Re: [Flightgear-devel] RFD: FlightGear and the changing state of air navigation

[John D. <js...@av...>]

Executive summary:  This is reeeeeeally important.



On 07/02/2017 05:44 PM, David Megginson wrote:

> The airspace system is in the process of changing drastically, and I'm
> following it this summer by finally biting the bullet and installing an IFR
> GPS (Garmin GTN 650 <https://buy.garmin.com/en-CA/CA/p/67884>) and ADS-B
> transponder (Garmin GTX 345 <https://buy.garmin.com/en-CA/CA/p/140949>) in
> my Piper Warrior II.
> 
> What this means that for the first time in the 15 years since I started
> flying in real life, I won't be able to use FlightGear to practice the IFR
> approaches I'm flying in real life.[snip]
> I don't have an easy solution — even with our amazing team of volunteer
> developers, I doubt we have the capacity to pull this off — but then I
> wonder whether that means that the usefulness of FlightGear will also
> gradually taper off. Maybe we'll be able to connect to external simulators
> for these units, and just accept not seeing them in the 3D cockpit.
> 
> Thoughts?

1) A year and a half ago some efforts were made in this direction.  Then
 the conversation suddenly stopped.  It might be worth checking up on:
 On 01/26/2016 07:51 AM, Laurent wrote [..........]
 Subject:  G1000 implementation based on HTML/Phi


2) As I tell my students in real life:  Don't get intimidated or hypnotized
 by the huge number of features.  90% of the value comes from 10% of the
 features.  Actually that's becoming more and more of an understatement.
 With rare exceptions, you can ignore the features you're not using.

 This is relevant to FG in the sense that it is not important to implement
 all the features.  Most can be left out in the short term, and some can
 be left out forever.


3) Somebody should approach Garmin and see if they want to cooperate.
 They might want to.  They might even release an open-source version
 of their simulator.  If they don't want to go that far, they might
 release an opaque blob with a documented API that FG could call.


This is reeeeeally important.