RE: [Flightgear-devel] RFD: base package aircraft and aliases
Lee Elliott wrote On Wednesday 17 March 2004 21:50, Vivian Meazza wrote: [snip...] ... I'd be inclined to hold off including the Sea Hawk, TSR-2 and B-52, for the time being at least. The Sea Hawk is currently getting a proper panel, speed-brakes and some missing gear doors, courtesy of Vivian M. The TSR-2 ... I'm only hours away from completing the Seahawk with a 3d panel - it would be finished right now, but I've just broken it!!! Regards Vivian M. LOL :) LeeE Yeah - like seeing a grown man cry, eh :-) All fixed now. If only I could spell filenames ... Be on it's way once I have finished testing Regards Vivian M. ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] RFD: base package aircraft and aliases
Curtis L. Olson wrote: In the next couple weeks I'd like to start moving seriously towards our next release. There are probably many things that could stand to be tweaked and polished but two related items jump out at me tonight. 1. I'm growing less enthused with our aircraft alias naming system. I don't mind that we have the capability, but it becomes annoying to have 8 names for the same aircraft, even 2 names for the same aircraft. What would people say to nuking all the alias entries for the upcoming release? Now that we have the fgrun launcher, name length or complexity is not really an issue. Even for us hard core unix folks who refuse to give up the command line, we can learn to copy/paste to avoid unnecessary typing. I think getting rid of the aliases would make aircraft browsing and selection a lot less mystifying to new comers. We've got 20 (!) varients of the C172. Maybe for this release it would be nice to just have one or two??? What I think would be a good idea is to reverse the alias configuration. We now set the alias in the aircraft-set.xml file. What would be better is to make the aircraft-jsb/uiuc/yasim-set.xml file the alias (switch both files) and then we could include only the basic -set.xml file for a new release (using the EXTRA_DIST option). 2. We have a *lot* of aircraft in the base package. Some of these are really nice, some of these are not even close to basic functionality. Most are probalby best considered works in progress. (Now this is perfectly fine, and is what CVS is for.) However, for the next release I would like to just include a subset of the available aircraft, picking and choosing the best or most interesting ones. OV10-jsbsim North American OV-10A Bronco T37-jsbsim Cessna T-37 T38-jsbsim Northrop T-38 airwaveXtreme150-v1-nl-uiuc Airwave Xtreme 150 hang glider (UIUC) as350-yasim Ecureuil AS 350 Helicopter asw20-v1-nl-uiuc ASW-20 sailplane (UIUC) beech99-v1-uiuc Beech 99 (UIUC) bell206-yasimBell 206 JetRanger Helicopter bo105-yasim Eurocopter Bo105 ch47-yasim CH-47 Chinook Helicopter f104-jsbsim Lockheed F-104 Starfighter f15-jsbsim McDonell Douglas F-15 Eagle fkdr1-v1-nl-uiuc fokker100-jsbsim Fokker 100 fokker50-jsbsim Fokker 50 harrier-yasimBritish Aerospace Harrier (YASim) marchetti-v1-uiucSiai Marchetti S.211 (UIUC) paraglider-jsbsimparaglider sgs233-jsbsimSchweizer 2-33 shuttle-jsbsim Space Shuttle sopwithCamel-v1-nl-uiuc t6texan2-jsbsim T-6A Texan II x24b-jsbsim USAF/NACA X-24B reentry testbed Are these the ones that wouldn't make it into the base package then? Am I being too generous here? Should we draw the line a little tighter? Am I being too strict? Am I way off on my evaluation of what should go in or out? In my personal opinion the following could be in the official release: 747 T38 dc3 f16 j22 A320 c172 c310 p51d yf23 an225 bo105 sopwithCamel Hunter t6texan2 sgs233 pa28-161 ornithopter j3cub wrightFlyer1903 The following aircraft didn't make it due to the following reason: c182: We already have the c172 737 : There are already too many US aircraft. The A320 fills that gap. asw20: There should be a glider model and the sgs233 comes default with a thermal model. Besides there are plenty of UIUC aircraft. b52: I prefer the civilian an225 over a military (US) bomber. harrier: No 3d model, no cockpit. seahawk: We have a hunter that's probably quite alike in handling. The remaining list is quite diverse, covers UIUC/Yasim and JSBSim, and contains at least the best model of most (all?) 3d/aircraft modelers. Erik ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] RFD: base package aircraft and aliases
On 3/16/04 at 9:50 PM Curtis L. Olson wrote: In the next couple weeks I'd like to start moving seriously towards our next release. There are probably many things that could stand to be tweaked and polished but two related items jump out at me tonight. 1. I'm growing less enthused with our aircraft alias naming system. I don't mind that we have the capability, but it becomes annoying to have 8 names for the same aircraft, even 2 names for the same aircraft. What would people say to nuking all the alias entries for the upcoming release? Now that we have the fgrun launcher, name length or complexity is not really an issue. Even for us hard core unix folks who refuse to give up the command line, we can learn to copy/paste to avoid unnecessary typing. I think getting rid of the aliases would make aircraft browsing and selection a lot less mystifying to new comers. We've got 20 (!) varients of the C172. Maybe for this release it would be nice to just have one or two??? I agree with the fact that there is a problem with the multiple names, but not with your proposed solution. Please don't ditch the aliases. Or to be more specific, please don't ditch the short names. Typing --aircraft=737 is so much better than --aircraft=737-jsbsim, and ditto for most of the planes. IMHO, the solution lies in the presentation of the available aircraft in --show-aircraft. At the moment, for instance, for the cub we have 4 lines for one aircraft: j3cubAlias for j3cub-3d-yasim. j3cub-3d Alias for j3cub-3d-yasim. j3cub-3d-yasim Piper Cub J3 Trainer (YASim) j3cub-yasim Alias for j3cub-3d-yasim. This should simply be: j3cubPiper Cub J3 Trainer (YASim) No-one (outside of the developers) need know if 'j3cub' is an alias or not. As far as I can see, there are two general solutions. Either have one alias for each unique model (in this case ditch the -3d and -yasim aliases) and show the alias, but not the full name, in --show-aircraft, together with the proper description, as in the line above. That's probably the best short term, and possibly long-term, option, IMHO. Or, ditch the long names, ie. in this instance the full name would be j3cub, and then pull details of available 3d/2d cockpit options, and fdm options, from the xml if required. This would work for the accepted 'best' version of models with more than one implementation, so for instance 'C172' would be the name of the default C172, wheras C172-yasim would be the non-default, which might not make it into the release anyway judging by your next comments. Then, one could type --aircraft=C172 --2d to try and get a 2d cockpit if available (would fall back to default if not), and likewise --aircraft=C172 --3d (ditto for fallback), and a lot of names would become superfluous. Anyway, the above would roughly cut the size of --show-aircraft by half, since most planes have name Alias to description name-fdm description and we'd be left with name description The C172 and C310 would still give probs though, since there *are* multiple implementations of these. c172 Alias for c172p. c172-3d Alias for c172p-3d. c172-3d-yasimAlias for c172r-3d-yasim c172-610xAlias for jsbsim version. c172-610x-jsbsim Cessna 172 with a full screen, hi-res panel c172-610x-null Cessna 172 with a full screen, hi-res panel c172-ifr Cessna 172 in IFR configuration c172-larcsim Cessna 172 (LaRCsim, 2D panel). c172-yasim Alias for c172r-yasim c172pAlias for c172p-jsbsim. c172p-3d Alias for c172p-3d-jsbsim. c172p-3d-jsbsim Cessna 172P (JSBSim, 3D cockpit) c172p-jsbsim Cessna 172P (JSBSim, 2D panel). c172rAlias for c172r-jsbsim. c172r-3d Alias for c172r-3d-jsbsim. c172r-3d-jsbsim Cessna 172R (JSBSim, 3D cockpit) c172r-3d-yasim Cessna 172R (YASim, 3D cockpit) c172r-jsbsim Cessna 172R (JSBSim, 2D panel). c172r-yasim Cessna 172R (YASim, 2D panel) c172xCessna 172 flight dynamics testbed Some of these could get ditched from a release. The rest could lose the long names, to give c172c172p (jsbsim) c172-610x c172p with a full-screen, hi-res panel (jsbsim) c172-ifrc172p in IFR configuration c172-yasim c172r (yasim) c172-larcsimc172 (larcsim) That's much more manageable, still gives 3 separate jsbsim (default) c172 configurations, and 3 different fdms. On an (almost) totally unrelated note, I think it would be a good idea to test unknown options against aircraft names, so that, for instance, bin/fgfs --T38 would work to
