The FlightGear Manual

Michael Basler, Martin Spott,
Stuart Buchanan, Jon Berndt,
Bernhard Buckel, Cameron Moore,
Curt Olson, Dave Perry,
Michael Selig, Darrell Walisser,
and others
PIC

The FlightGear Manual version 1.0
December 31, 2007
For FlightGear version 1.0
Contents
Preface
I  Installation
1 Want to have a free flight? Take FlightGear!
 1.1 Yet Another Flight Simulator?
 1.2 System Requirements
 1.3 Choosing A Version
 1.4 Flight Dynamics Models
 1.5 About This Guide
2 Preflight: Installing FlightGear
 2.1 Installing scenery
 2.2 Installing aircraft
 2.3 Installing documentation
II  Flying with FlightGear
3 Takeoff: How to start the program
 3.1 Environmental Variables
 3.2 Launching the simulator under Unix/Linux
 3.3 Launching the simulator under Windows
 3.4 Launching the simulator under Mac OS X
 3.5 Command line parameters
 3.6 Joystick support
4 In-flight: All about instruments, keystrokes and menus
 4.1 Starting the engine
 4.2 Keyboard controls
 4.3 Menu entries
 4.4 The Instrument Panel
 4.5 The Head Up Display
 4.6 Mouse controlled actions
5 Features
 5.1 Aircraft Carrier
 5.2 Atlas
 5.3 Multiplayer
 5.4 Multiple Displays
 5.5 Recording and Playback
 5.6 Text to Speech with Festival
 5.7 Air-Air Refuelling
III  Tutorials
6 Tutorials
 6.1 In-flight Tutorials
 6.2 FlightGear Tutorials
 6.3 Other Tutorials
7 A Basic Flight Simulator Tutorial
 7.1 Foreword
 7.2 Starting Up
 7.3 The First Challenge - Flying Straight
 7.4 Basic Turns
 7.5 Taxiing on the ground
 7.6 Advanced Turns
 7.7 A Bit of Wieheisterology
 7.8 Let’s Fly
 7.9 Dealing with the Wind
 7.10 The autopilot
 7.11 What Next?
 7.12 Thanks
 7.13 Flying Other Aircraft
8 A Cross Country Flight Tutorial
 8.1 Introduction
 8.2 Flight Planning
 8.3 Getting Up
 8.4 Cruising
 8.5 Getting Down
9 An IFR Cross Country Flight Tutorial
 9.1 Introduction
 9.2 Before Takeoff
 9.3 In the Air
 9.4 Getting Down
 9.5 Epilogue
10 A Helicopter Tutorial
 10.1 Preface
 10.2 Getting started
 10.3 Lift-Off
 10.4 In the air
 10.5 Back to Earth I
 10.6 Back to Earth II
IV  Appendices
A Missed approach: If anything refuses to work
 A.1 FlightGear Problem Reports
 A.2 General problems
 A.3 Potential problems under Linux
 A.4 Potential problems under Windows
B Landing: Some further thoughts before leaving the plane
 B.1 A Sketch on the History of FlightGear
 B.2 Those, who did the work
 B.3 What remains to be done
Index

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