FlightGear Manual

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

PIC

The FlightGear Manual
15. März 2024
For FlightGear version 2020.3.19

Editor: Scott Giese

About the cover image:
Cessna 172P parked at Aosta Valley [LIMW] Italy, by Gilberto Agostinho, General Public License

The Cessna 172 Skyhawk is a four-seat, single-engine, high-wing fixed-wing aircraft. First flown in 1955 and still in production, more Cessna 172s have been built than any other aircraft.

Cessna 172P Contributors:
David Megginson (original author),
Gilberto Agostinho (gsagostinho), Wayne Bragg (wlbragg), Juan Vera del Campo (Juanvvc),
Daniel Dubreuil (Dany93), Jonathan Redpath (legoboyvdlp), Jonathan Schellhase (dg-505),
Tuomas Kuosmanen (tigert), Anders Gidenstam (AndersG), Waldo Kitty (wkitty42),
Jarl Arntzen (jarlarntzen), algefaen, Horacio, D-ECHO, onox, thevirtualfer

New in this Edition:
Chapter 4, Launcher instructions, Stuart Buchanan contributor
Chapter 8, New screenshots, Jonathan Redpath contributor
Chapter 8, Turn Coordinator, Scott Giese contributor

Inhaltsverzeichnis
1 Preface
 1.1 Condensed Reading
 1.2 Instructions For the Truly Impatient
 1.3 Further Reading
I  Installation
2 Want to have a free flight? Take FlightGear!
 2.1 Yet Another Flight Simulator?
 2.2 System Requirements
 2.3 Choosing A Version
 2.4 Flight Dynamics Models
 2.5 About This Guide
3 Preflight: Installing FlightGear
 3.1 Installing scenery
 3.2 Installing aircraft
 3.3 Installing documentation
II  Flying with FlightGear
4 Takeoff: How to start the program
 4.1 Launching the simulator
 4.2 Launching from the command line
 4.3 fgfsrc configuration files
 4.4 Command line parameters
 4.5 Joystick support
5 In-flight: All about instruments, keystrokes and menus
 5.1 Starting the engine
 5.2 Keyboard controls
 5.3 Mouse-controlled actions
 5.4 Menu entries
 5.5 The Instrument Panel
 5.6 The Head-Up Display
6 Features
 6.1 Multiplayer
 6.2 Aircraft Carrier
 6.3 Atlas
 6.4 Multiple Displays
 6.5 Multiple Computer
 6.6 Recording and Playback
 6.7 Text to Speech with Festival
 6.8 Air-Air Refuelling
III  Tutorials
7 Tutorials
 7.1 In-flight Tutorials
 7.2 FlightGear Tutorials
 7.3 Other Tutorials
8 A Basic Flight Simulator Tutorial
 8.1 Foreword
 8.2 Starting Up
 8.3 The First Challenge – Flying Straight
 8.4 Basic Turns
 8.5 Taxiing on the ground
 8.6 Advanced Turns
 8.7 A Bit of Wieheisterology
 8.8 Let’s Fly
 8.9 Dealing with the Wind
 8.10 The autopilot
 8.11 What Next?
 8.12 Flying Other Aircraft
 8.13 Thanks
9 A Cross Country Flight Tutorial
 9.1 Introduction
 9.2 Flight Planning
 9.3 Getting Up
 9.4 Cruising
 9.5 Getting Down
10 An IFR Cross Country Flight Tutorial
 10.1 Introduction
 10.2 Before Takeoff
 10.3 Takeoff
 10.4 In the Air
 10.5 Getting Down
 10.6 Epilogue
11 A Helicopter Tutorial
 11.1 Preface
 11.2 Getting started
 11.3 Lift-Off
 11.4 In the air
 11.5 Back to Earth I
 11.6 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: 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
C Main Index
D Index of Command Line Options
E List of Acronyms
F Tabellenverzeichnis
G Abbildungsverzeichnis