First of all, due to the unavailability of the actual flight management software, a guess would have to be made using reference material such as a flight manual. A quick search of the web indicates that flight manuals for currently in-service airliners are not simply given out. Security concerns have limited availability to those with a valid reason. Given that, I also wonder about how smart it would be to model such aspects of airliner operation too closely.
*Personally*, I would NOT consider the latter a factor, simply because it will take a loooong time for FlightGear to really become THAT _real_, regardless of what you might be able to achieve within the near future.
This is for a fairly simple reason: there are numerous other products which do really a VERY DECENT job at resembling systems, behaviour etc. some of them are even used by real life pilots for training, e.g. Wilco's 767 PIC:
http://www.wilcopub.com/support_767PIC.html
... while merely an *addon* to M$ FS 2004 - is said to be really realistic - even though it only runs within (and hence has to live with the limitations of) the Micro$oft flight simulator.
You can even get their manuals - WITHOUT the software:
http://www.wilcopub.com/extra_767PIC.html
And this is just one example of MANY - there are others products such as Aerowinx PS1:
http://aerowinx.com/
which is not even called a "flight simulator" but rather a "procedure trainer", it resembles even all of the systems/components of a 744, so products like these are available to ANYBODY who's willing to pay the bill - with NO restriction WHATSOEVER !
Regarding your comment concerning the fear to possibly create software that might be used by 'terrorists':
Without meaning to offend anybody, but I highly doubt that FlightGear will be able to compete with any of the mentioned more advanced products within anytime soon - even if one particular aircraft suddently gets a realistic autoflight system ...
this is just ONE piece of a whole number of systems, so I WOULD DARE TO
*GUARANTEE* that FlightGear is not going to be used for 'training purposes' within the next years - be it by authorized or non-authorized
people ...
A somewhat more realistic autoflight system would not even be close to what other products can do already - and I am not even talking yet of the really professional (CBT) stuff that airlines/flight schools use to train professional pilots
And all this is still *available* - it's merely a matter of investing the money - you can go directly to shops like:
http://www.aerosim.com/bizjet/biz_atrnsprt.htm
...and get whatever you want - Jeppesen doesn't seem to restrict access to their training materials either.
(and there are soo MANY others !)
Or purchase such products directly from the manufacturer:
http://www.wicat.com/flight/other/introfms.htm http://www.wicat.com/flight/simstrns/md11fms.htm
And even if some American companies now place restrictions on the access to such material, it's still available in pretty much any other country.
(civil) airplanes aren't weapons by definition... it's a matter of how you USE things that defines whether you are using a weapon or simply a normal tool.
On the other hand what you are bringing up here is indeed a hot debate that was particularly pushed because of 9/11 - after it became obvious that the terrorists also used flight simulators for their training ...
If you're interested in these discussions and the opinions of the professionals, take a look at pprune.org and search for "flight simulator" - you'll find threads where people wonder whether simulators are getting "too real" because of the 9/11 attacks.
And no, I don't think this going to happen that soon - and certainly not for FlightGear in particular, there are too many other shortcomings that FlightGear users seem to want to see addressed before:
http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=198&topic_id=260&mode=full
Also, regarding the whole terrorist issue that you mentioned:
terrorists usually have the funding available to really use *professional tools*, so the 9/11 terrorists did not only fool around with a version of Micro$oft's flight simulator, but also attended REAL flight training, they even used fixed base sims...
FlightGear is not going to become interesting for that group of people!
So, ultimately a potential terrorist would much rather decide to book a 'normal' typerating course than bother playing around with FlightGear, typeratings are also easily available ... (okay, not in the US ANYMORE)
http://www.pea.com/courses/gct.asp
And then you can of course still get used materials on ebay ... That's where I got most of my AOMs - pprune itself is otherwise also a good source of information:
http://www.pprune.org/forums/search.php
simply use keywords such as "autoflight" "lnav" "vnav" "FMA" in order to find the relevant threads for your project.
And what can't be found, can still be ASKED there - if you detail your motivation and provide links to the flightgear project, jsbsim - they'll surely be glad to help you.
In any case, I intend to work with Dave C. to model at least parts of the flight management system as an exercise.
I would suggest to coordinate your efforts then with Harald Johnsen, who's working on the visual/logical implementation of the CDU/FMC:
http://www.mail-archive.com/flightgear-devel%40flightgear.org/msg26056.html
http://www.chez.com/tipunch/flightgear/index.html
Maybe you guys can save some of the work by combining your efforts :-)
--------- Boris
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