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Australian Defence Force Builds $1.7m Linux-Based Flight Simulator

Posted by timothy on from the send-some-love-to-flightgear dept.

scrubl writes "The Australian Defence Force (ADF) has revealed its latest flight simulator runs on SUSE Linux-based clusters of Opteron servers and uses an open source graphics platform. The Defence Science and Technology Organisation's (DSTO) Air Operations Simulation Centre in Melbourne creates virtual worlds that allow pilots to experience real-world combat situations without leaving the ground. The visuals software was written in OpenGL, using commercial and open source scene graph engines and making 'heavy use of OpenGL Shader Language programs.'"

4 of 232 comments (clear)

  1. It's pretty much a given that they saved money by BadAnalogyGuy · · Score: 5, Funny

    Instead of going with a licensed OS like Windows or VxWorks, they saved tens of dollars. Smart thinking and good use of money in these tough economic times.

    It would be nice to see other departments try to realize these types of gains.

  2. Deja Vu! by InsertWittyNameHere · · Score: 5, Funny

    I remember what happened last time they built a simulator.

  3. Re:I want one! by dmbasso · · Score: 5, Funny

    sudo apt-get install oz-flight-simulator

    --
    `echo $[0x853204FA81]|tr 0-9 ionbsdeaml`@gmail.com
  4. Re:Not really news. by Sponge+Bath · · Score: 4, Funny

    And it can make the Kessel run in 12 parsecs.