FlightGear

Simulation

FlightGear

HITL

JSBSim

NPS

Simulation

FlightGear Flight Simulator which can be used to visualize an aircraft and scenery. For the actual simulation, see Simulation.

See http://www.flightgear.org/

Installation

Debian/Ubuntu

The standard Debian/Ubuntu repositories contain FlightGear 2.4 or 2.6.

A lot has improved and changed over the year. To get the lates greates Flightgear, as of writing this iv v2018.2.2 and ejoy the improvments one can easilly get that version by add in a PPA

For Ubuntu the latest edition of FlightGear is available from Launchpad PPA (contributed by Saikrishna Arcot), to add the PPA an install the latest Flightgear, this in your terminal:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:saiarcot895/flightgear
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install flightgear

From source

A great page to read in case you want to install Flightgear from source can be found here

Adding Paparazzi 3D models

There are a few 3D UAV models that come with paparazzi:

• mikrokopter.xml quadrotor frame
• hexa.xml hexacopter
• easystar.xml Multiplex EasyStar fixedwing
• simple_bipe.xml biplane/quadrotor hybrid (transitioning vehicle)

To make them available in flightgear, make a link from /usr/share/games/flightgear/Models/Aircraft/paparazzi to <paparazzi_dir>/conf/simulator/flightgear/

sudo ln -s $PAPARAZZI_SRC/conf/simulator/flightgear/ /usr/share/games/flightgear/Models/Aircraft/paparazzi

Using FlightGear for Visualization

For Flight Gear visualization of the simulation, version 2018.2.2 or higher is best.

NOTE: Only if you still wish to use version v2.4 or lower for some reason, you must add the following to the firmware section of your airframe file:

File: conf/airframes/myplane.xml

<firmware name="fixedwing or rotorcraft"> ... <define name="FG_2_4" value="1"/> ... </firmware>

• Launch Flight Gear with the following command:

fgfs --fdm=null --native-gui=socket,in,30,,5501,udp

or to e.g. use the mikrokopter quadrotor model:

fgfs --fdm=null --native-gui=socket,in,30,,5501,udp --prop:/sim/model/path=Models/Aircraft/paparazzi/mikrokopter.xml

Loading scenery data

Using TerraSync you can let FlightGear automatically download scenery for where you are flying in the background. Add the --enable-terrasync option, e.g

fgfs --fdm=null --native-gui=socket,in,30,,5501,udp --prop:/sim/model/path=Models/Aircraft/paparazzi/mikrokopter.xml --enable-terrasync

It seems to be a good idea, to start fgfs with terrasync first, let it initialize and start the sim then, otherwise fgfs sometimes won't start.