FlightGear v2.10 Release Candidates

February, 17, 2013: FlightGear v2.10 is official released.  Please proceed to the download page and download the full official release!  All the files shown here are old news.  Please move along, nothing more to see here. 🙂

This is the place to find the v2.10.0 release candidates as they become available.  We would really love for everyone to download these “test” releases and give them a try.  The target date for the official FlightGear v2.10.0 release is February 17.

Download FlightGear v2.10 Release Candidates:

(Release candidates can be updated frequently and the mirror system can take some time to update, so if a download link doesn’t work, please try another mirror.  If none of the mirrors work, try refreshing this page to get a new set of mirror suggestions.  Or try again in an hour or two.)

Download v2.10 Aircraft:

  • Download the newest versions of all the aircraft at the v2.10 Aircraft Download Page.  These are also have “release candidate” status and could be subject to changes before the official release.

Download v2.10 Scenery:

  • The FlightGear scenery is continuously being improved.  The newest available scenery works with both v2.8 and v2.10.  We update the scenery packages with any new models or changes every few weeks.  Get the latest scenery through the usual means from the Scenery Download Page.

Source Code

What’s New?

Comments or Questions?

  • If you have comments or questions regarding the release candidates, please go to the FlightGear forum.

Bugs?

Fly Hawaii!

Author: Thorsten Renk

Destination Hawaii

One of the first places available as hires scenery in Flightgear, and also among the first places to receive a dedicated regional texture scheme, the island chain of Hawaii is a very spectacular destination in the Flightgear world. It offers a compelling variety of terrain from dry and barren lava plains to lush tropical rainforest, from the gentle fertile plains to rugged mountains and steep cliffs towering over the sea and from the densely populated island of Oahu to uninhabited Kaho’olawe.

Flying Hawaii can be easy or challenging – there are busy international airports and lone airstrips in remote locations, the altitude of the terrain ranges from sea level all the way up to Mauna Kea towering at 13,796 ft and steep gorges cut into the lava cliffs allow for tricky helicopter excursions.

Currently the scenery is only available via TerraSync and not by direct download from the website, presumably this will change with the next release of world scenery. While the release preparations for Flightgear 2.10 are underway, this article provides a first glimpse into some stunning new features which are currently being developed for the 3.0 release in summer 2013 – high resolution terrain texturing for closeup scenes.

Aeronautical charts for the whole of Hawaii are available online at skyvector.com, see for instance here for all charts relevant for Honolulu International Airport.

Hawaii ‘Big Island’

With a total area of 4,028 square miles, Hawaii is by far the biggest island of the archipelago, exceeding the size of all other islands taken together. It is also the youngest of all islands, dominated by the gentle rising cones of the five massive shield volcanoes Kohala, Mauna Kea, Hualalai, Mauna Loa and Kilauea, with the last two still being active.

The central part of the island is occupied by the twin cones of Mauna Kea (foreground) and Mauna Loa (background) which both reach above 13,000 ft and consists of extended lava fields, while the coastal region is somewhat more fertile.

The first destination reached however when arriving from the Honolulu region is Upolu Point, a region of eroded volcanic rock and spectacular gorges.

A flight to Hilo, the main city of the island, can pass between the two major shield volcanoes and requires a climb from sea level to more than 7,000 ft, which requires some adjustment of the mixture in a single-engine propeller plane. The climb to the pass is mainly above arid grasslands.

At higher altitudes, the spectacular lava fields of Mauna Loa dominate the scene.

Here is yet another view on Mauna Kea from the pass – often the volcanoes reach above the cloud layer.

Seen from the pass, Hilo seems close, but the slope of the terrain is so gentle that it is very easy to underestimate the true distance. Towards the coast, forests and fertile ground dominate the scene again.

Maui

Maui is perhaps the island with the most diverse terrain. Its eastern part is dominated by the mighty cone of Haleakala, reaching just above 10,000 ft. The middle part is a fertile valley, whereas the western part features the rugged West Maui Mountains, which are considerably lower than Haleakala, but certainly make up for that with steep cliffs and deeply cut valleys.

Since the prevailing winds come from the northern side, air rises on the flanks of Haleakala, leading to fertile and overgrown northern slopes, whereas the southern slopes of Haleakala look completely different and show rather different weather.

Flightgear’s Advanced Weather is actually capable of simulating the resulting distribution of clouds from this effect – in fact, Haleakala has been an inportant test case in the development of the weather system.

Closely grouped in the vicinity of Maui are also the islands Lanai, Molokai and Kaho’olawe, easy to see in clear weather, thus Maui is an ideal starting point for island-hopping adventures.

Approaching from east, the scenery is dominated by Haleakala, here the more arid southern slopes are seen.

Maui is substantially older than Hawaii island, and so the volcano has started to erode quite significantly when compared to Mauna Loa – as a result, the fertile land extends much higher up. Haleakala crater however remains a rather impressive sight.

When approaching from the west, the cliffs and gorges of the West Maui Mountains are the first feature to become apparent.

On a clear day, the surrounding islands (here Molokai in the background) can clearly be seen:

The West Maui Mountains themselves contain quite some impressive sights – it is especially worthwhile to explore the various canyons and cliffs with a helicopter.

Yet another flyby view from the F-14b RIO position on the West Maui Mountains:

Oahu

Going west, the geological age of the island chain increases, and thus terrain features become more gentle as the volcanic rock erodes and changes into fertile soil. The island of Oahu is where the majority of the Hawaiian population lives and where the capital Honolulu is located. This is also where Honolulu International Airport, the most busy of all Hawaiian airports is found, and the home of famous sights as Pearl Harbour. Honolulu was envisioned as an emergency landing site for the space shuttle, and in fact the ‘reef runway’ (shared, as the rest of the airfield, with Hickam Air Force Base) used to be designated for this purpose.

Oahu stretches between two mountain ridges, which rise up to an elevation of just over 4000 ft. Here is a view of the island from the west.

Central Oahu is flat and largely in agricultural use. In the background, Honolulu and Pearl Harbour can be seen.

