Hey there, many of you might have noticed that Dwayne and I have been working a new Boeing 787-8 for FlightGear, featuring a JSBSim FDM, much more, better and realistic aircraft systems, realistic glass cockpit and instruments, a VNAV! a fly-by-wire! and stuff.... But then those who've used some of my older planes would see that I haven't incorporated a cabin and those 'goodies' and the reason is because I'm in the middle of my 12th grade final exams. I can't devote much time to FG as I usually do and so those things which aren't that important will come out later. Sorry about that.
Anyway, here're some other references to this project so that I don't have to post all those things here again.
Instruments Development : http://flightgear.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=15214
Fly-By-Wire Development : http://wiki.flightgear.org/Howto:_Implement_a_Fly-By-Wire_System_for_Airliners
VSD Instrument Development : http://flightgear.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=15200
CDU Instrument Development : http://flightgear.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=15082
JSBSim FDM Development : http://flightgear.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=15310
And there're a lot of posts I made for help in the Nasal sub-forum
And, at the moment, I haven't found time to create a Documentation for the aircraft but soon, I'll create a wiki-page and put in almost everything you need to know to be able to enjoy the new Boeing 787-8. For the cockpit displays, the PFD and EICAS should be elementary, for the MFD, use the switches on either side of the touch-screen* CDUs or the touch-screen* MFD buttons itself to switch through pages. For hte CDU and EFB, you'll be surprised by the things you can do with them, just navigate around and enjoy them. And I haven't yet created a how-to on installing airport diagrams and charts to be displayed in the EFB, so here's a quick guide:
1. INSTALLING AND VIEWING AIRPORT DIAGRAMS
> Download diagrams from any source, convert them to *.jpg format and rename them '<icao>.jpg'. Then, place them in the EFB-DB folder. Then, use the 'EFB INPUT' page on the CDU to enter the airport ICAO and it displays the diagram on the EFB.
2. INSTALLING AND VIEWING AIRPORT CHARTS (STARs, SIDS, IAPs)
> Download the chart you need from any source (I use http://www.airnav.com for US charts and http://www.opennav.com for others), and convert the chart to *.jpg format. (if it's pdf, a good idea is to open it in full view and take a screenshot )
> If the airport and chart type folder doesn't yet exist inside the EFB-DB/Charts folder, create them like (for example I want to install the 25L-ILS IAP chart for KLAX) /EFB-DB/Charts/KLAX/IAP/
> Now, rename your *.jpg file to the chart name (eg. 25L-ILS.jpg) and place it inside the '/EFB-DB/Charts/KLAX/IAP/' folder.
> Now, open the /EFB-DB/ChartsList.xml file and add in your chart data (use the older charts' data for the format)
> Start up the 787, go to the 'Airport Charts' page on the EFB, go to the 'EFB INPUT' page on the CDU and
i. Enter the Airport ICAO and press on the button next to 'Airport ICAO (Enter)' label (or the space under it on the touch-screen CDU)
ii. Click on the button next to the 'Chart Type (Select)' label to cycle through SID, STAR and IAP
iii. Click on the button next to the 'Chart ID (select)' label to cycle through available charts.
> Now, hit the 'DISPLAY >' button on the CDU and look at the EFB to see your chart.
Note that for some charts, the orientation may be land-scape and not portrait. But to overcome that, I've put a 'ROTATE' option on the EFB which rotates the chart when you click it.
And another thing you might not have encountered in an FG airliner before in the Fly-By-Wire system. Go to the wiki page for more info on it. To set the FBW configs,
> Press 'CTRL + F' to toggle FBW (sigh, Boeing doesn't wanna give the plane too much control)
> Press 'CTRL + Y' to toggle Yaw Damper
> Or simply go to the 'FBW CONFIG' page on the CDU to play with these or other settings like Bank Limit etc.
Note that alpha protection is still not completed so it may be glitchy.
For the aircraft systems, you can get some material from smart-cockpit (the systems have been written to be as close as possible to the real 787 systems including stuff like pneumatics, hydraulics, heating, anti-icing, fuel control etc.
Atm, the Boeing 787-8 is available for FlightGear on GIT : https://gitorious.org/fg-boeing-787-8/ (the fg-boeing-787-8-main Repository)
And for Merlion pilots who don't use GIT, can get it from our Projects FTP Server (info on our website).
NOTE that I haven't tarred/zipped the folder and uploaded it as a 'release' yet because IT IS NOT COMPLETE. Test it, give feedbacks but don't use it as if it's complete. Look below for the major errors found and what we're working on. If you want to help fix these errors or add stuff to the project, feel free to do it and create a merge request in the -devel repository in git.
MAJOR ERRORS KNOWN (we're working on it)
> Autopilot Glideslope Hold is messed up. Especially at speeds lower than 150 KIAS and with full flaps. Dwayne and I have been able to get it working 'reasonably' enough to help you land, but it's still not stable.
> Fly-By-Wire's alpha protection is not complete. We're working on it.
> Engine Fuel Tank Feed is messed up (tank 1 and 2 are inter-changed) : FIXED it but not in git yet (will be as soon as I complete the VNAV's crz alt setting)
MINOR ERRORS KNOWN AND STUFF LEFT TO COMPLETE
> The Airport Diagram Generator is not yet available on the MFD (I'm working on it)
> The CDU's route manager works but shows a messed up display in the CDU and ND-fullscreen (only ND-fullscreen for some reason) when you use the 'Jump To' function.
OTHER COOL THINGS COMING UP
> I've started working on a Dual Control System (not just get in and go with the pilot) where the copilot has 'almost' complete control on the aircraft. The idea is to have all the copilot's inputs sent over to the pilot, have a central aircraft system there and integrate the pilots inputs, copilots inputs and the aircraft's central system. I've been able to get some things like the OHP switches transmitted, displaying the glass cockpit instruments for the co-pilot (the AP stuff aren't passed over yet, so that's well, not complete) etc.
> A Weather radar... I'd love to use Thorsten's but then it's not working for me. I'm coming up with ideas to create a 'nasal-xml' weather radar for temporary use.
If you've actually bothered to look into any of the aircraft's development reference links, you'll see that Hooray, Jentron and Thorsten has helped A LOT with the systems, nasal stuff etc. Actually, they've solved almost all the problems I've had during the development and I'd like to thank Hooray and Thorsten for that. Thanks guys...
*touch-screen : In the real Boeing 787-8, there're track pads (like on a laptop) to control the cursor position on the screens... These track pads are modeled buy not functional in Fg, and I have no idea how to create a track pad in FG, so at the moment, the screens have hotspots which you press and that's similar to moving the cursor there and clicking on the real 787-8.
EDIT : Hooray, I've finally learnt to use git , now just to get FG to compile with netbeans.
EDIT : Oh and is there a way I can add this to fgdata when it's a bit more stable? But then I see that it's already more stable than many other aircraft in fgdata already.