Re: [Flightgear-devel] RFD: base package aircraft and aliases
On 3/17/04 at 11:22 AM David Luff wrote: Then, one could type --aircraft=C172 --2d to try and get a 2d cockpit if available (would fall back to default if not), and likewise --aircraft=C172 --3d (ditto for fallback), and a lot of names would become superfluous. Just to be clear, I'm proposing adding extra --2d and --3d options, which would be ignored if not available, *not* adding it to the aircraft name. Cheers - Dave ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] RFD: base package aircraft and aliases
On 3/17/04 at 10:29 AM Erik Hofman wrote: The following aircraft didn't make it due to the following reason: 737 : There are already too many US aircraft. The A320 fills that gap. I strongly disagree. I think that both the 737 and A320 should go in. The 737 is a good showcase for how far some of the 3d cockpits need to go to catch up with what can be done with 2d panels, and the A320 is a good showcase for the potential of 3d cockpits. I might be remembering wrongly, but I believe David Culp has said that the 737 flies pretty well compared to the real thing, so I think it's a definate 'yes'. Cheers - Dave ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] RFD: base package aircraft and aliases
David Luff wrote: On 3/17/04 at 10:29 AM Erik Hofman wrote: The following aircraft didn't make it due to the following reason: 737 : There are already too many US aircraft. The A320 fills that gap. I strongly disagree. I think that both the 737 and A320 should go in. The 737 is a good showcase for how far some of the 3d cockpits need to go to catch up with what can be done with 2d panels, and the A320 is a good showcase for the potential of 3d cockpits. I might be remembering wrongly, but I believe David Culp has said that the 737 flies pretty well compared to the real thing, so I think it's a definate 'yes'. At least it shows my consideration. I wouldn't be opposed to including the 737, but then again, I like most (if not all) of our current aircraft :-D This was just because we have to draw the line somewhere. Erik ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] RFD: base package aircraft and aliases
In the next couple weeks I'd like to start moving seriously towards our next release. There are probably many things that could stand to be tweaked and polished but two related items jump out at me tonight. I think now is a good time to bother everyone with the hangar idea again. If we have an online hangar where one can download airplane packages, then nobody really gets left behind. Right now we are *almost* able to drop in a new airplane and start flying (JSBSim still requires the engine file(s) be moved into the $FGROOT/data/Engine directory). As far as which ones stay or go, I'll add that the T-38 is also the radar demonstrator, the OV-10 is the weather radar demonstrator, and the Schweizer 2-33 is the thermal demonstrator. I've made these airplanes demonstrate the new capabilities by default, otherwise most users would never know the capabilities exist, or how to activate them. Dave -- David Culp davidculp2[at]comcast.net ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] RFD: base package aircraft and aliases
On Wednesday 17 March 2004 07:16, Martin Spott wrote: Hello Curt, Curtis L. Olson wrote: In the next couple weeks I'd like to start moving seriously towards our next release. I think it would be tremendously helpful to coordinate the with the next PLib release. There have been sooo many changes to PLib that FlightGear should _not_ base on the outdated 1.6.0 official release. I agree with that. We should wait with the next flightgear realease until a new stable Plib Version is released. Is there any release date set for the next Plib version? Best Regards, Oliver C. ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] RFD: base package aircraft and aliases
Curtis L. Olson said: What is the status of the helicopters? They've seemed very crude when I've looked at them. I don't mean to be anti-helicopter, but if we are trying to cull some of the less nice stuff out of the official release, I'm not sure in their current form they would make the cut. OV10-jsbsim North American OV-10A Bronco T37-jsbsim Cessna T-37 T38-jsbsim Northrop T-38 airwaveXtreme150-v1-nl-uiuc Airwave Xtreme 150 hang glider (UIUC) as350-yasim Ecureuil AS 350 Helicopter asw20-v1-nl-uiuc ASW-20 sailplane (UIUC) beech99-v1-uiuc Beech 99 (UIUC) bell206-yasimBell 206 JetRanger Helicopter bo105-yasim Eurocopter Bo105 ch47-yasim CH-47 Chinook Helicopter f104-jsbsim Lockheed F-104 Starfighter f15-jsbsim McDonell Douglas F-15 Eagle fkdr1-v1-nl-uiuc fokker100-jsbsim Fokker 100 fokker50-jsbsim Fokker 50 harrier-yasimBritish Aerospace Harrier (YASim) marchetti-v1-uiucSiai Marchetti S.211 (UIUC) paraglider-jsbsimparaglider sgs233-jsbsimSchweizer 2-33 shuttle-jsbsim Space Shuttle sopwithCamel-v1-nl-uiuc t6texan2-jsbsim T-6A Texan II x24b-jsbsim USAF/NACA X-24B reentry testbed Am I being too generous here? Should we draw the line a little tighter? Am I being too strict? Am I way off on my evaluation of what should go in or out? As time permits I plan to start doing some preliminary release work, going through my check lists, making sure version numbers and refererences are up to date, gleaning through the commit logs to come up with a list of changes, etc. etc. Hi Curt, I haven't read through the thread yet. At first look your choices sound fine. Maybe we should include just the bo105 as a good start on helicopter support and there is a modle for it. You asked about the A4 specifically. It is pretty much functional as is. It'd be nice to put a full 3D cockpit in there, but it is my intent to finish the 747 first, do some cleaning up and put 3D instruments in the c310, add a couple more things to the p51, and do the ornithopter cockpit as promised a while back. In other words, the A4 is pretty low on my list right now. Here are some suggestions before release: We should get the autopilot functioning at least to the extent it used to be. There are a few known lingering bugs like the tile manager issue that would be nice to clean up. Also I'm close to completing some major changes to the 747 model that would be nice to get included, but that's not a real big deal. For the other items, especially the autopilots it'd be nice to have a couple weeks before release. If not, then a cutoff date would be nice so we can prioritize. Best, Jim ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] RFD: base package aircraft and aliases
Martin Spott said: Hello Curt, Curtis L. Olson wrote: In the next couple weeks I'd like to start moving seriously towards our next release. I think it would be tremendously helpful to coordinate the with the next PLib release. There have been sooo many changes to PLib that FlightGear should _not_ base on the outdated 1.6.0 official release. I'd love to see some well placed pre-release CVS tags that make it easier to compare FG on different platforms, Martin. We need to change that crease threshold in the vertex splitter. Otherwise things are going to get uglier with most of the 3D Models. Can someone with plib cvs access make the change? It is currently 46 and we were discussing 61 as a good alternative (this change goes near the top of ssgVertexSplitter.cxx). Best, Jim ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] RFD: base package aircraft and aliases
