geneb
07-22-2010, 02:31 AM
I just read the "Which Flight Simulator Software to Use" article and was pretty underwhelmed by the FlightGear entry.
It's apparent that the author did little if no research on the project. FlightGear used LaRCSim in the 1996-1998 time frame. It's more of a cute curiosity these days.
The primary flight dynamics modeling systems are JBSim (http://jsbsim.sourceforge.net/) and YASim (http://wiki.flightgear.org/index.php/YASim). Both of which are very complex and given the correct source data, very accurate.
FlightGear also supports a pretty active multi-player community - there are 14 world wide linked multi-player servers to support this activity. There's also a very active forum and mailing list, as well as the #flightgear irc channel on mpserver12.flightgear.org.
X-Plane is only FAA certified as a PC-ATD with a specific configuration consisting of the computer, video system, controls, etc. It is NOT certified right out of the box, but only in very specific configurations. The option to make it certifiable will also set you back another $500 or $1000 for a "dongle" that will enable some features not present in the standard version.
MSFS is ... well MSFS. :D
g.
It's apparent that the author did little if no research on the project. FlightGear used LaRCSim in the 1996-1998 time frame. It's more of a cute curiosity these days.
The primary flight dynamics modeling systems are JBSim (http://jsbsim.sourceforge.net/) and YASim (http://wiki.flightgear.org/index.php/YASim). Both of which are very complex and given the correct source data, very accurate.
FlightGear also supports a pretty active multi-player community - there are 14 world wide linked multi-player servers to support this activity. There's also a very active forum and mailing list, as well as the #flightgear irc channel on mpserver12.flightgear.org.
X-Plane is only FAA certified as a PC-ATD with a specific configuration consisting of the computer, video system, controls, etc. It is NOT certified right out of the box, but only in very specific configurations. The option to make it certifiable will also set you back another $500 or $1000 for a "dongle" that will enable some features not present in the standard version.
MSFS is ... well MSFS. :D
g.