## The FlightGear Manual

Michael Basler, Martin Spott,
Stuart Buchanan, Jon Berndt,
Bernhard Buckel, Cameron Moore,
Curt Olson, Dave Perry,
Michael Selig, Darrell Walisser,
and others
The FlightGear Manual
February 25, 2010
For FlightGear version 2.0.0
Contents
Preface
0.1 Condensed Reading
0.2 Instructions For the Truly Impatient
0.3 Further Reading
I Installation
1 Want to have a free flight? Take FlightGear!
1.1 Yet Another Flight Simulator?
1.2 System Requirements
1.3 Choosing A Version
1.4 Flight Dynamics Models
1.5 About This Guide
2 Preflight: Installing FlightGear
2.1 Installing scenery
2.2 Installing aircraft
2.3 Installing documentation
II Flying with FlightGear
3 Takeoff: How to start the program
3.1 Environment Variables
3.2 Launching the simulator under Unix/Linux
3.3 Launching the simulator under Windows
3.4 Launching the simulator under Mac OS X
3.5 Command line parameters
3.6 Joystick support
4 In-flight: All about instruments, keystrokes and menus
4.1 Starting the engine
4.2 Keyboard controls
4.3 Mouse-controlled actions
4.4 Menu entries
4.5 The Instrument Panel
4.6 The Head Up Display
5 Features
5.1 Multiplayer
5.2 Aircraft Carrier
5.3 Atlas
5.4 Multiple Displays
5.5 Multiple Computer
5.6 Recording and Playback
5.7 Text to Speech with Festival
5.8 Air-Air Refuelling
III Tutorials
6 Tutorials
6.1 In-flight Tutorials
6.2 FlightGear Tutorials
6.3 Other Tutorials
7 A Basic Flight Simulator Tutorial
7.1 Foreword
7.2 Starting Up
7.3 The First Challenge - Flying Straight
7.4 Basic Turns
7.5 Taxiing on the ground
7.6 Advanced Turns
7.7 A Bit of Wieheisterology
7.8 Let’s Fly
7.9 Dealing with the Wind
7.10 The autopilot
7.11 What Next?
7.12 Thanks
7.13 Flying Other Aircraft
8 A Cross Country Flight Tutorial
8.1 Introduction
8.2 Flight Planning
8.3 Getting Up
8.4 Cruising
8.5 Getting Down
9 An IFR Cross Country Flight Tutorial
9.1 Introduction
9.2 Before Takeoff
9.3 In the Air
9.4 Getting Down
9.5 Epilogue
10 A Helicopter Tutorial
10.1 Preface
10.2 Getting started
10.3 Lift-Off
10.4 In the air
10.5 Back to Earth I
10.6 Back to Earth II
IV Appendices
A Missed approach: If anything refuses to work
A.1 FlightGear Problem Reports
A.2 General problems
A.3 Potential problems under Linux
A.4 Potential problems under Windows
B Landing: Some further thoughts before leaving the plane
B.1 A Sketch on the History of FlightGear
B.2 Those, who did the work
B.3 What remains to be done
Index

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### Latest Version

v2.0.0 - 18 Feb 2010

A new major update of the FligtGear simulator. Please check the readme

### Notam

Would all pilots try and avoid mpserver02 as its often overloaded.