SOFTWARE
FLIGHTGEAR
At the heart of this project is Flightgear↗ flight simulator (FGFS), an excellent open-source, free piece of software.
Flightgear↗ is a free, open-source, community built flight simulator. While it's scenery is lacking the polished feel of proprietary simulator software such as X-Plane↗ and DCS↗, it fits in with this project for the following reasons:
- Open source philosophy, no personal data is being sent to big corporate organisations.
- It is the 'tinkerers' simulator. As its code is open-source, you can read it, understand how it works, customise and fine tune it to suit a project.
- It is designed to be a flight simulator, not a game. i.e.: weapons and combat scenarios are purposefully not included, this ethos of the developers agrees with my own views on weaponry.
LIGHTNING MODEL
The Lightning model I am using has been developed by FGUK↗. I have supported its development by providing information and advice, and have also taken on developing some of its systems.
It is again open source and free for anyone to download & use.
INTERFACING HARDWARE
An Ethernet based I/O system is being developed by Richard Wootton who kindly volunteered his help. This system is designed to only send/receive data when a state changes, reducing payload compared to constantly streaming all I/O data.
The system I/O interface units are based around the neat little Wiznet W5500-EVB-Pico↗ boards, which feature a Raspberry Pi RP2040 processor and Ethernet connectivity via W5500 IC. The boards are programmed using the familiarArduino IDE↗ and offer x 30 I/O pins, allowing plenty of options for connectivity to aircraft components.
In addition to the programmable boards, almost every interface will also require some level of electronics to convert signals in terms of current and voltage, and provide electrical isolation, from driving and dimming incandescent lamps, to operating 110 V AC 400 Hz motors.
As each and every aircraft component type is individual (no interface standardisation exists in aircraft of this vintage), the interface board software and associated electronics has to be developed on a component-by-component basis.
This system design was preceded by other experiments with a multi-drop RS485 network, which was found unsuitable due to poor latency causing slow overall speeds.
OPERATING SYSTEM
Linux
In keeping with the open-source theme, I am using Linux↗. The distributions I have used for the sim so far are Manjaro↗ XFCE (an Arch branch), and currently Linux Mint↗.
For a bit of fun, I also have installed Flightgear on a Raspberry Pi 4 (GB RAM), and amazingly with the graphics settings tuned down, it was quite a success! Not brilliant as an immersive experience, but for developing the Lightning model (coding and testing), it has been perfectly fine, a nice cheap and low power development tool.
Windows
I have tried using Windows 10, however Microsoft have dropped support for serial "COM" ports over USB making it a bit tricky to use the serial protocol.