[Flightgear-devel] v1.0 musings (was: Aircraft included in base package)
Jim Wilson wrote: Probably I've got this wrong, but isn't the c-172 our most refined/realistic flightmodel? My impression of yasim, from using it for the p51d, but not as an aero engineer, is that getting an aircraft working is about 2 parts theory and 1 part voodoo (the part that the basic formulas don't cover). I have access to a commercial FAA Level 3 FTD certified C172 model. I haven't done any direct comparisons, but I can say that there are some aspects of our C172 that are waaay off. Some day when I have time I'd like to do some more direct comparisons and at least nudge some portions of our C172 in the right direction, but I've been keeping busy with other stuff lately. Let me steer this discussion in another direction ... I would really love to start talking about doing a v1.0 release of FlightGear ... maybe this spring or early summer. There are a couple things that I feel are holding us back. We will live with or without fixes, but if we do a 1.0 release, it would be nice to make it ... well ... really nice. I would like to see at least the following items addressed: 1. Documentation (getting started manual) really needs to be made current. 2. Spiffed up and much improved C172 (inside and out.) Or the pa28-161 ... the goal would be to have one nicely done model that demonstrates all the functionality and features of our simulator and does it in a really nice, polished way. 3. Fix the JSBsim low speed gear jitters. Here's my one and only *big* gripe about JSBsim ... gear handling when stopped. At some point we *must* solve that problem and make the gear stick, stay put, not jitter, and not swing into the wind when the aircraft is stopped. YAsim figured out a (pragmatically) reasonable way to do it, so it must be possible. It would be really, really, really, really, *really* great if we could get that one problem cleared up in the near future. 4. We need to do some work on the fgrun front end to make it more user friendly. Frederic and Bernie (and others?) have done a *lot* of great, difficult, and tedious work on this tool to bring it to where it is, but there are still some gaps and things that could be much improved to make the tool work for new users. There are also some human factors/feedback issues with fgrun and launching flightgear that (again are hard but) would be nice to address. I think we are really close to a nice v1.0 release. We have a good solid infrastructure in place. We can do a lot of really neat and cool stuff. We offer FlightGear 100% for free. But we should mentally follow the process of a new user seeing a post about FG somewhere on the net, clicking on the link, arriving at our web site, downloading the setup.exe, installing it, launching it for the first time, selecting an aircraft/airport, selecting other options, and finally running FlightGear. What issues will they see? What will cause confusion? What doesn't work well without additional knowledge? For better or worse, 90-95% of our users are going to be on the windows platform, so some of us at least do need to consider (carefully) the perspective of the typical windows user. It's my sense that we are entering a new phase of FlightGear. Our popularity and web traffic and downloads continue to grow. I'm not sure the best way to verbalize this, but I think it is getting to be time for us to take a step forward in our own growth as a project; to step up to the next level; to take responsibility for some of our short comings; to attack some of our tough/boring issues. This might be too much of a USA-centric analogy, but it's perhaps similar to the sports world where a standout high school athlete is now contemplating moving to the college level. (or maybe it's a college athlete moving to pro ...) :-) Can they step up and compete at the next level? Can we? Like it or not, our popularity is pushing us towards the next level. It's my intention to respond with a really nice v1.0 release, but clearly this project is nothing without all the great help of the many volunteers that do such a great job, and a nice v1.0 release is only possible with everyone's help and participation. Regards, Curt. -- Curtis Olsonhttp://www.flightgear.org/~curt HumanFIRST Program http://www.humanfirst.umn.edu/ FlightGear Project http://www.flightgear.org Unique text:2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@flightgear.org http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
Re: [Flightgear-devel] v1.0 musings (was: Aircraft included in base
Curtis L. Olson wrote: 1. Documentation (getting started manual) really needs to be made current. Indeed, I spend too much time lingering around with portability stuff or other sorts of distraction lately. I'll go on and move the focus, Martin. -- Unix _IS_ user friendly - it's just selective about who its friends are ! -- ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@flightgear.org http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
Re: [Flightgear-devel] v1.0 musings (was: Aircraft included in base package)
* Curtis L. Olson [EMAIL PROTECTED] [2005-01-20 15:30]: 4. We need to do some work on the fgrun front end to make it more user friendly. Frederic and Bernie (and others?) have done a *lot* of great, difficult, and tedious work on this tool to bring it to where it is, but there are still some gaps and things that could be much improved to make the tool work for new users. There are also some human factors/feedback issues with fgrun and launching flightgear that (again are hard but) would be nice to address. Would it be preferable then, to package the windows version of FG with fgrun and centre the docs around using fgrun while still catering for 'more advanced' command line usage in the documentation? I think it's fair to say that there are a lot more linux users now than there were just a couple of years ago who have come over from Windows. These people would also benefit from a GUI too... I am not trying to open the can of worms marked 'default GUI for FGFS'. I merely think that Curt is absolutely right. You can use the command line interface if you wish but one or more GUI options is an absolute requirement and when it comes to documentation, it may be that to cut down on work we may have to adopt one GUI interface and only document that. All the best, Matthew (Donning flame suit as we speak ;-) ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@flightgear.org http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
Re: [Flightgear-devel] v1.0 musings (was: Aircraft included in base package)
Personally i think it is too early for a 1.0 release. Here are some points why: 1. The gear problem, Jon Berndt allready mentioned it. On the ground the planes just don't feel good. 2. An in game GUI for every user (not only Windows users) is missing. This is IMHO a big must for a 1.0 production release. fgrun.exe is okay for the beginning or development versions but not for a production release. A production release should really have a menu that is running inside of flightgear as a part of flightgear and not as an outside application. Especially when we aim at end users. Sure, some will say that this is not necessary for a simulator, but end users will base their review and valuate it on that. 3. Another requirement for a 1.0 production release is a way to change the aircraft when flightgear is allready started. 4. If you want to reach the end user, you need a learn to fly interactive in game tutorial (how far is fligttutor progressed?). In other words, documentation is not enough for the marked today. Releasing flightgear 1.0 without a learn to fly interactive flying tutorial leads to a situation that users download flightgear, start it, don't know what to do. take a tour around San Francisco to see what flightgear has visually to offer and then delete it because they don't know what to do next. We should show to the users that there is a lot more possible than just only seeing flightgear as an eye candy city tour software. 5. A way to switch the airport from an in game menu when flightgear is allready started. It should also be possible to select an airport by country or city name. In my opinion we should delay the official FlightGear 1.0 release until the above is fixed. This would mean at least 4-10 more releases, so an estimated release date for a 1.0 release could be somewhere in 4th quarter 2006. Don't understand me wrong, but i don't want to see people complaining about the above missing features and saying that flightgear is crap because those things are missing. We should take in mind, that people, especially magazines tend to review and compare Open Source applications with the competition (X-Plane, MS Flight Simulator etc.) when the application reaches version 1.0, And a 1.0 version is the first and most important version number for a production release because people judge later versions on experiences they made with version 1.0. Any bad reviews because the above is missing are not good reviews. FlightGear has gone a long way, but imo it is still far too early for a 1.0 production release. Best Regards, Oliver C. ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@flightgear.org http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