One of the most scenic spots on the island is Kailua beach on the north-eastern coast, offering a spectacular constrast of steep cliffs, long beaches and lush tropical vegetation.

The hires ground texturing scheme for Oahu has been carefully designed to display the contrast between lush vegetation and the red volcanic soil.

The other islands – Lanai, Molokai, Kauai, Kaho’Olawe and Niihau

Lanai is a fairly arid and sparsely populated island south-west of Maui with a single airport. It is dominated by a single mountain ridge reaching just above 3000 ft, with some valleys carved by erosion.

Molokai is, like Maui, a fairly diverse island – its eastern part consists of steep and towering cliffs whereas its western part is mostly flat and gentle landscape. Kalaupapa airport (PHLU) is built on a peninsula just beneath the cliff faces.

Kaho’Olawe is a small, uninhabited island. It has no airport and can only be reached by helicopter.

Its surface is mostly composed of arid stretches and lava fields.

Kauai, the garden island, is one of the nicest bits of scenery in the Hawaiian islands. It features the spectacular Na’Pali coast and Waimea Canyon.

Sadly, the scenery in Flightgear is currently a bit of a let-down – the terrain shows some errors in Kauai, and neither the Na’Pali coast nor Waimea come anywhere close to the originals.

Here is a scene close to Hanalei:

Finally, the island of Niihau is not part of the high resolution scenery package, and thus not really worth visiting.

Some Hawaiian airports

Hilo International Airport (PHTO) is located on the eastern side of Hawaii island at the coast – in a vert scenic location close to the town of Hilo. It is one of the two major airports of the archipelago and with a runway length of 9,800 ft large enough to admit essentially all airplanes.

Kona International Airport (PHKO) is located in the lava fields at the western coast of Hawaii island. Three million pounds of dynamite have been used to flatten the lava flow on which it was constructed. It offers a single 11,000 ft runway which is second in length only to Honolulu International Airport.

Waimea-Kohala Airport (PHMU) is a not very busy public airfield at 2,600 ft altitude in the western drylands of Hawaii island. It offers a single 5,197 ft runway.

Princeville: (HI01) is a small private airport close to Hanalei on the garden island Kauai. It is only suitable for smaller aircraft.

Lihue: (PHLI) is the main airport of Kauai. It has mainly connections to Honolulu, but also some long-distance traffic to the US mainland.

12 Days of Flight Tips (Season 2)

Last year, Oscar (youtube user: osjcag) created a series of short “howto” movies called the 12 Days of FlightGear Tips.  This year he is producing Season #2!  Each day he releases a new tip in honor of the twelve days of Christmas. Make sure you check back each day for the new tip!  Even “seasoned” FlightGear pilots may pick up a new trick or two.  Enjoy!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zoLuf3wfrEs[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMvGkJfoBVo[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AuEqnpnT0Q[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sSiSz2z9q8[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRYDHpjiTrM[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbfauLTlW90[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Szoyj2AniJQ[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jahhoLY9sQ[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1aY3m9s10s4[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKsP-IgyYwY[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3kaBY0CFQA[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1u9mnWv3Cs[/youtube]

Terrain Texturing

Author: Thorsten Renk

Regional and procedural texturing

It’s perhaps not a big secret that the default Flightgear World Scenery does not look stunning everywhere in the world. Yet, with regional texturing in Flightgear 2.8 and easy to configure procedural texturing in the current development version 2.9, two techniques have arrived which have the potential to rapidly change this. But precisely what are these techniques?

Short of addons such as fgphotoscenery, Flightgear has never used aerial photographs for texturing. Instead, the terrain is described in terms of landclasses, and each landclass has an associated texture. Up to 2.8, these texture definitions were the same all over the world, Yet in reality, this is not true – cities in the US for instance tend to be organized in rectangular grid patterns which are completely uncommon in Europe, Irrigated crops in Asia are most likely rice terraces, whereas rice terraces are not a common sight in the US Mid-West. Regional texturing allows to define texturing schemes for specified geographical regions and allow to overcome these problems – European cities can now defined to look different from US cities.

Procedural texturing is an even more powerful technique. In the default rendering scheme, the terrain of a certain landclass is painted with a pre-defined texture, then the light is computed and this is what we see on the screen. Procedural texturing does not use a pre-defined texture, but computes the texture as part of the rendering process. This powerful technique allows textures to be sensitive to the environment and hence simulate wet or dusty terrain, to create the actual texture as a mixure of various overlay textures which change dependent on how steep the terrain is or to add snow cover with any density on the fly. Procedural texturing has been part of the shader effects in Flightgear 2.8, for instance in terms of the wind-dependent wave patterns of water, or the snowline settings, but in 2.9 it gained many additional options and most important is configurable without any knowledge of OpenGL rendering by just a few lines of xml code.

Procedural texturing is best illustrated pictorially – here is a scene (China Lake Naval Air Weapons Station (KNID), California) in default texturing. The visible terrain is mostly shrubland, and there is a pronounced tiling effect – the texture pattern is seen to repeat in the scene, leading to regular structures which become even more prominent from higher altitude.

The same scene in procedural texturing looks much more appealing – the random mixture of different base texture removes the tiling for good, and a thin dust effect creates the impression of dry terrain as appropriate for the near-desert location.

Unfortunately, procedural texturing does not come for free – computing textures on the fly creates a significant drain on framerate, thus procedural texturing is only suitable for modern graphics cards.

The structure of Flightgear Scenery

The combination of regional and procedural texturing is extremely powerful and allows to make dramatic improvements to the world scenery at the simple expense of few lines of xml code. Let’s look at an example location:

Canaima National Park in Venezuela is one of the world’s most fascinating mountain regions with table-mountains like Auyantepui towering over jungle terrain, featuring the world’s tallest waterfall, Angel Falls (3,287 ft). The scenery offers steep near-vertical cliffs hundreds of meters high, rugged and inaccessible plateaus atop the table mountains and lush tropical forest with winding reivers at their feet. The best place to access the park is Canaima airport (SVCN).

