Freeware Simulation: Orbiter

[FlyTexas]

Orbiter http://orbit.medphys.ucl.ac.uk/ never ceases to amaze me each time I use it...and the screenies don't do the game justice either. Amazing stuff!

Brian

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[fighterpilot]

Occasionally i get into this great simulation but end up overwhelmed and by all the maths and physics involved. A great simulator though with brilliant graphics, even on my laptop. Love the idea or recreating the great missions to the moon etc but i never really could figure out things like trans orbital burns and getting from earth orbit to anywhere else really This post may make me dive into it again actually and see what has changed since i last tried it out.

Richard

[Garry Russell]

It is excellent

Sadly I've never really understood it :-(

Garry

[Tarasdad]

I finally got around to downloading and installing it a couple of nights ago. So far the only thing I've managed to do is successfully resupply the ISS with the Leonardo module, with the mission started already docked. Very steep learning curve on this one, and forget trying to read the manual and understand it unless you're comfortable with advanced calculus and trigonometry. Since advanced mathematics and I never really got along well... :brick: :brick: :brick:

Still, the challenge of getting one of the Apollo missions into orbit, setting up a trans-Lunar injection burn, then making my way to the Moon is very, very tempting.

[fighterpilot]

Indeed, i always wanted to try an apollo mission but never got much further than earths orbit, maybe oneday i'll figure it out but you are right the learning curve is huge, a real sense of achievement when you do master something though.

Richard

[SkippyBing]

I seem to remember taking about a week to successfully take off in the Spaceplane thingy (the fictional but possible delta wing job) get into orbit, find and then dock with the ISS. I don't think you need a huge about of maths just an appreciation that it's a bit different to flying, i.e. you have to turn that way and then burn to make your orbit do x, y and z rather than point where you want to go and hit the throttle! Forward planning I think it's called!

[Vulcan_to_the_Sky!]

Occasionally i get into this great simulation but end up overwhelmed and by all the maths and physics involved. A great simulator though with brilliant graphics, even on my laptop. Love the idea or recreating the great missions to the moon etc but i never really could figure out things like trans orbital burns and getting from earth orbit to anywhere else really This post may make me dive into it again actually and see what has changed since i last tried it out.

Richard

Thats exactly the same Issue I had with it, although I used to love doing Saturn 5 flights in it, but again difficult to control for people like me who are :@ at maths.

[bigred1970]

I play this on and off and it is pretty technical. the key is to learn how the use all the elements of the MFD and the hud as there are functions to help you do any kind of commono orbital manuver.

the thing I like about this is that it is a trully modular sim. don't like the how the engines or airframe are modeled, do your own.

for anybody that dose aricraft in MFS but were frustraited by the sims limits , downloading the sdk for orbiter might be interesting.