Intro

[Admin]

Hi and thanks on behalf of every recreational pilot for any assistance you can give in this project.

 

The Project is called "Co-Pilot" (it's just a name for the time being) and its objective is to develop a complete solution and completely FREE for all pilots to use when they are flying with an Android based device like a mobile phone or tabletPC. It's not to replace the legal requirements of carrying any publications but rather a complete electronic support tool for pilots to use and contains four key categories of many components that use the absolute latest technologies whilst being free to obtain, free to keep updated and free to use forever.

 

The 4 categories are:

 

1. 3 Dimensional Synthetic Vision Moving Map GPS
    
    
   
2. Complete Flight Planner to plan any flight anywhere...and with all the bells and whistles of the best planners that are out there
    
    
   
3. All the Pilot Tools you need like an E6B, instruments and more
    
    
   
4. A complete live as you go Yellow Pages of everything aviation
    
    
   

 

 

Please note that what we are doing here is covered by copyright and whilst the application and its components will be "Open Source" the methods and way in which we proceed through the development to what is believed will be an incredible solution, is protected by copyright.

 

It is your project and with many of the Recreational Flying users here have technology backgrounds, I am sure it will be fun, interesting and a great challenge that may stretch us from time to time but in the end to have a single application that is the best thing since sliced bread for all recreational aviators and be completely free to the community will be well worth it. So, if anyone can assist in doing anything to help, it would be greatly appreciated. The Project Manager is Gibbo so send him a PM with anything you can do to help.

 

This introductory thread is to start exploring the overall objective of the project, its components, its parameters and create a vision that will guide us through to its successful completion.

 

Once again, thank you for participating in this and I believe that it will be greatly appreciated by the thousands of recreational aviators out there who, in turn, will become a part of its continued expansion into a great asset for each and every pilot.

 

My thoughts to start with were that each function contains sub functions, for example the Flight Planner also has weather information from the MET site, Yellow Pages could contain sections for Places To Stay, Things To Do, LAME and Level 2's, Forum Member Contacts etc, and the GPS has Maps, Airfield Information, Area Frequencies, ERSA info, all of which are in the public domain etc.

 

Each main function is also interlinked for example the Flight Planner with the GPS, the GPS linked with Pilot Tools, Yellow Pages is linked to the Airfields on the Moving Map of the GPS and so on.

 

The other thing, just as an example to open up discussion, is the platform and infrastructure to use. My initial thought is Android as a device platform and perhaps an area on this web site as a data repository, data that users of the app will enter with what they know or gather when out there flying.

 

So they are my opening thoughts...what do you guys think...can you help...any developers out there???

 

 

[Thalass]

Very interesting. I don't have any code-fu belts myself, though i have tinkered with learning Python in-between AME exams and such, and i've been involved in the open source community for a while. Mostly as a user or tester.

 

I was asked last year if i could figure a way to build a CDI type thing to make it easier to interpret a hand held moving map gps. I'm certain i could do it with a picaxe chip and a bunch of LEDs. Though i've not tried yet. Surely a similar HSI/CDI type thing could be integrated into this project. Probably better, too. I'm told that sometimes a simple pointer is better than a complex moving map. But that would depend on the pilot.

 

 

[Yenn]

You are biting off a lot here Ian and you lost me when you mentioned "android"

 

It sounds so good but I doubt that I would ever understand it.