
[[File:Slcc-sprf.jpg|thumb|200px|left|Flight and fix SLCC to SPRF]]
Place your aircraft on the airfield [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copacabana,_Bolivia SLCC, Copacabana], with an [[elevation]] of 12,592 feet. FlightGear will show snow all around you but that is not very realistic so let's clean up. View=> Rendering Options=> Snow line=> Set to max. (5,000M).

We will fly towards and land at SPRF. If you would enter SLCC and SPRF in [[Kelpie]] planner you probably would not be able to find SPRF. To find SPRF I am adding an additional VOR-DME station and for a good fix give you another VOR-DME. Try Kelpie planner to plan this route and compare with this suggestion.

Equipment preparation. Set [[NAV1]] to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juliaca Juliaca] VOR-DME on 155.55 with a radial of 311° (magnetic). Set [[NAV2]] to Arequipa VOR-DME on 113.7 with a radial of 212°. During our flight we will fly with [[true altitude]] as set with [[QNH]], keep QNH updated. Arm the autopilot with the [[heading bug]] at 311° and an initial altitude of 13,500 feet.

Take off and if you took the wrong RW pull up hard. Take a small tour over [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titicaca lake Titicaca], see the floating islands and try to find the lost golden treasure. Intercept the nearest radial on NAV1 towards Juliaca (about 311°).

Just before Juliaca is a hill so while on lake Titicaca increase altitude to 14,200 feet, the [[VFR]] part of this trip is over. After passing Juliaca set the radial of NAV1 to 352° and set the altitude to 17,422 feet. We will fly from NAV1 and slowly increase altitude.

At a distance of about 60 NM set the heading bug on the current course. Monitor the distance to NAV1, the radial of NAV2 and the distance to NAV2. At a distance of 74.5 NM to NAV1, a distance of 140.7 NM and at the '''radial''' intercept of NAV2 should be the runway. So, from 60 NM onwards, look outside the window, then at NAV1 and then NAV2 etc.

If you are at 80NM to NAV1 you have missed the airfield but you still won't hit any hills (unless you bank left). Bank right and set the heading bug to 172°. Fly back towards NAV1 and intercept the radial 352° at about 50NM again to repeat the search.

The runway SPRF, San Rafael, has a elevation of 14,422 feet and a heading of 297°/ 117°. Our initial altitude has been set 3,000NM above the RW elevation. That should give sufficient room for navigation.

After you have seen the airfield set the radial of NAV1 to 297°, the heading of the runway (not the course to the runway) as a visual aid. Land on RW 30 (and not on RW 12 unless you are a show-off). Oh, there is a small hill in front of RW 30, just so you know.

Decreasing speed at this altitude can be a bit tricky. The air is thin and does not give much resistance. Next to that, the difference between [[indicated airspeed]] and [[ground speed]] is very noticeable. The ground speed is much higher as the indicated airspeed.

After a successful landing, try to discover the [[Suggested_Flights#Origin_of_the_Amazon_River | origin of the Amazon river]] since we are now at the starting point of that trip.

*More places you can visit can be found at [[Suggested Flights]].

== Aircraft reviews ==

== Wiki updates ==
=== Categorizing images ===
[[User:Johan G|Johan G]] did a great job starting to categorise all images. The sub-categories are listed under [[:Category:Images]].

Please keep the following things in mind when uploading images:
* Give the file a descriptive name. That'll make it easier for others to find your file and use it in articles.
* Categorize your image right when you upload it. That saves others from digging up uncatigorized images later on. Placing your image in a category is as simple as adding the following line to the "description" field:
: <code><nowiki>[[Category:Name of the category]]</nowiki></code>
: A list of available categories can be found under [[:Category:Images]].

=== Documentating templates ===
[[User:Gijs|Gijs]] documentated most [[:Category:Templates|templates]], making use of a global [[Template:Informative template|documentation template]]. The documentation tells you what the template does and how to use it.

=== Feature icons ===
Michat has designed small logos for Aircraft of the Month, [[Dual Control]], [[Bombable]], [[Soaring]], [[Howto:_Do_aerotow_over_the_net|Aerotow]] and [[:Category:Aerospace|Aerospace]] aircraft, allowing you to see at a glance which aircraft has some of those interesting features.

[[File:Dualcontrolready2.png|Dual_control]] [[File:BombableReady.png|Bombable]] [[File:Aerotowready.png|Doing aerotow over the net]] [[File:Thermalready.png|Soaring]] [[File:Spacetripready.png|Aerospace]]
[[File:Aircraftofthemonth.png|IAR80]].

===New articles===
<DynamicArticleList>
type=new
count=10
</DynamicArticleList>
===New aircraft articles===
<DynamicArticleList>
type=new
count=10
categoryRoot=Aircraft
</DynamicArticleList>
===Most popular newsletters===
<DynamicArticleList>
type=hot
count=5
categoryRoot=FlightGear Newsletter
</DynamicArticleList>

== Community news ==
=== FlightGear on FSBreak ===
Two of FlightGear's developers, Stuart and Curt were interviewed on one of this month's episodes of [http://www.fsbreak.net FSBreak], recorded on 25th February. FSBreak is a flight simulator podcast that discusses recent flight sim developments and reviews. The hosts, Eric and Brendan, spent almost an hour taking about the project with Curt and Stuart. While most of the content won't be new to readers of this newsletter, it was a great way to promote FlightGear 2.6.0 to the wider flight simulation community.

=== FlightGear on YouTube ===
* [http://youtu.be/hBEaOMzBq6E KSFO Thermal Demo] by MD-BFC Going on their way for Bocian certification
* [http://youtu.be/-yI5PzC5RE8 Sukhoi 37 'The russian dream'] by Águilas de FlightGear performing "Balalaika amok" master tune by Aleksei Arkhipovsky.