Yet, in the Flightgear default rendering scheme, Auyantepui is shown like this:

There is… something wrong here. In order to understand what goes wrong, let’s take a short look at the structure of the Flightgear scenery.

The basic ingredient of the scenery is the terrain mesh, containing the elevation data for all mesh points and the information what landclass the terrain between grid points is. The terrain mesh is created by a tool called TerraGear from public geodata. The output of this stage contains the altitude information of the terrain, and for instance the information that the terrain represents tropical forest (the so-called ‘landclass’).

Upon loading the terrain once it is used by Flightgear, the landclass is associated with a texture. At the same time, random objects such as buildings or trees are created and placed upon the terrain mesh where appropriate. Thus, the tropical forest landclass would at this step be associated with a forest texture and be populated with a large number of trees. At this stage, also shader effects are associated with a particular landclass, for instance water receives a reflection effect, whereas urban terrain may receive the urban shader effect.

In the last step, static (unique and shared) objects are added to the scene. These are objects which appear always at a given location, for instance airport terminals or special landmarks, and they are found in the Flightgear Scenery Database.

Armed with this knowledge, let’s analyze the above scene to find out what goes wrong: We can see that large parts of the table mountain get an agricultural texture. Visiting the scene with the ufo and using ctrl + alt + click (only in 2.9) on the offending terrain reveals that the mesh is here classified as ‘DryCrop’. This isn’t completely unreasonable, as the top of the table mountain is a rather barren grassland – but DryCrop becomes automatically associated with Europen-style agriculture textures – which look just plain silly in a place which in reality is utterly inaccessible, despite the valiant effort of the shader effect to change the agriculture to brown earth on steep slopes. Similarly, the nearby tropical forest is classified as ‘EvergreenForest’ (which is technically correct) – but EvergreenForest is associated with needle forest textures and needle trees.

Editing scenery texturing

There are various possibilities how this could be addressed. For instance, using TerraGear the landclasses in the scenery could be changed to something closer to reality. But to do this requires some learning, TerraGear is not a trivial tool. In this case, it is also unnecessary: The basic elevation mesh is in good order, the landclasses are not unreasonable, just the way textures and random objects are assigned to them is not working, and thus we need to change this.

The mapping of landclasses to textures and various other properties is controlled by a file called materials.xml. The regionalized version of it is found under $FGRoot/Materials/regions/materials.xml. In this file, for each landclass, a block of definitions exists. The idea is then to just copy the block for ‘DryCrop’ and edit the copy to contain an alternative definition valid for a particular geographical region, then change the texture to something more suitable. Plenty of nice textures already are in $FGRoot/Textures/Terrain/ and $FGRoot/Textures.high/Terrain/, so usually we don’t even need a new texture. While we’re at it, we might as well add two more lines to the etxture declaration specifying the overlay texture for procedural texturing. And that’s all it takes – next is EvergreenForest – we repeat the procedure and in addition change the tree texture from evergreen needle trees to tropical trees.

After just about an hour of editing materials.xml (the whole procedure is described in detail here), Canaima National Park looks like this:

Much better – isn’t it? Now all that’s missing is Angel Falls – we’re going to need a static model for this. The Particle System of Flightgear is going to be our friend here…

Canaima Sightseeing

After adding the model of Angel Falls using the ufo, Canaima National Park is ready for a sightseeing Flight (Flightgear 2.9 users can already enjoy it like this!) – once the landclass assignment is okay, procedural texturing takes care of the rest:

Steep cliffs and sheer drops flying over Auyantepui enroute to Angel Falls:

Table mountain tops reaching above the clouds:

Angel Falls seen from high altitude:

The barren top plateau of Auyantepui:

Tropical rainforest on return to Canaima airport:

Don’t wait for someone else to fix the terrain you want to explore – it’s easy, the tools are there and in many cases it’s more work to create a single model of a building than to make terrain texturing in a vast region look good!

FlightGear v2.8.0 Released

 

August 17, 2012 – FlightGear v2.8.0 is Released

The FlightGear development team is happy to announce the v2.8.0 release of FlightGear, the free, open-source flight simulator. This new version contains many exciting new features, enhancements and bugfixes.

V2.8.0 includes improvements making FlightGear world more realistic than ever before.  Placement of random buildings and trees match the underlying terrain texture, and urban areas now have denser random buildings.  Textures can be region specific, and users can select between summer and winter textures in-sim.  An improved atmospheric scattering and terrain haze model means the lighting of the terrain is more realistic.  Finally, a new automated system is now available for scenery submissions that automatically get rolled into the scenery distribution to be enjoyed by everyone.

A very exciting new addition is “Project Rembrandt”.  This is still considered experimental and not enabled by default.  This enables real-time shadows, and support for multiple light sources such as landing lights.  Even rotating beacons illuminate the surroundings correctly.

Founded in 1997, FlightGear celebrated the 15th anniversary of it’s first official release in July.  FlightGear is developed by a worldwide group of volunteers, brought together by a shared ambition to create the most realistic flight simulator possible that is free to use, modify and distribute. FlightGear is used all over the world by desktop flight simulator enthusiasts, for University research and education, for a variety of aerospace engineering and visualization work in industry, and even for interactive exhibits in museums.

FlightGear features more than 400 aircraft, a worldwide seamless scenery database, a multi-player environment, detailed sky modelling, a flexible and open aircraft modelling system, varied networking options, multiple display support, a powerful scripting language, and an open architecture. Best of all, being open-source, the simulator is owned by the community and everyone is encouraged to contribute.

Start downloading FlightGear v2.8.0 for free from https://www.flightgear.org

FlightGear – Fly Free!

 

Some of the major changes include:

AI Traffic

  • Improved aircraft models and textures.

Flight dynamics

  • FlightGear has been synced with the JSBSim project.

Environment

  • Region-specific terrain textures are used for Europe and Hawaii. Now towns in Europe look different from towns in the USA.
  • Cities and towns now look more populated due to random 3D buildings, complete with lighting at night.
  • Scenery looks more realistic due to improved placement of random objects, buildings and trees.
  • Airport signs are now rendered in 3D, with support for double-sided signs. Full apt.dat 850 syntax is supported.
  • You can now select between summer and winter scenery in-sim.

