The IFD Trainer is very useful and much appreciated for learning unit operation and testing what-if scenarios at home. But having the unit in a full-blown sim such as x-plane for keeping up IR proficiency on a cold winter day would allow practice of IFD use in realistic simulated IFR environment.

I would hope that Avidyne would be ready to support such a 3rd party effort to the extent of making information available for development of such a plug-in....  IFDs were popping up in x-plane simulators all over the place could give considerable free advertising in the form of exposure to a lot of pilots.

Doesn't look like it will happen any time soon (no software hooks in the simulator), although I agree it would be nice.  

@ AZ Flyer: Vince contributed to the thread linked above, back in 2016 and 2017.

However, I'm not going to let this topic die. There is still demand. Accept and feed data to/from the instrument sim from/to a flight sim. Preferably over TCP or UDP/IP. That way the IFD sim can be on a different device than the flight sim. I fly X-Plane 11 on a Linux machine, so am not thrilled with the idea of Windows-only or MS FS-only solution.

@togadriver has the expertise to assist.

The Plug-In SDK indicates that each platform needs its own compiled plug-in which means 3 implementations and three sets of testing hurdles.  Since I'm mac based, I could code and test the mac one, but do not have x-plane running on the other two platforms.

Short answer:  if the hooks ever get put in the iPad app I'll give it a whirl for the Mac OS and make the code public so others could port it to Windoz and Linux.

Next, it would be nice if the simulator showed up on the panel of the plane I'm flying or if RealSimGear provided a panel 

todoftempe wrote: I agree that an IFD plug in for X-Plane would be incredibly useful.  I would gladly pay $100-200 if it worked well.

Me too.

I think they are getting close.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNDwHtkBD0Q

chflyer wrote: Yes, that's the video posted in the "IFD integration into simulators" thread. But it looks like one needs to remove the actual unit from the aircraft and wire it to the sim, something I think has significant risk if done often. At least there is some progress though.

Agree. Not something I'm willing to do. We need to be able to connect to the instrument simulator application. That should be easier than connecting all of the wiring to a harness and thence to a USB->RS-232 adapter.

Some turns of a hex key, and it slides out very easily, like most other avionics.

* Orest

I queried RealSimGear about Avidyne support, given their coverage of a wide range of Garmin gear and their response was quick:

"We have had a few requests lately for Avidyne products, however there is no software available to run them at the moment.  We always like to hear from people about the types of products they would find useful, as we regularly discuss what to work on next, so we appreciate you getting in touch.  

1) Run the IFD trainer on one iPad (I use a 2d generation Mini),

2) Run the IFD100 app on another iPad connected to the same network as the first iPad (I use an 11" iPad Pro for this),

3) Once those are connected, start Foreflight on the iPad running the IFD100 app.  When this is done, the IFD, and another device called ADS-B, show as devices in the Foreflight tab.  And Foreflight tracks the simulated flight just as it would any normal flight with altitudes, tracking, etc. functioning (although I don't think the simulated traffic shows in Foreflight, which is fine with me).

I knew about 1) and 2) but not about 3).  I find this useful for a variety of reasons, including testing the IFD100 app (which seems to work great), but also using the geo-referenced approach charts and the simultaneous split synvis screen in Foreflight.  As I don't have charts on my IFD, I rely on Foreflight for my charts and so this is essentially how I use the iPad running Foreflight in the real plane (although, of course, it is not necessary to run IFD100 on the iPad in the airplane in order for Foreflight to connect to the IFD).

One of the interesting tests is to see how long it takes when switching between the IFD100 app and Foreflight before the active app syncs with the trainer.  It is never instantaneous, the quickest I've observed is about three seconds, and it can take up to six or seven seconds for the IFD100 app to fully sync with the IFD when switched from Foreflight (and about the same visa versa).

It would be great if there could be faster switching between the two (the IFD100 app and Foreflight), or even better, to permit both to be fully functioning simultaneously so there would be no lag and even displayed in separate windows at the same time.  Of course, the iPad used would have to support multitasking, but that capability has been standard on at least the iPad Pros since their initial release some years ago.  I would assume that both Foreflight and the IFD100 app would also have to be multitasking-enabled for this to work.

Sorry, no further progress on this.  We've just been busy with other priorities.

vancinad wrote: I wonder... would Avidyne consider releasing the code for the IFD trainer in a "community" version?

No, because the trainer app is just a wrapper around the actual flight code.

First, I’m candidate for upgrading one 530W and two 430Ws in my two real airplanes. The units work, but the reality is they need to be replaced someday. Possibly in the next 12 months. The integration of the GTN 650 into x-plane is affecting my decision. I had a 650 in the Mooney 201 I sold last year. I never used many of the 650 features. I didn’t like the way the unit worked, so never invested much into learning the 650 other than directTo and loading an approach. 

I bought the RealityXP integration of the Garmin trainer into x-plane a long time ago when I had the Mooney, but never used it much. Recently, a friend bought a A36 with a GTN 750 and wanted some help figuring out how to use the 750. This past week, I took some time flying x-plane with the RealityXP plugin and figured out how to use the 750. Now that I know how to use it, and have experience flying somewhere using the 750 (albeit in x-plane), I don’t quite dislike it as much. I can’t say I’m a fan of Garmin’s UI/UX, but I get how it works.

I don’t have that fuzzy good feeling about the IFD. It looks good on paper. The iOS trainer works, basically. But its not the same as using the device to conduct a flight.

When I first got the Mooney, and put a 650 in the Mooney, I was surprised and disappointed. Now that I’ve learned how to use the 650/750 (they work the same), I know what it is and could tolerate the unit as an upgrade to my venerable 530W/430W. This makes me pause when I think about upgrading to the IFD. At this point, I feel like I have to fly a couple of missions with an IFD before I could commit to upgrade my 530W/430Ws to IFD units. Tough to do since I don’t know anybody with an IFD in their airplane.

This is where the value of x-plane integration becomes material. Like a lot of potential Avidyne customers, giving them the experience of flying the IFD in a simulator could tip the balance towards Avidyne; assuming that the IFDs are as awesome as Avidyne says they are :)

As a software engineer myself, my gut tells me that the IFD I/O layer is abstracted, else how did you build a iOS “wrapper” rather than horrible scattering of I/O concerns into the core of the app? But what do I know. Only the Avidyne engineers could calculate the complexity of x-plane integration. Whatever that cost, the IFD product owner or sales team should consider making the capital investment for integrating the IFD trainer into x-plane. It would affect my purchasing decision and I suspect many others.

I will be first in line to buy this product.

John Freeman

Memphis, TN

But I don't think this really depends on Avidyne, but rather on RealityXP. They develop for their perceived demand and are really Garmin-centric for rather obvious reasons.

Bottom line, I think the only way we'd ever see a touchscreen IFD540 working with x-plane like above with the GTN/GNS is if RealityXP is bombarded with requests from IFD users. I don't know how many registered users there are of Avidynelive, but thousands of requests to RealityXP might just have some impact. I would hope that everyone here is doing that, but suspect that not to be the case.

I can see both ways, but for those with dual IFDs, I can see them wanting on screen simulations instead of needing 2 iPads.  Personally, I would like to use my IFD100 the same way I do in my real cockpit so I'd like to use it as an IFD100 in addition to on screen simulations, but would be willing to give that up if the only solution was to use the iPad as the in panel IFD.

PS The only reason I don't have a flight sim yet is well..... I can't build my panel due to Avidyne. I am seriously thinking of redesigning my panel and getting GTN series.