On Wednesday 17 March 2004 03:50, Curtis L. Olson wrote: 1. I'm growing less enthused with our aircraft alias naming system. I don't mind that we have the capability, but it becomes annoying to have 8 names for the same aircraft, even 2 names for the same aircraft. What would people say to nuking all the alias entries for the upcoming release? Now that we have the fgrun launcher, name length or complexity is not really an issue. It would be nice to have some kind of aircraft selector in the flightgear menu when running flightgear. 2. We have a *lot* of aircraft in the base package. Some of these are really nice, some of these are not even close to basic functionality. Most are probalby best considered works in progress. (Now this is perfectly fine, and is what CVS is for.) However, for the next release I would like to just include a subset of the available aircraft, picking and choosing the best or most interesting ones. I am planning to upgrade the aircraft-todo list i posted in december 2003 in the couple of the next days and add that aircraft-todo list to the wiki page, maybe this helps to get some kind of overview of the status of all current available airplanes in flightgear. Best Regards, Oliver C. ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel
RE: [Flightgear-devel] RFD: base package aircraft and aliases
I completly agree with that, please keep the aliases and remove extenion names like jsbsim, 2d/3d etc. in the --show-aircraft list. How will the situation be handled where several FDMs model the same aircraft - that day is coming if it is not here already. Jon ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel
RE: [Flightgear-devel] RFD: base package aircraft and aliases
On 17 Mar 2004 at 7:17, Jon Berndt wrote: I completly agree with that, please keep the aliases and remove extenion names like jsbsim, 2d/3d etc. in the --show-aircraft list. How will the situation be handled where several FDMs model the same aircraft - that day is coming if it is not here already. Use the short form name for the accepted 'best' aircraft (currently jsbsim for the c172, yasim for the 747 if an alpha jsbsim 747 were to show up) and add an extension for the other. Given that Curt is for trimming the size of the official release, there shouldn't be too many duplicates showing up (although I think having one plane such as the c172 with all fdms represented is good for comparision). See my suggested C172 example: c172c172p (jsbsim) c172-610x c172p with a full-screen, hi-res panel (jsbsim) c172-ifrc172p in IFR configuration (jsbsim) c172-yasim c172r (yasim) c172-larcsimc172 (larcsim) Cheers - Dave ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] RFD: base package aircraft and aliases
On Wednesday 17 March 2004 13:17, Jon Berndt wrote: I completly agree with that, please keep the aliases and remove extenion names like jsbsim, 2d/3d etc. in the --show-aircraft list. How will the situation be handled where several FDMs model the same aircraft - that day is coming if it is not here already. I think this should be solved via an additional option like: --fdm= which stands for flight model. So when starting flightgear with a different FDM model for the c172 it would look like this: ./fgfs --aircraft=c172 --fdm=yasim or ./fgfs --aircraft=c172 --fdm=jsbsim or ./fgfs --aircraft=c172 --fdm=LaRCsim When we want to know if a particular FDM model is available for an aircraft we could mention that in the --show-aircraft list. So this could look like this: c172 Cessna 172 (yasim, jsbsim, LaRCsim) Where the names in the brackes show what kinds of fdm models are available for this aircraft type. The X-15 would have in this case only such an entry: X15 North American X-15 (jsbsim) Which means that only jsbsim is available but not yasim or others. In the end we should have a aircraft selector menu in flightgear anyway where we can also choose the FDM model. Best Regards, Oliver C. ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] RFD: base package aircraft and aliases
On Wednesday 17 March 2004 14:36, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: So when starting flightgear with a different FDM model for the c172 it would look like this: ./fgfs --aircraft=c172 --fdm=yasim or ./fgfs --aircraft=c172 --fdm=jsbsim or ./fgfs --aircraft=c172 --fdm=LaRCsim I want to add like D. Luff said. When we don't start flightgear with the --fdm= option, flightgear should choose the best FDM model for this aircraft by default. Best Regards, Oliver C. ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] RFD: base package aircraft and aliases
And what about this: remove description tag from alias set files which shouldn't be displayed in --show-aircrafts and show only those with non empty description. Fill description only in c172-set.xml,j3cub-set.xml etc. It is simplistic solution and all syntax can stay same. Regards, MaDr -- Martin Dressler e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.musicabona.com/ ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel
RE: [Flightgear-devel] RFD: base package aircraft and aliases
Does anybody have a problem with a --fdm switch, defaulting to whatever's available if that aircraft isn't modelled with the fdm. That's the obvious extension of having a --2d and --3d switch. Giles -Original Message- From: Jon Berndt [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 17 March 2004 13:18 To: FlightGear developers discussions Subject: RE: [Flightgear-devel] RFD: base package aircraft and aliases I completly agree with that, please keep the aliases and remove extenion names like jsbsim, 2d/3d etc. in the --show-aircraft list. How will the situation be handled where several FDMs model the same aircraft - that day is coming if it is not here already. Jon ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] RFD: base package aircraft and aliases
Curtis L. Olson wrote: 1. I'm growing less enthused with our aircraft alias naming system. I don't mind that we have the capability, but it becomes annoying to have 8 names for the same aircraft, even 2 names for the same aircraft. What would people say to nuking all the alias entries for the upcoming release? Now that we have the fgrun launcher, name length or complexity is not really an issue. Even for us hard core unix folks who refuse to give up the command line, we can learn to copy/paste to avoid unnecessary typing. I think getting rid of the aliases would make aircraft browsing and selection a lot less mystifying to new comers. We've got 20 (!) varients of the C172. Maybe for this release it would be nice to just have one or two??? My first reaction was to argue against this, since I invented the system, but upon reflection I think you're right -- we should give transparency priority in all parts of FlightGear. Anything that unnecessarily obfuscates either the code or support files, even in the name of efficiency or ease of use, will make FlightGear harder to maintain and thus, eventually, less efficient and harder to use as well. So, nuke 'em. As a matter of fact, I'd suggest getting rid of the yasim, jsbsim, etc. in aircraft names altogether. We have only a tiny handful of aircraft (172, 310, etc.) supported by more than one FDM; in those cases, let's just call them something like 172-alternate, etc., and mention the FDM in the comments (if at all). 2. We have a *lot* of aircraft in the base package. Some of these are really nice, some of these are not even close to basic functionality. Most are probalby best considered works in progress. (Now this is perfectly fine, and is what CVS is for.) However, for the next release I would like to just include a subset of the available aircraft, picking and choosing the best or most interesting ones. Let's just put a status property in the config properties for each aircraft, and filter on that. For example, if the statuses available were alpha beta production options like --list-aircraft could, by default, show only aircraft with a status of beta or production, but with the --show-all option, it could show aircraft with any status. I think it's worth including the heavies (737, A320, 747) even though their cockpits aren't finished. See my above comment. We definitely want the light civilian aircraft just as the Cub (which is one of the few aircraft that are legitimately finished) :-) I wouldn't go that far. I'd call the Cub beta, since it's missing some basic panel instruments. I'd probably call the 172p production, since all the basic stuff is there and it works well. as well as a C172 (C182?) and maybe include the C310 here, even though ours has navy markings? The 182 is an excellent idea, since it provides an easy step up from the 172: it adds higher performance and a constant-speed prop, but still has fixed gear and a single engine. Our 3D and flight models for the 182 are both extremely rough, however -- they need a lot of TLC to be in a release. And definitely the pa28-161. Thanks. It's another beta, but I think it's usable. It would be nice to get a 3d mixture control on the default C172 some day. Can we set up a separate CVS repository for 3D model sources? It would be nice if we could allow everyone working on a 3D model committer access to it (they'd still have to go through a maintainer to get it into the base package). There are some vintage aircraft we should include such as the Wright Flyer and ComperSwift and maybe the dc3 although I have no idea what's going on with the cockpit there. Me neither. What is the status of the helicopters? They've seemed very crude when I've looked at them. I don't mean to be anti-helicopter, but if we are trying to cull some of the less nice stuff out of the official release, I'm not sure in their current form they would make the cut. I'd include at least one of them -- crude or not, they provide something that is otherwise missing. All the best, David ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] RFD: base package aircraft and aliases
