You can now install the FlightGear Flight Simulator and use it (in view-only mode) to display a 3D simulation of the vehicle and its surroundings.

This provides a much better visualization than 2D maps/HUD alone (as provided by MAVProxy and Mission Planner). In particular it is much easier to see movement that is hard to judge properly in 2D - like pitch and yaw.

SITL outputs FlightGear compatible state information on UDP port 5503. All you need to do is install FlightGear and start it using the batch files provided. When SITL starts, the FlightGear window will sync to your current location.

Currently this feature is only available on the master ardupilot branch. Setup instructions are available here: Windows and Linux (Ubuntu 14.04).

Kudos to Tridge (yet again!) for making this happen!

We've just updated the ardupilot.com wikis with a brand new skin! We think you will find it easer to read, navigate, and contribute to.

Some of its benefits include:

• Faster to the content: The top banner is thinner so you can get to the content much faster. More of the article is visible before you need to scroll.
• A pleasure to read: The new theme is based on the wordpress twentyfourteen theme, and gains from its attractive fonts and excellent visual design.
• Mobile friendly: The theme changes layout for mobile devices, pushing the menus below the content. You can test this by shrinking the width of your desktop browser.

• Easier to contribute: Contributors can now concentrate on writing because almost all the "boilerplate" in the old theme is now part of the skin.

Of course no matter how pretty the theme is, the most important thing is the content! We're working hard to improve that too. If you have expertise that you'd like to share, then please email me to get access to the wiki ( hamish at 3DRobotics dot com ).

The skin will continue to evolve with better support for organising and managing the content. Let me know what you think of our efforts so far, and feel free to share your suggestions for improvement on the forums.