John Wojnaroski wrote: >>>The other thing I didn't notice mention of is the superb improvement in >>>ground >>>type representation in YASim which finally gives us water (with >>>waves/swell) >>>for seaplane operations and of course correct behaviour on other >>>surfaces for >>>other types of aircraft. >>> >>> >>> >>> >>I'm sure John W. will pick this up when he goes through the flightgear >>source changes. >> >> >> > >I'll have that done over the weekend, then you all can "ping" on me. ;-) > >JW > > OK, here is the first cut for major changes/updates sorted by date of inclusion. I'm defining "major" as a clearly visible attribute or feature of the simulation that is readily apparent to the user. There were many, many changes and I still need to work my way through identifying the changes that were bug-fixes, performance improvements (run and compile times), coding standards, etc etc.
MAJOR UPDATES =============================== Air to Air Tacan Improved soaring scenarios Refueling capability on MP network Use of all textured fonts on panels Interactive/scripted control of AI aircraft "Passive" mode for autopilot Addition of fluxgate compass Addition of GSDI for helicopters Addtition of new MIL-STD HUD Dynamic sun color changes Addition to read and parase airway data files Major improvements in taxiing and ground operations of AI aircraft Addition of protocol for Garmin 400 series Improved ground properties "feel" with YASIM aircraft New altimetry method I'll try to finish up the rest over the weekend. If someone would add these to the wiki list.... And another thing... I've been bemused by all the discussion vis-a-vis flightgear as a combat simulator and am somewhat agnostic on the whole question. As Curt noted we've already crossed over into the "twilight zone". If you're opposed to the idea then lets remove ALL models of military aircraft AND civilian derivatives and ALL operations that have a military/combat purpose (e.g: tacan, HUDs, air-to-air refueling, carrier operations, etc). By the same token, if you are of this opinion and use any of these models or features your argument and position seems a little disingenuous. I've not done a count by type of the aircraft in Flightgear, but there are a large number of military aircraft which are designed and built for one reason only and one reason only -- combat or combat support. I'm not a big fan of selective morality -- "Oh, I like to fly these airplanes and build the models, but... Perhaps we provide a "delete" function in FlightGear. Those who feel military/combat aircraft and operations are immoral can use the feature to remove all vestiges of the same and sleep peaceful at night knowing their version is safe and pure. ;-) And one more thing... Flightgear is more than a game and while there are highly sophisticated and sound engineering elements to the code I would not classify it as a true flight simulator, rather within a context of lower, limited applications. For a *real* flight simulator one might consider: 1) an RTOS as the basic architecture, 2) improved earth model using 2nd and 4th order bessel functions, 3) 6 DOFs that provide member bending aero data versus rigid fix body point mass solutions, 4) high precision input control systems with 12 or 16 bit accuracy, 5) control force feedback systems, 6) interrupt driven software/hardware interfacing, and 7) fully collimnated visual display systems Please don't misunderstand, FlightGear is a great piece of work and the collective effort of a number of bright and dedicated individuals. Plus you can't beat the price! Well, enough of my rant..... Regards John W. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This SF.net email is sponsored by DB2 Express Download DB2 Express C - the FREE version of DB2 express and take control of your XML. No limits. Just data. Click to get it now. http://sourceforge.net/powerbar/db2/ _______________________________________________ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