Martin Dressler wrote: And what about this: remove description tag from alias set files which shouldn't be displayed in --show-aircrafts and show only those with non empty description. Fill description only in c172-set.xml,j3cub-set.xml etc. It is simplistic solution and all syntax can stay same. Thats is not a bad idea at all. Erik ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] RFD: base package aircraft and aliases
David Luff wrote: I agree with the fact that there is a problem with the multiple names, but not with your proposed solution. Please don't ditch the aliases. Or to be more specific, please don't ditch the short names. Typing --aircraft=737 is so much better than --aircraft=737-jsbsim, and ditto for most of the planes. As I mentioned in my last posting, nobody but the designers care about YASim vs. JSBSim vs LaRCsim, so if we have different versions of an aircraft, we should distinguish them by some other characteristic: 737-air-canada 737-southwest 172p 172p-gps 172p-180hp kingair kingair-medevac and so on. All the best, David ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel
RE: [Flightgear-devel] RFD: base package aircraft and aliases
Jon Berndt said:
I completly agree with that, please keep the aliases
and remove extenion names like jsbsim, 2d/3d etc. in the
--show-aircraft list.
How will the situation be handled where several FDMs model the same
aircraft - that day is coming if it is not here already.
For command line support, my choice would be to have a parameter system that
works something like this:
--aircraft=c310 --fdm=yasim --virtual-cockpit=true
Then match it up {$aircraft}-{fdm}-set.xml and if you want a default fdm
create a wrapper {$aircraft}-set.xml. If there isn't a match then issue a
message (e.g. aircraft not supported in yasim) and exit.
I would completely ditch the current multifunction aircraft parameter that
necessitates all these wrappers.
Best,
Jim
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Re: [Flightgear-devel] RFD: base package aircraft and aliases
kreuzritter2000 said: On Wednesday 17 March 2004 14:36, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: So when starting flightgear with a different FDM model for the c172 it would look like this: ./fgfs --aircraft=c172 --fdm=yasim or ./fgfs --aircraft=c172 --fdm=jsbsim or ./fgfs --aircraft=c172 --fdm=LaRCsim I want to add like D. Luff said. When we don't start flightgear with the --fdm= option, flightgear should choose the best FDM model for this aircraft by default. My apologies for not reading this far before posting the same idea :-) Configuring the default cockpit mode (virtual or not) as well as default fdm is all I would add. Best, Jim ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] RFD: base package aircraft and aliases
David Megginson said: I wouldn't go that far. I'd call the Cub beta, since it's missing some basic panel instruments. AFAIK it has all the original instrumentation, just no modern updates. Best, Jim ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] RFD: base package aircraft and aliases
On Wed, 17 Mar 2004 09:05:03 -0500 David Megginson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: As a matter of fact, I'd suggest getting rid of the yasim, jsbsim, etc. in aircraft names altogether. We have only a tiny handful of aircraft (172, 310, etc.) supported by more than one FDM; in those cases, let's just call them something like 172-alternate, etc., and mention the FDM in the comments (if at all). FYI, There will be more and more duplicate aircraft coming in the not-too-distant future. Let's just put a status property in the config properties for each aircraft, and filter on that. For example, if the statuses available were alpha beta production options like --list-aircraft could, by default, show only aircraft with a status of beta or production, but with the --show-all option, it could show aircraft with any status. JSBSim already has an attribute in the FDM definition for a RELEASE. I think this is a good idea. There's more to an aircraft model than just the FDM, of course, so maybe there should be more than one release specifier. This is one reason I think there ought to be release NOTES included along with each model, and I'm thinking that JSBSim might benefit from a hangar approach that Dave Culp has mentioned. I foresee this is not only a collection of all the files needed for an aircraft, but a resource for the aircraft as well, with useful information embedded in the hosted portal. Jon ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] RFD: base package aircraft and aliases
Jim Wilson wrote: I wouldn't go that far. I'd call the Cub beta, since it's missing some basic panel instruments. AFAIK it has all the original instrumentation, just no modern updates. It's missing the inclinometer at the bottom of the panel -- I had thought that it was also missing the oil indicators, but I see they're there. Aside from the inclinometer, the panel needs only the primer and carb heat knobs, which aren't major. After that, we need the throttle and fuel cutoff on the right side, and that's about it. All the best, David ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] RFD: base package aircraft and aliases
David Megginson wrote: Aside from the inclinometer, the panel needs only the primer and carb heat knobs, which aren't major. After that, we need the throttle and fuel cutoff on the right side, and that's about it. right side wasn't a typo -- I was thinking of the perspective of the pilot while hand-propping the engine from outside. Yeah, that's it. All the best, David ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] RFD: base package aircraft and aliases
David Luff wrote: On 3/16/04 at 9:50 PM Curtis L. Olson wrote: In the next couple weeks I'd like to start moving seriously towards our next release. There are probably many things that could stand to be tweaked and polished but two related items jump out at me tonight. 1. I'm growing less enthused with our aircraft alias naming system. I don't mind that we have the capability, but it becomes annoying to have 8 names for the same aircraft, even 2 names for the same aircraft. What would people say to nuking all the alias entries for the upcoming release? Now that we have the fgrun launcher, name length or complexity is not really an issue. Even for us hard core unix folks who refuse to give up the command line, we can learn to copy/paste to avoid unnecessary typing. I think getting rid of the aliases would make aircraft browsing and selection a lot less mystifying to new comers. We've got 20 (!) varients of the C172. Maybe for this release it would be nice to just have one or two??? I agree with the fact that there is a problem with the multiple names, but not with your proposed solution. Please don't ditch the aliases. Or to be more specific, please don't ditch the short names. Typing --aircraft=737 is so much better than --aircraft=737-jsbsim, and ditto for most of the planes. IMHO, the solution lies in the presentation of the available aircraft in --show-aircraft. At the moment, for instance, for the cub we have 4 lines for one aircraft: j3cubAlias for j3cub-3d-yasim. j3cub-3d Alias for j3cub-3d-yasim. j3cub-3d-yasim Piper Cub J3 Trainer (YASim) j3cub-yasim Alias for j3cub-3d-yasim. This should simply be: j3cubPiper Cub J3 Trainer (YASim) No-one (outside of the developers) need know if 'j3cub' is an alias or not. As far as I can see, there