FLIGHT 1.22 for Windows Requirements Flight 1.22 has been revised under under Windows XP, and earlier versions were known to run under Windows 95, 98 and 2000. Version 1.22 has also been installed and tested under Windows Vista Home Premium. Vista may query some files during installation, saying that the version on the disc is older than the version already installed. Just opt to keep your existing files, as recommended. When using Excel output, it may be necessary to adjust security setting downwards in Vista and/or Excel 2007, before the program will load the output templates. These templates contain macros which can be useful for graph plotting, but there are other ways to extract data from the spreadsheets. If you do not need this feature, you can allow Windows to disable the macros. When installed, the program occupies less than 3 MB on the hard disc, although the installation package is bigger. Screen resolution Flight was designed for a display resolution of 800 x 600, but from Version 1.16 the screen is automatically resized to fill a display of a different resolution. If the resizing procedure causes problems, it can be disabled from the opening screen (not from individual screens). All subsequent screens will then come up in 800 x 600 resolution. If your screen resolution is higher, the Flight display will be squashed into the top left corner. Installation If an earlier version of Flight is installed on your computer, uninstall it before installing the new version. Then run the Setup.exe program. The default location is C:\Program Files. You can change this during the installation process. The Setup program will create a directory called Flight on the drive or folder that you specify. Thus if you select D:, Setup will create a folder D:\Flight, and install the program and support files in it. European users - IMPORTANT! Please set your computer to use decimal points, NOT commas. If your computer is set to use commas, the program may appear to work, but it will give wrong results! Backing up and restoring User Birds In Version 1.15 onwards there is a facility for backing up any data that you have entered in the "User Birds" database (see Manual - Enter Birds). If you do this before uninstalling the program, you will be able to restore the data after installing a later version. From Version 1.19, you can have multiple backup files and choose their location. You can also send these files to other users, who can append your backed-up User Birds to their own. Unfortunately this does not help if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 1.15, as you will not have the backup facility until after your old database has been deleted. It is possible to get around this by making a copy of the "Birds.mdb" database, which can be found in the C:\Program Files\Flight\Data folder (assuming that is where you installed Flight). After installing the new version of Flight, delete the new "Birds.mdb" database, and substitute your old one. This will restore the Preset Birds as well as the User Birds, i.e. you will lose any new Preset Birds that may have been added. The new Backup and Restore facility is preferable for later upgrades. Besides being easier, it only restores the User Birds, not the Preset Birds. The background to the Flight program may be found in: C.J. Pennycuick (2008) Modelling the Flying Bird. Elsevier (Academic Press). ISBN 978-0-12-374299-5. The Power Curve and Glide Polar calculations in Flight for Windows are essentially the same as those in the earlier Basic programs from which Flight was developed, although with added features. These are performance "snapshots" of a bird with a particular mass, wing span and wing area. The Migration calculation in Flight for Windows is a time-marching computation which computes changes in performance during a long migratory flight, taking account of the consumption of fat, and of protein from the flight muscles and other tissues. The current version of Flight for Windows is available as a free download from: http://www.bio.bristol.ac.uk/people/pennycuick.htm and also from: http://books.elsevier.com/companions/9780123742995 The latter is the companion website for the book "Modelling the Flying Bird", and contains some additional materials which can be downloaded. These sites are updated from time to time, when a new version of the program is released. At present it is still necessary to uninstall the old version, before installing the new one. Literature citations When using results calculated with this program, please mention that you used Flight for Windows by C.J. Pennycuick, and cite the book "Modelling the Flying Bird" (above) as the source for information about what the program does. It may also be helpful to embed one or other of the above website addresses in your text, so that your readers can get the current version of the program. Online Manual When running the program, click "Read Manual" in any of the main screens to see any of 24 short Manual chapters. These explain how different features of the program work, what the variables mean, and what the program can be used for. You can return from the manual to resume using the program where you left off. Each screen also has a button which brings up a list of definitions for the variables and options shown on that screen. Colin Pennycuick, Bristol December 2009.