Flightgear is a free open source flight simulator. It has been designed to be easy to add new aircraft and scenery. This latest version Flightgear 1.9 is almost a complete rewriting of the program. Improvements include better graphics and computer controlled aircraft to fly with. A full list of improvements is available on the Flightgear website.

Extra aircraft are always being added to the list and range from large airliners to military aircraft and helicopters.

Instruments on the accurately simulate the affects of pressure or the magnetic field on each aircraft.

There are 20,000 real world airports with correct runway markings and approach lights.

The full scenery for the whole world would take up three DVDs so areas are downloaded individually. A graphical interface makes it easy to select the correct area to download.

A manual is supplied with Flightgear but it is still work in progress and only the basic information at the beginning is finished.

There are also versions available for Linux and Mac OSX. A full list of supported operating systems can be found here.