are two general solutions. Either have one alias for each unique model (in this case ditch the -3d and -yasim aliases) and show the alias, but not the full name, in --show-aircraft, together with the proper description, as in the line above. That's probably the best short term, and possibly long-term, option, IMHO. Or, ditch the long names, ie. in this instance the full name would be j3cub, and then pull details of available 3d/2d cockpit options, and fdm options, from the xml if required. This would work for the accepted 'best' version of models with more than one implementation, so for instance 'C172' would be the name of the default C172, wheras C172-yasim would be the non-default, which might not make it into the release anyway judging by your next comments. Then, one could type --aircraft=C172 --2d to try and get a 2d cockpit if available (would fall back to default if not), and likewise --aircraft=C172 --3d (ditto for fallback), and a lot of names would become superfluous. Anyway, the above would roughly cut the size of --show-aircraft by half, since most planes have name Alias to description name-fdm description and we'd be left with name description The C172 and C310 would still give probs though, since there *are* multiple implementations of these. c172 Alias for c172p. c172-3d Alias for c172p-3d. c172-3d-yasimAlias for c172r-3d-yasim c172-610xAlias for jsbsim version. c172-610x-jsbsim Cessna 172 with a full screen, hi-res panel c172-610x-null Cessna 172 with a full screen, hi-res panel c172-ifr Cessna 172 in IFR configuration c172-larcsim Cessna 172 (LaRCsim, 2D panel). c172-yasim Alias for c172r-yasim c172pAlias for c172p-jsbsim. c172p-3d Alias for c172p-3d-jsbsim. c172p-3d-jsbsim Cessna 172P (JSBSim, 3D cockpit) c172p-jsbsim Cessna 172P (JSBSim, 2D panel). c172rAlias for c172r-jsbsim. c172r-3d Alias for c172r-3d-jsbsim. c172r-3d-jsbsim Cessna 172R (JSBSim, 3D cockpit) c172r-3d-yasim Cessna 172R (YASim, 3D cockpit) c172r-jsbsim Cessna 172R (JSBSim, 2D panel). c172r-yasim Cessna 172R (YASim, 2D panel) c172xCessna 172 flight dynamics testbed Some of these could get ditched from a release. The rest could lose the long names, to give c172c172p (jsbsim) c172-610x c172p with a full-screen, hi-res panel (jsbsim) c172-ifrc172p in IFR configuration c172-yasim c172r (yasim) c172-larcsimc172 (larcsim) That's much more manageable, still gives 3 separate jsbsim (default) c172 configurations, and 3 different fdms. On an (almost) totally unrelated note, I think it would be a good idea to test unknown options against aircraft names, so that, for instance, bin/fgfs --T38 would
Re: [Flightgear-devel] RFD: base package aircraft and aliases
Josh Babcock wrote: Are we going to keep the old functionality laying around so all the power hungry cui jockeys can do this: Sorry, that's cli. ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] RFD: base package aircraft and aliases
Curtis L. Olson wrote: 1. I'm growing less enthused with our aircraft alias naming system. I don't mind that we have the capability, but it becomes annoying to have 8 names for the same aircraft, even 2 names for the same aircraft. As I understand it, aliases are primarily a convenience for the command line typer folks, but they severerly clutter the aircraft browser in the fgrun launcher. I propose that the fgrun launcher simply ignores all the alias entries and only presents the primary entries. Then we can discuss changing the alias system later (if we decide to.) I don't think we should eliminate the ability to set up aircraft aliases, but down the road we may want to do some reorganization. The J3 cub has at least five entries for one single aircraft. Aliases make more sense if have multiple versions of a 747 for instance and we want to select which version you get when you request a 747. Flipping that around and giving 5 different names to a single aircraft when we only have one of them seems a little out of control. 2. We have a *lot* of aircraft in the base package. Some of these are really nice, some of these are not even close to basic functionality. Most are probalby best considered works in progress. (Now this is perfectly fine, and is what CVS is for.) However, for the next release I would like to just include a subset of the available aircraft, picking and choosing the best or most interesting ones. Based on the discussion of this thread, here is the current list I have assembled for inclusion, notice that I err on the side of inclusion rather than exclusion which I think is fine, especially if we unclutter the fgrun aircraft browser. Large Commercial Transports === Boeing 737 Boeing 747 Airbus A320 AN-225 Small Civilian Aircraft === Piper J3 Cub Cessna 172 Cessna 182 Cessna 310 Piper pa28-161 Military Fighters/Trainers == P-51 Hawker Hunter A4 Skyhawk J22 F-16 Seahawk TSR-2 YF-23 T-38 Sopwith Camel T-6A Texan II North American OV-10A Bronco Large Military == B-52 Experimental/Research = Ornithopter UFO X-15 Helicopters Eurocopter Bo105 Historic Aircraft = 1903 Wright Flyer Comper Swift DC-3 Sail Planes === Schweizer 2-33 Can anyone justify including additional aircraft in this list? Thanks, Curt. -- Curtis Olson Intelligent Vehicles Lab FlightGear Project Twin Cities[EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Minnesota http://www.menet.umn.edu/~curt http://www.flightgear.org ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] RFD: base package aircraft and aliases
Curtis L. Olson wrote: Based on the discussion of this thread, here is the current list I have assembled for inclusion, notice that I err on the side of inclusion rather than exclusion which I think is fine, especially if we unclutter the fgrun aircraft browser. That's a pretty impressive list. For presentation purposes, though, you might want to refer to the PA-28-161 as the Piper Warrior II or the Piper Cherokee Warrior II (the official name varies by year). All the best, David ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] RFD: base package aircraft and aliases
That's a pretty impressive list. For presentation purposes, though, you might want to refer to the PA-28-161 as the Piper Warrior II or the Piper Cherokee Warrior II (the official name varies by year). I'll leave that to the aircraft designer. :-) They can put whatever label they want into the aircraft-set.xml file. :-) Regards, Curt. -- Curtis Olson Intelligent Vehicles Lab FlightGear Project Twin Cities[EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Minnesota http://www.menet.umn.edu/~curt http://www.flightgear.org ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel
RE: [Flightgear-devel] RFD: base package aircraft and aliases
Curtis L. Olson writes: 2. We have a *lot* of aircraft in the base package. I suggest we limit the base package to 2 or 3 aircraft at most IMHO better if this is only 1 aircraft though and have a supplemental aircraft package(s) for the rest Note I am concerned about the size of the 'minimal' distribution as there still are many in the world using dial up Cheers Norman ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] RFD: base package aircraft and aliases
Curtis L. Olson wrote: Based on the discussion of this thread, here is the current list I have assembled for inclusion, [...] I think this is a choice that makes easy, Martin. -- Unix _IS_ user friendly - it's just selective about who its friends are ! -- ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] RFD: base package aircraft and aliases
On Wednesday 17 March 2004 13:17, Jon Berndt wrote: I completly agree with that, please keep the aliases and remove extenion names like jsbsim, 2d/3d etc. in the --show-aircraft list. How will the situation be handled where several FDMs model the same aircraft - that day is coming if it is not here already. Jon I think someone already suggested using the 'simple' name i.e. 'C-172' for the default fdm and adding an appropriate suffix for the different fdms or specialised variants i.e. C-172-yasm - that should work ok. If someone knows enough to know that they want to use the non-default fdm they'll know that they'll need to specify it explicitly, I would have thought. It's a very good point though, that we should assume alternative fdms exist for an a/c type/model. Having different/alternative fdms would be a good thing imo. LeeE ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] RFD: base package aircraft and aliases
