Break for flying

Took the F-4J out for a spin tonight, and someguy came out to fly in the F-4N. Here's a shot of someguy landing aboard the Nimitz, and a shot of the F-4's parked on deck. Full size shots are here: Landing, Parked.

I finally have the Hawker Typhoon ready for its 1.0 release. This is a great looking model by Alpha Simulations, and is set up for FlightGear 2.2.

Bullets impacting tracers

Due to a change in FlightGear recently, many of the airplanes in the hangar have had a problem where the bullets sense an impact soon after leaving the barrel. I believe the problem is caused by the bullets impacting the tracers. I've solved it here by moving the bullet starting location 1 ft laterally to give it clearance. All aircraft being upgraded to FG2.2 standard should be fixed.

Parking brake light

As part of the upgrades to FG2.2 standard, all aircraft will get a parking brake light, and all aircraft will have the brake set at startup. A reminder: on aircraft with catapult capability you don't need to release the parking brake prior to launch. The launch command (Shift-C) will release it for you.

Cobra ready for testing

If you'd like to try out JSBSim's helicopter capabilities within FlightGear, a simple AH-1S model is now available at my hangar. Please read the readme included in the package for information. This model is built for FlightGear code from about February or newer, and JSBSim code from March 10th or newer.

Chopper testing

Testing new FGRotor and FGElectric mods, using Alpha-J's AH-1S model. It seems to fly right, but I'm no chopper pilot, so can't tell for sure. The JSBSim FDM uses a rotor governor system, designed by Thomas Kreitler, and the standard FlightGear throttle-slider-controls-collective feature. There are also key bindings for the rotor brake and clutch. I also added a kill switch that cuts power to the rotor, in order to test the free wheeling unit and autorotating behavior.

Calidus

I've been working with Thomas Kreitler, author of the rotor code in JSBSim, to add some things that will make autogyros possible, so here is the start of the first autogyro for JSBSim/FlightGear. This is the Calidus, a 500 kg MTOW aircraft, with an 8.4m rotor, powered by a Rotax engine spinning a 172cm propeller. More on the real Calidus here.

AT-29 Super Tucano

The AT-29 model has been updated for use in FlightGear 2.2. Updates include: parking brake light, fixed nose wheel steering, fixed contrail trigger.

Is there anyone out there who would like to redo the texture? The current one has "the jaggies" (it was blown up from a smaller texture).