Avidyne IFD 550/540 in Black Square addons
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Now that SU5 has been released and the Avidyne IFDs are in the base sim. Is there any consideration to add the IFDs as an option for the existing Blacksquare aircraft? I believe they are the same size as the GNS, as they are designed to be drop-in replacements. It would really add to the avionics capabilities the BlackSquare aircraft. Would love to be able to use them in the Dukes. I really appreciate your consideration about this. Thank you for your time.
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Now that SU5 has been released and the Avidyne IFDs are in the base sim. Is there any consideration to add the IFDs as an option for the existing Blacksquare aircraft? I believe they are the same size as the GNS, as they are designed to be drop-in replacements. It would really add to the avionics capabilities the BlackSquare aircraft. Would love to be able to use them in the Dukes. I really appreciate your consideration about this. Thank you for your time.
@Heclak I just saw that documentation for the IFD series was posted recently. When I saw no mention of hot-swapping configuration, I looked elsewhere, and found a post from someone at Working Title saying that they will not not support hot-swapping with the IFD series. That's too bad, because it would obviously require substantially changing the architecture of all my aircraft to support one new piece of avionics. In order to add the IFD's, and maintain all the existing hot-swappable configurations, some of my aircraft would end up with 32 variations in the aircraft selection menu. I consider hot-swapping to be a major feature of my aircraft, so I'm obviously disappointed to hear this, but I feel worse that it artificially limits the options that I am able to supply to my users.
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That's a huge pity. I understand the challenge and rationale of both parties. The hotswap feature is great for the customization but I also understand the concern of how fragile the feature can be from WT's POV. Since the variant system is a core feature of 2024 and possibly moving forward, could there be a possibility of not necessarily changing your entire architecture at the moment and exploring the variant system just for the IFDs with a single preset or two? eg. the existing system remains but there is a preset for a fixed dual IFD setup (or plus another popular config) as a concept? 32 variants does sound like a huge pain. So the two variants for you would only be Garmin vs IFD.
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That's a huge pity. I understand the challenge and rationale of both parties. The hotswap feature is great for the customization but I also understand the concern of how fragile the feature can be from WT's POV. Since the variant system is a core feature of 2024 and possibly moving forward, could there be a possibility of not necessarily changing your entire architecture at the moment and exploring the variant system just for the IFDs with a single preset or two? eg. the existing system remains but there is a preset for a fixed dual IFD setup (or plus another popular config) as a concept? 32 variants does sound like a huge pain. So the two variants for you would only be Garmin vs IFD.
@Heclak Splitting off a single variant like that would be almost as much work as splitting them all out, so that doesn't gain me much, unfortunately. I will also add that MSFS 2024's LOD system also makes this much more difficult for developers, because I must now export at least four or five models for every one in MSFS 2020. Lastly, I will agree with you that I understand WT's decision, the same way that I would hope anyone would understand my design decisions, but at least from my perspective, hot-swapping works perfectly well with all the 3rd party avionics my aircraft support, including my own (KNS RNAV and Starship). The hot-swapping system in the GNS 530 does not allow for all the options supported by 3rd party avionics, but it still works well enough for me and my users, so it's definitely sad to see that system abandoned for these new avionics. Between my users and I, I will do my best to think of interesting places I could use the IFD's in the future, even if that's not alongside all the avionics options in my current aircraft.
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my 2 cents. i have no need for hot swap. i am fine installing the variant i want, so GTN or GNS. and cant you reduce your variants offered. do you really need single dual GTN, 750, 650, GNS GTNXI each and every combination.
i understood that Avidyne is a one to one replacement for the GNS530, so no changes in the 3d model needed.
would love to see the Avidyne in the Duke for example or TBM850. -
The issue isn’t necessarily the hot-swap, it’s the ridiculous aircraft selection menu that gets polluted by all the combinations of variants. And for me, the variation is crucial, it’s what makes the aircraft feel more personal and setup to my “ownership” tastes. Getting lost in dozens of variants at the menu level and saving to reload each time you try something out doesn’t inspire use, it inspires me to move on and away.
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I've open a new Topic on MSFS Wishlist to make the IFD hotsawable. You can vote here.
https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/wt-should-support-hotswap-for-avidyne-ifd-540-550/766895
Hopefully, they will reconsider their approach to this.@osa I voted.
I’m one of those that enjoy the variety offered, so I’m using different combinations in different variants of a plane, e.g. no gps in n/a Baron, KX155 with or without KLN-90 depending on mood and a GTN 650 in TC Baron, and GTN 750 in P Baron. Therefore the experience is different, in the different variants, and I enjoy that.
The variant selection screen in 2024 is not well thought out, and gets unruly quickly. I think the SWS Kodiak has 20 different variants, depending on cabin, undercarriage, cargo pod or not (I’m probably forgetting something). ”Luckily”, it only has one set of avionics, otherwise you’d have to multiply the variants by however many different variants of avionics there were. 40-60 variants in a horizontal scrolling list, with seemingly no logical order to it?
Someone suggested a drop-down menu system instead, which would definitely make things easier. But that’s all from a user perspective. I’m guessing, from a developer perspective, it’s all the same, with all these different variants needed to be produced and maintained. Hot-swapping avionics would seem to make life easier for developers, and therefore offering more variety in general, which in the end benefits users.
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I also voted for it. I'm not especially hopeful though. On their Discord, Working Title called hot swapping a "hack," and said "The entire JS engine isn't designed to just be reloaded at random during flights. So even third party instruments should not be trying to implement a hot swap feature."
It's their view that the selection UI is the issue, and that's what should be under discussion - regardless of how convenient hot swapping might be for users.
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I also voted for it. I'm not especially hopeful though. On their Discord, Working Title called hot swapping a "hack," and said "The entire JS engine isn't designed to just be reloaded at random during flights. So even third party instruments should not be trying to implement a hot swap feature."
It's their view that the selection UI is the issue, and that's what should be under discussion - regardless of how convenient hot swapping might be for users.
@RPGamerous said in Avidyne IFD 550/540 in Black Square addons:
"The entire JS engine isn't designed to just be reloaded at random during flights. So even third party instruments should not be trying to implement a hot swap feature."
I'm going to tread very lightly here, because I am not an expert in how all these avionics work, but I have created my own hot-swapping features for my RNAV computers and Starship, and it did not require rebooting the entire JS engine. As far as I'm concerned, the only "hot-swapping" features that are necessary are: 1. Stop writing to output SimVars, such as AP variables, CDI, GPS data, etc., and 2. Minimize code execution and memory usage.
As far as I can tell, this is what third party avionics do, and as long as we respect each other's "locks" on
GPS OVERRIDDEN, andAVIONICS MANAGED, it all seems to work swimmingly.HOWEVER: I'm sure I'm oversimplifying based on my own avionics, which don't have to support nearly the number of features or target platforms that Working Title's do, so please do no misinterpret my commentary to be anything more than my own observations. I understand the pain of MSFS development intimately, so I respect whatever challenges WT faces, and whatever decisions they have arrived at, no doubt with much contemplation. I suspect the rub might be with their internal autopilot implementation, since it's one of the things that sets them apart from these other 3rd party avionics developers, but don't quote me on that.