On Wednesday 17 March 2004 03:50, Curtis L. Olson wrote: In the next couple weeks I'd like to start moving seriously towards our next release. There are probably many things that could stand to be tweaked and polished but two related items jump out at me tonight. 1. I'm growing less enthused with our aircraft alias naming system. I don't mind that we have the capability, but it becomes annoying to have 8 names for the same aircraft, even 2 names for the same aircraft. What would people say to nuking all the alias entries for the upcoming release? Now that we have the fgrun launcher, name length or complexity is not really an issue. Even for us hard core unix folks who refuse to give up the command line, we can learn to copy/paste to avoid unnecessary typing. I think getting rid of the aliases would make aircraft browsing and selection a lot less mystifying to new comers. We've got 20 (!) varients of the C172. Maybe for this release it would be nice to just have one or two??? No problem with removing the aliases here - I've only just started adding them, to try to conform with the 'standards' :) 2. We have a *lot* of aircraft in the base package. Some of these are really nice, some of these are not even close to basic functionality. Most are probalby best considered works in progress. (Now this is perfectly fine, and is what CVS is for.) However, for the next release I would like to just include a subset of the available aircraft, picking and choosing the best or most interesting ones. Personally, I consider all of the a/c I've done to be wips and none of them could really be regarded as 'production' quality. I think it's worth including the heavies (737, A320, 747) even though their cockpits aren't finished. We definitely want the light civilian aircraft just as the Cub (which is one of the few aircraft that are legitimately finished) :-) as well as a C172 (C182?) and maybe include the C310 here, even though ours has navy markings? And definitely the pa28-161. It would be nice to get a 3d mixture control on the default C172 some day. There are some vintage aircraft we should include such as the Wright Flyer and ComperSwift and maybe the dc3 although I have no idea what's going on with the cockpit there. I plan on doing a proper cockpit/panel for the Swift - a nice easy one to start with - once I've figured out the instrument layout. Any help from anyone would be greatly appreciated on that score. I've got a small photo in a magazine that shows most of the instruments but it's too small to see exactly what they are. There are a few problems with the fdm too - there are definitely still some engine funnies and I'm simply not sure on the lift figures for the control surfaces i.e. ailerons rudder - they're currently set to values that work reasonably in the air but I find it pretty difficult to get off the ground. Help would be welcomed for this too. The P51 and the Hunter should definitely be included, those are ones that also could be considered finished. Lee has built a nice fleet of various aircraft which are worth including such as the AN-225 (huge russian transport), a b-52, a seahawk, a tsr2 and a yf23. All of these fly well, have beautiful external 3d models, are very well animated including the gear and suspention, but all lack 3d cockpits and instead have a functional, but non-realistic 2d cockpit. Thanks, but as I said, they are very much wips and to varying degrees lack hard data. While I'm quite pleased with the overall characteristics, they can't really be regarded as accurate representations. Not to mention the lack of proper panels. The a4 is nice, although I don't know how complete the cockpit is??? The J22 and F16 both show promise. We should also include the X15, but that takes some startup parameters to get flying. I think that including the X-15 would be a good idea, because from what I gather, it's a pretty accurate representation. Would it be possible to include the start-up stuff in the 'set' file? And the Ornithopter should definitely be included. And we should toss the ufo in as well. I'll list the remaining aircraft below. These I've had less experience with or non-optimal results when I have tried them. What is the status of the helicopters? They've seemed very crude when I've looked at them. I don't mean to be anti-helicopter, but if we are trying to cull some of the less nice stuff out of the official release, I'm not sure in their current form they would make the cut. OV10-jsbsim North American OV-10A Bronco T37-jsbsim Cessna T-37 T38-jsbsim Northrop T-38 airwaveXtreme150-v1-nl-uiuc Airwave Xtreme 150 hang glider (UIUC) as350-yasim Ecureuil AS 350 Helicopter asw20-v1-nl-uiuc ASW-20 sailplane (UIUC) beech99-v1-uiuc Beech 99 (UIUC) bell206-yasim
Re: [Flightgear-devel] RFD: base package aircraft and aliases
Actually, the base cvs package on dial-up isn't too bad once you've done the initial checkout, and even then it can be done over several sessions. LeeE On Wednesday 17 March 2004 07:15, Durk Talsma wrote: I agree that trimming down the base package (for the release) is probably a good idea. I'm beginning to wonder if the base package isn't starting to overshoot it's target these days. What I mean to say with this is that a few years ago we had a pretty big discussion about whether or not to separate the one big monolitithic download that fgfs was at the time into more manageble chunks, and eventually came up with separating the code from the essential data. This is the situation we have right now, but but slowly, more and more aircraft have slipped into the base package, which is growing again in size pretty quickly, and what's in the base package these days is more than just essential So wouldn't it be logical to only include a few aircraft types into the base package and offer the others for separate download, just like we do for the world-wide scenery? This separation wouldn't create an additional dependency, as much as offer a lot of additional functionality. Anyways, let me finish by saying that I'm perfectly happy this the situation as we have it right now, having cable internet and access to cvs. I'm just speculating about future developments. Cheers, Durk On Wednesday 17 March 2004 04:50, Curtis L. Olson wrote: In the next couple weeks I'd like to start moving seriously towards our next release. There are probably many things that could stand to be tweaked and polished but two related items jump out at me tonight. 1. I'm growing less enthused with our aircraft alias naming system. I don't mind that we have the capability, but it becomes annoying to have 8 names for the same aircraft, even 2 names for the same aircraft. What would people say to nuking all the alias entries for the upcoming release? Now that we have the fgrun launcher, name length or complexity is not really an issue. Even for us hard core unix folks who refuse to give up the command line, we can learn to copy/paste to avoid unnecessary typing. I think getting rid of the aliases would make aircraft browsing and selection a lot less mystifying to new comers. We've got 20 (!) varients of the C172. Maybe for this release it would be nice to just have one or two??? 2. We have a *lot* of aircraft in the base package. Some of these are really nice, some of these are not even close to basic functionality. Most are probalby best considered works in progress. (Now this is perfectly fine, and is what CVS is for.) However, for the next release I would like to just include a subset of the available aircraft, picking and choosing the best or most interesting ones. I think it's worth including the heavies (737, A320, 747) even though their cockpits aren't finished. We definitely want the light civilian aircraft just as the Cub (which is one of the few aircraft that are legitimately finished) :-) as well as a C172 (C182?) and maybe include the C310 here, even though ours has navy markings? And definitely the pa28-161. It would be nice to get a 3d mixture control on the default C172 some day. There are some vintage aircraft we should include such as the Wright Flyer and ComperSwift and maybe the dc3 although I have no idea what's going on with the cockpit there. The P51 and the Hunter should definitely be included, those are ones that also could be considered finished. Lee has built a nice fleet of various aircraft which are worth including such as the AN-225 (huge russian transport), a b-52, a seahawk, a tsr2 and a yf23. All of these fly well, have beautiful external 3d models, are very well animated including the gear and suspention, but all lack 3d cockpits and instead have a functional, but non-realistic 2d cockpit. The a4 is nice, although I don't know how complete the cockpit is??? The J22 and F16 both show promise. We should also include the X15, but that takes some startup parameters to get flying. And the Ornithopter should definitely be included. And we should toss the ufo in as well. I'll list the remaining aircraft below. These I've had less experience with or non-optimal results when I have tried them. What is the status of the helicopters? They've seemed very crude when I've looked at them. I don't mean to be anti-helicopter, but if we are trying to cull some of the less nice stuff out of the official release, I'm not sure in their current form they would make the cut. OV10-jsbsim North American OV-10A Bronco T37-jsbsim Cessna T-37 T38-jsbsim Northrop T-38 airwaveXtreme150-v1-nl-uiuc Airwave Xtreme 150 hang glider (UIUC) as350-yasim Ecureuil AS 350 Helicopter asw20-v1-nl-uiuc
