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

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

Hi David,

On Tue, Jul 4, 2017 at 7:34 PM, David Megginson wrote:
> Not impossible; just harder. After all, the OpenOffice team did succeed in
> building a complete office suite, for example, and the Firefox team (which,
> granted, started with the ancient Mozilla code base) succeeded in building
> and maintaining a modern browser. But it will be harder that what we've done
> before, and — especially if we want to support more than one GPS navigator /
> FMS at a realistic level — will probably require a different kind of
> organisation than we have now, and maybe some outside funding.

One thing I've notice in the last couple of years is that aircraft
development has
moved on from being a "one man show" to being a team effort, with tightly knit
teams working together to produce really high quality work.  Examples are the
updated c172p, Shuttle, J3Cub and I'm sure I'm forgetting some.  I think this is
a (very positive!) reaction to the amount of work required for high
fidelity models,
and has allowed much more rapid development, which has created a positive
feedback loop, as well as allowing specialization.

I think that model bodes well for developing a complex system like this, and
can develop organically.

I don't think we need a different type of organization, or outside funding

> Step one was to convince people that this is a far, far harder problem than
> they realised (something I didn't fully understand until I dove into the
> docs and GTN simulator); if we're past that, then step two is to have a
> discussion about what, if anything, we want to do about it. We've come up
> with several options already, and I'm sure there are more out there.

I would suggest that identifying a particular piece to develop as a
"reference model"
in the same way that the c172p is the "reference aircraft" would be a good start
as it would allow us to focus on getting one thing right.

You obviously have a vested interest in simulating the GTN 650 :)

My ill-informed view is that doing the G1000 (NXi) would be more useful, as it's
fitted to the Cessna 172, 182, Caravan, Mustang, and Piper Archer, many of
which we already have as airframes in FG.

The G1000 also has the advantage that zakh has already done some of the
work already for the zhk1000 (https://sebmarque.hd.free.fr/git/seb/zkv1000).

> Note that I haven't even started on TAWS-A/B, TIS-B, FIS-B, Nexus radar via
> satellite, and all the other things that are becoming realities even in the
> simplest of contemporary airplanes. I didn't want to scare people too much.
>
> If the final choice is that FlightGear is just a vintage/VFR aviation
> sim/game, and pilots have to go elsewhere for IFR practice, then that's
> cool, too. But I don't want to give up quite yet.

I think you're being far too pessimistic about this.  I think the FG
team (in the
very wide sense) has the skills and infrastructure to do this, and
with sufficient
interest could have a respectable G1000 implementation within 12 months.

I'm happy to volunteer my time to make this happen - I think it's sufficiently
valuable.

-Stuart