Instruments & HUDs

  • A new flexible, 2D rendering system designed for complex instruments such as CDUs, MFDs, EICAS, HUDs and other glass cockpit interfaces. Canvas allows aircraft designers to easily build complex instruments without needing specialized C++ code.

Interface

  • Support for translation of the main menu into languages other than English.
  • A Nasal API is available allowing access to Navigation and route-manager data.

Highlighted new and improved aircraft

Project infrastructure

  • Various improvements to our scenery database make it easier than ever to add, delete or update objects to the FlightGear world.
  • The new aircraft download page allows you to easily find quality aircraft, by filtering on status indications.

Visual effects

  • Improved simulation of atmospheric light scattering with terrain haze.
  • An experimental renderer, named after the famous painter Rembrandt, is included for testing purposes. The Rembrandt rendered supports multiple light sources (landing lights, instrument lights), real-time shadows and ambient occlusion across aircraft and scenery for a much more realistic visual experience.

Other

  • Additional joysticks and rudder pedals are supported out-of-the-box:
    • InterLink Elite
    • Micorosft Xbox 360 Controller
    • Qware USB
    • Saitek Cyborg X (F.L.Y. 5)
    • Saitek Pro Flight Cessna Yoke
    • Saitek Pro Flight Cessna Trim Wheel
    • Saitek Pro Flight Cessna Rudder Pedals
    • Speedlink Defender
  • A French partial translation of The FlightGear Manual is now available.

Bug fixes

  • See our bugtracker for an extensive list of the bugs fixed in this release.

Interview: Jon Berndt

Q: How long have you been involved in FlightGear?

For over ten years. I’m the development coordinator (and occasionally accused of being the BDFL) for JSBSim. It’s been just a few months more than ten years since JSBSim became the default flight model for FlightGear – although it should be said that in these days a “default” flight model has less (or no) meaning compared to back then.

Q: What are your major interests in FlightGear?

Flight dynamics and control, but I really like the whole aspect of specifying a model in XML (and other) files – a truly data-driven simulation.

Q: What project are you working on right now?

Continued development of JSBSim. There are always things to tweak. Recently, I extended the PID (Proportional-Integral-Derivative) control component in JSBSim to support some work I have been doing.

Q: What do you plan on doing in the future?

Writing more documentation. Adding more features to JSBSim as needed. And trying to get an official v1.0 release out.

Q: Are you happy with the way the FlightGear project is going?

I really enjoy seeing the progress being made in the visuals (as a spectator) – in particular I find the Rembrandt project fascinating.

Q: What do you enjoy most about developing for FlightGear?

Since JSBSim is a standalone project, there are other applications that use it such as Outerra, OpenEaagles, and others. However, FlightGear has the longest history with JSBSim and the most active developer community. It has been both enlightening and exciting to see developers stretch the limits of JSBSim, and use it within FlightGear in ways that were not foreseen previously. For instance, the P-51D that Hal Engel has been developing over the past couple of years (or more?) is very good. Also, the recently published skydiver flight model was an instance of a commercial use of FlightGear with JSBSim that resulted in code being shared with us in the spirit of the GPL. With that said, the most exciting part for me of working with the FlightGear community is seeing the very real strengths of open source development on display, and contributing to that effort.

Q: Are there any “hidden features” you have worked on in FlightGear that new users may miss?

There are many features that are not hidden, but are not known about because they are not yet part of our reference manual.

Q: What is your background in Flight Simulation?

I was graduated from the University of Minnesota (as was FlightGear Development Coordinator Curt Olson). I earned a degree in Aerospace Engineering there and in 1987 I went to work for Link Flight Simulation. I wrote the flight control simulation code for the F-16 as it was migrating from an analog control system to a digital control system. In the years following that I supported the Engineering Directorate at NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston, working with flight simulators almost continuously since then. Most recently, I went to work for Sierra Nevada Corporation to do simulation and analysis work, as well as supporting some wind tunnel testing, all for the Dream Chaser lifting body project. I have been a member of the AIAA Modeling and Simulation Technical Committee along with Bruce Jackson, author of LaRCSim.

Q: What else do you enjoy doing, besides coding in C++ late at night?

I enjoy playing acoustic guitar (fingerstyle), photography, hiking along the Colorado Front Range, playing catch/fetch with my dogs, tending to a 150 gallon saltwater aquarium, and doing various home remodeling projects. But what I really need is more sleep!

Interview: Sam Clancy

Q: How long have you been involved in FlightGear?

Actively I’ve been involved with the FlightGear project since early January 2011. Simply because my old computer (which my family had had for about 5 or 6 years prior) couldn’t run FlightGear. But after we upgraded… (insert evil laugh here)

Q: What is your forum nickname?

connect is my name.

Q: What are your major interests in FlightGear?

Flying, first of all. My life dream is to become a commercial airline pilot, hopefully somewhere in Europe. I’ve taken my very first steps towards this in real life, with my “TIF” or Training Introductory Flight, but I also believe my prior experience FlightGear, and of course my continued use of FlightGear gives me a much cheaper alternative, for the time being, to gain experience.

Q: Why is it that you are interested in flight simulation or aviation in general?

The fact that it took mankind literally thousands of years to figure out how to fly, in just a century we’ve gone from the Wright Flyer all the way to the Antonov An-225, the Airbus A380, the Boeing 747, the list is endless. I think the fact we got to the moon is pretty good to.

Q: What project are you working on right now?

I think you mean projects, in my case. I’ve actually got three on the go; all of which I am collaborating on (something I love with FlightGears community spirit). They are; the Airbus A350-900XWB in co-operation with Malik Guest (tehwarlock). The Jabiru J-170 (the aircraft I completed my “TIF” or Training Introductory Flight in) with Narendran Muraleedharan (Omega Pilot/Omega95) and Project Brisbane, perhaps the most ambitious, with Lachlan Bruce (spitfirebruce21), Drew Gibson (VH-TIT/FlightGearNZ) and Malik Guest (tehwarlock).

Q: What do you plan on doing in the future?

I actually don’t know. I just hope I can develop my skills enough to contribute something really good to the FlightGear Project.

Q: Are you happy with the way the FlightGear project is going?

Overall; yes. Having come in the days of v2.0.0 and at one stage, using 0.9.0, it’s blatantly obvious the progress that has been made in the year or so I’ve been actively involved in the community.

Q: On average, how much time do you spend working with/contributing to FlightGear?

A day? Hours. Note the plural form of the word. I don’t have a number, as I’m frankly not pedantic enough to record, but I assume it’d scare me.

Q: Which of the more recent FlightGear developments do you consider most interesting/appealing?

Thorsten’s Local/Advanced Weather; I use it everytime I fly. It’s alot nicer visually then the “Global/Simple Weather” and I think it competes with FSX and REX.

Q: What do you enjoy most about developing for FlightGear?

The satisfaction you get when something works! Maybe that’s because I’m not the most technically minded, hehe.

Vertical takeoff and landing

The Harrier in Flightgear

Author: Thorsten Renk

The VTOL concept

Quite early on in the history of jet fighter aircraft, it was realized that a main vulnerability of jets is their reliance on an airbase and a runway, targets which can comparatively easily be taken out or temporarily disabled in a war, especially as the operational range of most fighters is quite limited and hence the base has to be relatively close to the front. Vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) ability was seen as a way to overcome this problem in the 1950s, since a VTOL fighter could operate from basically anywhere.

The problem of designing a VTOL aircraft is however obvious – such an aircraft needs a thrust to weight ratio above one to lift from the ground with thrust vector pointed downward during takeoff and pointed backward during normal flight. Early designs involved planes landing on their tail (such as the Lockheed XFV-1 or the Ryan X-13 Vertijet), but these planes were difficult to control. Other designs experimented with auxiliary, downward-pointed engines, but their extra weight was found to be impractical in a fighter jet. For a long time the only truly successful design was the Harrier family achieving VTOL due to thrust vectoring nozzles. The Lockheed Martin F-35B is expected to continue the concept of a VTOL fighter in the next millenium.

In the Harrier, the jet exhaust passes through four vectoring nozzles surrounding the center of gravity of the plane. These nozzles can be vectored from zero degrees (to the rear) up to 98 degrees (down and slightly forward for deceleration in hover flight). Since there is no airstream in hover flight across any of the control surfaces, the plane is equipped with a reaction control system with a set of extra small thrusters.

All in all, the VTOL ability comes at a price – engine maintenance is difficult (the wings have to come off), the plane is difficult to fly and pilots have described it as ‘unforgiving’ and the accident rate has been comparatively high. Nevertheless, the Harrier has been considered a successful fighter design.

Vertical takeoff

Let’s explore the Harrier in Flightgear! For any VTOL design, weight is a critical consideration. The plane will lift only if the thrust-to-weight ratio is above one, thus with a full fuel and weapons load, the plane is too heavy to lift. For this reason, whenever feasible, the plane is actually used in STOL (short takeoff and landing) mode with thrust only partially vectored down and lift provided partially by aerodynamical lift and partially by downward thrust. In this case, we’d like to do a VTOL takeoff though. With full fuel loadout and two AIM-9L missiles, the plane is still able to lift from the deck of USS Carl Vinson.

After doing my preflight checks, I vector the thrust about 83 degrees down (the Harrier sits on the gear with the nose pointed up, so if I vector 90 degrees down the plane moves backward on takeoff, which is very dangerous). After releasing the parking brakes, the thrust is slowly increased and the thrust vector corrected such that the plane doesn’t move – now thrust points exactly down. I then increase the thrust until the plane lifts from the deck (this means almost full throttle for the takeoff load), and then, a few meters above the ground vector the thrust very slightly backward to accelerate.

The Harrier has a tendency to lift the nose at this point, so I am very careful to push the nose down early on. As the plane accelerates, I vector the thrust more and more back and retract the gear, and within a few seconds the plane accelerates to above 100 kt and less and less downward thrust is needed. At around 240 kt, I vector the thrust completely back and the Harrier reacts like a normal fighter jet.

The Harrier in flight

It is important to remember to reduce thrust at this point – the Harrier has a very powerful engine due to the need to lift, but it is also a very fuel-consuming engine, and in horizontal flight with full thrust it won’t go anywhere before the tanks are empty.

Once in the air, the Harrier is a fairly typical older-generation fighter jet – it has a high roll rate, a fairly small turn radius and can climb quickly to high altitude. Lacking an afterburner, it is (despite the powerful engine) not a supersonic plane. Also, without thrust vectoring the plane doesn’t handle too well at slow airspeeds and cannot compete with swept-wing designs like the F-14b. However, thrust vectoring can be used in maneuvering to suddenly decelerate the plane by vectoring the thrust forward or to achieve a very tight turn radius.

The Harrier can also land like a conventional fighter jet, in this case vectoring the thrust about 45 degrees down acts like extra flaps – the plane slows down as the backward thrust is reduced and gets extra lift from the downward thrust component.

The current cockpit of the Flightgear Harrier could clearly use some attention, it has rather basic texturing, not all instruments are implemented and all in all it tends to be the least realistic visual element in the scene.

In flight planning, it is important to remember that unlike a conventional landing, a vertical landing involves a prolonged period of full thrust, and thus (especially during practice of the VTOL approach) about 20 to 25%% of the total fuel load should be available for the landing.

Not a helicopter

Despite some similarities to helicopter flight, it should be remembered that the Harrier is not a helicopter and reacts somewhat differently. First of all, torque generated by the main rotor is a big issue for helicopters and needs to be compensated for, but torque is absent for a jet engine – the Harrier does not in itself develop a tendency to yaw when lifting off the ground.

However, the roll stability is dramatically different in hover flight. One can think of a helicopter as the mass of the helicopter body hanging underneath the lifting rotor. Thus, when the body of the helicopter starts to roll, it has a tendency to swing like a pendulum underneath the rotor, but the roll doesn’t grow by itself. In contrast, the Harrier is a mass balanced upon a column of lifting thrust, so any roll tendency will not lead to a pendulum motion but will be self-reinforcing, and if it is not corrected will lead to an unstable condition.

An unstable situation however is worse in the Harrier than in a helicopter since a helicopter pilot has more options – since a helicopter pilot can use the cyclic control to tilt the rotor to the side and well as forward/backward (and so also fly the helicopter sideways or backward). The Harrier can vector thrust only backward or down, but not to the side, i.e. it can not easily be flown sideways and has limited control over unstable situations.

Finally, on a more prosaic note, the view down is much worse in the Harrier than in many helicopter cockpits. For all these reasons, it is safer to land with a small forward velocity (which can quickly be reduced on the ground) than to touch down actually without any forward velocity.

Vertical landing

I fly pretty much a conventional approach till about 10 miles distance to the carrier. At this point I reduce the airspeed to 250 kt and start to get flaps out. I put throttle to idle and vector the nozzles down to 90 degrees. As the plane slows down due to drag, about below 200 kt the aerodynamical lift reduces significantly and I keep increasing throttle to compensate. Below 150 kt, I extend the gear. As the carrier gets closer, I aim to reduce the airspeed to about 50 kt – since the Carrier moves with about 15 kt, that gives me some 35 kt relative motion to the carrier, enough to keep the approach stable. I vector thrust slightly forward and backward from the 90 degree position to adjust airspeed and monitor throttle to control my descent rate.

At 50 kt airspeed, there is no significant aerodynamical lift left, so the plane hovers under almost full thust slowly towards the carrier. It is important to monitor both airspeed and descent rate at this point – if the airspeed drops too much, the reduction of the small remaining lift component means that I descend too fast and get below the flight deck. In addition, in this stage of the approach wind gusts are felt quite badly and can ruin the whole approach if the plane does not have enough forward motion.

Compared to a carrier landing in the F-14b, it feels as if the Harrier approaches the flight deck centimeter by centimeter, although at this point there are about 20 kt relative motion. I keep the nose of the Harrier level with the horizon and pull it up to 8 degrees only after I am above the flightdeck – this effectively vectors thrust forward and kills my remaining airspeed, this in turn reduces lift and combined with a slight decrease in throttle lets me touch down with a forward motion of less than 10 kt, which I kill by applying brakes while I push the throttle quickly to idle to let the plane settle down firmly and avoid being thrown by a sudden gust.

As can be seen here, the Harrier rests in a slightly unusual configuration with the nose pointing upward.

Clearly, the Harrier is not one of the most detailed aircraft available in Flightgear. However, it provides a good, solid hands-on understanding of the advantages and problems of the VTOL concept. Other versions of the Harrier can be found in the Flightgear UK hangar. The above screenshots have been made with the development version of Flightgear using lightfield shading and the environment-sensitive detailed water shader.

Mountain-flying in the French Alps

Author: Thorsten Renk

Altiports

If you are up for some challenging approaches and tricky landings while you like to enjoy spectacular scenery, here is a good suggestion for a destination – try visiting the French altiports.

Altiports are small airfields for small aircraft and helicopters located high up in the mountains, often serving a ski resort. The runway is usually short and quite steeply sloped (in the case of Courchevel, the slope is a solid 18.5%), and all landings are done uphill with no go-around procedure. Since the alitports are by no means in the mountain summit region, the approaches must be done in the confined regions of a valley, which means they are usually curved and somewhat dangerous. As a rule, no navaids are available, thus altiports can only operate in good weather – all this adds up to a challenge. In fact, the History Channel program ‘Most Extreme Airports’ ranks Courchevel as the 7th most dangerous airport in the world, and once you do your first approach, you will quickly discover why.

Flying the French Alps is significantly more interesting by using the highly detailed custom scenery which is available for free under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 here. There are six altiports in the French Alps, L’Alpe d’Huez, Courchevel, La Rosiére, Mégève, Méribel and Valloire, along with a number of airfields in the valleys. The first two of these, L’Alpe d’Huez (LFHU) and Courchevel (LFLJ), have been modelled in detail for the custom scenery and are available from the PAF team hangar here. This package also contains a detailed model of Grenoble Le Versoud Aerodrome (LFLG) which is a good place to take off for a first look at Courchevel or L’Alpe d’Huez.

Here is a picture of the layout of L’Alpe d’Huez as it appears in Flightgear:

The challenges of mountain-flying

Beginners are probably better off with a powerful turboprop STOL aircraft like the de Havilland DHC-6 ‘Twin Otter’ which has the climb rate to pull out of dangerous situations, but the real challenge is better experienced in a small aircraft like the Robin DR-400. With a constant pitch single propeller and no retractable gear, this plane is, especially when passengers and baggage are on board, seriously taxed to climb over the high mountain ridges which in many cases reach above 11.000 ft.

The fuel and payload menu item allows to adjust both the fuel level in the tanks as well as any additional weight on board. Asymmetric weight distribution in JSBSim is in fact taken into account properly, if for instance the copilot weight is reduced in flight, the plane starts to roll.

Here, a DR-400 is lined up for takeoff in Courchevel with L’Alpe d’Huez as destimation. Since the airport is at an altitude of about 6500 ft, it is important to adjust the mixture properly to the altitude in order to get the full engine power for takeoff.

Once the engine is running at full power, the brakes are released and the plane accelerates quickly down the steeply sloped runway, becoming airborn halfway. Departing from Courchevel, it becomes readily apparent why the altiport is challenging and why there is no go-around procedure available.

On the direct way, the high ridges of the Vanoise National Park with elevations well above 9000 ft have to be crossed – with the fully loaded DR-400, this is a slow climb over snow-covered mountains.

Snowcover in Flightgear can be generated by shader effects with a user-controlled snowline. Since the shader effect does not place snow on steep slopes, the outcome looks very compelling.

However, also the lower valleys during the descent to L’Alpe d’Huez have a lot to offer.

This is the final approach, aiming between rocky cliffs. At this point there is still a chance to break off.

The final moments – we are committed to a landing now. The trick is to aim low and reach the threshold in level flight, then pull up to follow the slope of the runway, let gravity develerate the plane and let it touch down softly (if you try a normal approach on a runway with such a steep slope, you will break the gear) and not throttle back engine too fast, because the plane still needs to reach the top of the runway, and once the plane comes to a halt on the slope, the engine often is not powerful enough to get it moving again.

All went well – time to enjoy the company of the other pilots and have a coffee before heading back to Courchevel.

In bad weather, things can be much worse. If the valley is cloud-filled, there is no choice but to turn back if no good view of the airport is possible early on. And in gusty crosswinds, hitting the runway just right is a challenge on its own.

The beauty of mountain flying

However, once one masters the challenges of high-altitude flight and navigating in the confines of valleys, flying the Franch Alps in nice weather is primarily a good way to see spectacular scenery. Let’s head back to Courchevel!

Here, the DR-400 accelerates down the sloped runway of L’Alpe d’Huez – going down, airplanes accelerate much faster than one is used to on level runways, so we can get airborn in just a few moments.

Leaving L’Alpe d’Huez, the village and ski resort becomes visible. The winding road up from the valley is actually a popular mountain stage of the Tour de France.

The vicinity of L’Alpe d’Huez has deep valleys, spectacular cliffs and Canyons and steep, rocky mountain faces – one can fly through the valleys or high above the mountain ridges.

Enroute to Courchevel, we leave the high ridges behind and cross to the Vanoise Park in the vicinity of Modane.

Descending again, Courchevel becomes visible (just to the left of the screenshot) while the lower valleys vanish in afternoon fog.

Final impressions

Of course, one of the must-see destinations in the vicintiy is Mt. Blanc, towering at 15.781 ft above most cloud development. Its rocky lower slopes and steep cliffs make for some really spectacular scenery, and especially at sunrise or sunset, the view from the summit is spectacular.

As the sun goes down, the last clouds light up over L’Alpe d’Huez which is to be closed over the night. High time to get back to Grenoble.

Developing Computer Vision Algorithms with FlightGear

Ocean Debris

On March 12, 2012 suspected Japanese tsunami debris was discovered washed up on the beaches of Long Beach, CA.  On March 11 a deserted fishing vessel was spotted off the coast of British Columbia; by March 24 it had drifted within 120 miles of the coastline.  For many years NOAA.gov has been monitoring an every growing area in the North Pacific dubbed the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch” that appears to be collecting and concentrating all manner of plastic debris from all over the world.  Whether you are a dedicated environmentalist, or a person that leans more towards managing and sustaining the Earth’s valuable resources indefinitely, or are simply annoyed at having to photoshop garbage out of your pristine vacation pictures; the rapidly increasing amounts of trapped ocean debris should be a concern for everyone.  How does any of this relate to the FlightGear simulator?  Please read on!

 

What is “Computer Vision?”

Computer vision is a broad field that involves processing real world images or video to try to automatically extract data or intelligence.  Applications range from identifying items or features of interest (such as facial recognition) to extracting geometry and physically locating or reconstructing the layout of a scene to manipulating images in clever or useful ways.  In many ways computer vision is a fascinating and magical   area.  We all have seen software programs that can identify every picture of our Aunt Tina on our computer after we’ve identified her face in one or two pictures.  There are computer vision systems that can track people or objects that move through a network of many camera views; computer vision systems can estimate your head orientation and even figure out what direction you are looking or what object you are looking at..  Computer vision software can recognize cars, read printed text, and scan for subtle features hidden in images — and because these programs are automated, they can run around the clock and process vast amounts of imagery.  They never get fatigued, they never get bored, and they never start day dreaming about their weekend plans.

Developing a Computer Vision Application

Writing an application to do computer vision is similar to writing any other application.  The basic cycle of edit, compile, test, repeat exists like with any other program.  Computer vision algorithms apply logical rules and procedures to the image data in consistent ways to accomplish their tasks.  There really isn’t any magic, even though the results do seem magical when they outperform the abilities or pace of a human.  However, it can be a challenge to develop some computer vision applications if you do not have good access to the kind of imagery you plan to ultimately be processing.

As you can imagine, computer vision applications must deal with huge volumes of data.  Often they process live video data from multiple cameras and that data may need to be associated with other data sources in real time — something that may not be possible to test in a lab with prerecorded video.

Imagine you are developing an application which will process aerial imagery to extract some data (i.e. facial recognition) or locate and track items of interest (i.e. a big chunk of debris in the ocean.)  It could very likely be the case that you do not have much sample video to test with.  In the case of ocean debrid, it may be that you do have video from the correct altitude or taken at the correct air speed, or with the correct camera field of view or camera angle.  However, computer programs are most efficiently developed in the lab with repeatable test data and not in the field with whatever random imagery the day offers — this can lead to a disconnect between what imagery is needed for effective testing and what imagery is available.

Hunting and Tracking Ocean Debris


For several years I have been involved with a company that develops UAV’s and remote sensing and tracking systems for marine survey and research use.  One of our primary partners is NOAA.gov.  NOAA has a keen interest in understanding, tracking, and ultimately cleaning up debris in the ocean.  With the Japanese Tsunami last year, the issue of debris accumulating in our oceans has become even more important and critical, yet there is no effective strategy available for locating and removing debris from the ocean.

A satellite can survey huge areas, but not at the detail to identify specific pieces of debris.  A manned aircraft can fly at several hundred kts and cover a wide area at a low enough altitude to spot individual pieces of debris, but there is nothing you can do when debris is located.  A ship travels very slowly and has a very narrow range of view for onboard spotters.  A ship might do 10 kts (give or take) and with binoculars a human might be able to spot debris one or two miles away — if they are looking in the right direction at the exact moment a swell lifts the debris up into view in front of the nearer swells.  The upper decks of a ship offer some height for observing debris, but swells hide objects more than they reveal them.   You have to be looking in the right direction at the right time to even have a chance to spot something.  In addition to all the other challenges of ship-board debris spotting, the rolling/pitching motion of the ship makes the use of binoculars very difficult and very fatiguing.