Re: [Flightgear-devel] RFD: base package aircraft and aliases
On Wednesday 17 March 2004 16:37, Curtis L. Olson wrote: Curtis L. Olson wrote: 1. I'm growing less enthused with our aircraft alias naming system. I don't mind that we have the capability, but it becomes annoying to have 8 names for the same aircraft, even 2 names for the same aircraft. As I understand it, aliases are primarily a convenience for the command line typer folks, but they severerly clutter the aircraft browser in the fgrun launcher. I propose that the fgrun launcher simply ignores all the alias entries and only presents the primary entries. Then we can discuss changing the alias system later (if we decide to.) I don't think we should eliminate the ability to set up aircraft aliases, but down the road we may want to do some reorganization. The J3 cub has at least five entries for one single aircraft. Aliases make more sense if have multiple versions of a 747 for instance and we want to select which version you get when you request a 747. Flipping that around and giving 5 different names to a single aircraft when we only have one of them seems a little out of control. 2. We have a *lot* of aircraft in the base package. Some of these are really nice, some of these are not even close to basic functionality. Most are probalby best considered works in progress. (Now this is perfectly fine, and is what CVS is for.) However, for the next release I would like to just include a subset of the available aircraft, picking and choosing the best or most interesting ones. Based on the discussion of this thread, here is the current list I have assembled for inclusion, notice that I err on the side of inclusion rather than exclusion which I think is fine, especially if we unclutter the fgrun aircraft browser. Large Commercial Transports === Boeing 737 Boeing 747 Airbus A320 AN-225 Small Civilian Aircraft === Piper J3 Cub Cessna 172 Cessna 182 Cessna 310 Piper pa28-161 Military Fighters/Trainers == P-51 Hawker Hunter A4 Skyhawk J22 F-16 Seahawk TSR-2 YF-23 T-38 Sopwith Camel T-6A Texan II North American OV-10A Bronco Large Military == B-52 Experimental/Research = Ornithopter UFO X-15 Helicopters Eurocopter Bo105 Historic Aircraft = 1903 Wright Flyer Comper Swift DC-3 Sail Planes === Schweizer 2-33 Can anyone justify including additional aircraft in this list? Thanks, Curt. I'd be inclined to hold off including the Sea Hawk, TSR-2 and B-52, for the time being at least. The Sea Hawk is currently getting a proper panel, speed-brakes and some missing gear doors, courtesy of Vivian M. The TSR-2 isn't really mainstream and I doubt it would have much relevance to anyone who wasn't already interested in it. It really needs a look-ahead TF function to be flown properly too. Finally, the B-52 3D model is pretty crude and badly needs re-building - I'm not sure it'd be a good advert for FG in it's current state. The lack of anything like a proper panel for the AN225 isn't very good either and unless it was clearly marked as a development/wip a/c it could result in more criticism of FG than compliments. The same applies to the YF-23 although here I could probably get away with just making something up as it was a prototype. However, I think both the prototypes are now in museums in the U.S, so if anyone can get some cockpit shots... I've also got fairly effective auto take-off and landing functions for the YF-23 now, controlled by some awful Nasal hackery - I'll send you an update a little later this evening. LeeE ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel
RE: [Flightgear-devel] RFD: base package aircraft and aliases
Lee Elliott wrote On Wednesday 17 March 2004 16:37, Curtis L. Olson wrote: Curtis L. Olson wrote: 1. I'm growing less enthused with our aircraft alias naming system. I don't mind that we have the capability, but it becomes annoying to have 8 names for the same aircraft, even 2 names for the same aircraft. As I understand it, aliases are primarily a convenience for the command line typer folks, but they severerly clutter the aircraft browser in the fgrun launcher. I propose that the fgrun launcher simply ignores all the alias entries and only presents the primary entries. Then we can discuss changing the alias system later (if we decide to.) I don't think we should eliminate the ability to set up aircraft aliases, but down the road we may want to do some reorganization. The J3 cub has at least five entries for one single aircraft. Aliases make more sense if have multiple versions of a 747 for instance and we want to select which version you get when you request a 747. Flipping that around and giving 5 different names to a single aircraft when we only have one of them seems a little out of control. 2. We have a *lot* of aircraft in the base package. Some of these are really nice, some of these are not even close to basic functionality. Most are probalby best considered works in progress. (Now this is perfectly fine, and is what CVS is for.) However, for the next release I would like to just include a subset of the available aircraft, picking and choosing the best or most interesting ones. Based on the discussion of this thread, here is the current list I have assembled for inclusion, notice that I err on the side of inclusion rather than exclusion which I think is fine, especially if we unclutter the fgrun aircraft browser. Large Commercial Transports === Boeing 737 Boeing 747 Airbus A320 AN-225 Small Civilian Aircraft === Piper J3 Cub Cessna 172 Cessna 182 Cessna 310 Piper pa28-161 Military Fighters/Trainers == P-51 Hawker Hunter A4 Skyhawk J22 F-16 Seahawk TSR-2 YF-23 T-38 Sopwith Camel T-6A Texan II North American OV-10A Bronco Large Military == B-52 Experimental/Research = Ornithopter UFO X-15 Helicopters Eurocopter Bo105 Historic Aircraft = 1903 Wright Flyer Comper Swift DC-3 Sail Planes === Schweizer 2-33 Can anyone justify including additional aircraft in this list? Thanks, Curt. I'd be inclined to hold off including the Sea Hawk, TSR-2 and B-52, for the time being at least. The Sea Hawk is currently getting a proper panel, speed-brakes and some missing gear doors, courtesy of Vivian M. The TSR-2 isn't really mainstream and I doubt it would have much relevance to anyone who wasn't already interested in it. It really needs a look-ahead TF function to be flown properly too. Finally, the B-52 3D model is pretty crude and badly needs re-building - I'm not sure it'd be a good advert for FG in it's current state. The lack of anything like a proper panel for the AN225 isn't very good either and unless it was clearly marked as a development/wip a/c it could result in more criticism of FG than compliments. The same applies to the YF-23 although here I could probably get away with just making something up as it was a prototype. However, I think both the prototypes are now in museums in the U.S, so if anyone can get some cockpit shots... I've also got fairly effective auto take-off and landing functions for the YF-23 now, controlled by some awful Nasal hackery - I'll send you an update a little later this evening. I'm only hours away from completing the Seahawk with a 3d panel - it would be finished right now, but I've just broken it!!! Regards Vivian M. ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] RFD: base package aircraft and aliases
