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

[Stuart B. <stu...@gm...>]

Hi David, John,

On Tue, Jul 4, 2017 at 4:21 PM, David Megginson wrote:
> Thorsten: There's no public-domain source right now, so we'll have to make
> it happen somehow. It's for sale only bundled with specific devices, AFAIK.

According to the Route Manager wiki page, we already have support for
SID/STAR data provided from Navigraph, which is released on the AIRAC
cycle, and costs a pretty small amount (9 EUR for a single download of FMS data,
or 90 EUR per year)

Given the relatively low cost, I don't think that we as an organization want
to get into trying to digitize data ourselves just to make it open-source or
public domain.  Particularly given the low cost of a download.

We might want to digitize the STAR/SIDs for the
default airport with each release so there are some approaches available
for those who don't want to purchase the data.

> Stuart: Great if we can make it work, but the buttonology is an important
> part of training, so we'll need to support that somehow (if we want to be
> used for IFR training). For the route manager, we might have to make some
> tweaks, including fly-by vs fly-over waypoints.

Yes, I expect there will be some tweaks requires for the Route Manager for
fly-by, fly-over, those radius turn things.  But that's really just an extension
of what is already there.

On Tue, Jul 4, 2017 at 4:47 PM, John Denker wrote:
> On 07/04/2017 08:21 AM, David Megginson wrote:
>
>> the buttonology is an important
>> part of training, so we'll need to support that somehow
> Yes indeed!
>
> Seriously, folks, you don't want to be an a situation where you
> need to start the missed approach segment, and you can't remember
> how to make the nav system do that.
>
> In some cases, including some critical cases, the buttonology is
> quite counterintuitive.  A simulated display that would "look pretty"
> in a static snapshot is not sufficient.  Those who haven't flown
> with such a thing should please not underestimate how complicated
> the buttonology is, or how important it is for training.

Just before I saw this I was going to quote your comment above
that 10% of the function provided 90% of  the value and we shouldn't get
hung up about implementing all the features immediately :).

As someone who hasn't flown these devices, I didn't appreciate that this
was part of the 10%!

Nevertheless, the buttonology is just logic within the instrument.  It's
a complicated instrument, but still something that's tractable.

-Stuart

PS - I like the phrase "buttonology"