[Opengc-devel] Re: help....looking for a glass cockpit

[Damion S. <be...@cs...>]

Hi, sounds like an interesting project...

> I have an experimental airplane and me and a friend have developed a 
> solid
> state gyro system.  What we are in need of is panels that will work 
> with it.

So, one thing I should say right off is that the OpenGC license 
specifically states that it should not be used in real aircraft, and 
that if you choose to do this you understand that it was not designed 
with airworthiness in mind. Now, that said, OpenGC is released under 
the GPL license so you are pretty much free to do what you want with 
it...

> The idea stemmed from looking at the project magenta website which is 
> where
> i got your name.  What we need to figure out is out to "feed" your 
> panels or
> Enrico's panels with our gyro information instead of it getting "fed" 
> from
> microsoft flight sim.

Ok,	based on the information you provided this would be pretty trivial. 
You just need to write a subclass of ogcDataSource that handles the 
serial communications and converts the data to the correct format; 
shouldn't be a big deal.

> The gyro we have outputs it information in roll, pitch and yaw via a 
> serial
> cable.  a gps can be hooked up and the roll, pitch and yaw string is 
> then
> alternated with the standard GPS NMEA string.  We also have a 
> magnetometer
> and airdata interface that we add to the end of the RPY string.

So this would give you: roll, pitch, yaw, lat/lon, barometric altitude, 
airspeed, and climb/descent?

What you are talking about sounds feasible, probably a weekend or two 
of work. A few considerations to keep in mind:

1) You would need a lightweight computer in your aircraft (a laptop 
would work, but couldn't be panel mounted). You could probably put 
together a mini-ATX system with a 15" flat panel monitor that would 
weigh about 10-15 pounds and could be easily mounted in the cockpit.

2) I don't know how/if FAA regulations cover experimental 
instrumentation. I would need to see documentation that this is legal 
before I'm willing to help.

Cheers,
-Damion-

---------
Damion Shelton
Carnegie Mellon University, Robotics Institute
A408-o Newell Simon Hall
412.268.3866 (office)
412.818.8829 (cell)
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~beowulf
---------
During the Middle Ages, probably one of the biggest mistakes was not 
putting on your armor because you were "just going down to the corner."