On Wednesday 17 March 2004 21:50, Vivian Meazza wrote: [snip...] ... I'd be inclined to hold off including the Sea Hawk, TSR-2 and B-52, for the time being at least. The Sea Hawk is currently getting a proper panel, speed-brakes and some missing gear doors, courtesy of Vivian M. The TSR-2 ... I'm only hours away from completing the Seahawk with a 3d panel - it would be finished right now, but I've just broken it!!! Regards Vivian M. LOL :) LeeE ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] RFD: base package aircraft and aliases
On Wednesday 17 March 2004 17:15, Norman Vine wrote: Curtis L. Olson writes: 2. We have a *lot* of aircraft in the base package. I suggest we limit the base package to 2 or 3 aircraft at most IMHO better if this is only 1 aircraft though and have a supplemental aircraft package(s) for the rest Note I am concerned about the size of the 'minimal' distribution as there still are many in the world using dial up I would also like to suggest that the base package is made as minimal as possible perhaps one real aircraft and a 'technology' demonstrator that shows off the newest capabilities of the base package (i.e. weather radar, TF etc). My thoughts are that items that change independantly of the base package do not really have to be there. It's a shame that anyone would have to download, say 10, aircraft that have not changed since the update of the base package. Cheers, Al ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] RFD: base package aircraft and aliases
Hi Guys Al West writes On Wednesday 17 March 2004 17:15, Norman Vine wrote: Curtis L. Olson writes: 2. We have a *lot* of aircraft in the base package. I suggest we limit the base package to 2 or 3 aircraft at most IMHO better if this is only 1 aircraft though and have a supplemental aircraft package(s) for the rest Note I am concerned about the size of the 'minimal' distribution as there still are many in the world using dial up I would also like to suggest that the base package is made as minimal as possible perhaps one real aircraft and a 'technology' demonstrator that shows off the newest capabilities of the base package (i.e. weather radar, TF etc). My thoughts are that items that change independantly of the base package do not really have to be there. It's a shame that anyone would have to download, say 10, aircraft that have not changed since the update of the base package. My preference would be for just 1 A/C.That being the best most complete light A/C we have I would even suggest no A/C if it was possible during the download to include the A/C the person downloading actually wanted. I guess a newbie(which I was not long ago)just wants an A/C they can get in and fly pretty easily.After that as they become more knowledgeable of flightgaer they can build up there library of A/C and FDM's. Cheers Innis _ SEEK: Now with over 50,000 dream jobs! Click here: http://ninemsn.seek.com.au?hotmail ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] RFD: base package aircraft and aliases
I agree that trimming down the base package (for the release) is probably a good idea. I'm beginning to wonder if the base package isn't starting to overshoot it's target these days. What I mean to say with this is that a few years ago we had a pretty big discussion about whether or not to separate the one big monolitithic download that fgfs was at the time into more manageble chunks, and eventually came up with separating the code from the essential data. This is the situation we have right now, but but slowly, more and more aircraft have slipped into the base package, which is growing again in size pretty quickly, and what's in the base package these days is more than just essential So wouldn't it be logical to only include a few aircraft types into the base package and offer the others for separate download, just like we do for the world-wide scenery? This separation wouldn't create an additional dependency, as much as offer a lot of additional functionality. Anyways, let me finish by saying that I'm perfectly happy this the situation as we have it right now, having cable internet and access to cvs. I'm just speculating about future developments. Cheers, Durk On Wednesday 17 March 2004 04:50, Curtis L. Olson wrote: In the next couple weeks I'd like to start moving seriously towards our next release. There are probably many things that could stand to be tweaked and polished but two related items jump out at me tonight. 1. I'm growing less enthused with our aircraft alias naming system. I don't mind that we have the capability, but it becomes annoying to have 8 names for the same aircraft, even 2 names for the same aircraft. What would people say to nuking all the alias entries for the upcoming release? Now that we have the fgrun launcher, name length or complexity is not really an issue. Even for us hard core unix folks who refuse to give up the command line, we can learn to copy/paste to avoid unnecessary typing. I think getting rid of the aliases would make aircraft browsing and selection a lot less mystifying to new comers. We've got 20 (!) varients of the C172. Maybe for this release it would be nice to just have one or two??? 2. We have a *lot* of aircraft in the base package. Some of these are really nice, some of these are not even close to basic functionality. Most are probalby best considered works in progress. (Now this is perfectly fine, and is what CVS is for.) However, for the next release I would like to just include a subset of the available aircraft, picking and choosing the best or most interesting ones. I think it's worth including the heavies (737, A320, 747) even though their cockpits aren't finished. We definitely want the light civilian aircraft just as the Cub (which is one of the few aircraft that are legitimately finished) :-) as well as a C172 (C182?) and maybe include the C310 here, even though ours has navy markings? And definitely the pa28-161. It would be nice to get a 3d mixture control on the default C172 some day. There are some vintage aircraft we should include such as the Wright Flyer and ComperSwift and maybe the dc3 although I have no idea what's going on with the cockpit there. The P51 and the Hunter should definitely be included, those are ones that also could be considered finished. Lee has built a nice fleet of various aircraft which are worth including such as the AN-225 (huge russian transport), a b-52, a seahawk, a tsr2 and a yf23. All of these fly well, have beautiful external 3d models, are very well animated including the gear and suspention, but all lack 3d cockpits and instead have a functional, but non-realistic 2d cockpit. The a4 is nice, although I don't know how complete the cockpit is??? The J22 and F16 both show promise. We should also include the X15, but that takes some startup parameters to get flying. And the Ornithopter should definitely be included. And we should toss the ufo in as well. I'll list the remaining aircraft below. These I've had less experience with or non-optimal results when I have tried them. What is the status of the helicopters? They've seemed very crude when I've looked at them. I don't mean to be anti-helicopter, but if we are trying to cull some of the less nice stuff out of the official release, I'm not sure in their current form they would make the cut. OV10-jsbsim North American OV-10A Bronco T37-jsbsim Cessna T-37 T38-jsbsim Northrop T-38 airwaveXtreme150-v1-nl-uiuc Airwave Xtreme 150 hang glider (UIUC) as350-yasim Ecureuil AS 350 Helicopter asw20-v1-nl-uiuc ASW-20 sailplane (UIUC) beech99-v1-uiuc Beech 99 (UIUC) bell206-yasimBell 206 JetRanger Helicopter bo105-yasim Eurocopter Bo105 ch47-yasim CH-47 Chinook Helicopter f104-jsbsim
Re: [Flightgear-devel] RFD: base package aircraft and aliases
Hello Curt, Curtis L. Olson wrote: In the next couple weeks I'd like to start moving seriously towards our next release. I think it would be tremendously helpful to coordinate the with the next PLib release. There have been sooo many changes to PLib that FlightGear should _not_ base on the outdated 1.6.0 official release. I'd love to see some well placed pre-release CVS tags that make it easier to compare FG on different platforms, Martin. -- Unix _IS_ user friendly - it's just selective about who its friends are ! -- ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel
