Keeping up with Garmin

[Captainronno 2]

Just wanted to have a general discussion about the pace at which we're adapting the latest avionics to our flight simulators. I do some flight instruction for an outfit that uses some very outdated simulators (a lot of us on this forum have much better simulators in our basements), and I've been wishing for more access to the newest stuff to use in an actual flight simulation setting. It's a rapidly moving industry lately and although Garmin and Avidyne publish trainers, I feel like there's so much lag and cost in adapting them to an actual aircraft simulation environment (certified or not), which is really inhibiting quality training to aircraft owners and flight instructors.

Imagine you own a Bonanza (it's easy if you try) with a brand-new Garmin G600txi suite, a couple of GTNs in there, a GFC500, etc., and your insurance company wants you to do recurrent simulator training. While a couple hours in a six-pack, no GPS sim has undeniable value as far as instrument proficiency, you're missing out on some quality training with your airplane and your avionics. As a flight instructor in this situation, it's just embarrassing to have to apologize for your old equipment. 

There are some very nice, very expensive simulators (certified) out there, and you may find access to a GTN750 or G1000 in a sim, but those are, dare I say, nearing an age where you could call them "old technology".

To be clear, while I'm talking mostly about certified sims, I really don't see much difference between those and home sims. The FAA requires certain things, but the tech is all the same-- Redbird and FlyThisSim are using stuff we all have access to.

My question is this: What does it take for RXP to get that PC trainer to work in XPlane? They've been working on a G500/G600 for a long time now, so I'm assuming this is a complicated process, or is it? Does anyone know?  Has anyone contacted them about professional use licensing?--I've been unable to get a response. Why is there only one company doing this work?  I've seen a few certified AATDs with GTN equipment--are those ground-up devices? How much harder would that be? When will we see an IFD550 in XPlane? The GI275, the G600/500txi? Or is it just impossible? I have so many questions!!

Weigh in, flight simulation experts (that's what you are)! How do we keep up with Garmin?!!

Aaron

Edited February 18, 2020 by Captainronno

[richjb2 195]

Aaron,

I couldn't agree more.  I'm a professional pilot who is transitioning into the Learjet 75 with the Garmin G5000. I found very helpful to fly around with the Xtreame prototype Lear 25 and the F1 GTN750 trainer integration. While there are some significant difference, but many more similarities in how the FMS and map displays function.  That's owing to Garmin's design intent.

Accurate "free play" with the FMS or RNAV system in any airplane is very important.  You want to answer your questions before you're in the clouds or trying to program a complex clearance issued by ATC, some of which do not always make sense. 

I give kudos to the collaboration between Garmin, F1, and Reality XP that permits integration of real-world trainers into the flight simulator world.  Just imagine what this might look like in MSFS2020?  I'm excited about the real-world flying benefits to pilots of all experience levels. 

Even if you have access to FTDs or FFS (e.g., Level C and Level D simulators), you do not want to waste time learning to program the FMS or RNAV system in these devices.  They are too expensive for that purpose.  These tools can prepare you so that you can take full advantage of the capabilities of these devices.

My thoughts,

Rich Boll

Wichita, KS

 

Edited February 18, 2020 by RXP

[Captainronno 2]

Rich,

Glad to read your response. I grew up near ICT, had a couple flying jobs there. I was hoping to draw a response from RXP... I'm just very interested in the process of integrating these things into our Sims. Maybe Garmin could get onboard and just offer up the software to purchase. You don't happen to know anyone in Garmin R&D, do you?😁

[Bjohnson03 0]

Aaron,

You've got a point. I'd be really happy if the avionics companies released Flt Sim versions of their instruments. I foolishly think it'd be a reasonable promotional tool.

Long gone are the days of very similar General Aviation cockpit avionics stacks. Now we have to learn how each component works and talk together. In  GA this is compounded by having a stack of component operating handbooks, but no integrated one.

Before I bought my airplane I flew it in the simulator. I've slowly modified the file to try to duplicate the cockpit in my airplane. It's probably like many with some upgrades but not integrated glass. As an amateur pilot, I work out my cockpit procedures in a flight sim. It allows me to hit the pause and check one of the manuals to figure out which buttons to hit and the best way to hit them. It's not perfect, there are differences from the real thing, but I've identified those, so it's still useful.

This was really brought home to me, recently, wandering around SoCal while my friend tried to figure out which buttons to push in his new glass cockpit. For instance, I found out, you don't put Decision Altitude into selected altitude because, if the AP unexpectedly changes modes, it heads down, right now. I've never been that far below a glide slope before.

Now, I'm on the schedule for an avionics upgrade for my Mooney. I'm lined up to have an Aspen E5 replace the vacuum ADI and my nifty but dated Sandel. I've even gone to the trouble of creating an Aspen E5 in Air Manager and put that into the Flt Sim panel. I think I've worked out what how I'll operate with that. But, I'm wondering, "Do I go with the Garmin GI 275s instead?" How would that change procedures? If I could drop one into a file and try it out, I'd know.

 

Bob

[Captainronno 2]

Bob,

You make a great point about modern panels: There's so many choices, and none of them look like a six-pack. Also, your antidote makes the point that concerns me about some of the owner airplanes I've been in lately (as a CFI). So many people did big upgrades to stay ahead of the 2020 mandate, but I don't think the necessary training is always happening. Single pilot, IMC, a navigator doing something you didn't expect, or being unable to make it do what you want is a cockpit situation on par with a major systems failure. As user friendly as an IFD or GTN is, they're also as powerful as a full-blown FMS, which professional flight crews spend a lot of time training to use.

It seems that there's a great training opportunity for someone to have access to a quality simulation of their airplane, their avionics--but as you mentioned, it also seems like it would be a great commercial tool for picking the unit that best suits your needs. With Air Manager and a few touch screens, pretty affordable yoke/pedal/throttle hardware, the pieces are there. We just need the manufacturers to take our money and help us out!

Aaron

[Vipersden 1]

Greetings,

I am an old/new member of avsim. I was around in the early days of FSX but lifes' journey pulled me away from the flight sim community. I came across this topic by accident when I was doing research on Garmin G500TXi displays for flight simulation so I wanted to chime in on this topic. I'm a professional pilot and CFI and have been flying for twenty five years and have flown numerous aircraft with basic six pack lay out all the way to the technically advanced aircraft. One of the biggest frustrations I've had is watching aircraft owners spend a $100,000 plus replacing there six pack panel with a complete Garmin setup, GTN750/650, G500 now G500TXi and GFC 500 autopilots and then they stumble through the sky for months trying to figure out everything the systems can do and how they integrate with the LRUs . The free I-pad app is ok, the two day courses are far and few between, and depending where you're at there may not be a CFI familiar with the Garmin setup. Teaching someone new avionics in an airplane brings it own set of challenges, inevitably both the pilot and instructor wind up heads down button pushing. 

Given the advances in flight simulation I would think Garmin would see the benefit of having their products made available for training in a flight simulator as opposed to clicking an I-pad. I'm trying to build a simulator for work to simulate the GTN 750/650,G5 and Garmin G500TXi, we have an aircraft that is getting this setup installed and I have to get six pilots trained up. An actual simulator would be a tremendous financial and time saver for the aircraft and myself.  I anticipate anywhere between 75-100 hours to get all six pilots trained to proficiency not just this is how it works training. If the airplane breaks or we are mission tasked the training could take six months to a year. Reality XP has everything I would need with the exception of the G500TXi to get a sim up and running but it seems the preference is weighted toward G1000 products. Seems to me a G500TXi wouldn't be to hard to replicate considering the TXi lineup has some similarities to a G1000 minus some features but I'm no developer so I'll leave that one to the experts.

Glad someone brought this topic up, looking forward to being back on avsim again.

 

Chris

[RXP 2,338]

20 minutes ago, Vipersden said:

Glad someone brought this topic up, looking forward to being back on avsim again.

Welcome back!

21 minutes ago, Vipersden said:

Reality XP has everything I would need with the exception of the G500TXi to get a sim up and running

I hear you all and this is a good discussion with good feedback.

Please note Garmin do offer 'simulation' version of their hardware but certainly not integrated in the simulators you're accustomed too nor with the same TCO (purchase + maintenance).

We do offer Professional license of our products with additional benefits and support, both for the Professional versions of X-Plane and Prepar3D as well as embedable components for any simulator under custom licensing agreements.

As for new Garmin products we're certainly eager to offer more in the future. We already have the G500 in the pipeline which is taking ages to be released for many reasons already explained in the dedicated discussion in this forum (and I'm not pleased nor comfortable with this situation), but we're also facing a strong shift in the industry right now with a lot of simulators beta going on and the uncertainty of how these would thrive in the simulation market. This is a factor when when you're a small team and you've to plan ahead which developments for which platform.

So the main component missing in the "RXP has everything" is really resources and time. Otherwise I can assure you you'd already have more products available from Reality XP.

[richjb2 195]

On 2/22/2020 at 9:24 AM, Captainronno said:

Rich,

Glad to read your response. I grew up near ICT, had a couple flying jobs there. I was hoping to draw a response from RXP... I'm just very interested in the process of integrating these things into our Sims. Maybe Garmin could get onboard and just offer up the software to purchase. You don't happen to know anyone in Garmin R&D, do you?😁

Actually...yes

[Captainronno 2]

22 hours ago, RXP said:

We do offer Professional license of our products with additional benefits and support, both for the Professional versions of X-Plane and Prepar3D as well as embedable components for any simulator under custom licensing agreements.

I'm interested. I'm working on certifying an AATD with touchscreens that could incorporate your products, but I've been unable to make contact through the RXP site. Could you PM me with details?

Aaron

[chflyer 0]

RealtyXP is purely Garmin. No sign of any intent to support the current IFD line which is 5 years old. This also has a knock on effect, as sim hardware manufacturers like RealSimGear need a software simulation before they create corresponding hardware.

[B1900 17]

On 2/25/2020 at 6:31 PM, chflyer said:

RealtyXP is purely Garmin. No sign of any intent to support the current IFD line which is 5 years old. This also has a knock on effect, as sim hardware manufacturers like RealSimGear need a software simulation before they create corresponding hardware.

Yes but pure economics back Garmin, as they backed VHS, the PC (as opposed to the Mac), the Ford F150 and any other king of the hill product.

We all know that MSFS is cr$%, but its the number 1 selling platform because it looks good and it says Microsoft on it. I've recently started using X-plane and wonder why I waited so long to try it. Now its my goto but MSFS will outsell it 1000 to 1.

I'm patiently waiting for the G500/600, hardware is waiting.

Jon

Edited March 7, 2021 by B1900
edit WNA