Today I  swapped my old Garmin with new Avidyne!

This is my old GNS430W:

And here is  Avidyne IFD440 

Now does SDK allowed  3rd party developers to add variety of RW nav/performance  equipment like TKM, Avidyne and so on! For now we just stuck with Garmin , but it's not the only thing in the world!

 

 By the way coolest thing of  IFD440 it just slides in and matches back end of gns430 socket to socket, pin to pin - no avionic guy required! Pure preventive maintenance 😎

P.S. And here is free training app to play around!

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/ifd-trainer/id1170084784

 

I love this kind of thing 😊
 

There are some nice non-Garmin avionics out there now that drop in for the GNS430 and GNS530. It would be nice to have them in the sim as well.  It's really too bad Asobo didn't think ahead to swapping out avionics, and everything in the bezels, etc is baked into the aircraft 3D models.

The ability certainly exists to implement alternative avionics, although performance may be a limiting factor for some.   However, when it comes to retrofitting it's not as straight forward.   The physical device is "baked in" to the 3d model of the cockpit.   Without an alternative model the best thing you can do is swap the display but keep it in  the same physical shell, as some folks have done retrofitting the G3X in the Icon.

This does limit how you can interact with it, though, so it's less than ideal.

The alternative requires having an alternate 3d model for the new instruments.   For this, you are probably dependent on the developer, in most cases.   If they provide an alternate "frame", the way that, say, A2A have often done in their planes in the past, you could use them as soon as the avionics code is ready.  But only if that frame is there.

(I noticed when I was digging into the JF Arrow the other day that their cockpit configuration includes logic for swapping in the models of a GTN 650 or 750, even though those don't exist yet.   I didn't check to see if the actual 3d model it references exists, but if it does, then in theory the folks who are working on the open-source GTN-750 would be able to bolt it directly into the Piper.   I'm sure they probably created the models with the F1 or RXP devices in mind, but it doesn't have to be that code that uses them.   I wish more developers thought ahead like that, and good on JF. 🙂 )

 

Edited March 30, 20215 yr by kaosfere

10 hours ago, kaosfere said:

I wish more developers thought ahead like that,

I was thinking the same the last time I was reasoning about the antiquated FSX SDK concepts strongly and deeply rooted in FS2020, and how much FS2020 developers could benefit from engaging with developers thinking outside the traditional SDK box so that this very question of mixing add-ons for example, and supporting the simmers with end-user facing facilities, instead of requiring 3rd party developers doing it, could become a reality. I strongly hope the amount of engagement on helping building the CRJ or the other 3rd party aircraft they are daily assisting with, is actually really helping going beyond just porting existing P3D code and like you're saying, helping Asobo thinking ahead like that 🙂

Edited March 30, 20215 yr by RXP

So it would be possible to get the GNS 430 in to the C152 somehow for example? I dont really care about having it retrofitted to the panel that much but a 2D window would be awesome. I have a hardware GNS430 unit from Realsimgear and with my favorite aicraft the C152 I cant really use it at all since the C152 is NAV/COM radios only. 

Edited March 31, 20215 yr by mikced76

Yeah, what's the deal with retro-fitting stuff in to the 3D model of say, the DR400.

Could really do with a GPS and VOR/DME.

I mean, it's do-able because those bright sparks at FBW have changed the model of the A320 - so switches/ knobs/ dials that were static are now animated, etc?

I have a home built cockpit so my only view from the monitor is the outside front view (and some of the cowling). So personally I dont care all that much about the MSFS instrument panels, a 2D default GNS 430 would therefor be awesome in the C152, any ideas? 🙂

Edited March 31, 20215 yr by mikced76

I believe the FlyByWire team was working on an exporter that could export FS2020 .bgl 3D models (for the stock Standard edition aircraft) back out to Blender, where they could then make edits, and then export new files for use in the sim.

So that may be how they have made some updates.

At any rate the panel bezels are all baked into the overall aircraft 3D models, so changing bezels (or stream gauges for that matter) requires changing those models.