This page was copied from Dan Buton's web site. Dan sadly died 19/6/2005.
I mailed him a week before his death to say how much I enjoyed playing this game.
I never received a reply.
On this page: feedback
| results | developers | donations
| thanks | links
Play Flight Club to launch the applet or check out the instructions below. If
you have any questions then here is the FAQ. The newer but
not so playable sim 3.02 is here (function
creep - doh!). [ 13 May 2005 ]
A glider over the flatlands | IntroductionWelcome
to Flight Club, an online gliding simulator. The gliders look a bit like hang
gliders. However, imagine them to be paragliders or sailplanes if you prefer;
the same rules apply. | |
Circling under a cloud | ThermalsCumulus
clouds are fed by bubbles of warm rising air, called thermals. By using thermals,
glider pilots are able to fly long distances. When you fly into a thermal you
should circle to stay in the lift and climb upto cloud base. Your vario will
start beeping when you are in a thermal. | |
Gliders ridge soaring | Ridge LiftHills
produce lift as the wind flows over them. A glider may ridge soar by flying back
and forth in the rising air in front of the hill. Glider pilots also like hills
because they function as reliable thermal triggers. | |
A cloud street | Your missionRace
against the other gliders; the finish line is 100km away to the north. A
note on navigation: To find the finish line, simply follow the road that runs
north. You have a compass at the bottom right of the applet. | |
Press <3> for the plan view | Points
of ViewDrag the mouse to rotate the camera position. You may switch between
points of view using the number keys... - <1> focus on your glider
- <2> watch the gaggle
- <3> the view from 5,000 meters above
- <4> the view from 8km away to the south east
Try pressing <p>
to pause the action and then switch between the different points of view. Dragging
the mouse whilst the action is paused gives a cool 'bullet time' effect. |
FeedbackHere is
some feedback from Flight Club users... You couldn't have made
a more perfect demostration of how cross country soaring works. As an animator
and glider pilot myself, I appreciate what you've done, and I love the simplicity
and stylization you have with the design. - John from California Nevada
I think your flight club game is absolutley amazing, as a glider pilot
i always wanted an "arcade" type gliding simulator, not a flight simulator as
they are too slow and boring. Top marks for the development. - Ian from Midland
Gliding Club (UK) I just wanted to drop a line
to congratulate you on a fantastic little flight sim. - I love it! - Peter,
a paraglider, ultralight and GA pilot from Australia. I
and many of my sailplane pilot friends have tried it and are hooked. It is much
better at simulating the important aspects of soaring than any flashy super graphics
simulator, and much more fun. - Jon Send your feeback to
danb@dircon.co.uk.
ResultsHave you reached
goal ? If so, well done ! The task window has closed and all the goal marshalls
have gone down the pub. I'm sorry if your time did not make it into these results:
Thank you to Kjell Keogh for helping to prepare the results.
Task #1: 100km race to goal (Mar 2002
...) | Pos | Name | Time (mins) |
1 | Thomas Rold | 89 |
2 | Cyril Stewart | 91 |
3 | John Gilbert | 92 |
4 | John Fritz | 93 |
5 | Matt Michael | 94 |
5 | Mike | 94 |
5 | David Waller | 94 |
8 | Stefan Morocutti | 95 |
8 | Dan Beck | 95 | 8 | Maurice
Bakermans | 95 | 8 | Uwe
Mütterlein | 95 | 8 | Herwig
Meyer | 95 | 8 | Miha
Dereani | 95 | 14 | Herwig
Mayer | 96 | 14 | Ejvind
Nyberg | 96 | 14 | Luka
Salehar | 96 | 14 | Bye
Jeroen | 96 | 14 | Matt
Carter | 96 | 19 | Drax | 97 |
19 | Pasi Pulkkinen | 97 |
19 | Tex | 97 |
22 | Lex Versteeg | 99 |
23 | John Gilbert | 100 |
23 | Les | 100 | 25 | Sylvie
Roche | 101 | 25 | Lep
Pozdrav | 101 | 25 | Igor
Erzen | 101 | 28 | Borut
Hafner | 102 | 28 | Koen
Vanderputten | 102 | 28 | Matteo
Piccoli | 102 | 31 | Vincent
Glloq | 103 | 32 | Bas
Seijffert | 104 | 32 | Jasper
Grannetia | 104 | 32 | Wolfert
Voet | 104 | 32 | Tanner
Patty | 104 | 32 | Daniel
Sil | 104 | 32 | Jon
Meis Wetter-Jetzt | 104 | 32 | Bruce
'OK' Usa | 104 | 39 | Alejandro
Alfonzo | 105 | 39 | Albert
te Boekhorst | 105 | 39 | Laurent
Beauvisage | 105 | 42 | Todd
Smith | 108 | 42 | Frederic
Fuchs | 108 | 44 | Nikola
Macedonia | 111 | 45 | Kasia
Pelasia | 120 | 46 | Gordon
White | 123 | 47 | Juan
Manuel Jaramillo | 125 | 47 | Mark
Morgan | 125 | 49 | Per
Carlin | 128 | 50 | Pierre-Yves
Schoepp | 132 | 51 | Manuel
Eschenbrenner | 135 | 52 | Marc
Breton | 139 | 53 | Nathan
Cap | 141 | 54 | BlueS
Batched | 142 | 55 | Robert
Jan | 145 | 56 | Luka
Salehar | 157 | 57 | Agence
De St Leonard | 163 | 58 | Mr
D Brunton | 184 | 59 | Peter
Millenaar | 195 |
DevelopersThe Flight Club source code is under a GNU General Public License.
