On Mon, Oct 5, 2009 at 12:56 PM, Heiko Schulz <aeitsch...@yahoo.de> wrote:
> So it is just the GPS? Or still more?
>
As with all things, it's maybe not that simple. We can already plug in a
real gps and run with that. I've messed with a Garmin 295 and a Garmin 400
(which means we should be able to support a real G430/530 as well.)
So it depends what gps you want and if you don't mind putting in a real one,
or if you want a full software emulation, and if you want a software
emulation, how far do you have to go? Is it just some basic features we
need or do we need to mimic the entire thing down to the boot messages, and
correct satellite positions for the date/time?
Pretty close does not mean in my eyes that we are FAA-certificable yet- But
> woulden't be that a nice goal to be?
>
Well again, I can sit here and say anything, but the reality is that no
matter how much work we do in advance, when it comes down to putting *your*
system together, you'll find things that are missing or not quite the way
you want them and you will want to do extra work.
A good instructor station is another items that is missing from the
open-source world. The instructor station I've worked with in my FAA
certification efforts has been a commercial product that talks to flightgear
via it's network interfaces.
What it boils down to, is that anyone who is going through the actual
process to achieve FAA certification, is going to be doing it for business
reasons (at some level.) So there's a careful dance that goes on to protect
business interests at the same time as participating in and supporting
open-source goals.
It's easy to chit chat about these things and toss wishful thinking back and
forth, but how many people have actually dug in and read the FAA
certification specs? The people who have are probably the ones actually
pushing forward with a FlightGear based certified simulator product.
The reason FlightGear is currently being used as part of FAA certified
simulators is that it's easily good enough for that purpose, and has many
advantages in terms of openness, adaptability, interfaceability,
extensibility, and cost.
The reason we haven't pushed for some sort of blanket certification is that
so far, the people going through the process have been working for their own
business interests, contributing back the open-source changes to be sure,
but also not giving away the complete store when they do something separate
to achieve the final certification status.
Even the "lowly" PC-ATD certification ... we have a project for that, but
how many people have signed up to advance that forward?
The people that want to get to FAA certification with FlightGear can do it
already, but building an FAA certified simulator is very time consuming and
costly and generally a significant distance beyond what a hobbiest would
have time or motivation to achieve?
What is FAA certification good for? Answer: so that you can log hours in
the simulator and save money/time over practicing certain tasks in a real
aircraft.
It's no where near cost (or time) effective to build your own sim for your
own personal training.
The only way it makes any kind of financial sense is if you are a school and
offering sim time to your students. In that case it's way more effiicent to
buy something existing than build it yourself.
FAA Certification == ability to sell hours in your sim. FAA certification
== lots of cost and effort. There's not a lot of motivation within the
hobby community to jump into that world, and if you do jump into that world,
you might as well make a few bucks from all your time and effort.
I see I'm going in circles here so it's time to stop. :-)
Best regards,
Curt.
--
Curtis Olson: http://baron.flightgear.org/~curt/
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