1 ------- Flight Gear FAQ v0.03 14/04/1999 ---------------------
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3 Welcome to the Flight Gear FAQ. Here you find Questions/URL's/Tips about
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4 Flight Gear mainly asked in the mailing lists.
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5 This Document is divided into 5 sections:
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7 1. Distribution Questions
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8 2. Compiling Questions
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10 4. Windoze related Questions
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14 -------- Index -----------
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16 Section One Distribution :
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18 1) Where can I get the latest version of this FAQ ?
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19 2) What else is a must read ?
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20 3) Where is the latest distribution of Flight Gear... ?
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21 4) Where can I find the newest snapshots ?
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22 5) Where can I fly ?
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25 Section Two Compiling :
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27 1) Flight Gear doesn't smooth compile though configured succesfully
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28 2) "gpc.c" and "gpc.h" files
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29 3) Compiler could not find gfc/...
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30 4) Red Had 5.1 / 5.2 related probs
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32 Section Three User :
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34 1) Upside down after crash?
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35 2) Ailleron vs Rudder
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36 3) FG is sooo slow (1 fps).
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38 Section Four Windoze :
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42 ========================================================================
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46 SECTION ONE : Distribution Questions
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48 1.1) Where can I get the latest version of this FAQ ?
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50 Ans: The latest version is stored at
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51 http://www.online-club.de/home/olk/progs/flightgear
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52 and it's updates are announced at flightgear mailing lists.
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54 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
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55 1.2) What else is a must read ?
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57 Ans: Please also check out the "Getting started"-document which
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58 provides much, much detailed information.
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60 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
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61 1.3) Where is the latest distribution of Flight Gear... ?
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63 Ans: ftp://ftp.flightgear.org/pub/fgfs/Source
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65 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
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66 1.4) Where can I find the newest snapshots ?
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68 Ans: ftp://ftp.flightgear.org/pub/fgfs/Source/Snapshots
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70 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
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71 1.5) Where can I fly ?
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73 Ans: In front of your monitor, hehehe...
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76 Curt has a nice collection of some flight-scenarios in the U.S.
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77 have a look at the descriptions and needed files
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78 http://www.flightgear.org/Places/
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80 There are also scenarios located at:
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81 ftp://ftp.flightgear.org/pub/fgfs/Scenery/
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82 There you find currently AZ-central, Equador, Spain, Munich (DE)
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84 Frankfurt (DE) can be found at
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85 http://people.frankfurt.netsurf.de/teddy/frankfurt.tar.gz
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87 Switzerland scenario at
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88 http://www.2sic.ch/Hoshy/flightgear.html
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90 [FG after v0.59 incl.]:
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91 Due to changes to the scenery format, which is currently v0.2,
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92 the old Scenery Files (see above) are not compatible to FlightGear
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95 The folowing Scenery Files are recommended instead:
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97 Alaska (Prince William Sounds) Scenario located at
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98 ftp://ftp.flightgear.org/pub/fgfs/Scenery/new-format-demo.tar.gz
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100 You also need the fgfs-base-0.59.tar.gz package with new graphics
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101 ftp://ftp.flightgear.org/pub/fgfs/Shared
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103 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
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105 ========================================================================
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107 SECTION TWO : Compiling questions
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108 For the time beeing more Unix/Linux related.
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111 2.1) Flight Gear doesn't smooth compile though configured succesful
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113 Ans: The fgfs-sources contain some Scenery Tool Kits beeing yet beta,
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114 they use libraries written by others so there is often some
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115 code/makefile tweaking needed. But this doesn't matter since
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116 the Flight Gear executable is then already compiled.
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117 Just make install from toplevel Makefile directory
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120 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
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121 2.2) "gpc.o" and "gpc.h"
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122 Can anyone advise me on what to do with the gpc.c and gpc.h files.
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123 I retrieved them OK after "configure"reported that they were needed.
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124 But, I don't know what I'm supposed to do with them.
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126 Ans: Flight Gear's Makefile expects libgpc to be on your System.
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127 Try this: gcc -c gpc.c
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128 ar cru libgpc.a gpc.o
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129 Then copy libgpc.a to some place that your compiler knows about such
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130 as /usr/local/lib, and then try compiling again. A better idea would be
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131 to set LIBRARY_PATH to point to the location where you installed
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132 the libgpc.a file instead of dropping it into a system-wide library
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136 One word of warning to Linux / Unix users. I recently discovered
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137 that the gnu pascal compiler is also called "gpc" and comes with a
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138 libgpc.a I know this has caused confusion on the part of at least one
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141 -------------------------------------------------------------------------
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142 2.3) compiler could not find gfc/...
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144 e.g. main.cxx:32: gfc/gshapefile.h: No such file or directory
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145 main.cxx:30: gfc/gadt_polygon.h: No such file or directory
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146 main.cxx:31: gfc/gdbf.h: No such file or directory
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147 main.cxx:32: gfc/gshapefile.h: No such file or directory
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148 there is no gadt_polygon.h on my system. What library does it belong to ?
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150 Ans: This is part of the GFC library it is not needed to run FlightGear
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151 as it is part of the beta Scenery Tool Kit
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152 GFC -- Geographic Foundation Classes library
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153 http://www.geog.psu.edu/~qian/gfc/index.html
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155 --------------------------------------------------------------------------
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156 2.4) Red Had 5.1/5.2 related problems
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158 I quickly ran into problems with the basic_string library. (see undefined ref.)
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160 c++ -g -O2 -L/usr/local/lib -L/usr/X11R6/lib -o testbucket
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161 testbucket.o../../Lib/Bucket/libBucket.a -lmtestbucket.o: In function
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162 FGBucket::gen_base_path(void)':/usr/include/g++/std/bastring.h:75: undefined
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163 reference to Basic_string<char,string_char_traits<char>,
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164 __default_alloc_template<true, 0>>::Rep::clone(void)'collect2: ld returned 1
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165 exit statusmake[2]: *** [testbucket] Error 1
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168 Ans: I ran into the same problem on my RedHat 5.2 system (brand new).
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169 After some searching I found out that it's got to do with a 'bug' in
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170 the stdlibc++libraries. I picked up libstdc++-2.9.0-2.i386.rpm,
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171 installed it and FGFS compiled just fine (after some other problems
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172 with gfc, I had to pick up the one from the fgfs site). However, some
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173 other packages must have the libstdc++-2.8 libraries....
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175 Ans: I also solved it with the 2.8 libraries by including
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176 /usr/include/g++/std/bastring.cc into the example programs.
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177 I believe this can be done since it's a template.
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179 ==========================================================================
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181 SECTION THREE : User Questions
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184 3.1) Upside down after crash ?
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185 After beeing crashed on the ground the navion continues to fly
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186 upside-down and it stucks at almost groundlevel,
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187 (like cruse missile ;-) flying with a reverse heading as before
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188 and "balancing" left and right. The only solution seems to be
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189 to give full throttle and then at +80-90 kts it can move up by
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190 pressing one of the "elevator arrows" like a rocket doing a loop.
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191 But hey, that's nerving bc the loop is allways to short and the
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192 responding time of navion (correcting the "roll") is also to short,
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193 which results in crash so you have to re-throttle again.
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196 Ans: In his infinite wisdom the FlightGear GrandMaster decided
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197 that planes were to valuable to allow them to be destroyed
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198 by novice pilots who seemed to crash alot.
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200 The result of this as you have noticed is that
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201 with a little practice an ingenuity you can trim the ship
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202 to fly inverted along the ground.
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204 The trick to learn is to roll back to normal (non inverted)
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205 do this by nursing the elevator to get to about 500 feet or so
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206 and use the aierlons to snap roll 180*.
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208 This is all good avionics except for the plane not destroying itself.
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210 Remember the controls work in reverse when you are inverted
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211 and keep that airspeed up !!!
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213 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
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214 3.2) Ailleron vs Rudder
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215 What's the difference. Both help the plane to turn, that i did understand
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217 Ans: There is a bit of info on aileron vs. rudder here:
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218 http://www.arundel.net/xplane/html/crosswind.html
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219 http://www.monmouth.com/~jsd/how/
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221 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
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222 3) FG is sooo slow (1 fps), though i got hardware acceleration like
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223 Voodoo/Voodoo2 etc... What's the reason ?
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225 Ans: Flight Gear supports hardware acceleration, but it seems not
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226 to be activated. Even a P-400 goes berzerk using software rendering.
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227 First check out if you have MESA with glide support.
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228 Linux Users enter "make linux-glide" to compile Mesa
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230 Check out your environment variables, whether you use soft or hard-ware
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231 rendering. Here an example that should work :
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233 You have to tell Mesa to use fullscreen
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235 MESA_GLX_FX=fullscreen
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237 You also must set the appropriate Voodoo vars, here is for Voodoo2
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238 the Voodoo1 vars may slightly differ.
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241 SSTV2_FASTMEM_RAS_READS=1
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247 SSTV2_SCREENREFRESH=60
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248 SSTV2_SWAP_EN_WAIT_ON_VSYNC=0
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251 The Voodoo vars can be obtained at:
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252 http://www.bahnhof.se/~engstrom/e_3dfxvars.htm
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254 Another good tool is glide-control to set the env. vars, go get it at:
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255 http://www.ling.ed.ac.uk/~oliphant/gc
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257 Check also the help-startup-screen of Flight Gear:
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260 ===========================================================================
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262 Oliver Delise Maintainer of FAQ
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263 Please send any comments/suggestions/flames or beer to delise@rp-plus.de
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