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X-Plane - An Obsession For Realism

Posted by simoniker on from the taxi-take-off-cabin-lights dept.

caseih writes "Popular Science is running an article on Austin Meyer, the creator of the popular X-Plane flight simulator. Although not an open source project, X-Plane has a devoted community of flight enthusiasts and developers who are striving to make it the most realistic flight simulator ever. In fact, flight characteristics are calculated in real time from aircraft design data, not static tables like MS Flight Simulator. PopSci has a neat picture showing X-Plane calculating the lift-drag vectors in real-time across an aircraft. Meyer's quest for realism in his simulations dominates the development and use of X-Plane."

8 of 376 comments (clear)

  1. Phew! by bitfoam · · Score: 4, Funny
    "Popular Science is running an article on Austin Meyer, the creator of the popular X-Plane flight simulator."

    For a moment there, I thought this was a story on Mike Meyers and his next Austin Powers movie, featuring a futuristic X-Plane thingy that spoofs Moonraker.

    I'm honestly not sure whether to be disappointed or not...

  2. CFD by tqft · · Score: 3, Funny

    "Aren't all the data known in advance?"

    Short answer - no.

    Medium answer - a lot of pre-computing

    Long answer is a course in fluid dynamics.

    --
    The Singularity is closer than you think
    Quant
  3. Re:Best Quote by madmarcel · · Score: 3, Funny

    Most programmers already do:

    "This is going to be the best damn game EVER!"
    "This is going to be the best damn spreadsheat EVER!"

    But then management and accounting step in and things get all messy :o

  4. Free as in too much BEER by elrond1999 · · Score: 5, Funny
    It's hard to imagine Microsoft coming home drunk one night from a party and accidentally uploading its entire source code, as Meyer did a few years back.


    It was almost open source :)
  5. Re:Obsession is simple. by marko123 · · Score: 3, Funny

    I'm just waiting for the cybernetic implants which allow simulations indistinguishable from reality

    Not sure how to break this to you buddy, but you're already in one. For extra realism, the cybernetic implants' simulations seamlessly texture map flesh colours over their shiny metal.

    You want proof? I'll give you proof. Half the shit you read in the newspapers could not possibly be happening. Democratic nations giving up their own freedoms to fight tyranny. It's a joke! You know programmers' quirky senses of humour? There's your proof. If only I can find the "Off" switch....

    (quick note to you grammar nazis ha-ha fuck you! find the wrong use of an apostrophe in this!)

    --
    http://pcblues.com - Digits and Wood
  6. Oh. My. God. by marko123 · · Score: 3, Funny

    The screenshots are unbelievable! Look at the little people!

    --
    http://pcblues.com - Digits and Wood
  7. Re:In contrast, Salon.com's "Air Osama" article by rtaylor · · Score: 4, Funny

    Why don't Americans read their own literature and
    need Russian to remind them?

    Russians have longer attention spans than Amer... That dog has a puffy tail! Hee hee hee hee! Here puff! Here puff!

    --
    Rod Taylor
  8. One of the Meyer brothers? by rhiorg · · Score: 3, Funny

    If we could somehow get Austin Meyer and Sid Meyer to work on it together, we'd have the world's finest airport management simulator ever.

    Then if we also enlisted the help of Oscar Meyer, we'd have winged weenies waging war.