Part I: Convective clouds

Author: Thorsten Renk

The screenshots shown in the following use shaders, textures and scenery which are for various reasons (incompatible license, too recent development,…) not part of the official Flightgear 2.6 release. However, these are available for download and every feature works with Flightgear 2.6. The following packages need to be installed in addition to get to see the same: lightfield shader package v1.1, Juneau custom scenery, and textures from regional textures v0.1.

An integrated weather system

Without a doubt, clouds, haze and fog are the most easily noticed features of weather in …
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The Challenge

As a skydiver adds more gear such as front packs and items strapped to legs or arms, the jumper’s basic stability in free-fall is reduced.  It becomes easier to tumble out of control and there is less margin for error.  Similarly, the aerodynamic wake of the jumper may interfere with pilot chute opening (known as “hesitation”). Investigating different gear configurations generally involves vertical wind tunnel testing, or actual tests with jumpers. To avoid some of the cost, and mitigating safety concerns, a tool to computationally analyze these jumpers and their gear is highly desired. Creare, Inc., an R+D …
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