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From: nahshon@vnet.ibm.com (Itai Nahshon)
Subject: Re: Helicopter Flight Simulator
Sender: news@austin.ibm.com (News id)
Message-ID: <NAHSHON.95Jun20193439@rs3bt-01.haifa.ibm.com>
In-Reply-To: uffec@westminster.ac.uk's message of Mon, 19 Jun 1995 17:43:01 GMT
Date: Tue, 20 Jun 1995 16:34:39 GMT
References: <DAFL7p.9t1@westminster.ac.uk>
Organization: IBM Israel Science and Technology, Haifa, Israel
Lines: 37

In article <DAFL7p.9t1@westminster.ac.uk> uffec@westminster.ac.uk (Antony Scerri) writes:

>Hi.

>What i am looking for is a helicopter simulator that will allow interaction
>from other programs.It should run on a PC, UNIX or SGI system.I know this
>probably is not the best group to post this request to, but i realy need the
>sim fast.

>Either post to this group or e-mail me at : uffec@wmin.ac.uk

>Thanks for your help.

Antony,
I think the Microsoft flight simulator has some API for external modules.
I do not know if it has a heli support.

There are two flight simulators dedicated for R/C. These are the Dave Brown
flight simulator and Aerochoper. Both have support for helicopters as well
as fixed wing R/C models. I know that Aerochoper is interfaced from the
serial port of the PC (with a hand held RC transmitter-like box).
I do not think you can get a digital output of the heli orientation.
Post to rec.models.rc for more info from people who use them. The author
of one of these simulators is on that group.

On the Unix side, You can hack acm(1) (jet fighter simulator) or the
SGI flight simulator. I do not know of a better solution.
If you have a solution runable under Linux, please drop me a note!!!

If you decide to write your own simulator (Unix or SGI) and need a nice
fast 3D-scene animation display Try to look at Geomview(2)...

(1) Acm is available from prep.ai.mit.edu, ftp.x.org and other anonymous
    ftp sites. I got my copy from sunsite.unc.edu.
(2) Geomview is available from ftp.geom.umn.edu:/pub/software/geomview.

Itai Nahshon
