Australian Defence Force Builds $1.7m Linux-Based Flight Simulator 232
scrubl writes "The Australian Defence Force (ADF) has revealed its latest flight simulator runs on SUSE Linux-based clusters of Opteron servers and uses an open source graphics platform. The Defence Science and Technology Organisation's (DSTO) Air Operations Simulation Centre in Melbourne creates virtual worlds that allow pilots to experience real-world combat situations without leaving the ground. The visuals software was written in OpenGL, using commercial and open source scene graph engines and making 'heavy use of OpenGL Shader Language programs.'"
Re:Simulating what, exactly? (Score:4, Insightful)
There's still a lot of work for human pilots, and there probably will be for at least another generation. The first UAVs that can handle manned-aircraft combat tasks are just now being deployed, and in many ways they're Not There Yet. Are you suggesting that air forces should stop training pilots now on the assumption that drones will take up the slack?
Re:OOS should never be used for war (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, because remember kids, nothing good has ever come from military funded research. You know, like the internet...
Re:OOS should never be used for war (Score:5, Insightful)
> What about class warfare? Is it ok by you if I use free software to fight the
> evil of global capitalism?
Of course. What he really wants is a political correctness clause. After all, what if someone were to use Free Software to design a coal-fired power plant? Develop a strain of genetically-engineered wheat? Design an SUV? Manage a bank? Run a "right-wing" political campaign?
Okay (Score:5, Insightful)
$1.7m is dirt cheap! but missing something (Score:4, Insightful)
Flight simulators are good and all, but even the most expensive simulators are missing an important element -- gravity force feedback in some form or another. Not only do the controls need to feed back, but the cockpit should too. And when we are talking about military aircraft operations, that kind of simulation is quite likely impossible without putting the pilot into a centrifuge.
On the other hand, if this simulation system were for training people to control unmanned craft, then it's perfect I should think.
Now as for the $1.7m spent? That is an impressively inexpensive system if it matches or beats those that cost $10m or more.
Re:OOS should never be used for war (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes. What on Earth has happened to people to make them imagine that this sort of thing is a good idea?
"Free speech should be restricted to things I agree with." "Free software should only be used for things I approve of."
It's just crazy.
Re:It's pretty much a given that they saved money (Score:2, Insightful)
Which is why the cost savings on running Linux is funny.
Did you not hear the whoosh go by your head?
Spend millions of dollars on a project, and do stupid things like cut corners that save you statistically irrelevant amounts of money on the project and result in a far more difficult to support product.
And before someone starts screaming about how its better because its OSS, when you do a project like this, even Microsoft will give you source in order to get their name stamped on it.
Re:Okay (Score:3, Insightful)
Because it's damn cool, that's why.
Re:It's pretty much a given that they saved money (Score:3, Insightful)
What makes you think price is why they chose open source? People that are doing high performance computing and visualization are almost exclusively linux. Microsoft has been trying to give it away to those people for years with little success.
Anyway, your comment was funny and worth a mod up, just wanted to point out that if they really wanted to save money they could have cut a deal with microsoft. I've seen how far they're willing to go to buy a customer in this market.
Re:FTFA: Linux for real-time scheduling (Score:4, Insightful)
Care to back that up at all? It's ridiculous that think that just about any modern platform can't carry out real time flight combat simulations.
NT doesn't have a realtime mode unless you buy one as a third party product. It is unquestionable that timer resolution &c are superior on Linux as compared to the NT that Microsoft will provide you. Sure, you can get realtime performance from NT, but you have to spend still more money on top of your client licenses, and your client access licenses...
It sounds like given what they wanted to accomplish, there were no advantages to using Windows, and numerous obvious drawbacks.
Re:I want one! (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not at all familiar with X-Plane? but is the FAA-certified version already used in science & industry (i.e. by NASA, Boeing, the NTSB, etc.)? In other words, is it accurate enough to actually simulate meaningful training exercises, like certain types of mechanical/electrical/software malfunctions? Can it accurately simulate jet wash, wind shear, microbursts, etc.? I've seen the multi-million-dolar flight simulators used by NASA and major aerospace companies. They seem to be a lot more robust that anything that could be run on a desktop PC. So I'm just wondering if X-Plane is actually of sufficient quality to be useful for something like crash investigation or military training.
Also, the website mentions extensibility and being able to "hack" the software to do more. Would the military be able to customize the software to add combat training capabilities a military flight sim would no doubt need? A military flight simulator probably has some very specific requirements that you aren't going to find in a consumer product. I'm guessing they probably chose to develop their own flight sim because either it's cheaper than licensing commercial solutions, or there are no available flight sims that fit their need. The short-term costs might be higher, but they would have full control of the source code and be able to tailor it to their specific needs (like integration with classified military systems).
Re:Interjection (Score:3, Insightful)