Hi Philosopher, nice to see you on the f16 !
- Better use Git and work on a up-to-date model. Then you'll can file a merge request with you changes for faster integration in the project.
Most/all of the f16 development is discussed here or privately by mail. The devel list is interesting too, but it is yet another time consuming thing.
There is a nice TDL here: http://wiki.flightgear.org/F16/Development The guy who wrote that looks like gone now, but I think it's a good idea to use this wiki page.
- About the HUD: for symbology item (lines, dot and numbers) the contrast setting is not important, it is when the actual HUD displays ground images over the symbology, which is not possible yet in FG. DEPR will move the gun reticle up and down in the HUD, but there isn't a stock gun reticle available in the legacy HUD tools. I think the A-10 has a custom reticle as a 3D object aligned over FG HUD.
My best advice would be watch the Canvas development and wait to jump on the next/future implementation of the HUD using Canvas.
- About the f16 version: I'm not found of having a number of versions developed at the same time on an aircraft. It makes the work scattered on several projects, it also makes maintenance way more difficult. I don't know what other people think about this, Erik ? Anyway, if you have efficiency as a target, you'll consider working on existing versions (MLU, block 40 and 50) rather than adding a new one. Now, do you have good docs about the AFTI ?
- Nasal and pick animations: listeners are expensive. At run time it is lighter to call directly a nasal function from the XML binding. And yes it's a good idea to choose the used properties with care. I like sim/model/f16/controls/ICP/ and a name like depr-slider, gain-switch or num-8-button etc...
- The f16 has to be made compliant with Rembrandt for the next release (after 2.8, that is in 6 month) and it would be nice to have the liveries scaled to an affordable size, or even the model be properly remapped. If we decide to do so, this means some more work to do on each livery sets.
Cheers,
Alexis