=== New tutorials and screencasts ===
=== Forum news ===
Triggered by the new release, we've had more [http://flightgear.org/forums forum] visitors then ever before in the week of 19-25 February! 17,123 people visited the forum in these seven days to be precise. When looking at "unique visitors", only 13-19 February 2011 was a bussier week (9548 against 9076 visitors) (a possible reason for the high number might be that people expected 2.2.0 to be released, which was canceled).

=== Multiplayer ===
=== 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]].

=== Call for volunteers ===
* The [[OpenRadar]] project is looking for a new maintainer.
* The [[FGFSPM]] (FlightGear Package Manager) is looking for a new maintainer.

=== Did you know ===
...that you can use expressions to create complex animations of objects in your 3d models or even drive them from multiple properties?
Usually, an animation looks like this
<syntaxhighlight lang="xml">
<animation>
<type>translate</type>
<property>foo/bar</property>
[..]more elements[..]
</animation>
</syntaxhighlight>
You can add a scaling factor or an offset to it, but that's basically all you can do that way.
If you want to animate your object following a complex function, most people create complex Nasal scripts to compute the driving properties, probably not knowing that there is another way to achieve the goal: Expressions.
Here is an example for a translate animation depending on two properties and the cosine function
<syntaxhighlight lang="xml">
<animation>
<type>translate</type>
<expression>
<product>
<property>/my/factor-property</property>
<cos>
<deg2rad>
<property>/my/angular-property</property>
</deg2rad>
</cos>
</product>
</expression>
[..]more elements[..]
</animation>
</syntaxhighlight>
A rich set of predefined functions is available, including almost all those you have on your scientific pocket calculator.

[[Category:FlightGear Newsletter|2012 02]]

File:Fgphotoscenery gallery.jpg

2012-02-27T20:36:56Z

Fgphotoscenery:

FlightGear Newsletter February 2012

2012-02-27T20:33:32Z

Fgphotoscenery: /* Photographic scenery */

{{draft|newsletter|Feel free to contribute! Or [[FlightGear Newsletter January 2012|read the latest edition]].}}
{{newsletter}}
{{TOC_right|limit=2}}

''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.''

== FlightGear 2.6.0 released ==
Following our [[release plan]], version 2.6.0 of our simulator has been released. Please check the [[changelog 2.6.0]] for what has changed since our last release 6 months ago.

== Development news ==

=== Heads up: Project Rembrandt ===
As many of you may have heard already, Fred is currently making huge progress on adding shadows to FlightGear in [[Project Rembrandt]]. Now, F-JJTH ported the P92 to use the new system and posted a youtube video demonstrating [[Project Rembrandt]] at work. To provide feedback, please check out the the [http://flightgear.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=47&t=14883 forum thread].

{|
|{{#ev:youtube|v02phoOqWHE|400|Project Rembrandt at work}}
|[[File:Project-rembrandt-cockpit-lighting.png|600px|Cockpit lighting in Project Rembrandt at work (by F-JJTH)]]
|}

== Interview with a contributor (Christian Schmitt) ==
''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?
Acording to my mail correspondence it must have been in 2007/2008 when I became an active part. I was unsatisfied with the state of EDDF in the FG scenery (no buildings, lightpoles everywhere), so I teamed up with a guy who had already started some work there. I ended up creating all of the terminal buildings and improving the airport layout. In those days, noone was flying there. This changed in the months afterwards, which was a big boost of motivation, too.
* What are your major interests in FlightGear?
My main interest is clearly the scenery and technology connected with it, like GIS. I started to create some custom scenery, like Helgoland, and after I was granted direct access to the mapserver database, I was able to proxy-commit other peoples work, which followed. IMHO, the best FDM or aircraft models are useless if you don't have a nice place to fly, takeoff and land :) So this area is what motivates me the most.
* 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 [http://code.google.com/p/flightgear-bugs/ 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 [http://flightgear.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=10488&p=144233&hilit=snapshot#p144233 at the forum].

== 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 [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0ApzphjA4w05ndF94Y2F0bzJTbHQ5QTJXZXJRcUVRbWc&hl=en_US 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.

=== A new instrument: Vertical Situation Display ===
[[File:Omega95-vsd-instrument.jpeg|200px|thumb|Omega95's VSD instrument]]
Omega95 has created an entirely new instrument type for FlightGear, a so called Vertical Situation Display (VSD).

This was done entirely in scripting space using Nasal and XML animations. He's basically proven everbody wrong who ever claimed that complex instruments couldn't yet be created in scripting space. Apparently, he managed to create this instrument in less than 24 hrs. His first question related to this was about accessing trigonometric functions from Nasal, shortly thereafter he posted screen shots depicting his VSD.

To read up on the whole discussion, please see [http://flightgear.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=15200 the forum topic]. There's work ongoing to turn his project into a new tutorial for the wiki on creating complex instruments in scripting space: [[Howto: Implement a Vertical Situation Display in Nasal]].

=== Glider winch launching ropes ===
[[File:DG-101G_winch_launch_with_rope.png|thumb|200px|A DG-101G during a winch launch.]]
Before now, FlightGear never showed ropes during winch launching. However, now, you will no longer have to fly gliders while being pulled by some invisible connection between you and the winch.

[[User:Gijs|Gijs]] started working on an animated 3D rope, attached to the glider and winch. The cable exist of the following parts:

* '''Strop''' (3 m) attached to the glider with a ring.
* '''Weak link assembly''' designed to break apart before the cable or any other equipment fails.
* '''Trace''' (17 m)
* '''Parachute''' so the cable doesn't drop too quickly after releasing.
* '''Launch cable''' the longest part; all the way to the winch.

=== New aircraft ===
==== Hawker Siddeley Harrier GR.1 ====
[[File:Harrier-GR1 Splash.png|thumb|200px|Harrier GR.1 splash screen]]
[[Hawker Siddeley Harrier GR1]] is a private project by pjedvaj, it was not intended to replace or update the existing [[British Aerospace Harrier]]. It has a detailed 3D model complete with a cockpit, animations and RAF livery. Instruments and HUD are also fairly authentic. The aircraft has working ADEN guns and basic fuel and weight control. The FDM is adapted from the original BAe Harrier, but internal and external fuel tank capacities are modified to match the GR.1 version.

==== Boeing-Sikorsky RAH-66 Commanche ====
[[File:RAH-66 splash.png|thumb|200px|RAH-66 splash screen]]
[[Boeing-Sikorsky RAH-66 Commanche]] was started as a [[Bounty/RAH-66 Comanche|bounty]] by sgofferj and developed by pjedvaj but I later withdraw from the bounty. This was my first helicopter project and FDM development is curently in stub (RAH-66 is using adapted FDM from Tatsuhiro Nishioka's [[Kawasaki OH-1]]). It has a detailed 3D model, animations and two liveries used to present different variants of RAH-66. Helicopter has a working XM301 cannon controled by joystick and basic weight control for armament in internal bays. AFCS includes SAS, CAS and Auto Hover. You're free to continue the development to fully claim the bounty.

=== Updated aircraft ===
==== Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner ====
[[File:boeing-787-8-splash.png|thumb|200px|The Boeing 787-8 Splash Screen]]
The Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner has already been there in FlightGear for a very long time -it has been in the FG official hangar since version 1.0.
However, it was created while the 787 was still a prototype aircraft; it did not correctly show many of the 787's actual features like a realistic glass cockpit and accurate instruments.

The new/updated Boeing 787-8 is a community project that features new JSBSim flight dynamics, Vertical Navigation, a realistic 787 glass cockpit, new CDUs, Electronic Flight Bags, TCAS, advanced Nav Displays, [[Howto:_Implement_a_Vertical_Situation_Display_in_Nasal|Vertical Situation Display]], [[Howto:_Implement_a_Fly-By-Wire_System_for_Airliners|Fly-by-wire]] and a lot of other neat features. It has not exactly been completed and the project is still running.

You can find out more about the Boeing 787-8 Project HERE or wait for a while till a wiki page is created for it. One of the really good points of this project is how most of our findings and resources have been converted into Wiki HowTos for other aircraft developers to use for their projects.

==== Cessna 337G Skymaster ====
[[File:Cessna337-cockpit.png|thumb|200px|General view of the new Cessna 337G Skymaster cockpit]]
The [[Cessna 337G Skymaster]] from the Spain-Latinamerica "Vive FlightGear" factory have received a major update.

The new cockpit is now totally modelled, almost buttons and knobs are functional, animated, and properly labeled for easy identification.

New custom sounds, lights, controls, a Bendix/King avionics pack capable of full IFR and night navigation, 2 new HQ liveries and the first FlightGear's working [[ELT]] (Emergency Locator Transmitter) are part of this great improvement on a FlightGear aircraft.

=== Liveries ===

== Scenery corner ==
=== 3D-Model contributors: please read ===
A (long) time ago, specific instructions were given on how to contribute with 3D-models designing withing FG. That is: I want to create nice 3D models for my airport, submit them to the central database, and have them shipped back through Terrasync.
However, it appears that quite a lot of users are still not aware of those guidelines, and sometimes learn about their existence after having created their models.
So please, take some time to (re)read them, and inform the people around you who would like to contribute about the existence of those guidelines. This will save you extra time (and your models will be quickly inserted within the database) and this will also save the (precious) times of the poor guy(s) validating all the models at the other end.
So, here they are: http://scenemodels.flightgear.org/contribute.php .
We also remind you that, to add, edit or delete shared model positions (apart from mass import (that is if you have more than let's say 10 lines to add), you should use our webtools at http://scenemodels.flightgear.org/submission/ .

=== Object-masking and improved materials ===
For a long time, FlightGear has had the ability to place random objects on the scenery. Previously, these objects were placed completely randomly based on a specific density for the material, defined in materials.xml. This didn't look particularly realistic as the placement never matched the underlying texture. Now object and trees can be placed using a "mask", so buildings will only appear where the texture shows buildings, and trees only in green spaces. Additionally, placement is controlled so that random buildings won't overlap with other random buildings, and buildings don't overlap onto adjacent piece of scenery. This makes the random objects appear more realistic, and moves FG one step closer to the auto-gen scenery of MSFS and X-Plane. Further details can be found in fgdata/Docs/README.materials.

In addition to this, the materials.xml and materials-dds.xml files have been restructured to make them more maintainable, fixing a number of bugs in the process.

=== Shanghai Skylines: FG's New (not-so-)Hidden Gem ===
Shanghai is one of the biggest city in China and is among the cities with the most number of skyscrapers -this is now also true for FlightGear.
21 models were created over the past few months by JVC, who also modeled the Akashi-Kaikyo Bridge in Japan and the United Nations building in New York.
{|
|[[File:SH fgfs-screen-001.png|250px|thumb|A view of the Shanghai skyline]]
|[[File:Shanghai003.png|250px|thumb|Another view of Shanghai]]
|[[File:Shanghai007.png|250px|thumb|A closer view from near the Shanghai Stock Exchange]]
|}

=== New textures for container ship and freighter AI models ===
[[File:Ships-comparison.png|200px|thumb|right|Comparison between untextured and textured AI ships (by Cristian Marchi)]]
Starting from a hi-res panorama that he made, user Cristian Marchi (aka penta) provided new skins for the two AI ships that populates seas in flightgear. More info on the [http://www.flightgear.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=14856 forum thread].

=== Photographic scenery ===
Photographic scenery for selected places in the US is now available at http://fgphotoscenery.square7.ch . The covered regions currently include San Francisco Bay, Yosemite NP, Grand Canyon NP, Lake Powell, Sedona, Miami, Everglades NP and Key Largo. The scenery has been created from the public domain imagery courtesy of the U.S. Geological Survey http://www.usgs.org, has a resolution of about 3m/pixel (10ft/pixel) and is released under the GNU General Public Licence (GPL). In total, more than 1.3GB of imagery are available. Videos of UFO flights through the photographic senery are available at http://fgphotoscenery.square7.ch#gallery.

In order to be able to load the photographic scenery into flightgear, the program has to be compiled from source and a patch applied. The patch was developed by Benoît Laniel for the Brest photographic scenery. Step-by-step installation instructions can be found at http://fgphotoscenery.square7.ch#installation .

The corresponding thread in the forum is http://www.flightgear.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=15174 .

=== Airports ===

== Aircraft of the month ==
== Airport of the month ==
[[File:LFRJ.png|800px]]

[[Landivisiau Naval Air Base|Base d'aéronautique navale de Landivisiau]] (LFRJ) is set in the middle of some amazing scenery. Anyone that wants to try [[VFR]] flight should start here in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bretagne Bretagne], France. Memorise the scenery, the churches, the power lines, map them and find your way back easy. It's amazing here. The airfield is home to aircraft that belong on the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Naval_Aviation seas] that is why you will see two arresting cables over the runway, don't trip over them. The airfield also holds a EH101 Merlin helicopter (or is it a Westland Lynx?), a perfect modelled tower, the warehouses and all the shelters to protect the Rafale and the SEM attack aircraft.

== Screenshot of the month ==

[[File: Lightfield-1.1-14.jpg | 800px]]

A P-51D flying at 20.000 ft over Juneau (Alaska) at dawn using lightfield shaders to render the sunrise (see [http://www.flightgear.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=47&t=14755 here] for the shader package for download).

== Suggested flights ==
===Copacabana to San Rafael over Lake Titicaca===
Bolivia to Peru. This trip will lead you over one of the highest and deepest lakes in the world towards the highest airfield in the world. It a demonstration of a [[IFR]] flight towards a fix and a demonstration how accurate FlightGear simulates air density and the effects it has on aircraft.
[[File:Slcc-sprf.jpg|thumb|200px|left|Flight and fix SLCC to SPRF]]
Place your aircraft on the airfield [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copacabana,_Bolivia SLCC, Copacabana], with an [[elevation]] of 12,592 feet. FlightGear will show snow all around you but that is not very realistic so let's clean up. View=> Rendering Options=> Snow line=> Set to max. (5,000M).

We will fly towards and land at SPRF. If you would enter SLCC and SPRF in [[Kelpie]] planner you probably would not be able to find SPRF. To find SPRF I am adding an additional VOR-DME station and for a good fix give you another VOR-DME. Try Kelpie planner to plan this route and compare with this suggestion.

Equipment preparation. Set [[NAV1]] to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juliaca Juliaca] VOR-DME on 155.55 with a radial of 311° (magnetic). Set [[NAV2]] to Arequipa VOR-DME on 113.7 with a radial of 212°. During our flight we will fly with [[true altitude]] as set with [[QNH]], keep QNH updated. Arm the autopilot with the [[heading bug]] at 311° and an initial altitude of 13,500 feet.

Take off and if you took the wrong RW pull up hard. Take a small tour over [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titicaca lake Titicaca], see the floating islands and try to find the lost golden treasure. Intercept the nearest radial on NAV1 towards Juliaca (about 311°).

Just before Juliaca is a hill so while on lake Titicaca increase altitude to 14,200 feet, the [[VFR]] part of this trip is over. After passing Juliaca set the radial of NAV1 to 352° and set the altitude to 17,422 feet. We will fly from NAV1 and slowly increase altitude.

At a distance of about 60 NM set the heading bug on the current course. Monitor the distance to NAV1, the radial of NAV2 and the distance to NAV2. At a distance of 74.5 NM to NAV1, a distance of 140.7 NM and at the '''radial''' intercept of NAV2 should be the runway. So, from 60 NM onwards, look outside the window, then at NAV1 and then NAV2 etc.

If you are at 80NM to NAV1 you have missed the airfield but you still won't hit any hills (unless you bank left). Bank right and set the heading bug to 172°. Fly back towards NAV1 and intercept the radial 352° at about 50NM again to repeat the search.

The runway SPRF, San Rafael, has a elevation of 14,422 feet and a heading of 297°/ 117°. Our initial altitude has been set 3,000NM above the RW elevation. That should give sufficient room for navigation.

After you have seen the airfield set the radial of NAV1 to 297°, the heading of the runway (not the course to the runway) as a visual aid. Land on RW 30 (and not on RW 12 unless you are a show-off). Oh, there is a small hill in front of RW 30, just so you know.

Decreasing speed at this altitude can be a bit tricky. The air is thin and does not give much resistance. Next to that, the difference between [[indicated airspeed]] and [[ground speed]] is very noticeable. The ground speed is much higher as the indicated airspeed.

After a successful landing, try to discover the [[Suggested_Flights#Origin_of_the_Amazon_River | origin of the Amazon river]] since we are now at the starting point of that trip.

*More places you can visit can be found at [[Suggested Flights]].

== Aircraft reviews ==

== Wiki updates ==
=== Categorizing images ===
[[User:Johan G|Johan G]] did a great job starting to categorise all images. The sub-categories are listed under [[:Category:Images]].

Please keep the following things in mind when uploading images:
* Give the file a descriptive name. That'll make it easier for others to find your file and use it in articles.
* Categorize your image right when you upload it. That saves others from digging up uncatigorized images later on. Placing your image in a category is as simple as adding the following line to the "description" field:
: <code><nowiki>[[Category:Name of the category]]</nowiki></code>
: A list of available categories can be found under [[:Category:Images]].

=== Documentating templates ===
[[User:Gijs|Gijs]] documentated most [[:Category:Templates|templates]], making use of a global [[Template:Informative template|documentation template]]. The documentation tells you what the template does and how to use it.

=== Feature icons ===
Michat has designed small logos for Aircraft of the Month, [[Dual Control]], [[Bombable]], [[Soaring]], [[Howto:_Do_aerotow_over_the_net|Aerotow]] and [[:Category:Aerospace|Aerospace]] aircraft, allowing you to see at a glance which aircraft has some of those interesting features.

[[File:Dualcontrolready2.png|Dual_control]] [[File:BombableReady.png|Bombable]] [[File:Aerotowready.png|Doing aerotow over the net]] [[File:Thermalready.png|Soaring]] [[File:Spacetripready.png|Aerospace]]
[[File:Aircraftofthemonth.png|IAR80]].

===New articles===
<DynamicArticleList>
type=new
count=10
</DynamicArticleList>
===New aircraft articles===
<DynamicArticleList>
type=new
count=10
categoryRoot=Aircraft
</DynamicArticleList>
===Most popular newsletters===
<DynamicArticleList>
type=hot
count=5
categoryRoot=FlightGear Newsletter
</DynamicArticleList>

== Community news ==
=== FlightGear on FSBreak ===
Two of FlightGear's developers, Stuart and Curt were interviewed on one of this month's episodes of [http://www.fsbreak.net FSBreak], recorded on 25th February. FSBreak is a flight simulator podcast that discusses recent flight sim developments and reviews. The hosts, Eric and Brendan, spent almost an hour taking about the project with Curt and Stuart. While most of the content won't be new to readers of this newsletter, it was a great way to promote FlightGear 2.6.0 to the wider flight simulation community.

=== FlightGear on YouTube ===
* [http://youtu.be/hBEaOMzBq6E KSFO Thermal Demo] by MD-BFC Going on their way for Bocian certification
* [http://youtu.be/-yI5PzC5RE8 Sukhoi 37 'The russian dream'] by Águilas de FlightGear performing "Balalaika amok" master tune by Aleksei Arkhipovsky.

=== New tutorials and screencasts ===
=== Forum news ===
Triggered by the new release, we've had more [http://flightgear.org/forums forum] visitors then ever before in the week of 19-25 February! 17,123 people visited the forum in these seven days to be precise. When looking at "unique visitors", only 13-19 February 2011 was a bussier week (9548 against 9076 visitors) (a possible reason for the high number might be that people expected 2.2.0 to be released, which was canceled).

=== Multiplayer ===
=== 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]].

=== Call for volunteers ===
* The [[OpenRadar]] project is looking for a new maintainer.
* The [[FGFSPM]] (FlightGear Package Manager) is looking for a new maintainer.

=== Did you know ===
...that you can use expressions to create complex animations of objects in your 3d models or even drive them from multiple properties?
Usually, an animation looks like this
<syntaxhighlight lang="xml">
<animation>
<type>translate</type>
<property>foo/bar</property>
[..]more elements[..]
</animation>
</syntaxhighlight>
You can add a scaling factor or an offset to it, but that's basically all you can do that way.
If you want to animate your object following a complex function, most people create complex Nasal scripts to compute the driving properties, probably not knowing that there is another way to achieve the goal: Expressions.
Here is an example for a translate animation depending on two properties and the cosine function
<syntaxhighlight lang="xml">
<animation>
<type>translate</type>
<expression>
<product>
<property>/my/factor-property</property>
<cos>
<deg2rad>
<property>/my/angular-property</property>
</deg2rad>
</cos>
</product>
</expression>
[..]more elements[..]
</animation>
</syntaxhighlight>
A rich set of predefined functions is available, including almost all those you have on your scientific pocket calculator.

[[Category:FlightGear Newsletter|2012 02]]

FlightGear Newsletter February 2012

2012-02-27T20:27:42Z

Fgphotoscenery: /* Scenery corner */

{{draft|newsletter|Feel free to contribute! Or [[FlightGear Newsletter January 2012|read the latest edition]].}}
{{newsletter}}
{{TOC_right|limit=2}}

''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.''

== FlightGear 2.6.0 released ==
Following our [[release plan]], version 2.6.0 of our simulator has been released. Please check the [[changelog 2.6.0]] for what has changed since our last release 6 months ago.

== Development news ==

=== Heads up: Project Rembrandt ===
As many of you may have heard already, Fred is currently making huge progress on adding shadows to FlightGear in [[Project Rembrandt]]. Now, F-JJTH ported the P92 to use the new system and posted a youtube video demonstrating [[Project Rembrandt]] at work. To provide feedback, please check out the the [http://flightgear.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=47&t=14883 forum thread].

{|
|{{#ev:youtube|v02phoOqWHE|400|Project Rembrandt at work}}
|[[File:Project-rembrandt-cockpit-lighting.png|600px|Cockpit lighting in Project Rembrandt at work (by F-JJTH)]]
|}

== Interview with a contributor (Christian Schmitt) ==
''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?
Acording to my mail correspondence it must have been in 2007/2008 when I became an active part. I was unsatisfied with the state of EDDF in the FG scenery (no buildings, lightpoles everywhere), so I teamed up with a guy who had already started some work there. I ended up creating all of the terminal buildings and improving the airport layout. In those days, noone was flying there. This changed in the months afterwards, which was a big boost of motivation, too.
* What are your major interests in FlightGear?
My main interest is clearly the scenery and technology connected with it, like GIS. I started to create some custom scenery, like Helgoland, and after I was granted direct access to the mapserver database, I was able to proxy-commit other peoples work, which followed. IMHO, the best FDM or aircraft models are useless if you don't have a nice place to fly, takeoff and land :) So this area is what motivates me the most.
* 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 [http://code.google.com/p/flightgear-bugs/ 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 [http://flightgear.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=10488&p=144233&hilit=snapshot#p144233 at the forum].

== 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 [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0ApzphjA4w05ndF94Y2F0bzJTbHQ5QTJXZXJRcUVRbWc&hl=en_US 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.

=== A new instrument: Vertical Situation Display ===
[[File:Omega95-vsd-instrument.jpeg|200px|thumb|Omega95's VSD instrument]]
Omega95 has created an entirely new instrument type for FlightGear, a so called Vertical Situation Display (VSD).

This was done entirely in scripting space using Nasal and XML animations. He's basically proven everbody wrong who ever claimed that complex instruments couldn't yet be created in scripting space. Apparently, he managed to create this instrument in less than 24 hrs. His first question related to this was about accessing trigonometric functions from Nasal, shortly thereafter he posted screen shots depicting his VSD.

To read up on the whole discussion, please see [http://flightgear.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=15200 the forum topic]. There's work ongoing to turn his project into a new tutorial for the wiki on creating complex instruments in scripting space: [[Howto: Implement a Vertical Situation Display in Nasal]].

=== Glider winch launching ropes ===
[[File:DG-101G_winch_launch_with_rope.png|thumb|200px|A DG-101G during a winch launch.]]
Before now, FlightGear never showed ropes during winch launching. However, now, you will no longer have to fly gliders while being pulled by some invisible connection between you and the winch.

[[User:Gijs|Gijs]] started working on an animated 3D rope, attached to the glider and winch. The cable exist of the following parts:

* '''Strop''' (3 m) attached to the glider with a ring.
* '''Weak link assembly''' designed to break apart before the cable or any other equipment fails.
* '''Trace''' (17 m)
* '''Parachute''' so the cable doesn't drop too quickly after releasing.
* '''Launch cable''' the longest part; all the way to the winch.

=== New aircraft ===
==== Hawker Siddeley Harrier GR.1 ====
[[File:Harrier-GR1 Splash.png|thumb|200px|Harrier GR.1 splash screen]]
[[Hawker Siddeley Harrier GR1]] is a private project by pjedvaj, it was not intended to replace or update the existing [[British Aerospace Harrier]]. It has a detailed 3D model complete with a cockpit, animations and RAF livery. Instruments and HUD are also fairly authentic. The aircraft has working ADEN guns and basic fuel and weight control. The FDM is adapted from the original BAe Harrier, but internal and external fuel tank capacities are modified to match the GR.1 version.

==== Boeing-Sikorsky RAH-66 Commanche ====
[[File:RAH-66 splash.png|thumb|200px|RAH-66 splash screen]]
[[Boeing-Sikorsky RAH-66 Commanche]] was started as a [[Bounty/RAH-66 Comanche|bounty]] by sgofferj and developed by pjedvaj but I later withdraw from the bounty. This was my first helicopter project and FDM development is curently in stub (RAH-66 is using adapted FDM from Tatsuhiro Nishioka's [[Kawasaki OH-1]]). It has a detailed 3D model, animations and two liveries used to present different variants of RAH-66. Helicopter has a working XM301 cannon controled by joystick and basic weight control for armament in internal bays. AFCS includes SAS, CAS and Auto Hover. You're free to continue the development to fully claim the bounty.

=== Updated aircraft ===
==== Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner ====
[[File:boeing-787-8-splash.png|thumb|200px|The Boeing 787-8 Splash Screen]]
The Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner has already been there in FlightGear for a very long time -it has been in the FG official hangar since version 1.0.
However, it was created while the 787 was still a prototype aircraft; it did not correctly show many of the 787's actual features like a realistic glass cockpit and accurate instruments.

The new/updated Boeing 787-8 is a community project that features new JSBSim flight dynamics, Vertical Navigation, a realistic 787 glass cockpit, new CDUs, Electronic Flight Bags, TCAS, advanced Nav Displays, [[Howto:_Implement_a_Vertical_Situation_Display_in_Nasal|Vertical Situation Display]], [[Howto:_Implement_a_Fly-By-Wire_System_for_Airliners|Fly-by-wire]] and a lot of other neat features. It has not exactly been completed and the project is still running.

You can find out more about the Boeing 787-8 Project HERE or wait for a while till a wiki page is created for it. One of the really good points of this project is how most of our findings and resources have been converted into Wiki HowTos for other aircraft developers to use for their projects.

==== Cessna 337G Skymaster ====
[[File:Cessna337-cockpit.png|thumb|200px|General view of the new Cessna 337G Skymaster cockpit]]
The [[Cessna 337G Skymaster]] from the Spain-Latinamerica "Vive FlightGear" factory have received a major update.

The new cockpit is now totally modelled, almost buttons and knobs are functional, animated, and properly labeled for easy identification.

New custom sounds, lights, controls, a Bendix/King avionics pack capable of full IFR and night navigation, 2 new HQ liveries and the first FlightGear's working [[ELT]] (Emergency Locator Transmitter) are part of this great improvement on a FlightGear aircraft.

=== Liveries ===

== Scenery corner ==
=== 3D-Model contributors: please read ===
A (long) time ago, specific instructions were given on how to contribute with 3D-models designing withing FG. That is: I want to create nice 3D models for my airport, submit them to the central database, and have them shipped back through Terrasync.
However, it appears that quite a lot of users are still not aware of those guidelines, and sometimes learn about their existence after having created their models.
So please, take some time to (re)read them, and inform the people around you who would like to contribute about the existence of those guidelines. This will save you extra time (and your models will be quickly inserted within the database) and this will also save the (precious) times of the poor guy(s) validating all the models at the other end.
So, here they are: http://scenemodels.flightgear.org/contribute.php .
We also remind you that, to add, edit or delete shared model positions (apart from mass import (that is if you have more than let's say 10 lines to add), you should use our webtools at http://scenemodels.flightgear.org/submission/ .

=== Object-masking and improved materials ===
For a long time, FlightGear has had the ability to place random objects on the scenery. Previously, these objects were placed completely randomly based on a specific density for the material, defined in materials.xml. This didn't look particularly realistic as the placement never matched the underlying texture. Now object and trees can be placed using a "mask", so buildings will only appear where the texture shows buildings, and trees only in green spaces. Additionally, placement is controlled so that random buildings won't overlap with other random buildings, and buildings don't overlap onto adjacent piece of scenery. This makes the random objects appear more realistic, and moves FG one step closer to the auto-gen scenery of MSFS and X-Plane. Further details can be found in fgdata/Docs/README.materials.

In addition to this, the materials.xml and materials-dds.xml files have been restructured to make them more maintainable, fixing a number of bugs in the process.

=== Shanghai Skylines: FG's New (not-so-)Hidden Gem ===
Shanghai is one of the biggest city in China and is among the cities with the most number of skyscrapers -this is now also true for FlightGear.
21 models were created over the past few months by JVC, who also modeled the Akashi-Kaikyo Bridge in Japan and the United Nations building in New York.
{|
|[[File:SH fgfs-screen-001.png|250px|thumb|A view of the Shanghai skyline]]
|[[File:Shanghai003.png|250px|thumb|Another view of Shanghai]]
|[[File:Shanghai007.png|250px|thumb|A closer view from near the Shanghai Stock Exchange]]
|}

=== New textures for container ship and freighter AI models ===
[[File:Ships-comparison.png|200px|thumb|right|Comparison between untextured and textured AI ships (by Cristian Marchi)]]
Starting from a hi-res panorama that he made, user Cristian Marchi (aka penta) provided new skins for the two AI ships that populates seas in flightgear. More info on the [http://www.flightgear.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=14856 forum thread].

=== Photographic scenery ===
Photographic scenery for selected places in the US is now available at http://fgphotoscenery.square7.ch/ . The covered regions currently include San Francisco Bay, Yosemite NP, Grand Canyon NP, Lake Powell, Sedona, Miami, Everglades NP and Key Largo. The scenery has been created from the public domain imagery courtesy of the U.S. Geological Survey www.usgs.org, has a resolution of about 3m/pixel (10ft/pixel) and is released under the GNU General Public Licence (GPL). In total, more than 1.3GB of imagery are available. Videos of UFO flights through the photographic senery are available at http://fgphotoscenery.square7.ch/gallery/.

In order to be able to load the photographic scenery into flightgear, the program has to be compiled from source and a patch applied. The patch was developed by Benoit Laniel for the Brest photographic scenery. Step by step installation instructions can be found at http://fgphotoscenery.square7.ch/installation/ .

=== Airports ===

== Aircraft of the month ==
== Airport of the month ==
[[File:LFRJ.png|800px]]

[[Landivisiau Naval Air Base|Base d'aéronautique navale de Landivisiau]] (LFRJ) is set in the middle of some amazing scenery. Anyone that wants to try [[VFR]] flight should start here in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bretagne Bretagne], France. Memorise the scenery, the churches, the power lines, map them and find your way back easy. It's amazing here. The airfield is home to aircraft that belong on the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Naval_Aviation seas] that is why you will see two arresting cables over the runway, don't trip over them. The airfield also holds a EH101 Merlin helicopter (or is it a Westland Lynx?), a perfect modelled tower, the warehouses and all the shelters to protect the Rafale and the SEM attack aircraft.

== Screenshot of the month ==

[[File: Lightfield-1.1-14.jpg | 800px]]

A P-51D flying at 20.000 ft over Juneau (Alaska) at dawn using lightfield shaders to render the sunrise (see [http://www.flightgear.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=47&t=14755 here] for the shader package for download).

== Suggested flights ==
===Copacabana to San Rafael over Lake Titicaca===
Bolivia to Peru. This trip will lead you over one of the highest and deepest lakes in the world towards the highest airfield in the world. It a demonstration of a [[IFR]] flight towards a fix and a demonstration how accurate FlightGear simulates air density and the effects it has on aircraft.
[[File:Slcc-sprf.jpg|thumb|200px|left|Flight and fix SLCC to SPRF]]
Place your aircraft on the airfield [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copacabana,_Bolivia SLCC, Copacabana], with an [[elevation]] of 12,592 feet. FlightGear will show snow all around you but that is not very realistic so let's clean up. View=> Rendering Options=> Snow line=> Set to max. (5,000M).

We will fly towards and land at SPRF. If you would enter SLCC and SPRF in [[Kelpie]] planner you probably would not be able to find SPRF. To find SPRF I am adding an additional VOR-DME station and for a good fix give you another VOR-DME. Try Kelpie planner to plan this route and compare with this suggestion.

Equipment preparation. Set [[NAV1]] to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juliaca Juliaca] VOR-DME on 155.55 with a radial of 311° (magnetic). Set [[NAV2]] to Arequipa VOR-DME on 113.7 with a radial of 212°. During our flight we will fly with [[true altitude]] as set with [[QNH]], keep QNH updated. Arm the autopilot with the [[heading bug]] at 311° and an initial altitude of 13,500 feet.

Take off and if you took the wrong RW pull up hard. Take a small tour over [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titicaca lake Titicaca], see the floating islands and try to find the lost golden treasure. Intercept the nearest radial on NAV1 towards Juliaca (about 311°).

Just before Juliaca is a hill so while on lake Titicaca increase altitude to 14,200 feet, the [[VFR]] part of this trip is over. After passing Juliaca set the radial of NAV1 to 352° and set the altitude to 17,422 feet. We will fly from NAV1 and slowly increase altitude.

At a distance of about 60 NM set the heading bug on the current course. Monitor the distance to NAV1, the radial of NAV2 and the distance to NAV2. At a distance of 74.5 NM to NAV1, a distance of 140.7 NM and at the '''radial''' intercept of NAV2 should be the runway. So, from 60 NM onwards, look outside the window, then at NAV1 and then NAV2 etc.

If you are at 80NM to NAV1 you have missed the airfield but you still won't hit any hills (unless you bank left). Bank right and set the heading bug to 172°. Fly back towards NAV1 and intercept the radial 352° at about 50NM again to repeat the search.

The runway SPRF, San Rafael, has a elevation of 14,422 feet and a heading of 297°/ 117°. Our initial altitude has been set 3,000NM above the RW elevation. That should give sufficient room for navigation.

After you have seen the airfield set the radial of NAV1 to 297°, the heading of the runway (not the course to the runway) as a visual aid. Land on RW 30 (and not on RW 12 unless you are a show-off). Oh, there is a small hill in front of RW 30, just so you know.

Decreasing speed at this altitude can be a bit tricky. The air is thin and does not give much resistance. Next to that, the difference between [[indicated airspeed]] and [[ground speed]] is very noticeable. The ground speed is much higher as the indicated airspeed.

After a successful landing, try to discover the [[Suggested_Flights#Origin_of_the_Amazon_River | origin of the Amazon river]] since we are now at the starting point of that trip.

*More places you can visit can be found at [[Suggested Flights]].

== Aircraft reviews ==

== Wiki updates ==
=== Categorizing images ===
[[User:Johan G|Johan G]] did a great job starting to categorise all images. The sub-categories are listed under [[:Category:Images]].

Please keep the following things in mind when uploading images:
* Give the file a descriptive name. That'll make it easier for others to find your file and use it in articles.
* Categorize your image right when you upload it. That saves others from digging up uncatigorized images later on. Placing your image in a category is as simple as adding the following line to the "description" field:
: <code><nowiki>[[Category:Name of the category]]</nowiki></code>
: A list of available categories can be found under [[:Category:Images]].

=== Documentating templates ===
[[User:Gijs|Gijs]] documentated most [[:Category:Templates|templates]], making use of a global [[Template:Informative template|documentation template]]. The documentation tells you what the template does and how to use it.

=== Feature icons ===
Michat has designed small logos for Aircraft of the Month, [[Dual Control]], [[Bombable]], [[Soaring]], [[Howto:_Do_aerotow_over_the_net|Aerotow]] and [[:Category:Aerospace|Aerospace]] aircraft, allowing you to see at a glance which aircraft has some of those interesting features.

[[File:Dualcontrolready2.png|Dual_control]] [[File:BombableReady.png|Bombable]] [[File:Aerotowready.png|Doing aerotow over the net]] [[File:Thermalready.png|Soaring]] [[File:Spacetripready.png|Aerospace]]
[[File:Aircraftofthemonth.png|IAR80]].

===New articles===
<DynamicArticleList>
type=new
count=10
</DynamicArticleList>
===New aircraft articles===
<DynamicArticleList>
type=new
count=10
categoryRoot=Aircraft
</DynamicArticleList>
===Most popular newsletters===
<DynamicArticleList>
type=hot
count=5
categoryRoot=FlightGear Newsletter
</DynamicArticleList>

== Community news ==
=== FlightGear on FSBreak ===
Two of FlightGear's developers, Stuart and Curt were interviewed on one of this month's episodes of [http://www.fsbreak.net FSBreak], recorded on 25th February. FSBreak is a flight simulator podcast that discusses recent flight sim developments and reviews. The hosts, Eric and Brendan, spent almost an hour taking about the project with Curt and Stuart. While most of the content won't be new to readers of this newsletter, it was a great way to promote FlightGear 2.6.0 to the wider flight simulation community.

=== FlightGear on YouTube ===
* [http://youtu.be/hBEaOMzBq6E KSFO Thermal Demo] by MD-BFC Going on their way for Bocian certification
* [http://youtu.be/-yI5PzC5RE8 Sukhoi 37 'The russian dream'] by Águilas de FlightGear performing "Balalaika amok" master tune by Aleksei Arkhipovsky.

=== New tutorials and screencasts ===
=== Forum news ===
Triggered by the new release, we've had more [http://flightgear.org/forums forum] visitors then ever before in the week of 19-25 February! 17,123 people visited the forum in these seven days to be precise. When looking at "unique visitors", only 13-19 February 2011 was a bussier week (9548 against 9076 visitors) (a possible reason for the high number might be that people expected 2.2.0 to be released, which was canceled).

=== Multiplayer ===
=== 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]].

=== Call for volunteers ===
* The [[OpenRadar]] project is looking for a new maintainer.
* The [[FGFSPM]] (FlightGear Package Manager) is looking for a new maintainer.

=== Did you know ===
...that you can use expressions to create complex animations of objects in your 3d models or even drive them from multiple properties?
Usually, an animation looks like this
<syntaxhighlight lang="xml">
<animation>
<type>translate</type>
<property>foo/bar</property>
[..]more elements[..]
</animation>
</syntaxhighlight>
You can add a scaling factor or an offset to it, but that's basically all you can do that way.
If you want to animate your object following a complex function, most people create complex Nasal scripts to compute the driving properties, probably not knowing that there is another way to achieve the goal: Expressions.
Here is an example for a translate animation depending on two properties and the cosine function
<syntaxhighlight lang="xml">
<animation>
<type>translate</type>
<expression>
<product>
<property>/my/factor-property</property>
<cos>
<deg2rad>
<property>/my/angular-property</property>
</deg2rad>
</cos>
</product>
</expression>
[..]more elements[..]
</animation>
</syntaxhighlight>
A rich set of predefined functions is available, including almost all those you have on your scientific pocket calculator.

[[Category:FlightGear Newsletter|2012 02]]