Hi !

 

I just found an interesting thread on the Flightsimlabs forum. Oone of the leading developers of the vatsin client said that there will be an acars (CPDLC) inplementation in the new client and an interface for third party developers and those who are interestet should contact him.

 

Is this an option for the PMDG Team to include it in their planes once upon a time?

 

Here is the link:

 

http://forums.flightsimlabs.com/index.php?/topic/4708-dcdu-datalink-control-and-display-unit/

 

Thanks a lot.

Chris Thiel

I guess this would be a good point for a 3rd party developer to step in, but a more robust SDK would be needed. I believe I have posted here about it, IIRC it was not discounted for the future.

 

Since I have been writing a general ACARS/AOC client gauge, I have an idea about what would be needed, if PMDG guys want a quick rundown to see what and how (in fact I have planned to present this to them after the generic gauge is done, however I have had to temporarily stop the project for other commitments)

On the VATSIM forum, one of the guys involved in the pilot client said he was already in touch with PMDG.

 

I believe they on PMDG's end they were waiting for a frame work to be finalised before they can even consider having it as part of their aircraft - it would seem now that on the VATSIM they've set out what that info

 

Cheers,

 

Tim

I've posted this a few times now, but I'll bug the PMDG guys some more

 

I think that the ideal solution would be to allow third party developers to use the CDU/MFD as the user interface similar to real world systems and Jeroen Hoppenbrouwer's "MCDU". Additionally, developers would need access to read/write data from the FMC. For a well organised VA, this could present a huge number of possibilities: general ACARS messages (telex, weather requests, OOOI); wind data downlinks; route downlink; etc.

 

This kind of system would have many benefits, the most obvious being that PMDG do not have to spend time developing something specific to one online network. Another benefit is that third party developers can develop their application once and simply rewrite the user interface part for each aircraft.

Was it in the 747 or the MD11 that there was a item in the PMDG menu section called ACARS? IIRC and my memory isn't the most reliable, they said it was something they was looking into for the future but the menu wasn't supposed to have been visible there? Obviosuly it was a long time ago and it didn't materialize but it's bit of a curiosa!

 

 

Was it in the 747 or the MD11 that there was a item in the PMDG menu section called ACARS?

 

744 had it - I used it for OOOI times for whatever VA I was in at that point...

At this point, I'd be happy with a VA that would simulate MEL items or a specified aircraft config. Something to give me reason, other than pure experimentation, to include/exclude some of the numerous equipment options and failures that are far-too overlooked.

 

ACARS would be awesome too

What would be if PMDG included some basic ARCAS functions (weather uplink, fpl uplink, etc.) into their 777. But instead of providing any more external (server-) software to run this functions, they could provide a folder where you can put files into. Something like the actual import flightplan function.

If they would say that such files must have certain format, external parties (VAs, IVAO, VATSIM) could provide software solutions to inject such files into that folder.

If you now press the button for such a service (e.g.: weather uplink) in the FMC, that file could be loaded.

In the same folder some basic outputs could also be stored (e.g.: position reports) and read by external partie's software.

 

Ofcourse this would provide the need for PMDG to include those ARCAS functions into the FMC, however it would be better than any specific client (like only for IVAO).

Also there wouldn't be the need to creat the real "up- and downlink" part. Loading such files from and to servers could be accomplished by external partie's software.

 

 

Ofcourse this would provide the need for PMDG to include those ARCAS functions into the FMC, however it would be better than any specific client (like only for IVAO).

This would be a client specific interface - it would just be PMDG specific instead of IVAO specific.

 

The potential for the idea is good, I really like the idea of a very simple FMC interface standard that anybody could tie in to. If you build a model with an FMC then all you would need to do is detect if there is an FMC app registered with FSX and if there is, and the user has selected the appropriate mode in your FMC, then send the contents of the scratch pad along with the LSK id whenever an LSK is pressed by the user. In response, the app would tell you what to display and indicate if it was returning control of the FMC back to you.

 

The only thing left to resolve would be to agree on how the capablilties of the FMC display should be comunicated. Colours, fonts, characters per line and number of lines.