PilotLog

PilotLog is a simple flight logging service for Flightgear. It collects data as Flightgear runs and provides a web application that is viewable through your web browser.

Each time you take off, a new flight will be entered into the flight record. When you land, arrival details will be added to the flight, along with various computed values, e.g. flight duration and fuel used.

If you pause Flightgear (p) or speed up the simulation (a/A) at any time between takeoff and landing, the active flight will be invalidated. It will also be invalidated on arrival if the total fuel is greater than or equal to the fuel at takeoff, or if the flight time was less than one minute. Incomplete and invalid flights are removed when a new flight starts.

The web interface provides searching by callsign, aircraft, origin and destination.

In addition to the web interface, flight details can also be downloaded in XML or CSV format. The latter is easily imported into a spreadsheet.

Prerequistes

PilotLog requires Flightgear 2017.1.0 or later because prior versions do not handle the response status line sent by Tomcat server.

To run the service, you will need a Java 14 runtime environment.

If you are running a Linux distribution, your package manager may have a Java 14 runtime environment that you can install.

You can check your Java version in a terminal or command window, for example:

$ java -version
openjdk version "14.0.2" 2020-07-14
OpenJDK Runtime Environment (build 14.0.2+12-46)
OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM (build 14.0.2+12-46, mixed mode, sharing)

You can download a Java runtime environment from Open JDK.

If you want to build the web service, you will need a Java SDK such as Open JDK.

Simple Usage

Installation

Download a release distribution from https://github.com/sanhozay/PilotLog/releases.
Create a Nasal directory in $FG_HOME if necessary.
Copy pilotlog.nas to $FG_HOME/Nasal.

Starting the service

Run the executable JAR file, e.g. PilotLog-2.0.0.jar, from a terminal or command window
Check the service is running at http://localhost:8080

The service must be running to record your flights so you may want to arrange for it to run when your computer starts or when you login.

Stopping the service

Press Ctrl-C in the terminal or kill the process.

Uninstallation

Delete pilotlog.nas from $FG_HOME/Nasal.
Delete the database files in $HOME/.h2/.
Delete the directory where you unpacked the release distribution.

Advanced Usage

Remote installation

You can run the service on a different machine from Flightgear, as long as the machine running Flightgear can access the other machine over a network.

Start the service on the remote machine as described above.
Edit $FG_HOME/Nasal/pilotlog.nas and change the hostname variable to the hostname of the machine where you are running the service.

Building the project

Use the Gradle build wrapper $ ./gradlew build
The executable JAR is created in build/libs.

Web service endpoints

The main endpoints are as follows:

http://localhost:8080/api/flights.json (all flights as a JSON response)
http://localhost:8080/api/flights.xml (all flights as an XML response)
http://localhost:8080/api/flights.csv (all flights as a CSV response)

Further information

The application is built using Spring Boot. Information on installing the application as a Linux daemon or Windows service can be found here:

Installing Spring Boot Applications

sanhozay / PilotLog