FlightGear: amazing open source flight simulator

[Fritz]

It's the bug mentioned on the wiki page (written in italics): http://wiki.flightgear.org/Douglas_C-47_Skytrain. It is really annoying because I can use the keyboard for mixture and throttles, but I still have to look into this region to switch the fuel tanks.

But perhaps the Wiki and/or my version of the plane isn't up to date. I'll try the link you provided, thank you!

[gsagostinho]

Fritz, probably the best way of having this bug fixed is mentioning it on the forum or, even better, by directly contacting the aircraft maintainer. If you are interested, try posting about it in the FlightGear forum, I am sure someone will be able to help you with that.

Cheers,
Gilberto

[Fritz]

Meanwhile I tried out the Super Constellation, the most beautiful airliner ever built, and until I really have learned to fly it, I'll better stick to it. It's really fun, but I'll definitely have to buy a joystick now...

I'll probably sign up to the forum too, but I've too little time at the moment.

[gsagostinho]

@Fritz The Super Constellation is indeed a beautiful aircraft As for the joystick, indeed it makes life much easier in a flight sim. If you do not plan to get pedals and throttles afterwards, you may consider buying one of those joysticks that have 4 axis instead of the regular 2 axis: so it would control pitch and roll (x and y), the rudder (z) is controlled by twisting the stick and it still would have a little rolling "handle" for controlling the throttle.

In the meantime, notice that flying with a mouse is infinitely easier than with a keyboard

Cheers,
Gilberto

[Fritz]

I'll definitely buy a joystick with rudder control, because having no rudder is the main reason why I mess up landings! And propeller planes need rudder for taking off too, especially taildraggers like the DC-3.

Mouse control is definitely better than keyboard, but it is terrible! I learned to use it with the simple "flight simulator" included in Google Earth, but even if you ignore the missing rudder, it's much more difficult than using a stick (or flying a real plane, and I know what I'm talking about). There are two main reasons:

1) There is no centering, so the mouse position is always like some kind of trim (and trimming is mostly useless). Small corrections are very difficult if you don't return the mouse to exactly the spot where it had been before the correction. The mouse cross on the screen isn't very helpful because there are no lines of reference.

You can get used to 1), but 2) is much worse: You need the mouse for other things! Many switches, and also the map, auto pilot, and frequency screens, don't have keys assigned, and if you aren't flying on auto pilot you constantly have to press tab to change the mouse mode. And if your plane isn't in stable flight at this moment, of if you forget to change mouse mode, you're in trouble. This is made even worse by the (imho useless) view direction mode.