Running
javadoc over the source generates lots of html. If you come up with
a change to Flight Club which improves it or adds a nice feature let me know about
it and I will add it in to the next release with your name attached to it. Flight
Club has a small footprint; I think it will find its feet on PDA's and other little
gadgety devices. Dev News - I could use a little help finishing
V3.02. Roll up your shirt sleeves, take a look at the to do list (see above) and
cut some code. Let's get V3.02 out of the door. ( 20 Sep 2002 )
- Well done
to Artem Nikulchev, a
paraglider pilot from Moscow, for creating a networked prototype of Flight
Club. We expect to have the networked game ready for an online xc league this
winter (northern hemisphere). Thank you Artem for the top quality work ! ( 28
July 2002 )
- Well done to Lloyd Bailey, a paraglider pilot from the UK, for
getting Flight Club running on his iPAQ. Lloyd is using the java runtime from
www.nsicom.com. ( 28 July 2002 )
The almighty Buck
Hi Dan, Big fan of Flight Club (not a hang glider
myself, but rather a r/c glider pilot), and saw on your site that someone bought
a standalone copy. What sort of price are we talking about here, as I'd love one
for my laptop when on the train / stuck in traffic. Cheers, Andy. -- Hi Andy,
The price is £10 (ten pounds sterling) or 15 euros. I accept cash,
UK cheque and international money orders. Please include your email address with
your payment and post it to: Dan Burton, Flight Clubhouse, 10 Railway St, Brighton
BN1 3PF England Thanks, Dan PS. All Flight Club owners get free support and upgrades.
| Links
- XCMag is the international magazine
for hang-gliding and paragliding; it captures the spirit of our sport and
features stunning photography. You may subscribe at XCShop,
a secure online shop. Buy all you flying books and videos here (Hugh - please
teach me to fly dual *grovel*).
- Cloud
Watching is an article about clouds, written by Tom Bradbury for Gliding
Magazine. GliderPilot.net a gliding
portal which includes a discussion forum.
- The British
Hang Gliding and Paraglider website contains a list of all UK registered hang
gliding and paragliding schools.
- Guia
4 Ventos and GOUP introduce you to the
amazing flying in Brazil.
- The
XC Files is a growing portal of flying photos and stories from around the
world.
- Fly sky high is
John Silvester's story about paragliding in Nepal. Anyone fancy climbing out to
6000m ?
- Airwave,
Gin Gliders, Icaro
2000 and Ozone are just a few of the
manufacturers that build our magnificent flying machines. Thanks for all the hard
work, fellas. (No one gets rich in this sport !)
- www.wingstaiwan.com
Paragliding in Taiwan.
- www.paragliding.ru
Artem Nikulchev's site about Moscow's paragliding scene (in Russian).
Change Log - V3.01 Added
four beeps for vario. Detect key release event for improved glider handling. Fixed
deprecation warnings (well, all but one). Finally made a jar file - doh! (27 May
2002)
- V3.00 The task is now a 100km race to goal. Improved cloudscape.
Normal/fast glide. Speedy simulation. Smooth lift profile around hills. Increased
camera's lense angle. Weak/strong clouds. (01 Mar 2002)
- V2.05 Indicate
if paused or not. Un-pause on start. User starts at origin. Tighter plan view.
(18 Dec 2001)
- V2.04 Added sound - a vario beep. Smooth camera cuts.
(18 Nov 2001)
- V2.03 Add compass and vario. New glider shape. (28 Oct
2001)
Task Designer: You may now design your own
tasks. Click here to launch the
java web start application. The program allows you to save tasks locally on your
machine as xml files. If you design a really cool task then email it to me and
I'll run it by the Task Setting Committee for inclusion on this site. You will
need the latest version of Java from Sun including
Webstart to launch Task Designer. Networked game play: The port
is *not* open to the public yet. Can anone help with hosting ? Do you have a webserver
with a custom port (eg. port 7777) on which to run the game server ? If you wish
to run the net game on your LAN, all the bits, blobs and blurb are in the source
tarball below. Thanks to Artem Nikulchev for writing much of the code for networking
Flight Club. Quotes'Remember,
the best pilot is the one that is having the most fun' - Jocky
Sanderson 'Simon Dykes, the artist, stood,
rented glass in hand, and watched as a rowing eight emerged from the brown brick
wall of one building, slid across a band of grey-green water, and then eased into
the grey concrete of another building. Some people lose their sense of proportion,
thought Simon, but what would it be like to lose your sense of perspective ?'
- Will Self (from Great Apes) 'Emphasize everything
and you emphasize nothing.' - Gill (the font designer)
'There's a difference between being permanently joyless and having
found a passion in life for the realization of which one is also willing to take
on less joyful but nonetheless necessary parts.' - Pekka Himanen
'Truth knows no borders. Information wants to be free. Technology
is the key.' - Peter Gabriel 'It is better
to light a candle than to complain about the darkness.' - Julian Cope
'Any philosopher, not just a Buddhist...but any philosopher worthy
of the name knows that, in itself, desire - unlike pleasure - is a source of suffering,
pain and hatred.' - Michel Houellebecq (from the novel Atomised)
'This is what an artist has to be: harassed to the point of insanity
or stupefaction by first principles.' - Martin Amis (from the novel The Information)
'... two aeroplanes climbed towards their shared apex - like needles,
with the twin strands of white thread trailing from their eyes. They passed: no
contact. Briefly, though (for the sky hates straight lines and soon destroys their
definition), the two white slipstreams formed a leaning cross: leaning backwards,
away from the earth. Something was over, over on the other side.' - Martin
Amis (from the novel The Information) 'Crossing
frontiers is my profession. Those strips of no-man's land between the checkpoints
always seem such zones of promise, rich with the possibilities of new lives, new
scents and affections.' - J G Ballard (from the novel Cocaine Nights) |