X-Plane and linux
I’ve mentioned X-Plane before – it’s a flight simulator that strives to be as accurate flight modeling -wise as possible. Realism is one of their goals and it’s also unique in that it’s available for Mac/Windows and Linux (version 8 that is). (There is flightgear also, but X-Plane has still felt like better competition for Microsoft’s Flight Simulator line.) Anyway… Version 8 had linux support. Version 9 has beta’s out now for Windows and Mac, but there are rumors in the forums that version 9 may not see linux support. (Apparently the person in charge of the linux port has been hired by Google and was working on the linux port in his free time gratis…) I hope we’ll see a version 9 of X-Plane for linux. I wish I could lend help, but bash scripting is pretty much the zenith of my coding skills. (BTW – version 9 LOOKS nice from the screenshots I’ve seen. Here come a few more x-plane related thoughts….
X-Plane supports some cool plugins like this flight verification plugin that can generate a file readable by google earth for post flight analysis.
Here’s a manual for flying helicopters in x-plane
xplanefreeware.net Forums are one good resource for info and downloads for x-plane.
x-plane.org is another great resource (the main community following of x-plane seems to gather here.) Their forums especially are useful.)
And of course, the main site for X-Plane.
Oh, and The Xplane scenery blog is a good spot to watch for inside development info.
A refresher on nav-aids and instrument landings can be found here.