This page shows an easy steps to play FlightGear Mac OS X 0.9.10 or 1.0.0. This document looks like 'How to fly' kind of explanation but it's actually not. This document rather explains how to play FlightGear with a keyboard. Needless to say, we strongly recommended you use a joystick. As long as I know, Logitech Extreme 3D Pro, Saitek X52 Flight Control System, and Saitek Pro Flight Rudder Pedals work on both Powerbook G4 and MacBook Pro. If you have a joystick that works on Macs, please let us know.

Pre-flight

Launching FlightGear.app

First of all, you need to launch FlightGear.app, which is at /Applications folder. Just double click the FlightGear icon at Applications folder and an window comes up as shown in Figure 1.

Selecting an aircraft and an airport

At the launcher window, you can select an aircraft and an airport (by clicking the gear buttons at the right with 1.0.0-r151 or later). The thumbnail image of a selected aircraft will be shown at the image panel on the window. The airport that you select here will be the start point of your flight.

Enabling "on-the-fly" scenery download

By checking "Download scenery on the fly" at the launcher window, you can download scenery while you're flying through the network. Keep it checked if you're not sure. You may encounter that your aircraft is in the sea or crashed in the sea even you check the on-the-fly option. It happens when you visit the airport for the first time. You can wait a few minutes and relaunch FlightGear, then you should be on a runway.

Changing some options if needed

By clicking the "Advanced features" triangle button at the left-bottom corner of the launcher, you can change options if needed. See Users Guide for more information on options.

Launching Simulator

Clicking "Start Flight" button at the window opens up another window, which is the FlightGear main window (Figure 2). FlightGear immediately start loading tons of data required for simulation. It may take a while on a slower machines to load everything.

Taking off

When all the data are loaded, you can see the cockpit view of a selected aircraft just like shown in Figure 3. Press the 'page up' key (or Fn + up-cursor on Notebook Macs) to accelerate your aircraft. You may also want to deflect flaps a bit to increase the airfoil's lift by pressing ] key once or twice. If pressing 'page up' doesn't move your aircraft forward, press 'Shift-b' to release the parking brake.

While accelerating the aircraft, you need to adjust the rudder to stabilize it. With a keyboard, pressing enter or 0 to adjust the rudder right or left (Unfortunately Enter key doesn't seem working on some machines. You should change the key bindings or get a cheap joystick). Jet planes don't need to adjust rudder so much but many prop aircraft need this to avoid the 'ground loop', which makes the aircraft spins left or right while accelerating. Some aircraft can avoid this problem by increasing elevator all the way up (by pressing down-cursor) and keeping a rear tire on a runway (this is not a good way though).

When the aircraft reaches a certain speed, Press 'up-cursor' and increase an elevator about half the way up (unless you already did so for stabilizing your aircraft instead of using rudder). Keep elevator at the same position until the aircraft climbs up. Adjust the elevator with up/down cursor to smoothly climb up. Very important thing is keep the speed. Increasing the elevator too much leads the aircraft to stall and fall down so be careful. You can check the speed of your aircraft with HUD. Press 'H' to enable HUD for checking speed and altitude. If your aircraft reaches enough speed, press 'g' to hold the tires (if available). Don't forget to put the flaps all the way up.

Manipulating an aircraft

Once you fly up in the air, it's time to manipulate your aircraft. Pressing cursor keys to adjust elevator / aileron. If you're using keyboard and an aircraft is rolling or pitching too fast, press '5' to reset all the controls to their neutral position. You can also adjust throttle by pressing 'page-up/down' (or 'Fn +up/down')

Changing view

A fun part of flying with a flight simulator is changing viewpoint. Pressing 'v' or 'shift + v' changes the camera position, and Shift + cursor keys change the viewpoint. To zoom in or out, press 'x' key or 'shift + x,'

Landing

As landing is the most difficult operation in a flight, this section shows only some required things to do with a keyboard, not a good means of landing. When you are ready to land, decrease speed by pressing 'page down' (or Fn + down-cursor). You, then, put flaps down by pressing '[' key a few times. Keep decreasing speed, and then, press 'shift + g' to put landing gears down. By manipulating aileron, rudder, elevator, and throttle carefully, you can safely land your aircraft. Congrats!

In case of emergency...

Unless you are an ace pilot, you will probably crash your aircraft for many times. If you unfortunately crash your aircraft, press 'shift + ESC' and FlightGear will put your aircraft back to the starting runway. Some aircraft stop their engine when you reset the simulator. You can re-ignite the engine by choosing 'Toggle 2D display' from the 'View' menu. Turning (clicking) the ignition volume will start the engine.

Quitting FlightGear

Press 'ESC' or 'shift + Q' to quit FlightGear. Pressing ESC saves the current preferences and exits. Command + Q exits FlightGear without saving these preferences.

Updating the launcher

The launcher of FlightGear Mac OS X is updated on its subversion repository (a place to hold development resources). If you're interested in using the latest launcher, see How to update the launcher.

Further Information

Please consult documents at FlightGear Documentation page for more detail about flying with FlightGear. To understand more about the launcher on Mac OS X, read Users Guide (still under construction though).