Free military software for linux

The FlightGear flight simulator project is an open-source, multi-platform, cooperative flight simulator development project. Source code for the entire project is available and licensed under the GNU General Public License.

The goal of the FlightGear project is to create a sophisticated flight simulator framework for use in research or academic environments, for the development and pursuit of other interesting flight simulation ideas, and as an end-user application. We are developing a sophisticated, open simulation framework that can be expanded and improved upon by anyone interested in contributing.

There are many exciting possibilities for an open, free flight sim. We hope that this project will be interesting and useful to many people in many areas.

FlightGear is a free flight simulator project. It is being developed through the gracious contributions of source code and spare time by many talented people from around the globe. Among the many goals of this project are the quest to minimize short cuts and "do things right", the quest to learn and advance knowledge, and the quest to have better toys to play with.

The idea for Flight Gear was born out of a dissatisfaction with current commercial PC flight simulators. A big problem with these simulators is their proprietariness and lack of extensibility. There are so many people across the world with great ideas for enhancing the currently available simulators who have the ability to write code, and who have a desire to learn and contribute. Many people involved in education and research could use a spiffy flight simulator frame work on which to build their own projects; however, commercial simulators do not lend themselves to modification and enhancement. The Flight Gear project is striving to fill these gaps.

There are a wide range of people interested and participating in this project. This is truly a global effort with contributors from just about every continent. Interests range from building a realistic home simulator out old airplane parts, to university research and instructional use, to simply having a viable alternative to commercial PC simulators.

Flight Dynamics Models

With FlightGear it is possible to choose between three primary Flight Dynamics Models. It is possible to add new dynamics models or even interface to external "proprietary" flight dynamics models:

1. JSBSim: JSBSim is a generic, 6DoF flight dynamics model for simulating the motion of flight vehicles. It is written in C++. JSBSim can be run in a standalone mode for batch runs, or it can be the driver for a larger simulation program that includes a visuals subsystem (such as FlightGear.) In both cases, aircraft are modeled in an XML configuration file, where the mass properties, aerodynamic and flight control properties are all defined.

2. YASim: This FDM is an integrated part of FlightGear and uses a different approach than JSBSim by simulating the effect of the airflow on the different parts of an aircraft. The advantage of this approach is that it is possible to perform the simulation based on geometry and mass information combined with more commonly available performance numbers for an aircraft. This allows for quickly constructing a plausibly behaving aircraft that matches published performance numbers without requiring all the traditional aerodynamic test data.

3. UIUC: This FDM is based on LaRCsim originally written by the NASA. UIUC extends the code by allowing aircraft configuration files instead and by adding code for simulation of aircraft under icing conditions.

UIUC (like JSBSim) uses lookup tables to retrieve the component aerodynamic force and moment coefficients for an aircraft... and then uses these coefficients to calculate the sum of the forces and moments acting on the aircraft.

Extensive and Accurate World Scenery Data Base

Over 20,000 real world airports included in the full scenery set.
Correct runway markings and placement, correct runway and approach lighting.
Taxiways available for many larger airports (even including the green center line lights when appropriate.)
Sloping runways (runways change elevation like they usually do in real life.)
Directional airport lighting that smoothly changes intensity as your relative view direction changes.
World scenery fits on 3 DVDs. (Im not sure thats a feature or a problem!) But it means we have pretty detailed coverage of the entire world.
Accurate terrain worldwide, based on the most recently released SRTM terrain data.) 3 arc second resolution (about 90m post spacing) for North and South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia.
Scenery includes all vmap0 lakes, rivers, roads, railroads, cities, towns, land cover, etc.
Nice scenery night lighting with ground lighting concentrated in urban areas (based on real maps) and headlights visible on major highways. This allows for realistic night VFR flying with the ability to spot towns and cities and follow roads.
Scenery tiles are paged (loaded/unloaded) in a separate thread to minimize the frame rate hit when you need to load new areas.

