Flightgear open source flight simulator..

[Fumesucker]

I would post this on the Open Source forum but it doesn't seem to get nearly as much traffic as this one..

Anyhoo, I've been playing with the Flightgear open source flight simulator for a few months now, I used to have MS Flight Simulator but lost it when my hard drive crashed and apparently I've lost my disks during a recent move as well.

Flightgear isn't as visually pretty as the later MS offerings but the flight model seems at least as good, I've been mostly flying the Eurocopter because I've never learned to fly choppers. The plane models I've tried seem very realistic to me, I have some hours behind the stick on Cessna single engines although I never got a license and I've flown RC models a lot (which is actually harder than the real thing for various reasons). I'm using a Microsoft Sidewinder 3D Pro control and it interfaces quite well with Flightgear.

If you'd like a flight sim but don't have the money for the fairly pricey commercial products, give Flightgear a try, the price is certainly right.

http://www.flightgear.org/

[frylock]

1. those are some real nice renders..

i may download this. i wonder if i could use my logitech g25 as a controller?

[Fumesucker]

2. You could probably make a G25 work but it would be a bit of a kludge..

There are controller channel mapping capabilities in Flightgear, you should be able to find some combination that would allow you to fly with the G25 ..

If you have a game port on your computer the old style sticks are cheap on the used market at ebay these days and even a decent USB 3D stick is a lot less than your G25..

I already had the Sidewinder and put a cheap PCI audio card in my box to get a game port, I've seen several 3D sticks at the thrift store since I did my setup.