FlightGear is an open source flight simulator developed cooperatively over the internet by a group of flight simulation and programming enthusiasts. This manual is meant to give beginners a guide in getting FlightGear up and running, and themselves into the air. It is not intended to provide complete documentation of all the features and add-ons of FlightGear but, instead, aims to give a new user the best start to explore what FlightGear has to offer.
This version of the document was written for FlightGear version 2020.4.0. Users of earlier versions of FlightGear will still find this document useful, but some of the features described may not be present.
This guide is split into three parts and is structured as follows:
Part I: Installation
Chapter 2, Want to have a free flight? Take FlightGear!, introduces FlightGear, and provides insight into the philosophy behind it and describes the system requirements.
Chapter 3, Preflight: Installing FlightGear. Here you will find instructions for installing the program and additional scenery and aircraft.
Part II: Flying with FlightGear
Chapter 4, Takeoff: How to start the program. This chapter includes instructions for using the integrated Launcher program as well as an overview on the numerous command line options available. Usage of the configuration files is also covered.
Chapter 5, In-flight: All about instruments, keystrokes and menus, describes how to operate the program, i.e., how to fly with FlightGear. This includes a (hopefully) complete list of pre-defined keyboard commands, an overview of the menu entries, detailed descriptions on the instrument panel and Head-Up Display, as well as hints on using the mouse functionality.
Chapter 6, Features, describes some of the special features that FlightGear offers to the advanced user.
Part III: Tutorials
Chapter 7, Tutorials, provides information on the many tutorials available for new pilots.
Chapter 8, A Basic Flight Simulator Tutorial, provides a tutorial on the basics of flying, illustrated with many examples of the appearance of instruments, knobs, and other gadgets within FlightGear.
Chapter 9, A Cross Country Flight Tutorial, describes a simple cross-country flight in the San Francisco area that can be run with a non-default installation.
Chapter 10, An IFR Cross Country Flight Tutorial, describes a similar cross-country flight making use of the instruments to successfully fly in the clouds under Instrument Flight Rules (IFR).
Chapter 11, A Helicopter Tutorial, includes a brief tutorial with the basics for the start-up, lift-off, flying and landing of helicopters in FlightGear.
Appendices
Appendix A, Missed approach: If anything refuses to work, we try to help you work through some common problems you may encounter while using FlightGear.
Appendix B, Landing: further thoughts before leaving the plane. We would like to highlight and recognize the many contributors of FlightGear that have earned our appreciation for their contributions to this amazing flight simulator. We will also sketch an overview of the development of FlightGear and point out what remains to be done.
Appendix C, Main Index. Includes the main index of the present manual.
Appendix D, Index of Command Line Options. Includes the index of the command line options of FlightGear.
Appendix E, List of Acronyms. Includes the list and description of all the acronyms used along the present manual.
Appendices F and G include, respectively, the List of Tables and List of Figures of the manual.
For those who don’t want to read this document from cover to cover, we suggest reading the following sections in order to provide an easy way to get into the air:
| Installation | Preflight: Installing FlightGear |
| Starting the simulator | Takeoff: How to start the program |
| Using the simulator | In-flight: All about instruments, keystrokes and menus |
We know most people hate reading manuals. If you are sure the driver for your graphics card supports OpenGL (check documentation; for instance in general NVIDIA graphics cards do) and you are using Windows, macOS or Linux, you can probably skip at least Part I of this manual and use pre-compiled binaries. These as well as instructions on how to set them up, can be found at:
https://www.flightgear.org/download/.
If you are running Linux, you may find that FlightGear is bundled with your distribution.
Once you have downloaded and installed the binaries, see Chapter 4 for details on starting the simulator.
While this introductory guide is meant to be self contained, we strongly suggest having a look into further documentation, especially in case of trouble: