Add docs on MetaData for aircraft
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James Turner
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Docs/README.aircraft-metadata.md
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Docs/README.aircraft-metadata.md
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Aircraft meta-data
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The aim of aircraft meta-data is to make the user-experience around aircraft as easy and correct as possible,
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especially for less experienced users. Meta-data is collected in the aircraft's -set.xml file as properties,
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and extracted by various tools. Most notably the website and catalog (hangar) system use aircraft meta-data
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to present aircraft to users before downloading / installing aircraft.
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(The wiki also parses this information for each aircraft page)
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Basic Information
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- the name of your aircraft. For historical reasons this is stored in a tag called <description>, but
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treat it like full name of your aircraft. This is the primary string displayed to users, so ensure it's
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fully descriptive without being too long.
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Good examples:
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- Boeing 737-800
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- Cessna C172P (with floats)
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- Mikoyan MiG-27 (Flogger)
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Bad examples:
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- B738
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(too short / confusing)
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- deHavilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter
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(manufacturer name is overly detailed, 'DHC-6 Twin Otter' would be fine)
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- Boeing / McDonnell-Douglas MD-11
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(Yes Boeing bought McDonnell-Douglas but not important info for the name,
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probably 'McDonnell-Doughal MD-11' is sufficient)
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Where the name is long, remember that the description (discussed below) is also searched when
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searching aircraft. Therefore, it may be appropriate to omit information from the name, to keep
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the total length shorter.
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- an brief description of your aircraft. This is stored in <long-description> and should be a few sentances
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or paragraphs at most. Do not include formatting in this text, it will be word-wrapped when presented.
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(Paragraph breaks will be included)
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Typically the text should include useful search terms, and often corresponds to the introductory
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paragraph you might encounter for the aircraft on Wikipedia. It's not intended to be a comprehensive
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README, just enough to help the user decide if this is the aircraft they want, especially when
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comparing different versions or variants
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Mentioning nicknames for aircraft in the description is encouraged, since this again aids user
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searches: eg 'jumbo jet' for the 747, or 'mad dog' for the MD-80.
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The long-description can be localized by supplying a value inside langauge tags:
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<de>
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<long-description>...description in Germans</long-description>
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</de>
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- ratings
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.. link to the main aircraft ratings policy ...
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- tags
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The tag system allows systems to categorise aircraft, for example allowing more advanced searches
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in the future. Tags allow better feedback to the user when interacting with your aircraft - for
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example if the aircraft is tagged as towable, a glider, or a helicopter, the startup behaviour
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can be customised.
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Most importantly, set the following tags if appropriate:
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glider
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helicopter
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floats
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skis
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seaplane
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airship
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amphibious
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vtol
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These tags are the most helpful in customising the start-up experience based on the
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type of aircraft. (Especially, which starting locations are offered / preferred
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when searching)
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- author information
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Previously, aircraft could define a single <author> tag with a string listing the authors
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of the aircraft. This often ended up containing other information, and for complex
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aircraft, could become very long.
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For FlightGear 2018.3.0 onwards there is a replacement system, based around a structured
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list of authors. For each author their name can be supplied, and optionally other data
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if desired: nickname, email and a description of what they contributed.
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(The strucutre of this deliberatley matches that for add-ons)
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Both the old and and new data can co-exist to allow aircraft compatability with older
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versions of FlightGear.
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- maintainers information
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To distuinguish contributions and previous authors from active maintainers, there
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is a seperate maintainers section which can be provided. The syntax is the same
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as for the authors, but the contact email is more important. In the future we might
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potentially use this data to contact / notify all maintainers of aircraft.
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- URL information
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Aircraft can list significant URLs, such as their home page, support forum or code
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repository. Again the format matches that uses for add-ons:
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<urls>
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<home-page>http://www.flightgear.org</home-page>
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<wikipedia>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cessna_172</wikipedia>
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</urls>
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- previews (splash screens)
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Preview images allow users to make a visual assement of an aircraft when browing
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a hangar, and also provide a richer visual experience when using the built-in
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launcher and when starting up.
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Do /not/ include text or logo elements in preview images, since this reduces where
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and how they can be used. For use on splash-screens, there is explicit support
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overlaying a logo image instead of text. (link to the docs on this...)
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Performance and Flight-planning Data
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Information under /aircraft/performance is used for providing reasonable
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default values in the UI, and suggesting when user-entered values might
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be inappropriate. (Note these values do not influence the actual simulation
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at all, they are informational only)
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/aircraft/performance/minimum
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* minimum-takeoff-length-ft
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* minimum-landing-length-ft
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If present, this will be used to improve airport and runway selection, by
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preferring airports with sufficiently large runways to operate.
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/aircraft/performance/cruise
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* mach
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* airspeed-knots
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* altitude-ft
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* flight-level
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These values set defaults when planning a flight, and allow basic estimation
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of the enroute time for a flight-plan. Provide either a Mach or knots value,
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and similarly either a flight-level or altitude value.
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/aircraft/performance/maximum
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* mach
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* airspeed-knots
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* altitude-ft
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* flight-level
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These values allow the UI to warn if the user would exceed aircraft paramters,
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for example with their choosen starting configuration. (The user can choose to
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ignore the warning, of course)
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/aircraft/performance/approach
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* airspeed-knots
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This value allows the UI to suggest a plausibe value for approaches / pattern
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operations for the aircraft.
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/aircraft/icao/
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* type
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This is the official ICAO aircraft type string. This can be looked up here:
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