The pre-version had about 33 new or redone aircraft.ģD Cockpit panel for A-10 in version 1.0.0 in 2008 Version 1.0 (2008) FlightGear 0.9.10 won Softpedia's "Pick" award (5 out of 5 stars) on Jas well as the "100% CLEAN" Softpedia award.īehind the scenes there was a 0.9.11-pre1 released in 2007 that ended up being superseded by FlightGear 1.0. Nasal was also integrated into FlightGear in version 0.9.4. Versions 0.9.9 (2005) and 0.9.10 (2006) had about 8 all-new or redone aircraft adding to a total of 70-90 aircraft. The use of version numbers slowed dramatically after the late 2002 release of version 0.9.0.
The maturity of software by 2005 lead to more widespread reviews, and increased popularity. Later in the decade, the rate of final public releases slowed, but had larger amounts of content (0.9.10, 1.0.0 etc.). First working binaries came out in 1997, with an intense updating of newer versions for several years resulting in progressively more stable and advanced programs.īy 2001, the team was releasing new beta versions regularly (0.7.x, 0.8.0, over 2001-2003) and with 0.9.xx (2003-2006). Rather than start entirely from scratch, FlightGear developers made use of the LaRCsim flight model from NASA, with OpenGL for 3D graphic code, and freely available elevation data. and I think my work was enough of a breakthrough that it got a lot of people excited about the possibilities."~Curt Olson Good, realistic 3d terrain was something the other existing flight sims at the time were pretty far behind on. So I proceeded to rough together a basic scenery system, pasted on the larcsim flight model, and in a relatively short time was able to show actual flight over real 3d terrain.
Somewhere at this point it occurred to me that a far better path would be to leverage an existing multi-platform 3d graphics system (like OpenGL) to build our flight simulator upon.
OpenGl was just starting to become available on PC hardware with things like the 3dfx voodoo card. " I was working at the University of Minnesota at the time, and had access to Sun and SGI graphical work stations which offered OpenGL for 3d graphics. A large community response lead to many contributing to the project from its start in late '90s up to the present. However this was a huge task that came to an unfinished halt at the start of 1997 as the main developer, Eric Korpela, was finishing his thesis.ĭevelopment of an OpenGL based version was spearheaded by Curtis Olsen starting in 1997, after the initial start in 1996. Part of the initial goals were to develop 2D and 3D graphics routines for the simulator. The FlightGear project was conceived on Apby David Murr who proposed a new flight simulator to be developed by volunteers. In 2008, version 1.9.0 of FlightGear included a major change from PLIB to OSG, which caused the temporarily loss of some features like 3D clouds and shadows, while newly added features, such as particles, imparted another degree of realism to the simulation. 2007 marked a formal transition out of beta development with the release of version 1.0.0, ten years after FlightGear's first release in 1997. By 2001, the team was releasing new beta versions regularly, and by 2005, the maturity of software lead to more widespread reviews, and increased popularity. Enthusiastic development of newer versions for several years resulted in progressively more stable and advanced versions. The first working binaries, using OpenGL for 3D graphic code, came out in 1997. Many people have contributed to the project in the years since its inception.įlightGear incorporated other open-source resources, including the LaRCsim flight model from NASA, and freely available elevation data. Development of an OpenGL based version was spearheaded by Curtis Olson starting in 1997.
FlightGear development started with an online proposal in 1996, using custom 3D graphics code.