I can't beleive you feel an FMC makes a flight more challenging, that's a first.

An FMC may not make the actual act of flying from A to B more challenging, but the challenge of learning the ins-and-outs of an aircraft's particular FMC is what many, including myself, find enjoyable. Starting from the manuals and working your way up to being able to key in routes, do your fuel planning, reroute around weather, perform a diversion, etc.--it's a lot to learn and it can be very satisfying to practice with a high level of competency.

Well challenging is debatable and for a different thread, but I still don't feel having an FMC adds to the challenge of flight. 

"challenging" when applied to "nothing specific" is debatable, but when clarified with "challenge of flight"  vs. "challenge of learning", then it is not as debatable.  Certainly we could go further.  "Challenge of flight in bad weather"  "challenge of flight with one engine out",  "Challenge of reading the ASI in violent turbulence, etc., etc.  

 

I'm in agreement with CapnSplat's catch of context in this case though.  The "challenge" here is mostly learning the system in general..including me.   Certainly once learned, the FMS makes the flight less "cognitively  challenging".  Heck, once I learn it, I might not be interested anymore

 

We recognize that there are lots of different target "goals" for 737 users out there.  There will always be a goodly number of users who want to learn how these things work....that is the appeal.... and the only way to do that is to trust that the simulation you purchased is accurate to the real thing.  If it is not, then there is no satisfaction in learning a "pretend" system...certainly that's the category I fall into.   I want to learn the real thing, that is my mental stimulation.

 

Other users are very much well versed in 737 operation and their goals are more targeted at the process of the flight itself and the only way they can achieve that is again, with a simulation that is accurate.

 

Both parties need the same accurate simulation, but both parties goals are not the same....their perspectives differ and with different perspectives comes different interpretations and different verbalizations.  You know what is really challenging?   Trying to guess what people mean when they write on forums.

 

As far as our FMS goes, we are not sure how much we'll get into it before release.  THE most important thing though is that we design for the feature set.  For example, we may not yet implement  lateral offsets on the initial release...its not used much for domestic flights anyhow, BUT we want to make sure our algorithms are adaptable to it.  Nothing is worse than rewriting code that is not built to handle certain situations.....whereas "adding code" to a system designed to be scalable is much more preferable.

 

Right now, because we are writing this thing from scratch, we are paying lots of attention to our programming structure to ensure we get in the features we want, both short term and for updating and that requires at the least that we investigate the full feature set of an FMS and make decisions about how we do things.  

 

That is where all the time is going now.  We simply want this thing to "just work" and we spend a fair amount of time trying things that might break it and making sure it doesn't break.   Right now, we are programming the legs and rte entry pages.  When those are done, we will move on to lnav and performance calculations and then beginning cleaning up all the loose end CDU pages and that's when we'll begin preparing for distribution....which is a multi-month process in and off itself.  I expect this thing to be viable for years without significant updates to "fix" stuff we didn't take the time to do right the first time...that's when it will be worth it.

 

TomK

I'm in agreement with CapnSplat's catch of context in this case though.  The "challenge" here is mostly learning the system in general..including me.   Certainly once learned, the FMS makes the flight less "cognitively  challenging".  Heck, once I learn it, I might not be interested anymore

 

Exactly my thoughts !!!

 

I started flying with GA’s (like the real airliner pilots  ^_^), then made the step to airliners with FMS and all the bells and whistles. After a while, I became bored, entering the data into the FMS, rolling to the runway, V1, rotate, V2, gear up, autopilot and autothrottle and watching (for hours) a computer flying my plane in my computer until a few miles before landing.

So, I returned back to GA’s – handflying, VFR and I am busy during all the flight and don't get bored anymore .

 

An FMS is, although not 100 percent comparable, like a navigation system in a car. It helps to disburden the driver/pilot. But the car is 100% functional without the navigation system, not so with the engine. Same applies for the FMS with the plane.

The driver/pilot still should be able to drive the car/fly the plane without navigation system/FMS. The reason why pilots earn quite a good amount of money: they are able to fly and bring the plane safely home, when all the electronics fail, and not the other way round, because they are able to use an FMS.

 

Some of you might have seen this video before.

 

http://vimeo.com/64502012

 

 

As with most things to do with operating an airliner, simmers frequently warp the entire concept around assumptions and untrained practices.

Its not easy to show progress when the progress is all code...but I think there's enough here to post a short screencapture.  What follows is simply entry of a SID via the CDU at Zurich airport (LSZH).  There is a large amount of foundational code designed to handle the non-standard types of input a user may try and still not break things.  In this little test, we were wanting to make sure that when new routes were selected, things went as expected.   This probably isn't impressive to the old guard FMS users, but we do want to demonstrate that we are rolling along on this last phase of the FMS system...route management, feedback and performance. 

 

TomK

 

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/955680/CDU2.mp4

TK,

 

Many thanks to the team for all the really hard work that goes into simulating a complex modern airliner. Keep up the good work. I am looking forward to the release. It looks great.

Love them button press sounds!

From Janov.....

"Time for the updated I promised - we have actually been really busy this last week, we squashed a bunch of bugs, and also added some detail. There was a total of 37 new revisions to our internal update system.

 

Just today we fixed the yaw damper. Its behaviour is a bit curious, as it will stop working when it looses B hydraulic pressure, but the switch won´t drop to off, and the OFF light won´t go on! If you turn off the B flight-controls, it will revert to off immediately. And if it looses power, it will also go off, but only after a 2 second delay!

 

This is the kind of detail that is keeping us busy these days. We also worked on stabilizing our GUI interface, you can see it at work in the little video I show you below.

 

I am currently scrutinizing the electrical system, we want to make sure that everything is working just as the real thing - and even with a book in my hand its not always easy. The electrical system is quite complex, Boing has it very well thought out, and somehow electricity always gets to where it´s needed . I can´t tell you how often I thought I found a bug, only to find out that some relay opens and reroutes power halfway across the whole diagram. The whole system is a work of art, and we strive to reproduce that as close as possible.

 

 

The video is about the dreaded TR3 disconnect relay. Few pilots REALLY know the electrical system down to the last detail, its complex and there is really no need. Tom did a great job on getting every relay and diode working right, and with modeling this TR3 disconnect relay he is really polishing it to perfection.

 

The TR3 disconnect relay (also known as R9) is a favourite with instructors, as it packs a mean punch just when you thought you are home safe. If transfer bus 1 fails, not a whole lot will happen. The important DC Bus 1 gets power from the "other side" of the system through the TR3 disconnect relay.

But when the autopilot or flight-director captures the glideslope, the relay will open and DC Bus 1 will loose power. And that one has some important users attached to it, like the auto-throttle, anti-skid, anti-ice for engine 1, etc...stay tuned"

 

It may not be what this video is all about ... but ... awesome 3d cockpit .

I am waiting!!!! Please release!!!

Such attention to detail. This will be a game changer for sure :smile:

Hi fidelity! Exactly what I want. Can't wait for you product to be released!

An FMS is, although not 100 percent comparable, like a navigation system in a car. It helps to disburden the driver/pilot. But the car is 100% functional without the navigation system, not so with the engine. Same applies for the FMS with the plane.

 

Well, in the modern ATC environment, from the pilot point of view, maybe an airliner is considered less functional with a total avionics/FMS failure, than with a single engine failure. And I presume the pilots have significantly more workload in the first case than in the second case. Isn't that ironic?