The following two pictures were taken seconds apart.  Can you spot the debris in the first image?  In the second? (You can click on them to see the full size version.)

  

A UAS offers numerous advantages over a human operator searching from the highest deck of a ship.  The UAS offers a much higher altitude perspective looking downward so that swells and waves can’t hide objects.  The UAS offers faster speeds to visually cover more area in the same amount of time.  The UAS can carry a variety of image sensors including IR cameras or multi-spectral cameras which offer increased ability to reliably detect certain types of objects under a variety of conditions.  Add computer vision software to process the UAV’s imagery and an effective debris location and tracking system begins to emerge.

The UAS has limited range though; and if a significant object is detected, it has no ability to tag or recover the object.  Thus it is important to combine UAV operations with a ship in the vicinity to support those UAV operations and be able to take action when something is found.

Visual Challenges of Computer Vision in a Marine Environment

 

As with any computer vision application, narrowing the scope and focus of the application as much as possible makes solving the problem easier.  Using the example of a UAV flying over the ocean and collecting imagery from a camera looking straight down, then the camera frame will always be completely filled with a straight-down view of the ocean surface.  We assume we don’t have to deal with the horizon, sky, or clouds or nearby coastline.  The result is that the ocean for the most part is some shade of blue — that is convenient.  Anything that is not blue is not ocean and then becomes highly interesting.  But despite limiting the scope of the problem in this way, the computer vision application still has to deal with several significant challenges: 1. Sun glint — the sun reflecting back at us off the water.  2. Windy days in excess of 12-15 kts produces breaking waves, foam, and even streaking (lines of foam) on the water.  Visually, sun-glint and foam impair our ability to spot objects in the water.

Why use FlightGear instead of real camera imagery?

FlightGear generates realistic views of the earth and offers complete control over the altitude, speed, camera orientation, and field of view of a simulated flight.  In addition, FlightGear can provide flight telemetry data and other data that is useful for testing or simulating real world environments.  We can also control the time of day, clouds, wind, precipitation and fly missions anywhere we like.  With FlightGear’s scripting engine, it’s possible to stage static or dynamic scenarios to create the sort of test cases we expect to be able to ultimately handle.  Of course only a small slice of computer vision applications relate to processing aerial imagery, but as UAV’s begin to attract the attention of more and more civilian and private organizations, the need for automatically processing huge volumes of imagery data will only increase.

FlightGear “Synthic Imagery” vs. real world camera imagery

 

As FlightGear continues to develop and evolve, the quality and realism of it’s graphics also are improving.  In the most recent version we have taken significant strides forward in drawing realistic ocean scenes that include accurate coloring, accurate rendering of different sea states and types of waves, very realistic sun glint, realistic sea foam (the result of breaking waves on windy days), and even rolling wake and foam created by large ships.  The quality of FlightGear ocean scenes can now (in many cases) make them almost indistinguishable from real camera imagery.

What is OpenCV?

OpenCV is a library of data structures and functions that offers most basic image processing tasks, as well as many of the more common advanced functions.  OpenCV provides the building blocks a developer needs in order to start writing a computer vision application.  OpenCV runs on Linux, Windows, Mac, and even Android.

How to connect an image processing application to FlightGear in “real time”.

Disclaimer: the nuts and bolts that I explain in this section are focused on the Linux platform.  These same tools are likely available on other platforms and may be leveraged in the same (or similar) ways to accomplish the same thing — but outside Linux your mileage may vary as they say.

I know how to capture a portion of my desktop as a movie and save it to a file.  My computer vision application knows how to read a movie file and process it frame by frame.  What is missing is that I want to be able to do this in real time without having to fly and save the video and the process it later.  My basic strategy is to first create a unix file system “fifo”, then write the captured video to this fifo, and simultaneously read from the other end of the fifo into my computer vision application.

  1.  Start FlightGear at your simulated camera resolution.  I have a cheap web cam that does basic vga (640×480) video, so using that as my “standard” I can run: “fgfs –geometry=640×480” to launch flightgear with the correct window size.  Next I drag the FlightGear window into the upper left corner of my screen so it is in a known location.
  2. Make your fifo if it doesn’t already exist.  For instance: “mkfifo /tmp/ffmpeg-fifo.avi”
  3. Start up the computer vision application:  “my-vision-app –infile /tmp/ffmpeg-fifo.avi”
  4. Start up the ffmpeg desktop movie capture utility (I have a little script I setup so I don’t have to remember all these options every time):  “ffmpeg -f alsa -i default -f x11grab -s 640×480 -r 15 -b 200k -bf 2 -g 300 -i :0.0+1,58 -ar 22050 -ab 128k -acodec libmp3lame -vcodec mjpeg -sameq -y /tmp/ffmpeg-fifo.avi”

That’s all it takes and the computer vision application is up and processing live FlightGear generated imagery.  One thing I discovered with fifo’s.: it seems to work best to start the reader (the CV app) before starting the writer (ffmpeg).  This way the buffers don’t fill up and cause delays.

Results

Here is a snapshot of the anomaly detection and tracking in action:

The original image:

The image partitioned into water vs. not-water.

Dilating the mask (connects the noisy dots):

Eroding the dilated mask (to shink it back to approximately the original size and location in the image):

The final composite image showing the detected blob on top of the original frame:

Lastly, here is a youtube video showing all the pieces working together.  In FlightGear: I have created a random debris field scattered across an area of open  ocean about 6nm x  6nm.  I have added a downward looking camera to my test aircraft.  Then I built a route that flew several “transacts” (straight line paths) through the debris field.  I used the above mentioned procedure to feed the live FlightGear imagery into my computer vision algorithm that detects and tracks anomalies.  The debris you tend to see from the air looks very small — usually just a few pixels at best in your image, so the algorithm needs careful tuning to avoid false positives and missing objects.

[youtube]fDPY1PtnBtU[/youtube]

Please watch this video in full screen resolution so you can see the specks of debris and the tracking algorithm in action!