Swift - Pilot client progress

[Daniel Mattsson 843009]

Very interesting and promising project indeed.

 

How are your views on Home and Professional cockpit builders like myself. We have some specific requirements that would need to be in place, example:

1. Possibility to use separate audio output for COM1 and COM2 in order to control volume independently of radio and pilot (with observer support).

2. Push-to-talk feature that doesn't only accept keyboard inputs (a read cockpit often have multiple PTT-buttons that are connected through I/O-cards, often reflected as joystick button presses in Windows)

3. Possibility to get all messages sent to myself into my cockpit, preferably into the CDU for read and reply (I've seen that you are working in CPDLC support, which is awesome!). Today, I'm reading the content of the messages window of vPilot (textarea) using a home built application, that then sends the messages into the cockpit. It's not the perfect solution in many ways.

 

Thanks and keep up the good work!

[Roland Rossgotterer 104726]

Hey Daniel,

 

I was asked the same question in Vienna after our presentation during W14.

 

1. Shouldn't be a big problem. You can have several sound outputs and ideally you can [Mod - Happy Thoughts]ign different COM channels to different outputs. Technically this is possible in swift soon, we need to solve it still in terms of GUI. But this is a requested feature by a lot people, even non-cockpit builders, so we'll keep focus on it.

2. Keyboard and Joystick are already native supported by swift. So if your I/O card appears to be a joystick in Windows, it should work already. If you need something special it might be a bit more complicated.

3. This will be a bit more complicated but not impossible. We are using DBus as inter process communication. We are planning to offer a simple public interface for 3rdParty software to easily get information from the client or control it from outside. But this is still highly hypothetical and nothing has been done yet in this area. So I cannot promise any details, but this would theoretically be the interface you should use.

 

Does this answer your questions? If not feel free to ask in more detail.

 

Cheers Roland

[Rich Heimlich]

Just found out about this and having X-Plane support is great news. Can't wait to see this in action.

 

Do I understand that one of the goals is to eradicated the floating and submerged planes? I've always [Mod - Happy Thoughts]umed this was due mainly to my being in X-Plane while most everyone else was in FS -- or my using some add-on scenery.

 

The immersion factor would be so much higher if that's the case.

 

Thanks for this effort.

[Mathew Sutcliffe]

Yes, see my reply to Patrick's question near the top of this page.

 

Thanks for the encouragement.

[Rich Heimlich]

I find the Auto-Mode C thing curious as I'm often asked to switch over to it before lift-off. Doing it after I guess is a good failsafe.

[Don Desfosse]

Yes, vPilot also has the option to turn on Mode C when taking off. Also, of note, in the US, aircraft should now squawk Mode C prior to moving on the airport surface (ref. AIM 4-1-20 (a) (3)).

[louis holleman 1091684]

Hi all, I only learned very recently about Swift. Hope it will work on both Xplane 9 and 10, preferrably also on Xplane 9.00, which I mainly am using.

One thing about the metars XSB is receiving, I hope this client (Swift) will not produce the same problem:

As soon as a metar contains NCD, NSC, in Xplane the ground temperature is set to 0 degrees and the QNH to 29.92. Especially when the actual QNH is a lot higher or lower, you'll end up perhaps 1000ft too low or too high. It can only be monitored by turning on wx debug, so you can actually see the metar stating a QNH of 30.33 but the A setting turning to 29.92. With a two screen setup in Xplane (instructor screen) you can then go into the wx menu and set the A value to the right one, but I sincerely hope this issue won't turn up in Swift.

Here's an example with NSC in the metar:

And Xplane's weather menu shows:

FWIW, we had a discussion with the maker(s) of XSB, they know it's there but unfortunately development of XSB has halted so I don't expect much from their end. Apart from that, XSB 2 has the same problem.

 

I can't wait to see this client in action. Good luck to all working on it.

 

Louis

[Claudio Fazio 1299906]

Hello guys,

since one months there is not any update and the blog is showing only the first article.

Could be possible to have more details? Is expected to have a beta? Even a software with limited functionalities would be water in the desert for Linux users.

[michal garapich 1174078]

If you need any help in coding and/or testing, I'm here, especially as far as Linux support is concerned. I can do Polish translation as well.

[Mark Wolpert]

Swift Feature Request.

 

For those that use 2 computers and FS2Crew, you can only operate FS2Crew voice on the main FSX computer. I am currently using FSInn and have it set up with CoPilot on the FSX computer and FSInn on the second computer. This allows me to speak to FS2Crew and on FSInn using my headset on the main FSX computer but the main FSInn screen is on my second computer. This is a feature that I would like to see in Swift as well. I tried the same thing with vPilot but unfortunately it just does not work.

[Andrew Ordentlich 1282683]

(Feature Request)

 

Just finished my flight KLGB-KBOS, it was a great flight until final

 

I turned onto final checked the winds on my navigation display, 0 at 1, I knew this was wrong (had checked metar online) and was wondering where the wind was. Low and behold on 3 mile final a 21kt headwind shows up and throws my approach off. I don't know if this is just bad timing for the weather to update or if it has something to do with Xsquakbox (it has happened before).

Thanks,

Andrew

[louis holleman 1091684]

Isn't that a matter of setting the recycle time for fetching the weather in XSB? I know it sets to 5 minutes by default, but if you set that to much longer periods, this easily can happen. Strictly mine, I always set it to 5 mins and never had a similar problem. Plus, be sure to disable XPlane's own weather stuff, which can screw you big.

[Roland Rossgotterer 104726]

Gents,

 

we are still on track. There hasn't been any particular update, because we are working on the internal code base to get the features for the first version done and also improvement iterations. Most features we would like to cover in the first version have been reported, so there aren't any specific news except we are heavily coding to get them finished

 

Don't forget, the project is very complex and it takes time to do it right (we prefer more time and higher quality over faster and buggy). Please be patient for the moment. There is no Beta planned soon.

[Richard Asberg]

Thanks for the update and your way going forward slow with quality at the top of the list sounds very good to me!

[Kirk Christie]

With regards to CPDLC, are you going to use a new server, or use the hoppies network.

 

I understand Aerosoft are waiting for this pilot client to be completed be fore implementing CPDLC in the airbus x.

 

A lot of plug ins developed for ATC and ATC clients use the hoppies network.

[Mathew Sutcliffe]

Sorry Kirk, it's a genuine question to which I would also like to know the answer, but trying to predict it prematurely would only delay the project and risk disappointment by guessing wrongly. We've made that mistake before with similar "big design" questions.

 

Of course it's open source so anyone is welcome to extend it to their preferred system if for whatever reason we haven't supported what they wanted as standard.

[Lawrence McDonald]

Hi there

 

How about a status update ( 2 months since the last post )

 

Regards

 

Lawrence

[Aleksandr Irshinski 123569]

Hei,

 

Do you plan to add private VVL channels like in FSINN?

P2P fast position updates for formation / acrobatic flights still in todo list?

Currently we use FSX multiplayer with FSINN PLA, but problem with ghosts is annoying. So many ghosts drop FPS.

Thanks

[Mark Wolpert]

Swift Feature Request.

 

For those that use 2 computers and FS2Crew, you can only operate FS2Crew voice on the main FSX computer. I am currently using FSInn and have it set up with CoPilot on the FSX computer and FSInn on the second computer. This allows me to speak to FS2Crew and on FSInn using my headset on the main FSX computer but the main FSInn screen is on my second computer. This is a feature that I would like to see in Swift as well. I tried the same thing with vPilot but unfortunately it just does not work.

 

Is anyone on the team able to advise if this will be possible ?

[Roland Rossgotterer 104726]

Hei,

 

Do you plan to add private VVL channels like in FSINN?

P2P fast position updates for formation / acrobatic flights still in todo list?

Currently we use FSX multiplayer with FSINN PLA, but problem with ghosts is annoying. So many ghosts drop FPS.

Thanks

 

Private channels is on the list and already working. You can connect to any voice room by manual editing. P2P is planned at some point, but work for this hasn't started yet. It might not be in version 1 but will be added later.

 

Swift Feature Request.

 

For those that use 2 computers and FS2Crew, you can only operate FS2Crew voice on the main FSX computer. I am currently using FSInn and have it set up with CoPilot on the FSX computer and FSInn on the second computer. This allows me to speak to FS2Crew and on FSInn using my headset on the main FSX computer but the main FSInn screen is on my second computer. This is a feature that I would like to see in Swift as well. I tried the same thing with vPilot but unfortunately it just does not work.

 

Is anyone on the team able to advise if this will be possible ?

 

You can run the audio component wherever you like. GUI and several core components including audio can run on different computers in the network. So your scenario to run GUI on the second computer and swift core including audio on the FSX computer is going to work.

[Mark Wolpert]

Swift Feature Request.

 

For those that use 2 computers and FS2Crew, you can only operate FS2Crew voice on the main FSX computer. I am currently using FSInn and have it set up with CoPilot on the FSX computer and FSInn on the second computer. This allows me to speak to FS2Crew and on FSInn using my headset on the main FSX computer but the main FSInn screen is on my second computer. This is a feature that I would like to see in Swift as well. I tried the same thing with vPilot but unfortunately it just does not work.

 

Is anyone on the team able to advise if this will be possible ?

 

You can run the audio component wherever you like. GUI and several core components including audio can run on different computers in the network. So your scenario to run GUI on the second computer and swift core including audio on the FSX computer is going to work.

 

That is awesome news!

[Lawrence McDonald]

Hi there ,

Is the project still alive , Blog has no posts in 3 months and no specific updates here in awhile

 

This was so the solution for many flight simmers ..

 

 

Regards

lawrence

[Mathew Sutcliffe]

It is still alive.

[Andre Schasse 1291027]

Great news guys! If you need some infrastructure i can contribute a root server or two if you need them. I know it sucks, but is the release date soon or more like Star Citizen ... Far far away ?

[Chad Black]

It's been 2 years in the making. I for one am NOT a fan of people who pester developers about release dates, but at this point I think its fair to at least ask if its going to be 2 more years before this is released.