Accurate and Detailed Sky Model

FlightGear implements extremely accurate time of day modeling with correctly placed sun, moon, stars, and planets for the specified time and date. FlightGear can track the current computer clock time in order to correctly place the sun, moon, stars, etc. in their current and proper place relative to the earth. If its dawn in Sydney right now, its dawn in the sim right now when you locate yourself in virtual Sidney. The sun, moon, stars, and planets all follow their correct courses through the sky. This modeling also correctly takes into account seasonal effects so you have 24 hour days north of the arctic circle in the summer, etc. We also illuminate the correctly placed moon with the correctly placed sun to get the correct phase of the moon for the current time/date, just like in real life.

Flexible and Open Aircraft Modeling System

FlightGear has the ability to model a wide variety of aircraft. Currently you can fly the 1903 Wright Flyer, strange flapping wing "ornithopters", a 747 and A320, various military jets, and several light singles. FlightGear has the ability to model those aircraft and just about everything in between.

FlightGear has extremely smooth and fluid instrument animation that updates at the same rate as your out-the-window view updates (i.e. as fast as your computer can crank, and not artificially limited and chunky like in some sims.)

FlightGear has the infrastructure to allow aircraft designers to build fully animated, fully operational, fully interactive 3d cockpits (which even update and display correctly from external chase plane views.)

FlightGear realistically models real world instrument behavior. Instruments that lag in real life, lag correctly in FlightGear, gyro drift is modeled correctly, the magnetic compass is subject to aircraft body forces -- all those things that make real world flying a challenge.

FlightGear also accurately models many instrument and system failures. If the vacuum system fails, the HSI gyros spin down slowly with a corresponding degradation in response as well as a slowly increasing bias/error.

Moderate Hardware Requirements

The intention of FlightGear is to look nice, but not at the expense of other aspects of a realistic simulator. Our focus is not on competing in the "game" market and not on the ultra-flashy graphic tricks.

The result is a simulator with moderate hardware requirements to run at smooth frame rates. You can be reasonably happy on a $500-1000 (USD) machine (possibly even less if you are careful) and dont necessarily need $3000 (USD) worth of new hardware like you do with the many of the newest games.

That said, the more hardware you throw at FlightGear, the better it looks and runs, so dont feel like you have to chuck your expensive new hardware if you just purchased it. :-)

Internal Properties EXPOSED!

FlightGear allows users and aircraft designers access to a very large number of internal state variables via numerous internal and external access mechanisms. These state variables are organized into a convenient hierarchal "property" tree.

Using the properties tree it is possible to monitor just about any internal state variable in FlightGear. Its possible to remotely control FlightGear from an external script. You can create model animations, sound effects, instrument animations and network protocols for about any situation imaginable just by editing a small number of human readable configuration files. This is a powerful system that makes FlightGear immensely flexible, configurable, and adaptable.

Networking options

A number of networking options allow FlightGear to communicate with other instances of FlightGear, GPS receivers, external flight dynamics modules, external autopilot or control modules, as well as other software such as the Open Glass Cockpit project and the Atlas mapping utility.

A generic input/output option allows for a user defined output protocol to a file, serial port or network client.

A multi player protocol is available for using FlightGear on a local network in a multi aircraft environment, for example to practice formation flight or for tower simulation purposes.

The powerful network options make it possible to synchronize several instances of FlightGear allowing for a multi-display, or even a cave environment. If all instances are running at the same frame rate consistently, it is possible to get extremely good and tight synchronization between displays.

Flight Gear and its source code have intentionally been kept open, available, and free. In doing so, we are able to take advantage of the efforts of tremendously talented people from around the world. Contrast this with the traditional approach of commercial software vendors, who are limited by the collective ability of the people they can hire and pay. Our approach brings its own unique challenges and difficulties, but we are confident (and other similarly structured projects have demonstrated) that in the long run we can outclass the commercial "competition."

Contributing to Flight Gear can be educational and a lot of fun. A long time developer, Curtis Olson, had this to say about working on Flight Gear:

Personally, Flight Gear has been a great learning experience for me. I have been exposed to many new ideas and have learned a tremendous amount of "good stuff" in the process of discussing and implementing various Flight Gear subsystems. If for no other reason, this alone makes it all worth while.

Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture is a healthcare information system (HIS). VistA is widely believed to be the largest integrated HIS in the world. WorldVistA project was originally developed and maintained by the U.S.
Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), based on the systems software architecture and implementation methodology developed by the U.S. Public Health Service jointly with the National Bureau of Standards.
It is designed to provide a high-quality medical care environment for the countrys military veterans. VistA has a proven track record of supporting a large variety of clinical settings and medical delivery systems.
Enhancements:
- This is the FOIAVistA SemiVivA 20060113 package with GT.M bundled.

Simple Metronome (simetro) is a console program that provides basic metronome functions and supports accent patterns.
If all you want is a 100 bpm metronome, do this:
../simetro 100 9 | ecasound -f:s16,2,44100,i -i:stdin
A sightly fancier example would use simetro like this:
./simetro 240 6232
1st arg: 240 ticks per minute. 2nd arg: a string of one or more digits, possibly annotated with other non-digit characters. 0 is silent. 5 is medium. 9 is loud. The pattern 9099 means loud-rest-loud-loud. The example pattern, 240 6232, represents normally accented sixteenth notes at 60 beats per minute. The length of the second argument determines the length of the pattern.
Typical accent strings (second arg):
5, 73, 733, 8242, 8222, 832-632
For your convenience, you can add non-numeric characters (annotation) to the accent string. These characters are ignored by simetro. So 832-632 and 832632 are equivalent. The groove and military examples in the examples/ directory illustrate this. noaccent-100bpm is the simplest example. tabla is a fanciest example.
The first argument is "ticks per minute" so if you are representing your rhythm with one tick per beat, than the ticks per minute will be equal to the beats per minute. But if, for example, your ticks are 16th notes, then the ticks per minute will be four times the beats per minute.
There are two methods for hearing the output waveform.
1) Pipe the output to a realtime raw audio player.
2) Send the output to a file. Convert to WAV. Play WAV file.
Using Ecasound, you can do it like this:
./simetro 240 6232 | ecasound -f:s16,2,44100,i -i:stdin
This is probably the most practical configuration. Ecasound is good code and I recommend it. Or you can use some other program that can play an audio stream from stdin. Srp also works:
./simetro 240 6232 | srp > /dev/null
It starts immediately, does not create any files, and stops with CTRL-C. srp is part of my Simple Multitrack package which can be found at http://freshmeat.net/projects/simple-multitrack/ and runs on Linux/OSS and on Mac OS X. Other programs undoubtedly provide the same capability.
On Solaris 9, I use this bash command for realtime (but low quality) output:
alias rawplay="sox -t sw -r 44100 -c 2 - -t raw -r 8012 -u -b -c 1 /dev/audio"
./simetro 300 5222 | rawplay
If you want to make a file and play it (method 2), you can do this:
./simetro 240 6232 | dd bs=1024 count=10k > rawfile
sox -t sw -r 44100 -c 2 rawfile outfile.wav
sox is an audio format converter. You can get it here:
http://sox.sourceforge.net/
Please email your comments, suggestions, and bug reports to me. My email address is on my webpage: http://w140.com/kurt Please include the word simetro in your subject to skip the spam filter.
Enhancements:
- Rhythms can now be specified in a more convenient free-form syntax.
- It is easier to read and easier to write rhythms in the new syntax.
- More examples are included.
- Ecasound is used in the examples for sending the audio stream to the sound card.

Gallipoli: The Game is a stunning recreation of Australias greatest military adventure. As a commander in the Great War (WWI), you take on the role of leading the prime of Australias armed forces as they launch an all-out assault on the Central Powers (the Germans, Austrians and the Ottomans).
Gameplay is similar to the hit PC game, Lemmings, except, instead of trying to save your soldiers, your mission, as an authentic WWI commander, is to wipe out as many diggers as possible ... the more gruesomely, the better!
Main features:
- Landing at Hell Spit (ANZAC cove)
- Russells Top
- The Sphinx
- Walkers Ridge
- The landing at Sulva Bay
- The third wave at the Nek
Enhancements:
- game much faster
- more options
- Battle of Pozyers level removed (no-one was playing it)

Test::STDmaker is a Perl module to generate test scripts, demo scripts from a test description short hand.

SYNOPSIS

#######
# Procedural (subroutine) interface
#
use Test::STDmake qw(find_t_roots get_data perl_command);

@t_path = find_t_paths()
$date = get_date();
$myperl = perl_command();

#####
# Class interface
#
use Test::STDmaker

$std = new Test::STDmaker( @options ); # From File::Maker

$success = $std->check_db($std_pm);
@t_path = $std->find_t_paths()
$date = $std->get_date();
$myperl = $std->perl_command();

$std->tmake( @targets, %options );
$std->tmake( @targets );
$std->tmake( %options );

######
# Internal (Private) Methods
#
$success = $std->build($std_driver_class);
$success = $std->generate();
$success = $std->print($file_out);

The Test::STDmaker program module provides the following capabilities:
Automate Perl related programming needed to create a test script resulting in reduction of time and cost.

Translate a short hand Software Test Description (STD) file into a Perl test script that eventually makes use of the Test module.

Translate the sort hand STD data file into a Perl demo script that demonstrates the features of the the module under test.

Provide in the POD of a STD file information required by a Military/Federal Government Software Test Description (STD) document that may easily be index and accessed by automated Test software. ISO, British Military require most of the same information, US agencies such as the FAA. The difference is that ISO, British Military do not dictate detail format. US agencies such as FAA will generally tailor down the DOD required formats.

Thus, there is an extremely wide variation in the format of the same information among ISO certified comericial activities and militaries other than US. Once the information is in a POD, different translators may format nearly exactly as dictated by the end user, whether it is the US DOD, ISO certified commericial activity, British Military or whoever. By being able to provide the most demanding, which is usually US DOD, the capabilities are there for all the others.

The Test::STDmaker package relieves the designer and developer from the burden of filling out word processor boiler plate templates (whether run-off, Word, or vi), counting oks, providing documentation examples, tracing tests to test requirments, making sure it is in the proper corporate, ISO or military format, and other such extremely time consuming, boring, development support tasks. Instead the designers and developers need only to fill in a form using a test description short hand. The Test::STDmaker will take it from there and automatically and quickly generate the desired test scripts, demo scripts, and test description documents.

Look at the economics. It does not make economically sense to have expensive talent do this work. In does not even make economically sense to take a bright 16 year, at mimimum wage and have him manually count oks. Perl can count those oks much much cheaper and it is so easily to automated with Perl. And something like this were you are doing it year in and year out, the saving are enormous. To a program manager or contract officer, this is what programming and computers are all about, saving money and increasing productivity, not object oriented oriented programing, gotos or other such things.

The Test::STDmaker class package automates the generation of Software Test Descriptions (STD) Plain Old Documentation (POD), test scripts, demonstrations scripts and the execution of the generated test scripts and demonstration scripts. It will automatically insert the output from the demonstration script into the POD -headx Demonstration section of the file being tested.

Americas Army is one of the five most popular action games played online. It provides players with the most authentic military experience available, from exploring the development of Soldiers in individual and collective training to their deployment in simulated missions in the War on Terror.
Americas Army: Special Forces is the follow-up to Americas Army: Operations, which was released on July 4, 2002.
In Americas Army: Special Forces, players attempt to earn Green Beret status by completing individual and collective training missions drawn from the Special Forces Assignment and Selection (SFAS) process.
Players who complete the SFAS process have the opportunity to take on elite Special Forces roles and are qualified to play in multiplayer missions with units ranging from the elite 82d Airborne Division to the 75th Ranger Regiment.
Includes the complete game Americas Army: Operations.
Main features:
- Authentic U.S. Army experience Realistic depiction of the values, units, equipment and career opportunities that make the Army the worlds premier land force continually updated to incorporate new occupations, units, technologies and adventures.
- Realistic roles Including Weapons Specialist (18B), Intelligence (18F), Engineer (18C), Communications (18E) and Combat Medic (18D).
- Challenging Green Beret training Complete training missions drawn from the SFAS process at Fort Bragg. Successfully complete SFAS and advance to Special Forces Qualification Course (Q-Course) missions to explore new Special Forces roles.
- Intense Special Forces action Intense Special Forces action Experience multiplayer missions in simulated combat environments. Take part in missions that span the capabilities of a Special Forces detachment, including unconventional warfare, direct action, surveillance and reconnaissance and Combat Search and Rescue.
- Detailed Special Forces equipment and military hardware Building on the equipment available in Americas Army: Operations, Americas Army: Special Forces adds the M4 Carbine featuring the Picatinny rail mod system for attaching laser-aiming devices and sighting systems; the MP5SD6 Remington 870 shotgun for forced entry; the AT4, a shoulder-fired anti-tank rocket and the BDM, a shoulder-fired bunker demolition munition.
- Accurate Soldier behavior Players are bound by the laws of land warfare, Army values (honor, duty and integrity) and realistic rules of engagement as they navigate challenges in teamwork-based multiplayer force vs. force operations. Mission accomplishment standings are evaluated based on team effort and adherence to a set of values and norms of conduct.

Scum of the Universe is a space trading game that combines two genres: arcade and strategy. On one side, its a classic vertical-scrolling space shooter game. On the other side, it is an adventure and strategy. You should choose whether youll be an independent space trader, firearms smuggler, fierce freedom-fighter or something in between.

Following the main storyline, you go through the galaxy from one planet to another. Space travel requires fuel, so you need to keep earning money to buy it. You can also buy various upgrades for your spaceship and weapons that affect the arcade part of the game. The storyline itself is not linear. There are also some points where youll need to make decisions that will determine your destiny.

For thousands of years, people of planet Xen have colonized the planets in their galaxy. As time went by, many colonies grew unhappy about their status, as everything was controlled by Xen. Some of them organized military units and declared independence. You can see the status of each planet by "Rebel Sentiment" indicator. Planets with RS higher than 50% are ruled by the Rebel government, and Rebel laws apply.

Trading firearms is legal on planets ruled by Rebels, as they need as much firepower as they can get. On the other hand, Empire forbid all the trading with firearms and other ground weaponry as they wish to maintain their military advantage. One of the ways to make a lot of money is to buy cheap guns at Empire planets and sell them for a lot of money on Rebel planets where demand is extremely high. But be careful as youll need to fight Empire fleet once they find out youre a smuggler.

Beside the raging war between Xen Empire and the rebels there is increased activity of alien species, who destroy human ships. The stronger alien activity, the more waves of alien ships youll need to defeat in each planets outer orbit. Some of the aliens you destroy may drop artifacts (big blue ones) which you can sell at any space station for 20credits a piece.

UT2004: SAS is an UT2004 Mod that focuses on the three main SAS units around the world. SAS focuses on the three main SAS units around the world, the British SAS, the Australian SASR and the New Zealand NZSAS who all perform counter-terrorism, operating deep behind enemy lines, gathering intelligence and other duties in various countries.

Their main advesary is OpFor that stands for Opposing Forces who are a collection of the enemies the SAS have faced in past and present times. Their ranks are comprised of regular military, guerilla, terrorist and para-military groups.

Players can choose their in-game player model from a variety of uniforms based on its real world counterpart. From the environment based camouflage patterns of desert, woodland, and jungle to counter-terrorism kits players will have a wide variety of choices. Certain player models feature unique attributes such as body armor, anti-flash hoods and camouflage.

Weapon selection in SAS is done through a loadout system where you can select a primary weapon where your choices are a submachine gun, assault rifle, shotgun, sniper rifle or light machine gun. Secondary weapons include pistols while other parts of the loadout allow you to chose three different grenade types and a knife. Weapons in SAS can kill very easily, some with just a single three round burst.